www.musicweek.com
28.11.14 Music Week 11
BLACK BUTTER - THE LABEL: ‘YOU CAN’T PIGEONHOLE JOE AND HENRY - THEY DO IT ALL BRILLIANTLY’
[L-R]: Joe Gossa, Jason Iley and Henry Village
Roster includes: Rudimental, Clean Bandit, Dusky, Gorgon City (through Virgin EMI) and many more - all future releases to come through Sony
Black Butter Records will now act as a standalone label under the Sony Music UK setup, alongside the likes of RCA, Columbia, Syco and Sony CMG. Joe Gossa and Henry Village will head up the label as
co-presidents, reporting into Sony Music UK chairman & CEO Jason Iley. The move means that Black Butter has a bigger label team than ever, with eight executives working under Village and Gossa, including a general manager, a head of marketing, two product managers and an A&R team guided by long-term Black butter business partner Nick Worthington. “We love Jason,” says Gossa. “He’s come after us for
two years in a big way. And now with him at Sony, it feels like a new day for us. You can just sense that Jason is hungry for success at Sony. It’s really exciting to be part of where it could go. We’ll always have that independent ethos, but with a major backing that could be on a huge scale. It was important for us to feel like we weren’t going into a situation where we’d be second-guessed by other A&Rs. Jason has given us the backing to do what we need to. We really feel like we can go at it now.”
said, ‘I’d like to get involved.’ We were like, ‘Yeah, mate, you’re Nick Worthington - amazing!’” He joined a company who are in awe of one
of his former employees: both Gossa and Village are flush with praise for the A&R foundations and spirit of XL Records. In a nice cyclical reward for his early loyalty, Worthington was last week named Black Butter’s new director of A&R under the Sony deal. Through the likes of Clean Bandit - whose
Rather Be has smashed UK streaming records this year - Black Butter can certainly claim to be taking on XL’s mantle of bringing pioneering artistic endeavours to household prominence. The Black Butter record label is just one pillar of
“Black Butter’s Henry Village and Joe Gossa are two of the most talented people in the music business right now”
JASON ILEY, SONY MUSIC Adds Village: “I want to be in business with people
who know more than I do about certain areas. Apart from being a very forward thinking CEO with brilliant instinct, Jason Iley is the best marketeer in the British music business. If we can deliver some great music, that’s a great combination.” Black Butter has previously entered deals with other
majors and companies such as Ministry Of Sound and Atlantic. Was Iley’s new partnership with the company a competitive one? “Yes, but nobody believed in us like Jason,” replies Gossa. “When we signed a deal with Polydor [two years ago] Jason said he’d take us out for a lunch every month until we were out of the deal. And he did! When he was at Mercury, then when he was at Roc Nation and now at Sony. When he got the Sony job we called him to congratulate him and the first thing he said was: ‘I’m coming to London and I want to meet straight away.’
the empiric tripod being built by Gossa and Village, with a management arm that now boasts a roster including Rudimental and Lily Allen, as well as a burgeoning publishing company whose clients include the co-writer of Rudimental’s Waiting All Night, James Newman, as well as Jess Glynne, who has chalked up two UK No.1 singles this year as a featured artist. The equal footing of all three departments
within Black Butter means that the company has to take a fluid approach to signing talent. Gossa likens this setup to a musical ‘camp’
like Roc Nation or similar multi-faceted businesses, whereby any artist, producer or writer signed to one part - or potentially, multiple parts - of
He never let it go - that showed real faith in us.” Adds Village: “The fact Jason understands that we as
a unit are more than just a record company - it’s about what we bring across the board - and that he welcomed that with open arms was a key difference. He endorses the idea of the camp across records, publishing and management. He knows that’s how we do our best work.” Iley told Music Week: “‘Henry and Joe are two of the
most talented people in the music business right now. You can’t pigeonhole them – they cover A&R, publishing and management – and they do it all brilliantly. That’s why I wanted them here with us at Sony Music.” Village and Gossa say that they have always been
influenced by the artist development structure at XL Records, and respect the “classy ethos” of fellow ‘camps’ such as PMR and Method. “My dream scenario of a label is the level of staff that
Nick Raphael has at Capitol Records in the UK - you can see the amazing things he’s achieved with [a smaller staff than some other majors],” says Village. “I have to say that working with Max Lousada on
Rudimental was a great process - watching him and Ben Cook deliver a really acute and thorough campaign made me realise we weren’t at their level. But hopefully we will be soon!”
the company is blessed with the sort of inclusive, patient guidance that has seen Black Butter launch other acts’ careers into the stratosphere. “Black Butter is packed with collaborations now,
both artist-wise and business-wise,” says Gossa. “We’re in the zone - it’s all coming together in a really exciting way. Just because we’ve done a deal with Sony, it doesn’t mean we’re suddenly going after everything and anything. Black Butter still has to mean something, culturally speaking. The brand means a lot to us. It’s who we are.” He adds: “This is a camp. There aren’t many
camps like this in this country. Whether you’re publishing, management or label, you’re on Black Butter. You’re part of the family”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
