And The Writer Is...with Ross Golan - Ep. 189: Tuff Morgan (peermusic)

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

We’re excited to announce a special bonus interview with Tuff Morgan, the VP of A&R at peermusic. Ross recently sat down with Tuff to discuss the publishing world, and everything they do over at peermusic. Read below to find out more about peermusic ad listen to this conversation on any platform you find your podcasts! peermusic is somewhat uniquely situated, in that they are privately owned and also have a sizable global footprint, operating from 39 offices across 32 countries. This enables them to give their clients the best of all worlds—global reach paired with personal attention and less “red tape” allowing them to move quickly to maneuver on behalf of their writers. Their global reach also enables them to provide a high level of international creative collaboration opportunities for our songwriters, cross-cultural and global songwriting camps, a strong global administration infrastructure, and global sync teams working together to increase the value for their writer’s song catalogs.  But while they offer the benefit of working with a global company, they really have a family environment and work very close with their writers. This is from the top down. The company has been led by the same family, the Peers, since its inception nearly 100 years ago. They are now in their third generation of Peer family leadership. They work to sign the best talent and are a champion for songwriters and artists, from those just starting out to those topping global charts. And as an indie, it’s fair to say that they do prefer to keep their roster highly curated because their creative teams work very hard to ensure that their writers and artists are seen, heard, prioritized and supported at every stage of their careers. I think this is what helps make peermusic a first call for those in the industry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to And The Writer Is with Ross Golan. There are millions of singers, thousands of artists, and only 40 songs per genre at a time. These are the stories of the hottest creatives, the most venerable legends, artists, songwriters, executives, and more. Follow our socials and share your music with the and the Writer is community. We'll see you all there and now. Here's this week's episode. All right, here we are. We are having a conversation with a Tuff Morgan from PIR Music, one of our sponsors this season.

Pure Music is a fascinating company. If you are not familiar, it started with Ralph Pier, the first, who started with all kinds of regional music. Tough will talk about that. But most notably, he really was the guy who basically held a talent show. and those, I believe they're called the Bristol sessions, right? And in that moment, he signed, you know, Jimmy Rogers and the Carter family, and that becomes the moment that country music or country Western music really starts. And we all live in the shadow of this amazing moment.

And peer music is the epic. epicenter of country music and all kind and and now it's the epicenter of all kinds of music internationally domestically they have tons of writers and tons of different companies but the impetus for peer music was came from an authentic place of just you know showing the showing the country all kinds of different regional music and one being country western which uh it's just a fascinating anecdote so welcome off, you know, tell me where do I make a mistake? What's, what's, give me some history of peer music for our listeners.

Oh, man, I mean, that's definitely the gist of it. I mean, Ralph here, the first was a super visionary. The company's almost 100 years old at this point. And, you know, I have a quote in my email that pretty much sums him up. And all the way to now. I used to put it in the bottom of my email, but it said to be a businessman, to be a success, you have to be a businessman, a gambler,

and somewhat of a profit. But the key to success is constant activity. And as an A&R person at Pier Music, we still move the same way 100 years later. I mean, when he started the company and you're talking about the Carter family and you talk about Augustine and all the Latino

offices that they set up and the global reach that they have, you know, he was constantly moving Ralph Piair I was constantly traveling. He became actually an ambassador for this flower called the Camilla.

You know what the Camilla is? No, tell me. It's like a Camilla. I may be saying, wrong, but it's a flower. And what he did, he became an ambassador to these Camillas because he was going around the world, collecting

these flowers and bringing him back to the United States from everywhere he went. So that's like a weird fun fact side that happened in his travels while he was setting up all these offices. He had people on the ground in these territories, black and brown

folks that were helping him find songs and publish songs, you know, bring him back, you know, and get them recorded. And, you know, they were doing sheet music at the time. So, you know, you got to remember, that's how people listened to music back then. They, like, put it on a sheet and somebody had to buy the sheet music and play the piano at home to hear the song. You know, like, like the original, it's wild. It's crazy. You know, I'm a super, you know, music history fan, too, like you. And I'm just happy to be part of a, of a, uh, in a company where I, it's, it's crazy. You know, I'm a, it's crazy.

can learn, you know, the humble beginnings of like the actual music business. And he was one of the first publishers to actually join BMI because he published all these local music. And ASCAP at the time had all the pop music and the pop stations. And when radio came about, you know, they were playing very pop music, you know. And when when radio came along, BMI started and actually built radio towers and Ralph Peer was part of that because he published all the local music that these radio towers were going to play locally. I mean it's it's crazy history. Um, and the roots of Ralph Peer and what he did and and the company is still still here today. Second um is a is a friend of

mine. We've sat on the board for an MPA uh for my five year 10 year with the company with with the uh, with the board of the organization. So I've had an opportunity to talk to him a lot, and he's told me some incredible stories about growing up with Walt Disney being around the house or being in an airport. Uncle Walt. I mean, just like the stories are wild in the peer family,

but Ralph Peer II has, you know, there's a lot of family in the culture of that company. Absolutely. Still. Still, right. How do you feel in this family? Does it feel like a family to work there? Absolutely. Does it feel the way it seems from the outside? Absolutely. My story alone, I don't know if you know my history, but I signed here as a writer first. Oh, wow.

And I was an artist, writer, producer, and I signed to Pierre and they gave me a joint venture, so I learned publishing and how to sign other artists. But my development here alone was like a family thing. I mean, I was a writer first and they asked me to consult. And now 10 years later, I'm the vice president of ANR. I mean, my story alone is a family story, you know, from development as a writer to an executive. What in a current way, you know, I know, peer collects, you know, for record labels, for publishers, tons of clients, I believe there are a few thousand employees worldwide.

You know, it's a really big company now. What does, what separates peer music from the other companies on Music Row and the other companies nationwide that, you know, what do you, what do you think separates peer music? For one, you know, we're a global independent, which is a, it's personal, but it's global kind of service. You know, the publishing business is a service business when you get down to. to the nitty-gritty. A&Ring is artists and repertoire, right?

So you want to be able to service your clients at a maximum, being very transparent level. And we have the ability to do that because, you know, we're lean and mean, you know, so I don't have a roster of, you know, 60 writers. You know, I have maybe an active roster of about 13 in the pop side, 13, 14 people that I actually help manage. And because of my artist's background and my producer background,

I can speak the language and be transparent. I'm accepted in the artist community where I think most majors don't have the ability and the focus to be able to be proactive like that. They're so massive with, they can just be reactive. You know, it's all incoming calls. And because we're lean and mean, we can go out and be proactive and make things happen

and communicate with our writers more. You know, there's not a lot of, you know, they can call me. All my writers have myself. You know, that family thing you talk about goes all the way down to the writers. You know, it's a partnership and it's about reframing what publishing is to an artist. Because, you know, coming from the artist side, it's like they give you money and we're on this side and you're on this side. And, you know, it's, I've always tried to reframe it as an artist. It's like it's a partnership and it's a service, you know.

And I try to teach and educate them about how publishing work. and this is how your money comes in. This is how your money goes out. And I think that's the advantage we have, you know, being at an indie and the opportunity we have, you know, for the next generation, just like myself. Like I said, I started as a writer here, and now I'm giving other writers, you know, opportunities in their development.

Yeah, I don't want to get on a soapbox of what I think about publishing. But I think the biggest mistake that music schools and sort of how people talk about publishing. The biggest mistake that has said is don't sign a publishing deal until you have a hit, until you can. That is probably the, that is the single worst information

is common. And having a degree in music industry and having gone through that, that is, that is the worst advice. You don't, if you want the big check, yes, sure. You get that hit and you want to go sign to one of the majors where you can get a big check. And,

and maybe you have a relationship with them, but they're really collecting at a high interest rate, whatever that is, like, fine, that's awesome. But most people who have the opportunity to work with someone like you, it's that partnership that gets them the hit. I'm pretty sure my relationship with my publishers has been really intimate because it was there before I had hits. And it's partly because of my relationship with them,

why I went from having cuts to hits. Like, a good publisher is a partner. It isn't your bank. And so, you know, what advice would you give to an up-and-coming writer who's like, oh, man,

now I've heard this thing. How do I get to peer in, like, what's advice you would give to somebody who wants to jump from, you know, when people say they're not published, that's not a thing. When they're self-published to being co-published, what is the advice you would give to somebody who is self-published who would love to have a partner like peer?

Yeah, I mean, that's where it starts, though. It starts as me telling them, you are a publisher. That's number one. When you sign up to ASCAP or BMI, CSEC, you start a publishing company. You know, that's whatever's name, the songs, you know, incorporated. And we do a partnership deal. that partnership works with a lot of trust and transparency. And I start there.

I explain to them how publishing works. I actually pull out a pie chart and show them. You know, let's draw a circle and draw a line down the circle and the writer's side and the publishing side. You know, so I can break this thing down to like a five-year-old at this point, you know, in layman terms. And I think that's not what has traditionally been done. It's like, it's a bang. You go get the deal. You wait and all that.

And it couldn't be more the opposite of that. Another one of the things I've said on the podcast before is I thought a degree in music industry would teach me how not to get screwed, but it just teaches you how you're getting screwed. And it's like it's part of, you know, another one of those that I say it like is that in Nashville, a lot of the songwriters have children. And in LA, a lot of the songwriters are children. And you have this obligation as an ANR person and as a publisher to help educate writers who wouldn't have that information so they know what they're getting into and they can take some responsibility for their career and not assume that the publisher is going to somehow write the songs for them as well. But instead that helps solidify that partnership.

Absolutely. I tell them from the jump, I'm going to give you the tools to build the house, but I'm not going to build it for you. I'm going to give you the resources and the tools to make the best version of yourself. And that's how we, that's the partnership, you know. And again, it starts with trust. And I think the advantage I have at peer coming from an artist's background and a writer, and I still write today for sync and I'm teaching sync around the world. We do camps where, you know, I'm showing them how to write and produce with space and lyrics and concepts, you know.

So, again, I don't know if I would have that opportunity. because, no, not to a major, but they're just so big, you know, and massive. They can't focus on, you know, the development part. It's really difficult to focus on the development if you have 60 writers, 70 writers on your roster. Yeah, totally. You know, Pierre has this 100-year history, almost 100-year history, and it's now this global company that collects for record side, for publishing side. It has in all different genres.

Where is pure music in five, ten years? I mean, it's where it is now. I think, again, we've carved out a place in music where we have a special service. And I think clients can come here knowing they're going to get transparency, knowing they're going to get stellar admin and collection globally. You know, Mary Megan, Pierre, the daughter. Are you familiar with her? She's a deputy CEO, but, you know, she's based out of Amsterdam, and she just bought up all the neighboring rights companies.

And she's, you know, she's got a finance background. So she's, you know, acquiring companies that make sense and partnering with companies that make sense as far as global collection and admin around the world. So, you know, we have a neighboring rights division. MusicCube used to be our sub-publisher. Now MusicCube is peer. In Norway, there was Arctic Rights, and now Arctic Rights is peer. So we're pretty much covered 37 offices in 32 countries, I believe, now. I mean, it's massive.

We have no sub-publishers at this point. Yeah, there's a Ralph the second is the person who consults the industry on international music business. And he is maybe the most educated person in the United States. States on the rest of the world is collecting and on intellectual property. And so to be at the source of, you know, where, where you know how, you know, South Africa, for example, has really been fighting against IP and putting heavier restrictions on music creators and it's you know some of these other uh countries in in the EU where um you know you go into one country and Spotify costs one thing you go into the next and you're only a mile away and it costs

something different so how do you collect these different all these issues that happen throughout the world that we don't think about day to day peer music is really one of those places that is the epicenter of figuring out the solutions for not just for for peer but for the of the industry. So again, thank you so much for sponsoring and The Writer is. And, uh, you know, I'm, I'm excited that we, we've started this relationship like this. And, um, I appreciate your support through the years, too, man, with all the writers that have been there. You know, we talked about Poobert earlier and I have the rants and stereotypes and a whole bunch of folks over here at SOS. And I appreciate all the support for sure. All right, man. Thank you so much. All right. Thanks, man.

This episode is produced by Joe London, Mega House Management, and myself. See you all next week. I'm Ross Golan signing off.