written by - Stephen Wrench
“Songwriter / Composer / Lyricist / Producer / Guitarist”
Connected in so many fascinating ways to rock and roll greatness that his official and off the record resume defies easy categorizations, Stephen Wrench is a living embodiment of the proverbial Renaissance Man and jack of all musical trades who, over the past 45+ years, has jammed with, managed, booked and produced shows and done radio promotions for legends and indie greats alike.
For the past ten years, Wrench’s “day job” has been President of Musik and Film, whose Musik Radio Promotions service provides customized radio promotion packages tailored for each artist that include a network of 250,000+ radio stations in 180 countries. These campaigns, created for artists in essentially all genres but rap, are targeted to 95% of FM stations and major networks around the world. The company also provides production services by platinum producers who have worked with everyone from Bob Seger and Damien Rice to Skynyrd, Van Morrison, Lady Antebellum, Ozzy, Coldplay, Elton John, Keith Urban and Blake Shelton. In addition, Musik and Film has the most comprehensive distribution in the world through Sony, Universal, Danmark and Big Band in South Korea. Wrench and his team have the means to get their artists’ music into every country on the globe.
Wrench grew up in Syracuse, New York, where athletics took precedent over music – to the point of being offered five football scholarships coming out of high school. Claiming he had no interest in music, when Wrench was 11 his older brother, a musician, had to bribe him to sing at a talent show in Fairmount. Everything changed, of course, when he realized in his mid-teens that he could play the guitar, saw the Rolling Stones in ’65 and, more significantly, was blown away by a Buffalo Springfield show at Le Moyne College. Then, as he tells the tale, “In 1969, I was returning from a tour of Boston College as a football recruit and spotted a sign on the side of the road: ‘Concert Here.’ I followed the signs to Woodstock.”
Like a lot of industry vets who have done it all and seen as many foxholes and trenches as glorious moments of transcendence, Wrench has a definite love/hate relationship with what he calls a “cutthroat business.” Yet his passion for performing and especially songwriting has never wavered.