RUSTY GASTON: THE HITS INTERVIEW (PART ONE)

In 2020 Rusty Gaston was tapped by Sony Music Publishing boss Jon Platt to run the company’s Nashville office, and he has since closed deals with the likes of Ashley Gorley, Cole Swindell, Lainey Wilson, Miranda Lambert, Kane Brown, Luke Bryan, Gabby Barrett, Chris Young and Dolly Parton—and played a key role in signing and championing hot talents like Nate Smith and Megan Moroney. The Texas native had earned a stellar reputation as the co-founder and chief of esteemed boutique pubbery THiS Music, and he brings the same work ethic and palpable enthusiasm that informed that reputation to his SMP perch.

Let’s begin with the macro. In what ways has the role of the publisher changed or evolved over the last decade or so, during the streaming era?

From a Nashville perspective, the role of the publisher has always been about service. It’s our job to manage the career of a songwriter, just as an artist manager does for an artist. It’s our role as a publisher to create opportunities, craft a story and build a brand for a songwriter. I think that’s become the norm in Nashville, service-wise, over the last 10 years. Because in our town, songwriters still come in and write songs in publishing offices. That may not happen in every other territory, but it makes Nashville and our community special, because we see the majority of the songwriters on our roster face-to-face every single day.

And people write together in rooms.

That’s correct—in rooms, in studios. And they see their A&R person every single day.

I believe it’s our mission here to promote and encourage and motivate songwriters to do their best work. Because I believe songs have the power to change the world, and we have the ability to encourage and motivate our writers daily, because we see each other every day. We’re able to help keep each other accountable.

What might be an element of a writer’s story you’d use to pitch that writer?

In Nashville we still do a lot of old-school pitching of songs. And I like to say that when we do that, it’s only half about the song we’re pitching at that moment. The other half is about the setup we’re making for the next meeting. We’re planting those seeds of their names so that when an artist or a label meets with us the second time, they say, “Hey, who is that guy you were telling me about who had all that activity? We need that guy.” That’s what I mean by telling a story.

Is this one of the things you look for when you’re looking at writers? What are the qualities beyond the ability to write a great chorus or a lyric that might make someone a good fit for you?

We’re looking for drive, initiative, determination. We’re looking for an absolute unwillingness to stop, and for who they are as a person: Is this someone we want to be investing in? We’re looking for somebody we can link arms with and chase their dream together.

Once you sign an artist, writer or producer, what are the first steps?

We sit down with their individual A&R and put a plan together with our targets, our dream scenario. We’re assessing how to get them to this place—achieving the cuts, creating the relationships, getting the singles out. It may be about introducing them to new collaborators—and they might have to write with a lot of collaborators to find the handful who will be their core. Then we can really go to work with that core group to bring out the very best in them.

If we set up a couple of songwriters and on their first meeting, they get something that’s really good? I call it finding oil on top of the ground. If you find oil on top of the ground, there’s usually a lot more oil as you start digging deep.

That’s some Texas wisdom.

Yeah. If they dig in and they write 15 songs, we might really strike something special.

Country has long been a thriving genre, but on its own in a way. It’s now really become mainstream and broken out of that silo. How has that affected your work, if at all?

Country music has long been respected as the greatest storytelling format out there. And country songwriters are widely regarded as craftspeople whose stories touch directly on fundamental human emotions. I often say Snoop Dogg and George Strait sing about the same thing; they just use different language to do it. But it’s still those core emotions that resonate with listeners. In country music, the foundational part of the songs is the idea, the story.

I believe it’s correct to say during the pandemic, country was the genre that increased its streaming base the most, or at least one of the top two. More people started discovering it on a global basis, because of that emotional connection.

The stigma that once existed in Nashville is completely gone today. All genres of music have always been created in Nashville. A few years ago, when Meghan Trainor or Kings of Leon were exploding out of Nashville, they were viewed as anomalies. But we knew that they weren’t, that there were more creators like that here. Another result of the pandemic as we were shut down is that so many other creators moved here to Nashville to be part of the creative community—but not to make country or Christian music. They moved here to make whatever type of music they make.

Tell me about being at Sony, the company culture and working for Jon.

It was not my plan to come to Sony. This is an example of God’s plan being bigger than my plan. Jon called me and said, “Hey, I’ve watched you build a culture that songwriters want to be a part of, and I’ve watched you create a destination that songwriters want to come to. And that’s what I would like for us to have at Sony in Nashville.” From the get-go, Jon’s whole thing to me was, “I don’t want you to do your business differently than what you’ve been doing. I’m just going to provide you the resources so you can scale up. I don’t want you to come here and change what you do as a publisher.”

And for me, being a 24-year independent publisher in Nashville, that was really the only way I knew how to do it. It was about purely focusing on relationships and service for songwriters. And what Jon ushered into Sony was a global shift for the entire company to focus on service to songwriters.

We can motivate songwriters to feel this could be the day that they write a song that changes the world. When you talk to songwriters in any genre about the biggest hit of their career, more often than not, they’ll tell you, “It was just another Tuesday, and we got together like we always had before. And that day, the magic happened.”

What were the first songs that gave you that magical feeling?

I grew up in a little town called Van, Texas. I spent all the time I could in the record store, or sitting in my room, reading liner notes. But I figured out that the songs I was attracted to on these records were the songs that eventually got played on the radio. I realized there must be a job where somebody picks which songs should be played. That led me to publishing.

Wait, what were some of those records?

Man, it’s such a variety. My mother was an enormous George Strait fan. But also there was [Guns N’ Roses’] Appetite for Destruction, [Beastie Boys’] Licensed to Ill and Alan Jackson…

To the extent that it’s possible, take me through a typical day.

Most days I’ll wake up and send out an inspirational message to all the employees in our building. And I try to do that just about every day of the week. As often as I can, I will also send out an inspirational message via text to every songwriter on our roster—again, trying to help start their day with a mindset that can help them do their best work.

Another thing that’s unique for our group is that we start every day with a listening meeting of our entire A&R team, me included. And we listen to every single song that came in the day before. That’s important, because our A&R team isn’t then working in silos of their individual rosters; they’re actually hearing what every creator signed to the company is doing. And nine people are now throwing out ideas for these songs or ideas for future collaborations, or ideas for songs that could be pitched to that artist. No other major company does that in Nashville.

Songwriters usually start arriving about 10:30, 11 in the morning; we try to encourage writers as they’re coming in. Then it’s a day full of meetings trying to do all we can to support our A&R team. What ideas can we make happen? How can we turn water into wine today?

But something else that’s great about this place is that when I came to Nashville in ’96, I mean, Sony Tree was by far the crown jewel of music publishing in all of Nashville. For me, as a die-hard country music fan, all of the history of country music is here. And that is such a special thing for all of us. We’re constantly talking about what we can do to honor and grow the legacy of this catalog. How do we bring new ears to this stuff? That’s why it’s exciting that country has really embraced interpolations. That’s a way we’re providing a service to those legacy songwriters, by helping create new songs that involve their catalog.

Sony’s been the core company in Nashville for so long and, and we represent the legendary Acuff-Rose catalog. That was the very first publisher started in Nashville. So, all the way back to Hank Williams. All of his songs are here. But people like Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, they’re active signed writers today. How insanely cool is that?