Fe at ur e
SPOTLIGHT ON
PUB LI SHI NG
One of Overbury’s first signings You me at Six. Photograph courtesy of BMG chrysalis
Senior A&R manager at Warner-Chappell,
and one of Music Weeks Top 30 under Thirty
Thomas Overbury, took time out of his busy
schedule to talk to us about what it means to be a
Music Publisher, as well as what attracted him to
the role in the first place.
though is that you’re as good as your last signing.
I’ve been lucky enough to be involved with some
successful songwriters and artists fairly early on
in my career, which has meant that I have been
presented with opportunities to progress up the
ladder quite early on.
A&Rs, artist managers, writer managers, live
agents and lawyers. Nearly all tips will come
through one of those four main industry
professionals. The fairy-tale of posting your
demo to a record label or publisher and getting
signed up the following week is extremely rare.
What made you interested in Publishing
rather than any of the other sectors of the
music industry, particularly labels?
Do you think degrees like ‘Commercial
music’ or similar are worth while and
relevant to people wanting to get into the
industry?
What advice would you give to other
people trying to make it as a successful
A&R for a publisher or label?
While a label perhaps looks at an artist as a
‘product’, a publisher is just about the songs and
songwriters themselves. Coming from a musical
background, publishing always interested me more
as I liked the idea of being more involved in the
songs and particularly the song-writing process,
from the first demo right through to the final
mastered version. I also recognised more longevity
in a career in publishing. Sales of music have been
on the decline for over a decade now. For instance,
this week’s UK number one album sold just
15,000 copies in its first week. While labels make
their profits from sales, a publisher makes money
from the songs and copyrights from a number of
different avenues, such as TV, film, and advert
usage, radio plays, live W&f