The Music Business Buddy
A podcast that aims to educate and inspire music creators in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music. A new episode is released each Wednesday and aims to offer clarity and insight into a range of subjects across the music industry. The series includes soundbites and interviews with guests from all over the world together with commentary and clarity on a range of topics. The podcast is hosted by award winning music industry professional Jonny Amos.
Jonny Amos is the author of The Music Business for Music Creators (Routledge/ Focal Press, 2024). He is also a music producer with credits on a range of major and independent labels, a songwriter with chart success in Europe and Asia, a senior lecturer at BIMM University UK, a music industry consultant and an artist manager.
www.jonnyamos.com
The Music Business Buddy
Episode 64: Inside the World of Music Publishing with DWB Music's Greig Watts
What does it take to build a successful independent music publishing company in today's global market? In this captivating conversation, Greig Watts—the "W" in DWB Music—reveals the unexpected journey that transformed a three-person songwriting team into an international publishing powerhouse.
Greig shares the fascinating story of how DWB discovered untapped opportunities in the East Asian markets, particularly Japan, where understanding cultural business protocols proved crucial to their success. "In Japan, it's honourable and loyal," Greg explains. "If someone sends you an invoice, you pay it." This approach to business helped DWB become the leading UK independent publisher in Japan between 2010-2014, working with artists selling millions of physical copies in a single week.
The conversation takes us through DWB's remarkable Eurovision strategy, which has yielded 16 entries across 10 countries over the past decade. Greig reveals how Eurovision serves as a powerful catalyst for breaking into new territories: "My first entry in Poland in 2017—within a year, we had several number ones there." He dispels common misconceptions about the competition, noting that songs don't need to win to achieve commercial success, with some 17th-place finishes generating over 100 million streams.
Perhaps most compelling is Greig's passionate commitment to mentorship. Having guided 93 songwriters through his program, he applies a team sports philosophy to developing talent: "We see our publishing roster as a football team—we don't want 12 strikers." His approach focuses on accountability, connection, and practical business knowledge, helping writers increase their output from two songs annually to sixty. "Winning as a team is much better than winning on your own," he reflects.
Whether you're a songwriter seeking international opportunities, a publisher looking to expand your market reach, or simply fascinated by the business of creativity, this episode offers invaluable insights into building lasting success through genuine connection and strategic thinking. Subscribe now and join our community of music creators pursuing their goals through a deeper understanding of the business of music.
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Hello and a very warm welcome to you. You're listening to the Music Business Buddy with me, johnny Amos, podcasting out of Birmingham in England. I'm the author of the book the Music Business for Music Creators, available in hardback, paperback and e. In England, I'm the author of the book the Music Business for Music Creators, available in hardback, paperback and ebook format. I'm a music creator with a variety of credits I'm a consultant, an artist manager and a senior lecturer in both music business and music creation. Wherever you are and whatever you do, consider yourself welcome to this podcast and to a part of the community around it. I'm here to try and educate and inspire music creators from all over the world in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music.
Speaker 1:Okay, so in this week's episode I am interviewing a good friend of mine, greg Watts. I've been wanting to interview Greg for quite some time and you know he's had a little bit of a bad back right and he's a lot better now, thankfully, so we finally got time to have a chat. Let me tell you a little bit about Greg before we play the interview, right. So Greg is the head of publishing at DWB Music, who are an independent music publisher based in the southeast of England. Dwb represent a very exciting and talented team of writers and producers who have had numerous hits around the world, including number ones and top 10 hits in Europe, the US and especially in Asia. They have had millions and millions of sales. The company was founded by Paul Drew, greg Watts and Pete Barringer hence the DWB and they've grown into a very thriving network of music makers whose work includes songwriting and production, music production, advertising music, tv library music, string arrangements, vocal performance, instrumental work all sorts of different things.
Speaker 1:On top of all that, greg is also you know, he's a hit songwriter in his own right, and that's what he was doing. That's how he became a music publisher. It's very often a common path for many independent music publishers. He also runs a string of songwriting camps that have produced a lot of hit records. In addition to that, he's also soon to be an author. He's also a fantastic mentor and there is a thread of warmth and kindness in anything that Greg does, hence why he's so popular. In fact, one of the things that really comes across well in this interview is kind of how doors have opened for him because of the kind of person that he is, you know. Anyway, I will hand over to the interview and enjoy, greg. Welcome to the music business buddy. It's good to have you here. First of all, how are you?
Speaker 2:Very good, thank you, very good indeed.
Speaker 1:How are you? I'm all right. Thank you, mate. We've not spoken for a while. It's good to talk to you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I've been missing in action.
Speaker 1:You have. Well, you're always a busy boy, but you've been missing in action. But you're feeling better now, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had this back, which has kind of meant I can't walk very far for about 18 months, and now it's all fixed. I did some surgery, had a month off which was amazing having a month off afterwards, because creative brain came into action at once so I did a couple of weeks rest and then now I feel like a new man. I'm 50. I turned 50 this year and I feel like a new man and like I'm starting all over again and ready to go.
Speaker 1:Good for you, wow. So let's go into DWB then. Greg, for anybody that's not familiar with DWB, how did it start? You know you are the W in DWB. For anybody that I am the middle so how did it start?
Speaker 2:Drew Watson Barringer, we were a writing team, originally Pete Barringer, paul Drew myself. Probably back in about 2004, 2005, we met, came writing together. I started writing with paul, pete started writing with paul and, quite famously, paul tried to keep us apart because, um, for various reasons I think pete swore a lot and didn't think I'd like that so much for some reason. So eventually we got together as a three and started writing together. We were working for another company at that point, a record label, and I was setting up a publishing department for them. Then we left them and kind of set up DVD productions and publishing from that point.
Speaker 2:So, really based on our writing, we were quite successful in places like Belgium. And then we were so successful in Belgium we couldn't cope and we had to think, well, how do we find other writers that could do this? And we were like we've got co-writers, why don't we start publishing them? So it kind of developed into publishing. Then we found the Japanese market, which was kind of right at the very beginning of anything anyway, from the Western market going into Japan. So we were very lucky and it's just grown from there into full-blown publishing house. Pete still writes every day. He's in there now writing producing Paul has actually left with Paul last year and reparted Wales, not for any animosity or anything like that, he just got a bit bored of writing songs and wanted to do our stuff. He does guitar. I guess I call it the studio act. He does guitar and equipment reviews and things like that.
Speaker 1:I knew he was doing a bit of that.
Speaker 2:So me and Pete decided to keep. Doeb thought it was a brand we built up in a sense. So we've carried on, still doing lots of writing. I do less writing now. I write books. Now I'm on my second book. I haven't released the first one yet, but I'm on the second book. Lots of mentoring, lots of publishing, lots of surrounding some writing camps. So I guess my creativity has come from that.
Speaker 1:So I've been doing writing and then we managed 20, 25 different writers around wow so, craig, I'd heard a little bit about you, about your writing and stuff, so are you? Are you you want you're on a second book?
Speaker 2:yes, so I wrote the first book. I probably started it in covid and then I came up with this and then, like everyone else, when I started stuff and then got on with real life and then about it was over Christmas, not the last year, the year before I saw this advert saying write a book in 30 days. So I signed up for that. It was like $99 or something and that got me to write a book. I did it in about 45 days and then it was how do you finish it? How do you edit it? How do you and the editing is what's? You know?
Speaker 2:I've been running a full-blown company and doing all sorts of things. Editing a book has taken me ages and I had to keep going back to it. So I kind of thought over the summer, when I get my month off to have a back operation and come back, I'll finish editing the book. What happened is I saw another advertisement for someone who would help me finish edit and put it up and release it and blah, blah, blah. So I engaged that person and they've been going through a process and we're now at the book cover. So hopefully it'll be released in the next couple of months, but in the meantime, I was able to be creative and write book two, because creativity whilst you're in pain or recovering actually can look really easy and actually. So the first book's coming that's called Keeping the Dream Alive. That's kind of a little bit of my life story, mixed with music, music and advice, and the second one will be about Eurovision and it'll be all the Eurovision stories.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, Probably three quarters of the way through that.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Good for you, man. Yeah, you know you're right. The editing process takes such a long time, doesn't it? When it's done, and it's not like it's important, but it's not like the fun creative bit, is it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I found that the hardest bit, which is why it took me ages to keep going back to it. Actually I wrote 12 chapters of book, two in two weeks, you know, because that was really enjoyable. That was telling stories, that was just You've written a book before that. When you write I tend to find I just sort of dump the information. I bet I can clean it up later, but you sort of build your message and then you're writing a story and then out pops another story that you've forgotten about, because it's very like tool writing. I find if you don't, if you keep the flow going, the flow comes behind the flow, sort of thing. So that story and it's very interesting for memories. I actually got new memories. Sorry, old memories came back because I wrote, which I found very exciting. I guess during my four weeks of convalescence and recovery what I was really doing was tuning back into Star Wars and old films that I loved and old music that I loved, and I think that really reconnected me with my creative side and out it flew Interesting.
Speaker 1:So it's almost like watching like old films and you know Star Wars, I mean that's right at the top of my list, mate. All that stuff Is, you know, kind of reconnecting with, that kind of takes you back right to somewhere where you were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. So I do this mentorship now for a lot. I've done it for two or three years and one of the things I do at the beginning is get people to connect with the reason they started writing songs, what inspired them in the first place, and again to write their, build their own spotify playlist of those souls. Because I've got lots of stories. Well, pretty much all my stories are connected to a song. It's like that's that was when I was, you know, my in my book mentioned my first two members of my sister's. She one of them. She sat on my leg and and she fell off and broke her, fractured her leg, which I felt really bad. But the second one was she jumped off a chair and fractured her leg, dancing to one of my songs records, robert De Niro's Waiting by Bananarama.
Speaker 2:So you've always got a link to a song. For me, I've always got a story which is like a trigger moment to a song. So I think, yeah, watching old films takes you back to that moment of when you first felt it, and I think that there's a magical teenage discovery time which I think, if we reconnect with that all the time, there's definitely an exciting energy that comes Because back then we didn't have any responsibilities, we just had flow. Things came to us and we accepted them and got on with them and as soon as you're starting work and responsibilities, it's hard to re-engage with that, unless you put yourself in a specific place to go yeah, that's a very, very good point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, greg, you mentioned um about um, about japan. There, you know you like dwb have, you know, established themselves in various territories over the years. So what was that starting point like with the East Asian markets? Because you were early in on that. Right, there's a lot of independent music publishers that have kind of tried to get into those markets for more recent times, but you got in early. What did that look like it was?
Speaker 2:a happy accident, I would say. We were having hits in Belgium and then we had to work for a group called D-Side, which were an Irish boy band, and they had one big hit in the UK called Invisible, which was sort of by Desmond Child, and then we were on album two or three and everyone had forgotten them, apart from Japan.
Speaker 2:So they could go to Japan and they could be chased down the road, chased off airplanes, and they'd come home to Ireland and no one really knew who they were, which was great because they had girlfriends by that point. So we got some songs on the D-side I think it was six. And I remember going to Cairns I'd been to Midenta three years on the trot and I met a Japanese partner who said, oh, you have some royalties to collect. Do you want me to collect the royalties? And then she said, do you have any other songs? And we were like, well, yeah, we write. You know, we were aiming for things like these sort of backstreet boys, that sort of stuff. Boom, it was like you know. Actually we met someone else who was just about to launch his company which was basically bringing in Western music and making a hybrid with the Japanese top lines, and I remember sitting around the table and there was us from the UK and there was Roasting Health from Sweden, there was TG from Denmark, there was probably GL from Denmark as well, there was two or three companies plus we're the only UK and he was talking about this thing the idea that he had, within two or three years, we just exploded.
Speaker 2:All of those companies were hit after hit in Japan, and really because we were first there, you know. So we've noticed over our many years now of DVB that was a happy accident In a way. We got into Eurovision slightly happy accident as well, because we were looking maybe somewhere else. But a lot of the places we go, we kind of go and think, well, no one else is here, why don't we really try and take this territory? Really well, because there isn't any opposition. If you look at Korea now, you've got the top American writers in Korea. We're still doing Korea, we still have some success, but we haven't got it all to ourselves. Back then we had it all to ourselves. We went up with two or three Swedish and Danish companies as well and a Finnish company, so whereas now the competition's on, so it's much harder Wow, I think going to the place where it's not always as hard because there's not as much competition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, you certainly made that. You've had so much success over the years in East Asia, I mean, you know, some really really big monster hits, you know, and it all came through as a result of something else. Like that. It's fascinating, I mean, and it's an accident.
Speaker 2:But also following up. Often, a lot of the things that have happened for us is I've gone somewhere and I've followed my nose a little bit and found some business by accident, but it was. If I hadn't have gone, I wouldn't have found that. We were actually I think it was between about 2010 and 14, we were the leading UK independent publisher in Japan and you know there's three guys. All right, okay, basically. So that's quite big Wow. Looking back, yeah, we were very successful at that point and it really helped. I've been going to a meeting with psycho and they're sitting there staring saying you know, they're interested in songs of westlake. But then they said how much money are you making from these japanese releases? I was questioning what was that? But but they were just being interested because the market started to grow. We were number one in the world with the death of the princesses as well, because one week they'd sell a million copies. The next thing they wouldn't sell they'd sell 50,000. But that one week we'd be above a dollar. Lady Gaga.
Speaker 1:And of course, that's physical sales we're talking about, isn't it physical sales?
Speaker 2:wow, there still is some physical sales, but it's not to that extreme yeah, goodness me.
Speaker 1:Sub publishing, greg. You mentioned there sub publishing is a pretty crucial part of this process. You know it would be, I guess, much harder, if not impossible, without, is a pretty crucial part of this process. You know it would be, I guess, much harder, if not impossible, without, the right sub-publishing partnerships in different parts of the world. Would that be fair to say?
Speaker 2:100%. I think we wouldn't be anywhere near successful without partners in particular countries. Because I mean, the very first deal we did in Japan, it was for a Korean act released in Japan, a group called Toshinki which became TVXQ, and the person who was negotiating the contract basically came and said don't negotiate the contract because you're being given an honourable offer for this Japanese act. She said you negotiate a little bit because in the West you're kind of given a low offer and you negotiate up, but in Japan it's honourable and if you negotiate too hard you kind of offend the honour. So I think, the more I've realised that one of the reasons we are successful there and I've been told it a lot by the Japanese as well is because we're very honourable and we're very loyal and we pay when we owe someone something and for me that seems like a sensible business model. But you know, if someone says you're an invoice, you pay it.
Speaker 2:But in Japan that kind of really fits and there is a protocol. Yeah, sometimes it feels a bit old-fashioned when they might. You know, in Korea people are talking directly to the labels as writers, but in Japan they'll want the writer to come back through the publisher to go to the sub-publisher in that sense. So it's got a hierarchy in the levels of things. Once you learn that that's yeah.
Speaker 1:But again, that's their culture, right? It's honourable, it's loyal, right? You know you come through this person to be able to work with us over here. Let's keep that going and if we break that level of solicitation, you know, then it doesn't quite work, which is quite alien to a lot of people in the Western world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think we like that. I like that way of working and if there's trust you build trust that way and we've built a great business that way. In a sense Doesn't seem odd to me to do it that way, but certainly work with a lot of people who have done it the opposite way. Eventually you end up not working with them because you don't build the trust, but you know it's worked for us.
Speaker 1:So let's think about eurovision, greg, when it whenever I um hear the word eurovision, I know it means a lot of things to a lot of people, but honestly, I just immediately think of you, right, I think I just, you know, I think straight away, I think, greg. So talk us through. You know DWB's role in the competition. You've been very active in the competition for many years. How did that come about? How did you get involved?
Speaker 2:Very, very first it was we were in Belgium, being successful in Belgium, and we luckily got two songs in their national final because we were just writing songs for so many artists. And then we went to the final and we were like, oh, this feels like a big thing, why is it not big here? And then coming back and doing and asking for a magazine or a revision blog, and it came out saying Greg Watts thinks it's all Wogan's fault or something like this Get rid of Wogan. I liked Wogan but I felt the way he made comments about the revision made it kind of cheesy at home and Greg Lawton followed for quite a few years. It meant we as a country didn't really respect the revision, yet lots of other countries did. And then a few years passed and we forgot about it. And then we were back in Belgium, strangely on a Japanese camp and we watched Eurovision at the end of the camp and I really took note that the Japanese were fascinated. The whole of the other countries, the Danes, the Swedes, everyone was fascinated. The Brits all went back to their rooms and we watched it and we were quite well known for J-pop camps. At that point I remember being on the messenger to Pete and I watched A Million Voices the Russian one at that point and also Mons and we kind of said, well, why don't we do a Eurovision camp and just use the model? Because we were really inspired by it.
Speaker 2:Within a couple of weeks I was in Midden again and it was a great place to connect. Met, one of the publishers of A Million Voices said can you send your writer to a camp? August. We rehearsed the camp In August. We were housed in a camp with 35 people from around Europe. From that camp came our first Eurovision entry for Norway. So, and then we just carried on the formula.
Speaker 2:The next year we got two Poland and Czech Republic. The next year we got one another Polish one. In the meantime, we'd met Hugh Goldsmith, who was a UK A&R, and we started to do quite a lot with him and we'd got three in the UK final. I mean, I went from kind of the BBC net leaving opening an email to Hugh, suddenly opening the door. We were running to the camps room and we had seven songs out of twelve in two years back to back. We didn't win, but then Hugh left and he recommended me to the BBC as a music consultant. So in 2018.
Speaker 2:For 2019 year, I was a music consultant for the BBC, which was the steepest learning curve, but it was also the door opener, because everyone around the world was sending me songs for Eurovision because I was the UK one picking the songs. So it grew our reputation massively at that point. Then we had COVID. We didn't do very well, then we had COVID, then it kind of dipped a bit, but then we had quite a few more. We picked up the Eurovision campus again and we've now had 16 entries in 10 years, so we've become well-known for doing Eurovision Again.
Speaker 2:It was a market that in the UK no one cared about, so I was like well, let's go there because we can wrap up. Actually, since Sam Ryder and since we hosted, people are much more interested. We saw it as a competition you could launch off across Europe. So the first year I was there, justin Timberlake was there as the intro act and he knew full well that if he's on a show that shows 250 million people around the world, his song was number one the next day and it was so the record labels are now, I think, since Måneskin. Måneskin became so big that they you know, in America they don't even know it came through Eurovision. They're just a massive act. But record labels are now thinking, ok, we can launch our acts from this, even UK labels, which is why we're getting usually a higher calibre of artists entered.
Speaker 2:But lots of the other countries are taking it very, very seriously. Party centre, but lots of the other countries are taking it very, very seriously. If you launch in France and you've got no way out of France, eurovision could be a long way out of France or it could be just Belgium, holland, two or three other territories, but it does change your career. Suddenly, you've got more gigs, you've got wider scales. For us, it's a catalyst. It opens the door to places. My first entry in Poland Kasia Moss 2017. Within a year, we had several number ones in Poland, several artists doing acts, doing songs.
Speaker 1:Nothing to do with Eurovision, but I see into that territory. Yeah, ok, wow. Do you ever come across any barriers, such as you know, I know, certain countries? Is it true that there are certain rules about? You know you have to have X amount of percentage of the writers from that country, or does that differ quite a lot between countries?
Speaker 2:Difference between each country, and it changes each year. Latvia, for instance, is probably one that you might know, but they've gone from I think it was 66%. They're down to 51% this year, I think.
Speaker 1:Oh really yeah, I knew this yeah.
Speaker 2:Latvian lyric. Latvian composers or lyricists yeah.
Speaker 2:Swedish, you have to have one writer on who's Swedish? Ah, some people. Swiss, in a sense. They would prefer a Swiss writer or a Swiss artist, but it's not always the same. But they do accept. If they get the international winning in Europe, they probably will accept it. So each country has a different role and it has changed. This current year, 2025 can't remember what percentage it was, but it was a very high percentage of countries performing in their own language, which was five years ago, two or three in a sense. So it's harder to get in in English, in a sense, because countries didn't. I don't know Poland did it, but definitely did it in Latvian. Yeah, I remember they did. So you're up against that as well. But yeah, I guess that's just up against that as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess that's just the cultural shifts as well in recent years. More you know on Netflix, there's more films with you know, with native language, rather you know. So I guess that's just a thing, isn't it? But that's really really interesting. So you kind of you know, you use Eurovision as a tool to give an artist a leg up, just as much as you know an independent music publisher that's looking to plug songs. It's kind of both of those two things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we find artists who want to do Eurovision. And then we found an artist in Luxembourg, for instance, called Crick, who's a phenomenal artist, and we signed her to make her an album, signed her to publishing, signed her to make her an album, signed her to publishing, signed her to record luck, you know. So we were releasing her singles.
Speaker 2:She didn't make it to Eurovision, she came second. She will do one year, we'll get her in one year because she's wow, but it has to be sort of right time, right song. But we're making her an album, releasing her album, and so you find people through this avenue as well. It doesn't have to be about just Eurovision. I think as well, one of the most successful songs from Eurovision in the last few years, the most successful one, is Arcade by Duncan Lawrence, which did win. But the next most successful was a song called Slip.
Speaker 2:I can't remember which country it was, at least in a European country, but it finished like between 19th and 21st, but it's gone over a billion streams because it's sort of basically very simple. You've got TikTok and it's gone absolutely ballistic, so you don't actually have to win Eurovision to become successful Interesting. So we published by Blanka, which was Poland 2023, has over 100 million streams. There was a hit in Poland, but that's one of the biggest ones in Eurovision history, I think. I think again, it finished 17thth, 18th, but it streamed really well and it spotified really well and it ticked off really well and there's been loads of usage. We had some 2020. We had a song called Cleopatra, which did make it to the revision but then didn't, because it got cancelled. And then this year the Swiss decided to put on four or five of the songs that didn't make it because of COVID. So we were on one of the semifinals and that has been tick-tocked all over the place since. Has it really? Again?
Speaker 2:we're not sure how much money it's going to make us, but it's going to make someone some money because it's I was looking it up the other day, it was 30 million likes, millions of comments because it's been used in makeup ranges and things like that. So if you get your right song in the right place and then you own the master as well, you can actually also earn quite a lot of money from it. But also, as a you know that artist who did Slip again I've got it was something like Lithuania or Estonia. There's no way she was coming out of that country without Eurovision. Eurovision was one spark, but then it led to the TikTok spark.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, wow. Interesting. Just goes to show, doesn't it? You never know, with song copyrights it might be. You know, you face this crushing disappointment, you know, five years ago, and all of a sudden, five years on, right, no, that song's got a new lease of life. Now you know, I think that's one of the things that, as a music publisher, you probably see, that a lot more than say on the recorded side of music for a record company, you know.
Speaker 2:I mean we can say that we published one of your songs, didn't? We find it 10 years after? Yeah, so it just shows you a catalogue can sit there and suddenly comes off. I remember being told by a Japanese partner don't do any reggae, Japanese don't write reggae. And then two years later one of our reggae songs was featured on an act called Arashi and it sold a million and a half copies Because there's one act in Japan. So Arashi had one singer who does every album they do, but every album they do. Two of the singers do a solo and he happens to like reggae. So we're just not lucky. Sometimes it's just you like everything aligns and gosh. A lot of times you have everything aligning and then suddenly it doesn't, so you just have to go with the flow of it all.
Speaker 1:The rules are there to be broken, aren't they?
Speaker 2:Yes, there was a team that I had, which was about 12, which was also similar, just found in the catalogue, got cut and it was just like, wow, that's a nice surprise. So you never know.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's fascinating. Yeah, because I've noticed one of your sub publishers that has like a the uh, what's it? They call the reignite project, right, taking songs almost kind of maybe got somewhere or that have potential, and let's look at reigniting them a few years later, you know, which is a really interesting concept. Um, has that proved to be fruitful for them?
Speaker 2:yeah, because I think what you do as a publisher is you pitch the latest songs because you can only. I mean, I've been doing this 20 odd years now, so I can only. My brain does not have capacity to remember thousands and thousands of songs. I'm not bad, but, um, you know, you don't remember the ones forever, forever back. So by having this really nice idea, you, we sort of get the writers to also remember their songs. So when there's a new lead, of course we're pitching new songs at it, but it might be there's one or two which actually really fit from a certain era.
Speaker 2:I had something recently and they were looking for sort of like 2008 songs and it was like well, I can just look back at our catalogue and just say, with this 2008, there's an era we were doing that type of song and just pitched a few of those. Of course, some people did some new versions of it, but there was definitely really it does go in circles. Yeah, you know, I remember pitching it Lady Gaga, very big, probably about that time, maybe 2010, and then going off a bit, and then something 2017, 2018, she's back again and you can pitch some of those songs from 2010. She's still got the same sort of feel, yeah.
Speaker 1:The modern touch, interesting, wow. So let's talk about songwriters. Right, you are a songwriter. That's how you became a music publisher and everything else that you do. What attributes do you look for in writers?
Speaker 2:Now I look for people that are obviously good at songwriting they're not, but mainly it's looking at people who are honest, hungry and driven and I can teach you bits and you go off and do bits yourself. And also team players. We always talk about football. I'm very into coaching football teams Very much and Maria, one of our analysts. She actually hosts the Swedish Premier side. She's got a TV host for them In a football team girls football. So we see our publishing roster.
Speaker 2:As a football team, we don't want 12 strikers. We need two or three strikers and defenders and midfielders, but they all do need to be team players. They all need to help each other in order to push in the same direction. I believe very much winning as a team is much better than winning on your own. Actually, losing as a team is better than winning on your own. I've been on occasions where I've sat in a room and I've won some national final and it's like who am I celebrating with, whereas when I've lost it, you're commemorating and you're saying we've been on a journey at least. It's not as fun as winning, but actually I've got people to be with to celebrate the actual journey we went on. So I guess what I'm looking for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, team players, hungry, driven, obviously, people that also kind of business mind and watch the market and know how it works and that bit can be taught and that's what we do a lot in the mentorship. I don't teach you about the right songs. I turn them from looking at they've got a really good song, there's no market for it, says where's the market for that song? Or come. You're right, so it's for a market.
Speaker 2:Once people were doing that, I did a did a course called Business of Writing for Eurovision this year and it was really good because I was saying it felt afterwards and equipped a whole lot of people to go and do what I've been doing, which is going and finding artists and doing this. So suddenly people are coming back to me and going well, I found this artist and we've got to see the next growth and people will come back to me and going well, I found this artist. So we've got to spread people who come back to you and just, you know you can build them up. You don't need to give them everything Mentorship at the beginning. I think we've given a lot, but as it goes, you're really, they should only come back to you for a small bit of advice once you've let them go on their own. But they're still loyal because you've given them everything in the start. So I think there's a lot of people that build up.
Speaker 1:By the way, I love the football analogy, by the way, Greg, that's thoroughly approved of the team analogy. That's brilliant. Well, actually, you've actually alluded to the final thing I wanted to ask you about, greg, which is your mentoring.
Speaker 1:I think that sometimes in the music industry, the mentoring process is often either overlooked or lacking in certain key areas. You know, like, one of the things that I often ask emerging songwriters is you know, what is your expectation of, let's say, a music publisher? You know, and they might say a music publisher, you know, and they might say something oh, you know feedback. And then I'll say well, you know, you're not always going to get feedback on your songs. It doesn't really always work like that. Yes, it would be really really useful. But like what? I think?
Speaker 1:What songwriters really benefit from and I'm preaching to the converted when I say this to you, greg, because you're the master at it right which is actually mentoring people on how to inform their approaches to creativity and kind of going right, let me learn more about that marketplace over there that needs songs. Instead of writing songs for people that don't need songs, that can write their own, let me learn a little bit more about this emerging market over here, or this territory over here, or this country, or this type of artists, or how to write for a group or any of those kind of things. You've started a mentorship program and it's already started producing some really good results, so I wanted to congratulate you for that, greg, so I think it's a really, really, really cool achievement. Um so uh is will you be doing more of that in the future? You know, are there opportunities there for people to learn from you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we do. Actually, we started it just over three years ago now and I've done 11 rounds, the 12th round starting next week, september. And I find it probably the most rewarding part of what I've ever done, in some senses, because I guess I learned, I don't know. 10 years ago I did a strengths finder thing and I learned not only am I a communicator and this and that, but my development skill set was like wow, okay, so I'm at my best when I see someone develop and I'm developing them. That's why I've gone into football coaching and why I've done this. It makes sense. So, because I'm happy doing it. Um, so we've done it and we've just defined and refined it. I guess, over the over the 11 goes, there's been 93 people go through it now. Um, we try and get sort of nine, six to nine people at a time, so there's like a journey for three or four months together, but, um, yeah, that's going to continue until I think it doesn't isn't needed anymore, but I think it's. It feels like it's always going to be needed.
Speaker 2:And one of the things I kind of realized is people forget coaching is really important. You know, and I, you know, they have a coach for going to the gym. You know a gym instructor or someone, and it's about accountability. The biggest thing is about are you accountable? So I did physio for my back. I was very good. I did my physio most of the time, apart from when I went back to work and wasn't quite as good as it, but still good. And unfortunately he signed me off on Friday.
Speaker 2:I say unfortunately because actually I needed the accountability I was doing it and I noticed already I've dropped doing it as much so by having a coach who says are we doing it? And my sister's a great example of this. She had a fitness coach and she was always ringing up saying I'm not coming today and then he moved in next door to her. So when she rings up and says I'm not coming, he comes and knocks on the door, says are you sure? So having a coach to just kind of push you and say I'm here and have you done this and have you done that, but also have a mentorship group where you're accountable to'm here and have you done this and have you done that, but also have a mentorship group where you're accountable to the group and they're accountable to you. We see people go from writing two songs a year to writing 60 songs a year because they're suddenly in this momentum where it's like you've jumped in a running water the way you float, so and actually some stop at the end and disappear. Most carry on, but then once they disappear, you think why did you come in this flow of room, get loads of stuff and then disappear? So that's something we just do that for. But actually the majority stay in it. Yeah, you do something else, but the majority stay and connect and keep in the flow and it actually becomes easier to do it because first course I did have nine, and then who could I put them with? But now I've got I can still use the people from the previous courses who are still looking for co-writers, and you've got all these people to connect with and you've got them to produce. I've got some of them course seven that I can bring in. So there's a never ending cycle of people wanting to co-write and learn and I think, as a coach, people forget that the coaching part is important. When I do see it work, when I see people reading and like it and go along with it, I see it work properly.
Speaker 2:We do this networking thing on Thursdays as well, and once every month now I do it and that's gone from when we started to give about 20 people to. We average about 55, you know, and there's always about 10 to 15 new ones because people are recommending their friends. And what I did at the beginning of the mentorship was I noticed that nearly every summer I saw interviews, said they felt isolated. So all I needed to do is go well, I'm a connector, let's get this isolated people and put all of us more isolated people and suddenly they're connected. So the networking has grown. You know, people come in and go. I'm coming back to this because I feel connected to everyone. That's so nice.
Speaker 2:Well, I think, as songwriters, connection is one of them and I think I was going on songwriting camps and I remember going to Cote d'Ivoire, in Spain, las Negras, coming back feeling very, very connected but almost then like, oh, now what? I don't feel connected at all and I learned just to keep connecting with the people, even if it's online or whatever. I think, as songwriters, you need those connections. You need the spark from someone else. You have a dry day, you go in the room with someone else. They're sparking something up, drying. Vice versa.
Speaker 1:It's really hard to just sort of sit down and come up with something yeah, I think, especially when there's an intermediary like your good self that you know, will that you know, because invariably you might have those moments you go oh, she worked really well with her over there, but they don't know each other. So let's do it. And that's one of the hallmarks of being a good music publisher, right, is that ability to kind of connect and go. What happens if you guys spend some time in a room? What could you come up with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why, again, when I was in Spain doing the camps, people were saying, well, how did you know to put us two together? I said, well, I was not. I was at dinner. I was watching you two have this amazingly deep conversation and it was very simple You've just connected, you don't need to explain yourself in the morning. So those song camps, we have a smaller one at the end of our mentorship where they all stay in the house for nine Sorry, nine of them stay in the house for four or five days. But they also had a video journey where they've got to know each other for 90 days. So by the end of it they're like best friends and actually they want to work and be in a team together and they don't have to sit and explain about their story in the morning to write a song, because they're connecting over dinner. They're connected over breakfast. So it's very simple. I am.
Speaker 2:I had a quite a major publisher. A big publisher approached me a couple of years ago. Um, me and maria had an meeting with them. Halfway through they said can you, can you explain to us how you do? You know, how do you create sessions for your writers? And we come, sat there and looked at each other and went isn't that just what you're supposed to do as a publisher? Publishers have gone so much into admin they've forgotten how to be creative.
Speaker 2:You know and this for me, actually in Las Negras, towards the end of I've been doing it for eight years people are like why don't you write at Las Negras? And I'm like do you know what my creativity is? From making the teams, from inspiring them in the morning, and then someone comes up with Cleopatra. You know, you can hear what you've been saying during the songs. So creativity isn't just sitting down and writing. My creativity is at the end. I can say eight teams a day and six of them work really well. And a lot of that was because I was thinking about who to put in the right place. Some of the best teams you put in. How enough did that not work? Just the people in the wrong place, the wrong day. You know mindset that day, but generally it's just as creative coming out, going well, things worked and I was just on the catalyst and that's it.
Speaker 1:That's brilliant, I mean. I mean, I've seen you in action and you're a master of it, mate. You really are. It's really interesting to hear your mindset towards it all. Greg, thank you for joining me here today. Good luck with absolutely everything that you're doing for yourself and for other people. And, yeah, much appreciated man, thank you for having me. Good luck with absolutely everything that you're doing for yourself and for other people. And, yeah, much appreciated man, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, I really enjoyed talking to Greg. I always enjoy talking to him, but it was really nice to kind of just hear his perspective right, his mindset on his approach to work. I mean, one of the things that also came across, I think, in the interview was you know quite how modest he is. You know he talks about luck and whatnot, but one of the things that I've observed in the music industry over the years is that, you know, luck is one of those things that happens as long as you put yourself in a place where it can happen. And Greg's been all over the world right making things happen and connecting people. That's one of the ways in which DWB have had so much success over the years is his ability to be able to piece people together. He's also very, very, very good at bringing the very best out of people.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, that's Greg. Now you know who he is. Now you know who DWB Music is, which is good, because there's another episode coming up very soon which features an interview with one of their new A&Rs that works in the K-pop market. So that's an episode that's coming out soon as well, but until then, I hope you've enjoyed listening to Greg. I hope you enjoyed the interview and feel uplifted from the things that he shared. Okay, until next time. Everybody, have a great day and may the force be with you.
