Singer-songwriter and producer HARDY has announced a new deal with Spirit Music Publishing in Nashville, TN. The artist has transferred a portion of his songs to the company. He's also signed a go-forward exclusive writing agreement with Spirit Music.
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He shared of this new update, "I'm pumped to be joining the Spirit Music family." He said of Spirit, "They believe in the songs I write and that means a lot to me. I'm excited to see what we can build together."
HARDY's catalog was previously signed solely to Relative Music Group, which forged a deal with Sony Music Publishing in 2021. While HARDY continues his deal with Relative Music Group, Spirit will acquire select compositions from his catalog.
Spirit Music has an expansive catalog that contains the rights to several compositions. Included are works by Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Chris Stapleton, Jay-Z, Tim McGraw, and Madonna. The publishing company also has an impressive roster of songwriters and artists like Autumn Rowe, Billy Gibbons, Billy Squier, Charles Mingus, and Chris Stapleton.
How Spirit Music Group Came To Be
Spirit Music Group was originally founded in 1995 by Mark Fried, who worked as a BMI executive for several years. He made the switch to publishing after being inspired by a songwriter friend of his. Spirit Music Group cites its mission as being "to serve songwriters and song owners by returning music publishing to its entrepreneurial, service-oriented roots."
In an interview with Billboard, Mark Fried talked a little bit about the inspiration behind starting his own company. "A big part of the inspiration was search and rescue of the greatest writers and writer-artists I could find." He shared, "We always wanted to work with the favorite things in our collective record collections... as opposed to building a company based on what catalogs other people happen to be selling."
Fried also shared that the reason he chose to start a publishing company was because he wanted something different. "By the mid-'90s, publishing had had about three decades' worth of consolidation, and four or five companies represented 500,000-plus songs each, making the actual job of publishing — which is focused on royalty collection and thoughtful song promotion — nearly impossible."
After a hit songwriter told Fried 'If you don't get out and do something about this, you're part of the problem,' he took that as a sign to start a company all his own.
Photo By: Daniel DeSlover/ZUMA Press
