CMB 031 : John Mays, Artist Development, and The Future of Music

On this week's episode of the Christian Music Blog Podcast, I had the privilege of sitting down with A&R executive, John Mays.

Having worked at Word, Sparrow, and Star Song Records before serving as president of Benson Records, John has seen many artists come and go for more than 35 years.

He previously signed artists such as Point Of Grace, Cindy Morgan, Matt Redman, Nichole Nordeman, Warren Barfield, Jason Gray, and the original Passion worship records.

John helped start Centricity Music in 2005, where he currently works with Aaron Shust, Andrew Peterson, Downhere, and more.

If you're an artist, this conversation is for you. Should you even think about things like record deals or publishing contracts? If so, what should you do?

Any artist looking to pursue a career in music needs to hear today's episode....

Here are some of things we discussed

John's story getting in to the music business

The core functions of a record label

The difference between a movement artist and a radio artist

Christian radio and why it matters

How artists should be thinking about labels

The misunderstandings artists have about labels

The messy three piece pie of Christian music ministry

The ups and downs of a full time artist

Vincent van Gogh quote

The four things labels are really looking for

Why talent matters the least

The things that make for longevity in an artist's career

Putting in the hard work, and letting God bring the fruit

The future of streaming music

The future of radio

4 Things Labels Look For

Taken from the Centricity website:

Work Ethic

We once heard Margaret Becker tell some indie artists that before she was signed, she felt like she was digging a trench with her bare hands. When she signed, the label gave her a shovel, but she still had to do the digging! That image is important because it helps artists to understand how much patience and persistence is required, and the reality that no one will ever work as hard to get their music exposed as themselves. We can’t work with people who don’t understand this.

Songs

Fortunately, writing and recording great songs continues to play a significant role in the marketability of an artist. Through all the changes in the music biz, this seems to remain the one, consistent factor in building and sustaining a successful music career. If you are consistently writing great songs, either by yourself or with others, we’re interested

Qualified Uniqueness

We use the word “qualified” because simply saying we’re looking for “unique” artists isn’t totally accurate. We want artists who are unique enough to not sound like everything else out there; but also sound enough like everything else out there that it still can have mass appeal for it’s time. Tricky stuff. If you’re making commercial music, AND that music has an identifiable distinction to it, we’re interested.

Talent

We’ll never sign anyone who’s not talented on some level, but we’ll probably never again be able to sign someone on talent alone. There’s simply too much noise out there, good and bad, to rely on talent only to cut through. Without a good showing in the first three categories (listed above), it’s almost impossible to gain visibility for an artist or band, regardless of the level of talent.

Important Links

Centricity Music

Centricity Links

Indie resource documents

Centricity A&R on Twitter

Other Things Mentioned

gospelmusic.org

Podcast episode with Susan Fontaine Godwin on IndieAdmin

IndieAdmin by CCS

Podcast episode with Dave Kraft on leadership

Stephen Miller's book....