Brittany Schaffer

The “My Music Row Story” weekly column features notable members of the Nashville music industry selected by the MusicRow editorial team. These individuals serve in key roles that help advance and promote the success of our industry. This column spotlights the invaluable people that keep the wheels rolling and the music playing.

As Head of Nashville Label Partnerships, Music Strategy, Brittany Schaffer co-leads Spotify’s Music Team in Nashville, with responsibility for setting the vision of the team and cultivating and nurturing industry partnerships across the greater Nashville market. Schaffer co-leads the development and execution of Spotify’s global strategy to grow the country, Christian/Gospel, and Americana genres, and has been a leader in an era-defining shift in country music consumption habits.

Her work includes the transformation and marketing of the flagship playlists Hot Country and Indigo, bringing country music to fans through Spotify’s annual four-day activation at CMA Fest, extending the St. Jude t-shirt campaign into streaming, and ongoing global artist marketing campaigns. Schaffer has also been instrumental in strategically acquiring and retaining an impressive team to meaningfully bolster Spotify’s presence in the Nashville market and has built a culture of teamwork and collaboration that fuels Spotify’s partnerships across Nashville.

Outside of Spotify, Schaffer is a highly engaged board member of CMA, CRB, and St. Jude Country Cares. Prior to joining Spotify in January 2018, Schaffer spent more than seven years practicing law in the Entertainment Department of Loeb & Loeb, LLP, where she was Senior Legal Counsel.

Schaffer will be honored as part of the current class of MusicRow’s Rising Women on the Row on March 23. For more details about the class and the event, click here.

MusicRow: Where did you grow up?

I moved nine times before high school. I was born in Orange County, California, and lived in California, Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia. I call Nashville or the Middle Tennessee area home because I lived here when I was younger for several years and then this is where we moved when I was starting high school. I went to Battle Ground Academy in Franklin for high school and went to college at Vanderbilt, so, Nashville’s been home for a long time.

Were you musical growing up?

I always knew I wanted to work in the music business. I was singing and performing in musicals at six years old. I was even one of the little kids in the General Jackson Christmas show for a couple years. For a long time, I thought I wanted to be an artist, but when I was at Vanderbilt, I had the privilege of interning in the promotions department at Sony Nashville on the Arista imprint, and then at ASCAP. Both of those experiences for me confirmed that I definitely wanted to work in the music business, but that an artist path wasn’t for me.

Brittany Schaffer and Leighanna Smith as interns at CMA Fest 2006 with Rhett Akins

How did you start your career in the business?

During that same time, I had also been considering going to law school. I met a few music lawyers and decided that being a music lawyer would be my entry point into music. I attended Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law for law school. After my ASCAP internship, Connie Bradley was very kind and had given me a list of lawyers that she really respected in town. I sent very formal, written cover letters and emails to all of them. I think I sent 10 out and only one person responded, but I only needed one. (Laughs) It was Bob Sullivan who was running the Loeb & Loeb Nashville office at the time. He told me to come visit him over Christmas. I had no grades back—I really only had a good track record at Vanderbilt and a recommendation from Connie. He said, “Why don’t you come work for us this summer?” So I did, and that turned into two summers.

I had done really well in law school and that made it easier for him to convince some of the other partners, so I received an offer my last year of law school to join them when I graduated. During my last year of law school, I was already attending conferences with the lawyers at the firm and I thought I was coming into a dream job with a perfect cushion to learn. And then about a month before I started work and a few weeks before I took the bar exam, Bob Sullivan was diagnosed with leukemia and ultimately passed away a year later. So I came into the firm at a really challenging time.

To say that I had bath by fire my first year of work is an understatement. There was so much work that others had to take on to fill his shoes that I had no choice but to step up, to ask questions, to learn quickly, to work insanely long hours, and to learn how to manage a lot of different types of people from a lot of different parts of the music business. I was negotiating contracts and sitting in federal copyright jury trials almost immediately. It was really hard for a lot of reasons, but when I look back on it, I’m really grateful. I learned that I was capable of so much more than I thought that I was and it gave me a lot of confidence going forward. It has stuck with me to this day that even when you get in those somewhat overwhelming situations, you’re always capable of more than you think you are.

Loeb & Loeb team at the BMI Awards

After seven years as an entertainment attorney, you made a change in careers. Tell me about that.

I really enjoyed the work that I was doing. I loved my clients, I loved the people that I worked with and I definitely had a growing career in the legal field, but I kept feeling this pull that I wanted to be closer to the music business and to really explore the other parts of the industry. I always give the example that my colleagues and I represented the contestants on The Voice and negotiated numerous contracts for them, but no matter how talented we thought someone was, there was only so much we could do to expose that music and those artists as their lawyer. I felt like if I was going to truly help people navigate their way through the music business, that I was going to have to spread my own wings a little bit.

Out of the blue one day, I got an email from an internal recruiter at Spotify asking if I would talk to them. At the time I had no intent on taking the job, but I was going to be in LA the next week and I thought it would probably be smart to know the global head of label services at Spotify. I offered to stop by the office and Spotify ultimately did a really good job of convincing me that Nashville was really important to them and that they wanted to increase their support in this market. Three weeks later I accepted a job. (Laughs) One month later I left the practice of law entirely and started in my current role and I’ve never looked back.

Can you tell me more about what you do at Spotify as the Head of Artist and Label Marketing in the Nashville office?

No day is the same, but I would sum it up by saying that my team and I are responsible for overseeing our partnerships in Nashville. So that’s working with artists, labels and managers; looking out for our relationships with CMA, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the ACM, and all of our different organizations; and looking for how we can continue to partner together. That takes the shape of tracking new releases, so we keep track of all of the new music coming out of Nashville week over week for all genres. Anything that is signed to a label in Nashville or that is originating in Nashville, particularly when it’s independent and unsigned, is what we look over regardless of genre. We try to find different ways of supporting those artists and those releases. That may be everything from how we support on platform through promotional tools, that may be using a billboard, or that may be creating social content or video content. It really just depends on the artist and how we want to engage.

We’re also looking for how we can otherwise engage the fans around the music that’s coming out of Nashville. One of the things that we are responsible for is putting on the Spotify House event at CMA Fest.

Spotify House at CMA Fest 2019 with Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus

Looking at the rest of 2023, what excites you about what Spotify has planned?

2023 feels like an exciting next phase for Spotify in Nashville, with a growing team and more great music from all genres coming out of Nashville than ever before. This year will focus on how we can bring together the music community within Nashville and continue to lean into key cultural moments—particularly around Nashville’s core genres. We will help more independent and diverse artists break through the noise, tap more into our global footprint, and spend more time with the songwriting and publishing community. There is a lot of energy amongst the team this year, and I think you’ll see that filter into everything we do throughout the year.

We will be honoring you at next month’s Rising Women On the Row event. When you look back on your career, what are you most proud of?

Personally, I am most proud of my willingness to jump from a successful legal career that had a very defined career path to a career at Spotify where the path is a little more unknown. Professionally I’m really proud of helping lead the conversation around the importance of streaming and the place that it has in our current consumption habits. When I started at Spotify, audiences were still adopting streaming as a format, particularly in country and Christian music. Today our country and our Christian/gospel consumers have largely adopted streaming and our industry has really embraced strategies and tactics to engage fans through streaming. That’s not to say that radio, sales, touring, merch, and other areas of the industry aren’t incredibly important, but it is to say that streaming is no longer a format of the future. Consumption patterns are changing and we have to change with our audience if we want to continue to reach audiences in a bigger way. I’m really proud that Spotify’s been able to be a leader in those efforts and that I’ve been able to be a leader in Nashville in having those conversations.

Spotify team with Reba at the announcement of her Spotify Podcast in Nashville 2019

Who have been some of your mentors?

I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of mentors and I could probably name three that touch on key areas [of my career]. Early in my career, Connie Bradley was certainly one of those. She helped me get internships in Nashville, she helped introduce me to music lawyers when I was trying to decide if I wanted to go to law school, and she helped connect me with people when I was trying to get my first job. I always really looked up to her and the respect that she had within the Nashville community.

Today, John T. Frankenheimer, my old boss from Loeb & Loeb, is still someone that I call for advice. I really look up to and admire how he’s built his career. And then as I’ve become a mom over the last two years, Cindy Mabe is someone I go to for advice. I really admire how she has become such a successful executive while also raising her kids and having a successful marriage. At this phase in my life, it is really important to have other women that I can look to as examples. I hope I can do that for other people, too.

What moment have you had that your little kid self would think is so cool?

I love Dolly Parton. We have had the good fortune at Spotify of working with her on a few occasions. I recall one time sitting with her in a studio with some other individuals, listening to music while she was talking us through it. I remember thinking to myself, “Oh my goodness, I’m really doing this.” (Laughs) I always say I had never been starstruck until I interned at Sony and she came into the office one day. Everyone made fun of me because my mouth dropped wide open as she walked by. To fast forward all these years later, and to actually be there, getting to engage with her to support her and her music in a number of ways… As a little girl, I would’ve never believed that I would be there. There’s a lot of those moments. I think when you stop having those moments in the music business is maybe when you should get out of the music business. Those are the moments that remind us all why we do this and why we’re so fortunate to be in an industry that brings so much joy to people.

Martha Earls. Photo: Angelea Presti

The “My Music Row Story” weekly column features notable members of the Nashville music industry selected by the MusicRow editorial team. These individuals serve in key roles that help advance and promote the success of our industry. This column spotlights the invaluable people that keep the wheels rolling and the music playing.

Martha Earls is the owner of management company Neon Coast, and personal manager to Platinum-selling artist Kane Brown. Signed to Neon Coast is country band Restless Road along with other music and non-music clients. Together with Brown, under the Neon Coast name, she started Sony joint venture record label, 1021 Entertainment, and production company Demasiado.

Demasiado has produced award-winning music videos, awards show performances and television commercials. More recent signings to the management company include Nightly, Dylan Schneider and Feather. Earls started her management company following a successful run in music publishing. She has been honored multiple times by Billboard and the Nashville Business Journal.

Earls will be honored as part of the current class of MusicRow’s Rising Women on the Row on March 23. For more details about the class and the event, click here.

MusicRow: Where did you grow up?

I was born in Ohio, but grew up in central Pennsylvania. I obviously had no idea about the music industry. I was good at playing the piano and I was good at track and field. I got a really great college scholarship based on my piano playing, so I went to a small music school in New Jersey. That’s where I met Mike Molinar and how we became friends. He’s from El Paso, but he moved up there to go to this music school.

What a coincidence. Did you know what you wanted to pursue while in college?

You had to declare a major and I didn’t know what I wanted my major to be. I didn’t want to be a teacher and I didn’t want to be a performer. I didn’t even really like playing the piano that much, I just got this great scholarship. While looking at majors, I found one and was like, “Oh my God, that job only works twice a week and makes a full salary. I’m going to major in church organ!” [Laughs] It was so ridiculous.

Two or three weeks into it, I was miserable, but I toughed it out for a year. The school was really small with only around 350 students, but there was one girl there who was graduating and going to NYU for law school. She said she was going to be an entertainment lawyer. That opened my eyes to the entertainment industry. Over the summer after my freshman year, I started looking online and discovered MTSU and Belmont. I knew I wanted to move out of the northeast, and being from a small town, country music was massive. I came down here to visit and just loved MTSU.

Pictured (L-R): Martha Earls, Kent Earls, Chuck Wicks, Luke Bryan, Rusty Gaston

How did you start your career while at MTSU?

I started interning at Warner Chappell. Dale Bobo was there at the time. Him and Michael Knox hired me for my internship. Tim Wipperman ran the company and he was amazing. I was in the catalog room, which was the last stop writers would make before they went out the side door into the parking lot at Warner Chappell. They would always drop by and hang out. I loved it. I really fell in love with the creatives. That was the start to my music industry career.

I interned that summer of my senior year and then told them I was having such a great time and didn’t want to leave. They let me do another internship. They didn’t have the budget to pay me but I didn’t care. Then the receptionist left and they offered me that job. I was still in school and taking a decent number of classes, but I was like, “Yes, absolutely.” In March of my senior year, they promoted me to a full time position in the tape room.

About a year later, they promoted me to a junior song plugger. I found during my time at Warner Chappell that I really liked working with the artists-songwriters even more than the regular songwriters. I really enjoyed taking the meetings with artists rather than going and meeting with other A&R people. For whatever reason, I could really dial into the artists. I got to work with Jason [Aldean] early on and Little Big Town.

What was next for you?

Next, I went to BMG publishing. At the time, Karen Conrad and Ron Stuve were there. That was great because it was different than Warner, where we had like 100 songwriters. At BMG, Ron and Karen ran it more like an independent—they only had about 20 songwriters. And again, I kept [being drawn to] signing artists. We signed Jake Owen, Chuck Wicks, and a couple other guys.

Pictured (L-R): Braeden Rountree, Martha Earls, Kane Brown, Liz Kennedy, Randy Goodman

Then you started a publishing company with Mike Molinar.

I felt a constant pull to do more. Mike was working for Cal Turner at the time. We decided we needed to start a company. I always felt a desire to have my own company and Mike was ready to spread his wings. We went around town and pitched our idea to start a publishing company to everybody. Nobody was really into it. We finally found an investor and he really believed in Mike and I.

He invested in our company and it was very family-oriented. Mike and I signed three or four songwriters. We had some success, we had some big cuts, and we got it going. The investor ended up buying us out, which was great. It gave us the capital to start the 2.0 version of the company, but it was all very bare bones.

When we started building the next version of the publishing company, I started feeling like I wasn’t maximizing myself. I always felt like the shoe didn’t quite fit. So when Mike and I started the 2.0 version of the company, we decided to sign more artists and producers. We signed an artist named Greg Bates, who was at Belmont at the time. Jimmy Harnen heard about him and invited him to come to Big Machine. He played at Big Machine and Jimmy signed him. Then I just started handling everything for him.

So that’s how you got into artist management.

I don’t even know if she knows, but Kerri Edwards is such an important example for female managers in the music industry. At that time, I was thinking, “Kerri started working with Luke [Bryan] out of the publishing company. I’m just going to follow that mold until it doesn’t work anymore.” It came so much more naturally to me to manage an artist’s career than this literal decade of publishing experience. That was what got me into management.

Things were going well with the company that Molinar and I started. Scott Borchetta didn’t have anything like that, so our company became what is now the publishing company that Mike Molinar has. He’s done such amazing things with it. I was able to be at Big Machine for a year while we transitioned that company over, and that was amazing. Even though everybody knew I was going to do management full time, I got to learn so much. It was right when Taylor Swift was releasing Red and making her jump from being a huge country artist to being a global superstar. That’s what I got to witness.

Fast forward to now, with what I’m doing with Kane, that experience was such a gift. It was placed in front of me for me to learn anything is possible. Scott had no fences built around anything.

What did you do after your time at Big Machine?

I knew I wanted do management full time, but I felt like there was more to learn. I went over to Sandbox and was there for two years. That was a whole different experience. They released Kacey Musgraves‘ Same Trailer, Different Park album on a Friday and I started on the next Monday. It was really interesting to watch an artist blow up without having the traditional country radio piece.

At the end of that, I was asked to be a consultant for Michael Blanton and his company. In exchange for two hours of consulting a week, he gave me an office. Jay Frank, who had his own digital marketing company, called me and asked me to run his independent label. I had never done anything for an independent label before, but he needed somebody to oversee it. That was crazy, too. I learned how to make a music video for $5,000, how to get vinyl pressed, and all that kind of stuff.

Pictured (L-R): Kane Brown, Martha Earls

How did you end up working with Kane?

One day Jay said, “We have this guy that somebody on our staff found online. He’s country and we signed him to a management agreement if you want to help out with that.” I don’t think Jay really knew what he had with Kane at the time. I met Kane and I was like, “Jay, all this other stuff you’re working on is nonsense. This is the thing. Kane is the thing.” I just jumped in feet first with Kane.

In 2016, it became just me and Kane. We’ve just been building what we’re doing ever since. It’s kind of a mixture of the tenacity that Scott had that says we can have great success and do anything, and then also the understanding of you don’t have to do things the traditional way. From having created my own publishing company and really struggling, I didn’t get defeated by anything.

Now Kane is a multi-Platinum superstar, but what were those first few years like?

[The first thing we did] was put out an EP called Chapter One that had “Used To Love You Sober” on it. Florida Georgia Line and Seth England could see things early with him, so they put him on tour. He was first of four and got to play for 15 minutes, but it was amazing. We were having trouble at country radio with “Used To Love You Sober,” and there was a lot of preconceived notions about who people thought Kane Brown was, because of how he looks. He’s biracial, he had tattoos, he had success on social media.

Kane met Dann Huff. Dann cut “What Ifs,” a song that Kane wrote. “What Ifs” wasn’t a single yet, so we put that [Kane Brown] album out with no single on the radio, and it still did really great. In 2017, we got a new radio guy at RCA when Dennis Reese came over. He’s been Kane’s biggest champion at the label. He’s such a wonderful guy. He came from the pop world, so he didn’t have any boundaries. [With Dennis on board], “What Ifs” became an eight-time Platinum single. It’s one of the biggest songs in the history of country music. That got things going and we’ve just been building on that ever since.

Pictured (L-R): Clay Bradley, Michael Giangreco, Ernest, Rusty Gaston, Kane Brown, Stevie Frasure, Jesse Frasure, Kent Earls, Levon Gray, Vanna Moua, Martha Earls, Spencer Nohe, Dennis Reese. Photo: Steve Lowry

In the last few years, your company has grown substantially. You and Kane have built a joint venture record label with Sony Music Nashville, as well as a publishing company with Sony Music Publishing.

We were out in LA for for the “Saturday Nights” video shoot. I was feeling like it was time to start growing. I asked him, “How do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as an artist who tours six months out of the year and then takes six months off and chills with his family? Or do you see yourself like a Florida Georgia Line, who when they’re not touring, they’re still writing, producing, signing artists, running a publishing company and a clothing store?” He said, “I want to be like that. I don’t know how long everything will last.”

That was when we decided to expand the company. I saw all these different verticals. I could see a joint venture label, where we sign artists, as well as a publishing side of things. We started a production company and signed other management clients, too. Kane gets a taste of all of it because I want him to feel invested in everything.

We will be honoring you at next month’s Rising Women On the Row event. If someone were to ask you how to be successful in this industry, what would you tell them?

That’s a great question. You can measure success so many different ways. I feel like what it is is being comfortable, satisfied and proud of the work that you’re doing. Owning your space and acknowledging to yourself that you deserve to be there.