Describe your background and industry experience, and explain how it will help you contribute to the SOCAN Board of Directors?
As a singer, songwriter who was developed in major cities like Vancouver and Toronto and is now based in Belleville, a small rural classified area in the Quinte Region, I feel can I can provide a holistic view and direct perspective on the differences between these types of music communities in regards to development, creative education opportunities, and programming.
I have been working full time in the music industry for fifteen years, with five label released albums and a lot of experience putting together album campaigns. I have cultivated strong relationships with all of my team members including: publishers, sync, labels, publicists, radio trackers, agents and management and I have a clear understanding on how it all performs together to release music commercially. I think I will contribute to the SOCAN Board because I will offer a perspective from the artist’s point of view.Â
In your opinion, what issues will be most important to SOCAN members over the next three years?
I think what matters most is that writer’s are getting fairly compensated for their work and that SOCAN is advocating for all music creators. I think it’s important that SOCAN is fighting for better rates and always looking out for songwriters in the age of streaming. Amongst many discussions, streaming seems to be a blank spot in regards to where and how these very low royalties are distributed and then split. I believe there are better solutions to the streaming compensation and other issues – while labels and publishers can not be as vocal for the sake of helping their artists achieve playlists etc… the voices in these conversations may fall upon third parties like the PRO’s.Â