Front: Alicia Pruitt (WC), Drew Parker (RH), Lynn Oliver-Cline (RH), Rob Williford (RH)
Back: Phil May (WC), Ben Vaughn (WC), Zebb Luster (RH), Will Overton (WC)

Nashville-based independent publishing company River House Artists has entered into a worldwide publishing agreement with Warner/Chappell Nashville. River House Artists, which also includes label and artist management services, launched in 2016 under the leadership of Lynn Oliver-Cline.

River House Artist’s writers include Ray Fulcher, Rob Williford and Drew Parker. Fulcher co-wrote Luke Comb’s single “When It Rains It Pours,” while Fulcher, Williford and Parker share co-writes on all 12 tracks on Combs’ debut album.

Prior to launching River House Artists, Oliver-Cline served as VP of Marketing at Thirty Tigers. Prior to that, she worked with Hootie and the Blowfish, Zac Brown’s Southern Ground Artists, Wyatt Durrette, BMI, and Virgin Records.

“It’s been great to see River House Artists accomplish so much in such a short amount of time,” said Ben Vaughn, President, Warner/Chappell Nashville. “Their success stems from Lynn’s adept entrepreneurship and ear for quality music. We’re all thrilled to start working with Lynn and her roster at such a critical point in the development of River House and its songwriters.”

Oliver-Cline added, “Everyone at Warner/Chappell has been so encouraging. With their support and resources, this partnership will undoubtedly be an exciting step forward for the future of River House Artists and our wonderfully talented songwriters.”

Bandtwango co-founder John Alexander

Bandtwango co-founders John Alexander and Carl Allocco have their sights on being disrupters in a changing music industry landscape. They are currently funding campaigns on their platform for artists utilizing their fan bases. Whether it’s for an EP, a full-length CD, video or other need, the platform helps the artist move forward. The company also assists with tour support, radio promotion, and publicity.

Allocco recounts when he first starting thinking about creating this new platform, “I knew an artist who raised money and made a CD, but then it was like, ‘What now?’ Since money is a starting point, we decided to help artists do the most with that money to get to the next phase of their career.” Alexander adds, “Our main emphasis is to develop artists in a non-traditional way and empower them. It’s kind of showing them that they can be their own CEOs, that this is their business, and this is their careers.”

MusicRow: John, Why did you and Carl decide to create the new company, Bandtwango?

John Alexander: With the relationships I’ve developed over the years, it was a way for us to open doors for the artists. That can mean introducing them to tastemakers, getting their songs on playlists, or introducing them to a video director and getting their videos placed. We are country music–centric and that’s what differentiates us from the other crowdfunding platforms. They’re kind of a listing services [platform]. We’re not that. We’re going to work with you on your career from day one.

What are some of your successful campaigns?

Alexander: We beta tested with an act called Hadley Park. They funded an EP and we were able to help them get on a playlist with John Marks at Spotify. They had gotten on SiriusXM with a song called “Another Bottle of Wine” and spent 13 weeks there. We’re still helping them. We also put them on a show in New York with Danielle Bradbery and RaeLynn. For Jeneve Rose Mitchell, we fully funded her campaign and she recorded an album. Now we’re in negotiations with Dollywood about a residency for her in 2018. We got her on a show in New York opening for Scotty McCreery and we’re going to do some media for her. We introduced Christina Taylor to a video director and to CMT, who has been playing her video.

Every artist has a different story and different needs. We go out there and try to find the right fit for the artist and educate them and then give them opportunity.

What advice do you give those artists?

Alexander: Basically the advice that we’re giving them, first and foremost, is that this is your life and this is your career. You have to understand that this career is in your hands– so take it seriously. If you’re looking to ask your fans to partner with you and to help you fund your next project or video, you need to engage with those fans every day. Everything’s a relationship in this town and in this industry. If we can help you open a door, you have to solidify that relationship. Use the things that Bandtwango can do for you and then expand upon it.

What about a brand new artist without much of a following?

Alexander: If they don’t have much of a fan base yet, like only several hundred followers, we do a starter-campaign called Ignite. Let’s get a website set up for you, take some photos, and look to only raise $1,000 or less. Let’s try to help you build that fan base and show you what to do, and how to get promoted on YouTube and other platforms. Then you can start attracting fans. Three months down the road, perhaps you can fund a single or a couple of songs and get you in the studio.

Tell me about the different divisions of Bandtwango, like Special Projects and Bandtwango Presents?

Alexander: Special Projects is for an artist who wants to raise money for a cause, like a natural disaster or someone with a medical emergency. For example, in the show we did on Long Island, Todd O’Neill opened up for Rascal Flatts. We were donating money to Long Island Cares. In return for that, we were able to get Todd O’Neill on that show. O’Neill was the Nash Next Winner and a Big Machine artist.

Bandtwango Presents, through our relationship in New York with a radio group, we are able to present their concerts for them. We are sponsoring a summer concert series. We are then able to grow our brand, get people attracted to Bandtwango and give our acts the opportunity to open up for others.

How do you decide what incentives an artist should offer and how do you set the goal amount?

Alexander: The formula for how much money an artist should raise is always based upon their social media following. For every ‘like’ or ‘follower’ that an artist has, it typically averages out to be a dollar they’ll get in a campaign. We want incentives that are true to that artist. Examples include, if an artist is into house concerts or if there are special things like personal paintings, Skype calls, etc. 

What are some of the different opportunities artists use crowdfunding to achieve?

Alexander: Radio promotion, video promotion, publicity… Artists need publicists once they get up and running and a lot of them can’t afford it. Those are a couple of things and some artists want to be able to go on tour. Everybody has their own needs and wants.

John, you’ve been in the music business more than 30 years. How will you define success with this venture?

Alexander: If I’m going to leave a legacy in this town, it’s really going to be the ability to help artists and take them to the next level. Although I’m hoping we can take an artist across the finish line with Bandtwango, even if I don’t and get an artist half way across the finish line and then tag someone else to take them the rest of the way, then I will feel like mission accomplished.

There aren’t many country albums where you can hear a John Mayer track, a Dave Mason classic from the ’70’s, and “Man Of Constant Sorrow” all in the same place. Welcome to the world of Home Free.

“Free” is a pretty apropos name for the five-man a cappella group, who took off when they took home the trophy on Season 4 of the NBC competition The Sing-Off and haven’t stopped soaring since. Capitalizing on their initial success and continually building on it by putting their unique spin on everything from Top 40 favorites to timeless classics, members Austin Brown, Rob Lundquist, Adam Rupp, Tim Foust, and Adam Chance have amassed an immense YouTube following of 180 million viewers. That success has translated into sales as well: the group has sold over 250,000 albums and its just-released fourth project on Columbia Records, Timeless, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard Country chart.

With a wide open field of favorites to choose from when they record, and some well-crafted originals peppered in for extra flavor, they’ve found the formula that keeps their fans constantly coming back for more: content.

“We are always evolving as artists and we try to capture that for sure on our records,” said bassist Foust about how they determine which songs to cover and record. “And it’s a really democratic process for us to be honest with you. We all have songs we are passionate about we bring to the table, and our producer or management suggest some, too. In the case of our previous album Country Evolution, we actually polled the fans and asked, ‘What do y’all want to hear?’ and we took about half of their suggestions and put those on the record.

“But with this new album we had a list of songs we’ve been wanting to do for awhile like ‘Man Of Constant Sorrow’ and even that Dave Mason song ‘We Just Disagree’ — we all grew up listening to the Billy Dean version of that. But we’ve got this pod of songs that we know, kind of like our wish list, and every album we’ll decide which ones we think are ready. And we’re always keeping our ear to radio both pop and country and then we also do our research too, like we’re big fans of John Mayer and the first time we heard ‘In The Blood’ we thought, “well this is a country song.” So we wanted to put our spin on that.”

The quintet finds an added bonus to being able to constantly mine music across many different genres for their audiences as well, according to Foust. “One of the biggest joys we’ve found in this is being able to expose a new generation of kids to music that meant a lot to us growing up. ‘We Just Disagree’ — that song is maybe not on the forefront of people’s minds these days, but we loved that song growing up and we think kids would enjoy hearing our version.”

“Our set list is always evolving too and typically whatever’s newest is what we’re excited about to sing, but I will say it never gets old singing ‘Ring Of Fire.’ The audience loves it, it’s our most popular cover we’ve ever done, and the audience loses their minds every time we start it in the show.”

Their ability to reinvent classics with a modern spin with just their voices first took shape when they met in college nearly two decades ago, and their melting pot of influences has no doubt contributed over the years to their unique sound.

“We’re kind of all over the map with our influences,” explains Foust. “Austin and Chance and I we were all raised on 80’s and 90’s country as well as classic country, and Rob and Adam are from Minnesota and they didn’t really get too much of that influence until later in life. Rob was raised on more classical stuff, his dad played a lot of Pavarotti and stuff like that, and his mom listened to pop radio when he was growing up.

“And then Adam, our beatboxer, was most influenced by composers for video game music, believe it or not. He’s really studied all the composers who have been doing that and he was a trumpet performance major in college. So whenever he does an arrangement for the group a lot of times it’s outside of the box.”

The group recorded four originals for this latest project, and has recorded songs by Mark Nesler and other Nashville writers for several of their albums. They enjoy arranging and recording originals, though Foust admits it can be a bit different than laying down favorites or standards that are already so familiar.

“I would say arranging an original is maybe a little trickier when you’re covering a song because you’ve got a fully fleshed-out instrumental arrangement to work with already, so you can pull from those elements like a certain guitar riff or something we can pull that off vocally. But whenever you’re starting an original you sort of wonder how in these sessions the Nashville players would play the stuff. So these days what we’ll do is we’ll fully flesh out a demo of an original with instruments too and then arrange based on that.

“We work with a couple of songwriters these days and I think they’re always trying to think about what they’ve written that would fit what we do. And we always tell ’em not to worry about that, we just say give us a good song because at the end of the day it just needs to be a catchy song and we’ll put our spin on it. Nine out 10 country songs too are gonna lend themselves to that standard three-part chorus harmony that you’re just so used to hearing in country music.”

In addition to the albums they record, Home Free caters to its fans by constantly feeding them new tracks via YouTube. In a content-is-king, rabid consumption world, the group has learned just how key it is to keep their fans engaged.

“I think the record industry has sort of been turned on its ear anyway and the old model of an album every 18 months or something that just doesn’t really work anymore because of the nature of the way people consume music,” said Foust. “They’re always ready for the next thing, so we’ve sort of just gone along with it and tried to commit to releasing two fully-produced videos per month. And a lot of the songs end up being songs that aren’t even on our album — we’ll just go in and cut a full track that will only ever live on YouTube. That’s just a way for us to keep cranking content out and we’ve got some pretty rabid fans, so it keeps them happy.”

The original content not only bridges the gap between albums for the group but also serves as a major way to introduce them to new fans who may not be familiar with them.

“Every show we meet quite a few people who have just discovered us shortly before the show on our YouTube channel, so it’s driving our business right now. And we have complete control over it. We get to do what we want to do and it’s a direct line of communication with us and the fans,” explains Foust.

That fan connection is so strong that the group decided to tap into it recently and partner together to help raise funds following the devastation of Hurricane Harvey. Since Foust hails from Nederland, TX, which is near Houston, the tragedy hit close to home for him, and the group quickly formed their campaign at YouCaring.com/HomeFreeHelps to help. Challenging fans to match their initial donation, they have since raised almost $100,000 to aid those affected by both Harvey and Irma.

“We started with a 20,000 donation and challenged our fans to match it, but our fans reached that in like twelve hours,” recalls Foust. “So we have upped the goal to $100,000 and we are at $87,000 right now. And during that whole campaign Irma hit Florida as well so we decided to donate $20,000 of it to Irma relief as well. The coolest thing about the Harvey relief is we’re working with an organization in Southeast Texas that my mother and sister are spearheading to make sure that every single penny is going to go to the people who need it.”

Though Home Free’s continued success may seem surprising to some not familiar with the group who might scoff at the idea of an a cappella group breaking into the mainstream, bassist Tim Foust explains it usually doesn’t take much to win the skeptics over.

“There’s still a little bit of an archaic school of thought about it, admits Foust. “It doesn’t matter how far the genre progresses, there’s still just some people out there who hear the word a cappella and they immediately think barbershop quartet, and they just don’t understand how that would possibly fit in popular programming — until they see the show, and then they go ‘OH.’ It’s a country rock show that just happens to be a cappella. So we have a little bit of a hurdle here and there, but it’s pretty easy to turn people into believers if you can get them to a show.”

Country Radio Seminar Adds Featured Speaker

Country Radio Seminar 2018 will welcome Miles Adcox, owner/CEO for emotional wellness lifestyle brand Onsite, as a featured speaker. He will discuss intentional thinking and centering one’s self during a presentation on Tuesday, Feb. 6, following the Programming Mentoring and Sales Breakfast.

BMI, Nashville Music Industry Supports New Music Therapy Program

Pictured (L-R): Steve Newberry, Commonwealth Broadcasting, CEO/Pres.; Joanie O’Bryan, CCK, Executive Director; Jody Williams, BMI Nashville, VP of Creative; Jim Weatherson, Big Machine Records, GM. Photo: Peyton Hoge

Nashville’s music industry and regional supporters of The Center for Courageous Kids (CCK), a not-for-profit medical camping facility for children located in Scottsville, KY, converged at BMI on Saturday night to benefit CCK’s new music therapy program.

MTSU Partners With VeVa Sound

MTSU has partnered with Nashville-headquartered audio preservation company VeVa Sound to give students in the audio production, music business and commercial songwriting programs new tools and training to manage their musical projects’ digital data. Through VeVa Sound’s Studio Collect software suite, students will have a cloud-based environment that mirrors the workflow and functionality VeVa Sound uses with major record labels and other industry clients.

“There’s a wide range of technical, creative and legal information that needs to be captured and preserved over the lifespan of a professional project,” said MTSU Professor Michael Fleming, whose courses include digital audio technology, studio recording, mastering and others. “More than ever, this is now essential knowledge and a skill that students need to learn and practice. Through our partnership with VeVa Sound, our students will be able to generate track lists, credits, song reports and studio documentation using correctly formatted metadata that’s linked to their projects from the moment of creation through evaluation, licensing or commercial release.”

“We are proud to have created a meaningful partnership with a university that has fully collaborated with us and embraced the relevance of VeVa’s platforms with the goal of providing these opportunities to MTSU students,” said VeVa Sound Vice President Deborah Fairchild. “Preparing the next generation of digital media students with these skills makes for more enriched experiences for artists, performers, engineers, producers and labels.”