Mushroom MD Ian James talks APRA noms triumph

Mushroom Publishing Group made history last week when APRA announced their nominees. The music company is the first publisher behind each Song of the Year nominee.

With The Drones, The Preatures, Birds Of Tokyo, Matt Corby and Vance Joy all nominated, it’s a mix of old-school-meets-new-school but most importantly it’s a peer-voted accolade that some Australian artists hold higher than any other international award.

Ian James has been Managing Director of Mushroom Music Publishing since 1988, he’s also Chairman at AMCOS, Deputy Chairman at APRA and a Director at AMPAL. Speaking on the phone to TMN from his hotel in Los Angeles, James said Mushroom didn’t and don’t ever run marketing plans in the lead-up to voting.

“None what so ever. Nothing,” he says. “[…] We don’t in any way push our acts. Every year I send one email to every writer signed to Mushroom. I simply say ‘I’d like you to vote for the APRA Song of the Year’, I don’t even say ‘vote for the Mushroom [artists]’, I say ‘use your vote, it’s important and let the cards fall as they may’.

“I don’t think you can influence this with marketing. I think it’s one of the purer awards. The fellow songwriters as it were have their way; it’s not like the Academy Awards where I’m sitting here in Los Angeles and every time there’s something like that on everyone takes huge ads in trade papers. It’s almost the opposite of that in a way.”

Regardless, each of the five nominees are lauded songwriters in their own right: just last year The Preatures’ Isabella Manfredi took out the Vanda & Young Songwriting Competition for the band’s APRA nominated single Is This How You Feel?; The Drones’ frontman Gareth Liddiard has been a force to be reckoned since his band’s debut LP won the Australian Music Prize in 2005; 2012 APRA winners Birds Of Tokyo seem to only get better with age with their latest LP March Fires hitting #1 on the ARIA Chart; it’s widely known that Matt Corby’s single Brother would have taken out the 2012 Song of the Year if Gotye and Kimbra had held off, and as for Vance Joy, his overseas chart success speaks for itself.

As James tells TMN, Mushroom’s affiliation with the cream of the crop this year was years in the making. The Group’s label and artist relationships were built on solid foundations over his 27 years with Mushroom; but at the heart of the company’s interpersonal ties is Head of A&R Linda Bosidis.

Bosidis re-signed Birds Of Tokyo after their artist management switch to John Watson in 2012, at a time when they “could have clearly done a deal with any publisher at that point”; she has a longstanding relationship with The Drones, and was integral in the signing of The Preatures.

“In the end it didn’t really come down to the money, I mean the deal’s the same [as what was on offer], in came down to the fact that Linda sat down with Isabella and Linda kind of looked her in the eye, and that’s the end of the story. It was a meeting of the minds, it was a meeting of respect between not only her but the Mushroom Group as a whole.”

In Vance Joy’s case, James says his rise has as much to do with Mushroom’s joint ventures with Jaddan Comerford’s UNIFIED management company and Korda Marshall’s Infectious Music in the UK as it does with his accessible songwriting chops. While some people’s familiarity with Vance Joy aka James Keogh began with his licensing sync of Riptide in the US and Australia, James assures that wasn’t what led to his ubiquity.

“The song was doing well before that, the ad is the result of the success not the cause of the success. People have to sometimes rescue their careers with a sync if something’s going on but it’s not enough. Therefore the sync becomes this kind of Holy Grail.

“We’ve always used sync at Mushroom as the icing, as the bonus. Unfortunately other people have become almost manic in their desire to get a sync. I don’t think that’s the natural balance of things and therefore I don’t think careers sustain because of that.”

James also tips his hat to the Head of Mushroom Group, Michael Gudinski, mentioning his influence on the company’s congeniality has lead to a slew of congratulations from competitors following the APRA nominees announce. In fact, fellow publisher David Albert was first to congratulate James at an APRA committee meeting – before he had even seen the press release.

“Michael’s a charming individual. He’s the guy who resonates with artists […] I think Mushroom’s pretty much well-liked and obviously we experience competitive signing situations but one of the important things about publishing is that we all get along. Even though I’m sure Damian Trotter [Managing Director] at Sony would like to have five, Bob Aird [Managing Director] at Universal would like to have five, we all understand it when the other one does well and they kind of wish you well.”

Mushroom Group have taken out five Song of the Year APRA Awards in the past: Youthu Yindi’s Treaty in ’91, Crowded House’s Four Seasons in One Day in ’93 and Distant Sun in ’94, Leonardo’s Bride’s Even When I’m Sleeping in ’98 and Temper Trap’s Sweet Disposition in 2010.

This year the company is behind 19 of the 45 nominees for next month’s APRA Awards, an achievement James equally attributes to the artist’s talent and Mushroom’s myriad label and management relationships.

“We have a lot of connections and those connections matter. I guess it’s a very pleasing story to find that an act will choose us in an open market as it were.”

See below for full details on the Song of the Year nominees and click here to see all APRA Award nominees.

Song of the Year

Title:     A Moat You Can Stand In

Artist: The Drones

Writers: Stephen Hesketh / Fiona Kitchin / Gareth Liddiard / Dan Luscombe / Mike Noga

Publisher: Mushroom Music Pty Ltd

Title: Is This How You Feel

Artist:   The Preatures

Writers: Thomas Champion / Luke Davison / Isabella Manfredi / Jack Moffitt

Publisher: Mushroom Music Pty Ltd

Title: Lanterns

Artist: Birds of Tokyo

Writers: Ian Berney / Ian Kenny / Glenn Sarangapany / Adam Spark / Adam Weston

Publisher: Mushroom Music Pty Ltd

Title: Resolution

Artist: Matt Corby

Writers: Matt Corby / Dominic Salole (GEMA)*

Publishers:    Mushroom Music Pty Ltd obo BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd / Warner/Chappell Music Australia obo Heavy Sheet Music and Hanseatic Musikverlag GMBH & Co KG*

Title:  Riptide

Artist: Vance Joy

Writer:  James Keogh

Publishers: Mushroom Music Pty Ltd obo WAU Publishing