And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 146: Golnar Khosrowshahi

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

Today’s guest is Golnar Khosrowshahi, the Founder and CEO of Reservoir, an award-winning independent music company headquartered in New York City and with operations in Los Angeles, Nashville, Toronto, London, and Abu Dhabi. Founded in 2007, Reservoir is the first U.S.-based publicly traded independent music company and the first female founded and led publicly traded music company in the U.S. Under Golnar’s leadership, Reservoir has grown to own and administer over 130,000 copyrights and 36,000 master recordings, with titles dating as far back as 1900. Golnar continues to lead the team in building a well-attended roster and an established catalog, earning her the recognition as one of Billboard’s Most Powerful Female Executives for 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, and a Billboard Indie Power Player for 2017 and 2018. Furthermore, Reservoir was awarded Publisher of the Year at Music Business Worldwide’s The A&R Awards in 2017 and 2019, and was named IndependentPublisher of the Year at the 2020 Music Week Awards.In addition to her role as CEO of Reservoir, Golnar serves as a Director on the board of the National Music Publishers’ Association, based in Washington, DC and working to ensure fair compensation and property rights for songwriters and their representatives. She also sits on NMPA’s SONGS Foundation Board of Directors, an organization that raises funds to support career songwriters. Working alongside Artist Director and cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Golnar served as Board Chair of Silkroad, a non-profit organization formed in 2000, and is now a Director. And the Executive is…Golnar Khosrowshahi! Artwork: Michael Richey White Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey guys, welcome to Ann the writer is. I'm your host, Ross Golan. I've written with hundreds of artists and writers over the years, and my favorite part of each session is the first hour when we catch up about life, the industry, politics, composition, whatever. So this is a journey of learning why people write songs, how people write songs, and most importantly, who the people are who write the songs.

I'm producing this with the Great Joe London, big deal music publishing, and mega house music management. If you want to listen to the songs we discuss in this podcast, follow us on our socials, find out about special live events, or buy that merch, aka that hat I always wear. Go to our website www. And The Writer is.com. Welcome to And The Update is.

I am your host, Paige MacDonald, and this is your weekly music industry update. Empire just paid a $1 million advance in Bitcoin to the Atlanta-based rapper and entrepreneur Moneyman. Ingroves has expanded into India and appointed a Mitt Sharma as country manager for the market. Catchpoint rights partners and M3 Music have created a pact to source Latin music catalog acquisition opportunities. Downtown Music Services have announced a series of U.S. senior promotions. Dave Hawley has launched a music industry podcast called Gigamy.

The British production company Marv and Warner Music Group have announced the launch of new label, Marv Music. Warner Chapel Music has entered into a worldwide co-publishing agreement with Cardi B. The deal covers future works as well as recent releases, including rumors. Cobalt has signed the singer, songwriter, and rapper Young Thug to a global publishing deal.

The digital music distributor TuneCore has partnered with Twitch to launch the service's new artist incubator program, The Collective. The program is designed to empower artists. 10K projects has. launched 10K ventures powered by Playwork, an initiative to back early stage founders that integrate within the music ecosystem. The four-time Grammy-winning U.S. rapper, singer, producer, and drummer Anderson Pack has signed

with music licensing company PPL. The video-making app Tag Mix has secured a licensing agreement with Warner Music Group. The New York-based indie record label, Fader Label, has launched a new management division called Fader Management. Universal Music Publishing Group has promoted Taylor Testa to Vice President A&R. Circuit has aimed a global deal with Universal Music Publishing Group. Spotify is set to acquire audiobook platform Find Away. The Walters have signed with Warner Records following reunion.

Artist Blue to Tiger has signed with Capital. Andrew Jocelyn is the new co-chair of Recording Academy's National Advocacy Committee. A big thank you to Haley Evans of Megahouse for gathering today's news. Now stay tuned for a new episode of And The Writer Is. Welcome to And The Writer Is. I am your host, Ross Golan. Today's publishing icon is the founder and CEO of Reservoir Media, the first independent music company to go public in the United States.

Reservoir's publishing catalog includes historic pieces written and performed by greats like Billy Strayhorn, Hogi Carmichael, and John Denver. Every classic catalogs of Cheryl Crow and Fanagram. And current award-winning hits performed by the likes of Lady Gaga, Camilla Cabello, Bruno Mars, and Cardi B, along with scores created by award-winning composer Hans Zimmer, as heard in the motion pictures, The Lion King, the Pirates of Caribbean, Gladiator, the Dark Night trilogy, and over 150 other titles.

This Ivy League Iranian-Canadian is herself an accomplished pianist. because of course she is. Just another notch on the belt of not just one of the coolest humans in the music business, but on earth. And the writer is Golnar Kosra Shahi. Thank you, Ross. How are you? I am lovely and I'm excited to have you on here.

I am honored to be on here. I remember when you asked me or wrote you back and I said I thought you'd never ask. Exactly. I mean, look, one of the coolest. things about you is that you're really supportive of a lot of songwriters that aren't necessarily your songwriters. I feel like people have a really good relationship with you, whether they're your writer or not. It feels like in an industry where people are really competitive and people are often really aggressive, why, you know, why do some nice people win?

I think it's an interesting business in that we, as a music company, we are both competing and collaborating with our competitors every day. Right. So we're issuing licenses together, but we're competing with them to sign a songwriter or to buy something or, you know, do whatever. So in that sense, the business is pretty commingled. For us, it's really not a deliberate act of being nice. You're going to cross paths with people all the time every day. Our writers are going to be in the room with other writers who are not signed to reservoir. Our job, our duty to our writers is to make sure that they have the best situation possible in these collaborations. and I think being professional

and having a good relationship with everybody is really fulfilling that commitment. People come in and out of your lives all the time and you never know who's going to be signed to your roster tomorrow. Yeah, I think that's the, that right there is probably the most, the best advice. I think a lot of people are so short-sighted when they're dealing with whatever negotiations

that's in front of them right now that they sometimes miss opportunities that are 10 years down the line just because they weren't, they were so focused on trying to get the best thing just for the moment. Yeah.

Did you, like, I want to go and tell your story because you have a really unique story for a number of reasons, but let's take it all the way to your childhood. Were you born in Tehran? I was. So what, What is, you know, when people think of the Iranian government now, they think of something very different than the Tehran you grew up in.

Describe what Tehran is where, when you're a child, what it looked like to you? So I left when I was six. I think, yeah, I have a lot of memories, but my memories are certainly distorted as they would be in the mind of a six-year-old. The Tehran that I grew up in, obviously was under Iran was under a very different regime. The country was on a very different path politically, economically, socially than it's on today and has been for the past 40 years or so. I have incredible memories of growing up there, mostly because I grew up in a chocolate factory. and my father was in the food and pharmaceutical business and that company manufactured a lot of different brands of candy and cereal and, you know, we made Kit Kat bars. So I literally, you like literally made Kit Kat bars or similar things?

No, no, actually made Kit Kat bars. So this is weird because my grandfather ran a candy company in Chicago. My dad always talked about growing up in a candy factory. That is, to me, it's just Willy Wonka. It was. It really was. And my father worked. I mean, you know, I suppose he had the technology, he would have worked seven days a week like he does now.

But back then, he actually went to the office six days a week. So I would go on Saturdays. On the weekend day, I would go. And it was great. It was an absolute great time. You know, my brother and I have very, very fond memories of growing up there and just an incredible childhood. We were fortunate in that we were multilingual. We were fortunate in that we could, we had the ability to leave when we did and have a pretty smooth transition when we moved to London.

What languages besides Farsi and English did you speak? French and Italian. I didn't speak Italian then, but I went to an international school, so I was already fluent in English and almost fluent in French. and Italian I learned subsequent. What kind of music did you grow up with, did you grow up with, you know, music from each of those regions? Because they're all so, so different. There's even a different scale, you know, 16 notes and a lot of music out of the Middle East.

The main instruments are different. You know, but I know you were a piano player. what did you listen to and what did you play growing up? So my mother was 21 when I was born and very much on the cutting edge of all culture. So there was a lot of beetles and doors and that was what was happening in my house. And I think she still has her record collection. So we really did grow up with her musical taste. And given how young she was,

her musical taste would have been completely normal for somebody that age and our age. I started playing piano when I was probably four, not very seriously. And I was only playing classical music. And then I played with a little more discipline in London. And I had a teacher in North London, Mrs. Ginsburg, who, again, I'm sure it's a distorted childhood memory. It seemed like she was 80 years old or 90 years old then.

but you know she continued to teach her another 20 years after I left her so I studied with her a couple times a week but she got me actually into the Royal Academy in the UK and that's when I really started playing and that program is a very disciplined classical training that has both practical oral and history elements to it It's quite a terrifying process.

You take exams. I mean, you take exams in front of a panel of judges in very large halls. And I think I was seven or eight, the first one I took. So it's very intense training. Being a young child who's living in London, but had already had the experience you had growing up in Iran and then with everything that had gone on with the revolution, how did that affect your childhood in London?

Did it? It absolutely did. I mean, listen, we left Iran on a, I can't. I need to remember what day a week, but in the middle of November, early November. So in the middle of the school year, we had a home to go to. We spoke the language. So from that perspective, it was a very seamless transition, especially as you would compare it to other people who were displaced, did not have a home to go to. Language was an issue.

But it's difficult. It's difficult as a six, seven-year-old to integrate into a school community and come in in November and be the child who's from the country about which the news is plastered every single day on the paper where dictators are taking over regimes. And from that perspective, it was very difficult. When you're in London, it's not that long that you're in London before you move to Canada. why did your family relocate again to Canada? So it was really a move in so far as figuring out what's next from a business standpoint. Again, as I mentioned, my parents were very young, and that was certainly not going to be my father's last business endeavor. So he was really looking at where he would have the best opportunities and what,

where to set up the best sort of infrastructure for the future of his family. And Canada was an interesting place. When you went to undergrad, because you went to undergrad, you went to undergrad, right, at Brynmar, is that what it is? Yes, yes. Okay, did you study piano there? Were you studying music? Or at that point, had you already started thinking of studying something outside of being a performer? So I studied all the way through high school. I went through those terrorizing exams.

They just got more and more difficult insofar as the undertaking goes. So by the time you get to the end of the course, you actually have to study the history of music and you have to do all of that testing as well. And I got to school. And I was also a competitive trans player at the time. time. And I really wanted to put my tennis racket inside the piano bench and never look at either item. I think there's a common thread amongst accomplished kids that they tend to do what

they're good at, not necessarily something they love. When did you realize that being a competitive tennis player and pianists must have been impossible to you know to really get engaged on what you're good at versus what you love.

I mean, what did you love at that point? Why would you want to give up either of them? I did love both, but they are both listen, I was never going to be a concert pianist. I studied with a Russian husband and wife couple. And I would

say I was the only student who either didn't end up or didn't have aspirations to end up on the stage. In fact, with them, they didn't even understand that somebody wouldn't have the aspiration to want to be on stage. That's why you would study with them. They were sort of master class type instructors. And that required, I mean, to be in that scenario just required hours and hours of training. So both of the things that I was pursuing at a high level, I was never going to be the very best at, which meant that I had to do each of them for several hours a day. And I knew I wasn't going to be the very best of them. But I also grew up in an environment where, you know, that requirement to excel at a certain level was very much a good. given. I feel like people who are successful in any business are never the best at them.

You know, the people who are often the best at any of those professions, you know, those are the same people who are often unable to communicate, you know, may have different skill sets. They may not be able to run a business. They may not be able to do a lot of things. I would imagine that, you know, that there are, I know, I know there are, I know there are better songwriters than me who are often less successful. I'm sure that there are people who are really very talented people in a lot of businesses who just don't have the skill set to succeed. You know, like, because I think that is... Yeah, but look at you. You're the Renaissance man. You're the advocate. You're the songwriter. I mean, you're the musical producer. I mean, it's,

it's, it's, you're excelling in every single one of those pathways. Yeah, but I don't, you know, Well, I guess it's the idea of practicing piano and practicing tennis and practicing and doing it like that is what makes you great, not necessarily the skill set of somebody who may have the talent to be great but may not have the focus to practice, may not have the time management to do multiple things, may not have the ability to, they may not be the best at life, but they might be really, they may have the the dexterity to be a good piano player. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to be successful

the way that you've been successful. When you left, you know, after high school, you go to college and you do kind of put the racket in the piano bench. And going to college, what did you study? I studied political science. I took a lot of math. But there was ever a debate that I was going to pursue music from a practical standpoint. Was there ever another standpoint that you'd pursue music?

I mean, at that point, at the time, at the time there was never a consideration. I didn't even know that, okay, I'm not going to be on the stage, but there's a business opportunity here. Where did you learn that at, you went and got your MBA from Columbia, which is, you know, it's Upper West Side in Manhattan. I imagine that, and I don't know this, but is that where you were first introduced to, you know, the entertainment industry as an industry? So, no, because before that, I was working in advertising. and I was working on some pretty big accounts that recruited celebrity talent, did a lot of music licensing for, you know, big, licensing, big songs, and very different, obviously different environment, sync environment than today.

So I was a little bit on the fringe. of that of that business or at least of the entertainment side of the business and then when I was at Columbia I went and volunteered at there was a there used to be I don't know if it's even still on Verona Schuller used to have a conference called the Big Picture

and everybody would be there from you know Fox and all of the big media company so through volunteering at the conference, literally checking people in and getting them sort of to the right place at the Pierre Hotel, I ended up getting a job of Viacom that summer. I actually, I mean, it wasn't that straightforward. I wrote every single day for, I think a month. I wrote to Matt Blank, who was president of Showtime at the time every single day, until finally his assistant called me and said, okay, you need to stop writing him? Can he come in and have an interview? You would write an email to that person? No, I would write him a card every day as to why he needs to hire me for the summer. Why were you so determined for that job? I just wanted to see what it's like there.

It was a really interesting place to be, whether it was Viacom or any of these other big media conglomerates. I happened to meet Matt at that conference. and it was going to be three months. I wasn't going to be married to it. So I just wanted to have that exposure and see what it was going to be like. I love the audacity people have when they're too young to have anything to lose.

Exactly. I mean, there's no question that people make some brave decisions early on because why not? I don't know why we lose that because that's what really gets you ahead. It's an amazing quality to be able to mail somebody a letter every day and to not really care about the consequences, but when you think about it, there wouldn't be any consequences.

Who's going to fault somebody for being, you know? Being persistent. I don't, yeah. I mean, when I started, you know, when I graduated from college, my first job was as a receptionist. And I had gone. I had been introduced to the founder of an advertising agency here in New York, and that was his job offer.

It was as a receptionist. Now, the agency happened to be owned by a French parent company, have boss advertising, and my French skills came in very handy. So I had both receptionist duties and translation and, you know, all kinds of other things going on, which gave me exposure to a whole bunch of things. But I remember when all my friends who were working at various banks and consulting companies and things like that from college,

one day one of them calls me up and says, you know, there's always elevator ringing when I call you. Are you a receptionist? Do you sit by the elevator? I was like, no, I have no idea what you're talking about. Exactly, of course. I don't hear that.

Anyway, I stayed in that job for two weeks and I got myself out of there very quickly. No, I didn't leave the company. I found something else to do within the company where they needed help. But again, because I asked. Right. Yeah, there's this fine, you know, you don't want to be complacent, but you don't want to be difficult, but you want to, you know, you want to be aggressive in your career. But in reality, you do have to learn some, you know, basics in any business. and part of, if you're going to work in publishing, it sure makes sense to work in licensing on the advertising side. So there's a lot of logic in that. And going and working over at Showtime, go back to that. Once you start working in that environment,

keep going with the story from there. So I had already worked at the agency for a couple of years. the agency had absolutely no rules. If you were working hard and you were contributing, there was nothing stopping you. And we worked, I mean, we must have been working 16-hour days, but it was with the most fantastic group of people. And so it was this really dynamic young environment,

a lot of rule breakers and just an inspiring place to be. I went to Showtime. Their office was on Paramount's office, VICOM's office was on 55th and 7th. And very corporate and very low energy. And I was working in Business Development Group and our tasks were basically to look at different ways in which we could model out

and create scenarios for international channel opportunities that would be combining, say, Nick and another one of their properties and modeling that out essentially for international territories. It was a really different environment, and it showed me while the prospect of working there seemed very glamorous, it showed me what was important to me, which was to be in a really high-energy place with just great people around. Yeah. Yeah, you need that. I think this is one of the eras that's a little confusing because on some level you can be around a lot of high energy people, but you're doing it over the internet versus when you're being around a lot of high energy people, you mean physically actually around a lot of people who are hustling around. Is that important to still, you know, in an era that we're moving into where people are probably not going to go to an office five days a week, how do you maintain that?

kind of energy. This is skipping forward, but I'm just asking. Well, I mean, I've been in my office since June. By June, I mean June of 2020. And we've had, we've had our core group here, who's been working on a few big things that we've done in the past year. This week, we are topping 15 people now in the office. And you can see a different. You can certainly see a difference. We'll never go back to five days a week, for sure. But I do think that there is value in setting and imparting culture and creating a sense of team and teamwork. And that just comes from being physically with one another, grabbing a cup of coffee, going and having lunch.

and just being together for a few hours a week. So I don't think it's going to, you know, we're not going back to where we were, but there's value in getting some of that back. I agree with that. I want to go to the beginning of Reservoir because there's a great story just with the publishing company as a whole.

But one, why does somebody start a publishing company? And two... In that time. In that time. It's 2007, which is the, maybe in a way, like the tail end slash peak of MP3s, it's certainly in a major part of piracy still. And rock music is kind of dead at this point. It's really difficult to figure out, you know, there are few people kind of controlling radio.

It's a really difficult time and a complicated time to start. everybody wants a publishing company. But in 2007, that's a really bad time to start it. And I know that you were, you know, you founded it in New York and you did it with a family office.

One, explain to people what a family office is, explain why you would start a publishing company and what the scenario is that really created this company. Sure. So, I started

I guess in 2006 or so, I started doing diligence on how people were creating IP and monetizing that IP. Obviously, I was familiar with the music side. I still had a lot to learn. But I looked at book publishing. I looked at film and TV assets. I met with people who were already doing that on the film and TV side. And settled on music because it was attractive for a number of different reasons. There was the size of the market. The fact, with the irony of it all, the fact that it was regulated as far as royalty rates go, you kind of knew what things were worth,

the things that were stomping our feet about now versus back then. With film and TV, everybody's different. You don't really have a way to know how somebody's IP or interest how to value that. So settled on music and just kept getting educated about it. I think that...

Are you learning... Sorry to interrupt, are you learning that from, you know, settling on that, doing diligence on which IP to invest in or to, you know, invest your career into, I would assume that's sort of what you know, what you're talking about, but who's even explaining to you, who's your teacher,

who's your mentor in any of this? So, I mean, I would just, I would read, I would read, you know, like, this business of music, those books, you know, that there's that whole sort of category, cadre of books. And then I would get introduced to people along the way. So for instance, I went and I met with the folks at content partners in L.A. I was introduced to Larry Mistell very, very early on. And, you know, I talked to one person and they would introduce me to two other people. And, you know, we got introduced to a couple of lawyers. Now, they were more in the Broadway field.

So, you know, I met with them. I collected some information there. but it wasn't some kind of a formal education. And in response to, you know, the part of the question that you said, why would anybody do this at that time? I have to say, had I been more educated and had more educated, meaning, you know, just really understanding how bad things were in the music business at that time, probably wouldn't have gone down this road.

So it was a little bit of naivete and blindness that put us in this decision. Now, obviously, it wasn't just my decision. The business was capitalized by our parent company. Our parent company has a singular controlling shareholder who's my father. So that is my first phone call every morning. That is who I continue to report to. He is hands down the best boss in the world and the most challenging, the most demanding. So I have to say that that has been one of the most rewarding and precious pieces of this 14-year history for me has been to

learn from him and be challenged by him and just to have that example. What an amazing opportunity to get to talk to him every day. Every morning. Every morning. And he's on the West Coast, 5 a.m. I should call him and get coffee. That's my wake-up time. How do you deal with times that are difficult?

in that environment, does he challenge you or is he empathetic? What's his personality like when, you know, when things are tough and when things are good, is he, you know, what's his personality like? You know, he is the kindest person you will ever meet. But business is business and deliverables or deliverables. And so those metrics do not change or shift because I am his daughter, and they don't change or shift for any emotional reasons around the business. We definitely had, you know, I would say a challenging.

Challenging is an understatement first five, six, seven, years. And that was really because, first of all, you have to build some scale to get anywhere in this business. And second, just because of the industry dynamics and what was happening as far as the decay went, I would say the first five years that we were in this business, we were still looking at declining annual sales. sales just in the overall music music business. So from that perspective, the question always was,

why are we in this business to begin with? How do you answer that? Well, I got to tell you, I don't really remember how we got through it, but I think that it was just along the way there was more and more compelling evidence that if we stayed the course and just continued our commitment to the very same and basic investment principles, there was some glimmer of hope, some indication that this thing is going to turn around, that stream is going to stay, that piracy is going to wane, you know, writers are going to start getting compensated. there's actually going to be a compensation model. All of those things didn't really converge as indicators at the same time. And I think that once we collected morsels of that along the way,

it became pretty compelling that investing more money in the business and continuing to build scale may help us. Of course, now you look back on those days where you were taking a deep breath when you were paying five or seven times multiple on a catalog compared to what's happening today. Well, how much of building a company, a publishing company, is about right now it feels like it's all about catalogs and not necessarily about writer development.

And yet writer development is really how you're going to create catalogs at a discount, you know, how much of the growth of reservoir is due to the writers versus the due to acquisitions? So we, I mean, let me give you some, some touch points first. We've spent, well, as of this morning, we have spent, you've seen our news from this morning. I didn't see it, no. I went to the Huntington Gardens and I sat outside. What's the news from this morning? Oh, we acquired Tommy Boy this morning. Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. Okay, so as of this morning, we spent $600 billion acquiring assets. Now, let's go to yesterday's numbers because that's easier. So say as of yesterday, we've spent 400 million acquiring assets, 100 million signing talent.

We didn't really get into the writer roster business until we signed Nate Hills, Danger, who you know. and that was in I mean we've early early 2000 I guess 2011-ish 2011-2012 and the reason we didn't get into that business was first of all because I was terrified very different risk profile

we didn't have any creative services so signing writers and not having any creative services to actually you know manage that relationship was going to be a problem. And it seemed very risky. So since then, we've taken a really measured approach insofar as how we populate the roster. We've brought in, I think, an incredible creative team with Faith Newman here in New York

and at Barrett in London and the rest of the team there, Donna Kassain in L.A. And as we have ramped up our capabilities, then that has empowered them to populate the roster. It's an exciting part of our business. It is, you know, we have so much fun in that part of our business. I think that the relationships we have with our writers are the most important relationships that we have in our business.

we really subscribe to the idea that we are investing in people. We are investing in people whose expertise happens to be to make music, which means that people are going to have ups and downs and they're going to be subject to life. And sometimes that means people don't work for a year, and sometimes that means they work every day for a year. But we are not in business with our writers for a short term. basis. Donna and I talk about this a lot where our idea of success in that part of our business is that

nobody ever wants to leave us. And I think that's when you've delivered. That's when you have a partnership with a writer who is happy with his or her career. And your job is to play a part in that. Obviously, we've interviewed some writers that have been signed to you guys and, you know, watching what's happened with Ali Tamposi in the last, you know, five years or so has been something where, you know, it's almost like Carol King kind of moment. It's really being at the heart of that. When, you know, being a part of watching writers go from, you know, one hit to lots of hits, I still think that's probably the most exciting thing that you can find as a publisher.

I don't know if it's not one song here or there. It's watching it one career really blow up. And you've had a few of these. Do you think that having writers that are that successful, does that set a bar for your other writers? Does it set the bar for your, you know, how does it change the dynamic of a publishing company when you're watching certain writers have that kind of success?

So I think about that a lot. And one of the things I think about, and I think it's important to remind ourselves about, is that all the writers have different objectives. And we have a lot of writers in very different lanes, in very different niches. And so they're not necessarily, you know, Allie is going down one road and it's fantastic and we couldn't be happier for her. But that doesn't mean all the other writers on the reservoir roster want that path, that trajectory. I think that...

Just to give an idea of some of the others, you know, offset and two chains, you know, young thug, these are people who are not at all like Allie. I mean, it's really an impressive roster that is diverse. I find it, as a publisher, I find it sometimes difficult to

branch out not because of me not wanting to, but because sometimes you go where doors are open and you keep walking through. There's a huge difference between Hans Zimmer and two chains. There's a big difference. Yeah, exactly. But most publishers aren't able to stretch that wide if they're not already Warner Chapel or they're not already universal or something. Tony.

Hey, look, we've got Ben Harper on the roster. We've got and Sonia on the roster. They're completely different to these people. You know, these people can sign publishing deals in different places. Absolutely. Why do they go to reservoir? I think it really has to do with the people. I mean, you have to have the, you have to have the flexibility and the skill and the creative

services to deliver. We happen to have that flexibility and the sort of diversity in our personnel to provide those services. Donna Kassain can equally work with Ben Harper as she can with Ali Tampozy. And that's a unique scale set to have. Annette Barrett works with Jamie Hartman, but she's also working with Nitt and Sussie. Now, the rest of the team certainly supports that, but those are two entirely different lanes. And I think that comes from experience. And that really, it goes back to what I was saying before, it comes to, it comes from this understanding that these are all different individuals with

different goals and different lanes, different kinds of music. And it's our job to really help them realize what that creative vision is that they have for themselves. We can't just keep doing the same thing over and over again. I love origin stories. And so I want to go back a little bit to the beginning of Reservoir, and it is 2007. It's one thing when you're like, okay, we've got a little funding. Let's see what happens. How did you start a publishing company? Who did you start with as far as, what is the process for you? So we, it's really so unglamorous. We took an office.

We've always had our office in New York within a five square block radius down in publishing, but printing press neighborhood down in Hudson and Barrick and that area. So we took an office and, and the first acquisitions that we did in that first year were the catalogs of John Rich, Kenny Alfin, Mickey McGehy, and Bruce Roberts. So interesting mix. We learned a lot.

I mean, Bruce is a dear friend now, continues. We, you know, continues to be. at Reservoir and has become one of our biggest champions and really a great friend. All those relationships are standing today, but it was a big learning experience that first year, for sure. It was learning around the infrastructure we had to set up. Luckily, I met REL, May, well, I guess I met him earlier than May. He started on Cinco de Mayo, two.

2008. That's how I remember his work anniversary. So he brought in a whole know-how on setting up the administration infrastructure and our foreign collections and just putting all of the pieces in place and has obviously grown with the company and now is our president and COO. But that's really how we got started. We just started buying assets. you feel like you were a competitor? I know that there are a lot of, there are a lot of independent publishers and that do very different things. And there are some who have, who've acquired a lot of catalogs, but aren't really competitors, they're more just, they've acquired catalogs, but they don't necessarily feel like they're part of the publishing community. When did you feel

when, you know, that you were a member of the community? I think, I mean, I don't know how to put an exact date on it. We announce a deal like we did today with Tommy Boy, and I sort of breathe a sigh of relief, and I say, okay, I might say, you know, now we're really a part of the community. And that'll last for a few hours. And then, you know, we'll be. will be overlooked for something or we won't get a phone call about something or whatever.

It's not, it happens all the time. And so I feel like then we're scurrying along again to make sure that we are a part of the community. So I think that's something that I'm always striving for because it is an insulated industry. Everybody does know each other. It is very much a relationship-driven business. And breaking into that was not easy. I did so, I suppose, somewhat in the same way as I was when I was writing the guy from Viacom every day,

which was just, you know, we're here, we're going to invest in this business. So that's sort of the way it was for us. I think when I joined the NMPA board, that really, that was a pivotal moment. But even, you know, when we bought TVT, that was our first catalog that we bought that was just so high quality, so such a known brands with so many known artists and songs and songwriters. Again, at that point, I felt, okay, now we're a part of the community. But with each step, you get used to it and then you want to do something else that makes you more entrenched. Yeah, I have a few questions to jump off this, but real quick, about,

Tommy Boy. I mean, there's one thing to, you know, I don't know exactly if hypnosis and if primary wave are in the business of buying a lot of masters. But Tommy Boy is not, you know, that's a record label. Yes. What can you provide in that service and, you know, to get involved and record into Masters and stuff, that feels like that's out of the core business, or is it all just part of the same thing? So we bought Chrysalis Records in June of 2019. So we have this operation over there headed by Jeremy LaSalle's and Robin Miller, who have certainly become two of the highlights of my working relationships.

over the past a few years. And the idea was always to expand on that part of our business. You know, we have this infrastructure. We have this incredible know-how, this legendary catalog, this legendary label with Chrysalis, and what better marriage to happen there than with Chrysillus and Tommy Boy and those all holding under the same roof. We also strategic,

a few years ago really committed to being a music company that meant going down the road with Chrysalis I mean before that really Philly Grove was our only sort of labeled

not of any substantive size and that meant that we had management services we had a label we had publishing we went down this road with an emerging markets practice when we took a position in Paparavia last year. So this is all part of a larger strategy to be a music company.

Yeah, it makes sense. This is where when you said a jack-of-all-trades thing, I think that they're all really, everything's really connected and the more you draw, you know, the more you anchor things with each other, I guess I'm thinking of it more as a rising tide versus a lowering tide. But, you know, it makes sense. It diversifies the company and the whole business is growing so why not tap into that one of you know i'm on the board of nmpa as well and one of the comments i get from a lot of writers is that they feel like publishers are divided often because the parent companies own both publishing and masters um that is not true. I think that that is a low-hanging fruit and not understanding that a lot of executives

have their bonus structure attached to their company's success. They're not in the business of making some other company underneath the same umbrella as successful. But in the case of reservoir, you know, you're one of the biggest advocates for songwriters and have to having owning masters and owning management parts of reservoir media, how does that affect your advocacy for songwriters? Does it enhance or does it hurt? I mean, so there's been no situation has arisen where I have at all felt conflicted

or that I have to concede or compromise on a position I might normally take in that context of advocacy for a songwriter. So I just don't think we're big enough for that to happen. That scenario. We will,

I think, you know, does it hurt it or does it help it? It helps it in that we have a lot of exposure and firsthand experience to understand what the issues are and what the business issues are across the board. So that's always great. I don't think our advocacy for songwriters will ever wane because we've decided we're a record label now

and that's our priority. We will, you know, we're going to continue to grow that part of our business. We're going to continue to grow our roster. and we're going to continue to advocate for our songwriters. And if we can do more advocacy, we certainly will. And that's really, that has progressed as the company has grown, as the roster has grown, as we have people with more visibility.

As our own executives have gained more visibility and been able to participate on boards like the NMPA, then that's certainly given us a better platform. But I don't think that that's, I really don't think that's ever going to change. You're such a patient leader. I know from, you know, writers that are

assigned a reservoir and people who work at reservoir, where did you learn to be so patient? On the board when you speak, when you speak in an interview, you're very thoughtful. Where did you learn the ability

to be patient in an industry where everything is moving so quickly? Ross, when I was born, they nictade me the one who is always in a rush. Really? Which is only one word in Persian. What is it?

The word is, well, the hell of me is ajul, the one who is always in a rush. And they said that that's how I was born to. My mom says that that's how I was born. That I was just in such a rush. You know, they went to the hospital. They weren't even there. I would have been born in the car.

And from that day I was always in a rush. So I've always been in a rush. It's very kind of you to say I'm patient. I, you know, as far as being thoughtful goes, it's, you want to be thoughtful. You want to say the right things. You want to empower your people as a leader to make decisions and know that they are not under pressure for the wrong reasons.

and I just think that's a really important component to effective leadership so that people can do their jobs and communicating that way is helpful. Being a female in the music business is also something that has a complicated reputation. What is it like being a woman in the music business? do you find that, you know, and as a boss in this business, you know, you have a diverse, you have diverse employees. Is it all, is that on purpose or, you know, is that all related to the same thing? I would say that yes, it's on purpose, but not in the way that people think about on purpose. When people think about on purpose insofar as any kind of diversity, equity, inclusion goes in the workplace.

It is more around, you know, we interviewed 10 people for this job. We looked at this many who are like this and this many who are like this. So ours is on purpose, yes, but ours isn't on purpose because of rules we have set. Ours is on purpose because culturally, that's just who we are. And so we are going to look at all kinds of people who can join our company. be a part of the leadership team and that's just been driven by our culture, which as a result means that it's all happened very organically. So we have this leadership team that is quite diverse across the board, whether on any kind of sort of diversity metric that you would look at. It makes

me really happy to see that we have so many women in leadership positions. And again, that's that's happened very organically. But because the outlook here is such that we should be, we want to be, and we have to be a representation of what is real. And so that's how we've grown. We've also, I mean, we've, I would say, had maybe five or six people leave the company since 2007. I have to shout out

two of your employees because they each change my... Only two. Two of them really changed my life. Okay, who? Well, I was about to, I was leaving ASCAP to go to BMI. And there was Mark Hutner, who's at ASCAP

now, good friend of ours. You know, he said, he introduced me to Dave Hoffman, Okay. And David Hoffman just started working at Reservoir in the last year. Yes. But he was one of those first publishers who connected me, and he connected me with a guy named Jared Sharf,

who's now signed to me as a writer, but is one of the most brilliant songwriters. He was the guitarist for Saturday Night Live for 15 years. That was one of the first introductions any publisher made for me ever. I was 27 years old or something at the time. So, you know, I've remained in touch with him for a long time, but he's such a good person that I was really excited that he was a part of Reservoir and is now part of the family. But after Dave Hoffman, once I started writing with these guys, Jared Sharf and I started writing songs a lot. And we started writing with Dre and Vidal.

and Drey and Vidal's publisher at Universal took some meetings with me and that's Donna Kassain and Donna introduced me to a number of people in the business and was always so supportive both of those people I still keep in touch with on a regular basis and

it's not I mean it's that's more than a decade ago these people are neither of them have ever been my publisher in a sense that I was signed to them, but both of them have opened a number of doors for me and they've both been just incredible people. And I can't name that many people that are as important to my career as those two. So I think that says a lot that you have both of them. So I just want to congratulate you on having two of those wonderful people along with the others.

They just each deserve their own shout out. So I just want to do that. Thank you. There, I mean, it's what you had asked about earlier. Having that generosity, regardless of whether you're having it towards a client or not, just towards another person, has really worked for us, has worked for our people. And obviously, David and Donna specifically have, that's something they've been doing their entire careers. What can songwriters look forward to right now when, it does feel like, you know, I don't want to get into like a pity party.

But here we always, you know, we see obviously the inequity in streaming and the apathy from streaming companies. We're nervous about, you know, record companies compensating writers in any specific way. The PROs really haven't been able to use what the Music Modernization Act has provided them, although we're really excited about the MLC and some of the other things that are changing. Give us some good news. If you're a songwriter right

now, or you're just starting out, and you're joining an industry where it seems like a lot of people are online complaining about not getting paid enough, what's some good news for songwriters right now? So I think the good news can be split

up in a couple of different buckets The first is really just very specific legislative type things that are going on with CRV3 and, you know, the sort of the remand process there and what's that going to look like when it's sorted out. And then obviously the next CRB. And I think that I'm optimistic insofar as how those will proceed in favor of songwriters. obviously I can't predict the future, but I think that we have an excellent group of people who are leading the charge on that. And I'm hopeful that that will result in at least upholding the rates that were set back in 2018 and then looking forward to what further changes come about with the next CRV. So there's those types of things that I'm optimistic about. But if I step back, the second bucket really is that there has never been more money, more high caliber people, more interest in this business than there is today.

And without songwriters, and I think the people who, it's important that the people who are, are sort of coming in or who are in our industry today really need to understand that without the songwriters and without advocating for the songwriters, they are jeopardizing a sort of success for all scenario. And I think we do have that going for us. We have enough people who are delivering that message and people are buying it or believing it.

People are being noisy about people in my position are being noisy about songwriter advocacy and I just think that that is a very promising position to be in. We're going to go to our next segment, which is a five for five. I'm going to name five things and I just want to hear what your thoughts are. Okay. It's like a test.

Yeah, exactly. I'm going to go all family here. Let's start with your cousin and CEO of Uber. Okay. I don't know anything about him, but what's with your family? Everyone's so successful. Let's go with Dara. So, I mean, I'll answer it generally in the family context. And it's really not the family. the Iranian diaspora is a group of people who are extremely

conscious of the value of education and so they all left they came to the West, they went to Europe, they went to the United States and all of them went to Texas, a lot of them went to California, New York and this my generation was really an immigrant generation who knew that without education

nothing else was going to fall into place for them. And so there's just a huge value put on education. And that has been really the fundamental reason why not just my family, but so many members of this community have excelled because they've just been extremely hardworking and committed to their education. Your husband

Yes I don't know Question Yeah I mean no real question Okay my husband I have I've known my husband for over 20 years We've been married for 20

And he's in finance And he's a born and raised New Yorker Your daughters My daughters are 19 They attended They attend your almost Lema mater. Hey, right on. Yes, yes. I've learned all of that now.

They just finished their freshman year, and they are twins back in New York now for the summer, and they'll head back to L.A. in office. Are they going to work in the music industry? I don't know. I don't know. We shall see. Your father? My father, as I said, kindest man you'll ever meet, most challenging boss and mentor, and just exemplary in every way. I hope that I have his reputation when I am his age.

Reservoir Media. First independent company to hopefully go public in the United States. And probably other than my family, what I am most proud of. Well, thank you for doing this. You know, I mentioned Donna and I mentioned Hoffman, and, you know, it's the same thing for you where I was, you know, before, I don't even think I was technically on the NMPA board yet, and you still brought, not just you, but you brought people to see my show in New York. and you email me about episodes of the podcast and you are such a presence to so many people, again, who aren't even signed to you, and it means everything.

It means everything to writers in the community who are out there trying to put themselves out there and being vulnerable, to have people who are, you know like Donna and Dave you guys are also nurturing and it means everything because it doesn't matter

where writers are in their career we're all just being vulnerable for putting out music and we need people to you know to be there for us when we're nervous and it's such a welcoming you're such a welcoming presence

for so many people and you know obviously all the success is you're obviously brilliant and you have an amazing family and an amazing company but you don't have to go out of your way to be that generous to other people

and you are and I just appreciate you. Ross, that is very, very kind of you and I really appreciate it. I just I think it's the most important part of how you can conduct yourself and that's a choice. So one that we make every day, but I really appreciate you acknowledging it. I love it. Well, this is your first of hopefully many interviews with us, but there you go.

That's your episode. Thank you so much, Ross. Have a great weekend. Thanks for listening to this episode of Anne the Writer is. If you want to hear music from this songwriter I just interviewed, be sure to check out our spot-up playlist or visit our website and and the writer is.com. If you like what we're doing, please subscribe to us. You can also like us on Facebook and Twitter.

And The Writer Is is produced by Joe London and published by Big Deal Music. A special thanks to David Silverstein from Mega House Music and Michael White. Until next time, this is Ross Golden.