A Letter from Our CEO

A letter from Our CEO

Before anything, thank you for showing interest in Symphonic and taking the time to read this letter.

I, just like the rest of our team members are incredibly honored to be able to work for artists, musicians, record labels, managers, songwriters, and more all over the world, a responsibility that we take very serious.

I will try and be brief and ensure that I don’t bore you along the way.

When people ask me what makes Symphonic different from other distributors, here’s what I believe and what I say:

First, we are truly independent.

We’re not owned by a major record label. We’re not the so-called “independent” arm of a huge corporation. That means we have the flexibility to work with who we want to. It also means we can challenge the status quo.

Second, we will give it to you straight.

It’s hard to “make it” in music. I know, because I started Symphonic back in 2006 to distribute my own releases. Now, we’ve helped a lot of clients gain traction, breakthrough, and even become superstars… but we’re not going to tell you it’s easy. It turns out, money is not the answer to every challenge in music. If there’s something you should be doing differently or something you should consider, we’re going to tell you, and we’re going to help you get better results with our resources, our team, our network, and our experience. But we’re not going to give you false hope or BS.

Third, we have a personal touch.

We are focused on our clients’ careers and their content. At Symphonic, you will talk to a Symphonic employee, not a “bot” or an overseas contractor. Everyone who has been in the industry awhile knows an artist who has gotten a big sales pitch from a major label, signed on the dotted line, and now they can’t get their emails and calls returned. If your application is accepted, you’ll have personal relationships with the Symphonic team. We’re not going to go “ghost” on you!

It hasn't been easy and it never will be.

Now that we are an established player in the industry, I’ll admit that building Symphonic up from scratch was tough as hell. You see, we’re artists and record labels just like you. We know how hard it is to get a business and a brand off the ground and we’ve done a lot of great things but, as a company, we’ve made mistakes too. When you’re going all in, sometimes you try or test things that don’t work out. I know that every musician, manager, record label, and artist can identify with that. It truly takes time, hard work, blood, sweat, tears, you name it! All of that to become something and to make an impact.

Music keeps evolving.

We’ve seen the industry go from physical to downloads and now, downloads to streaming. It has been a truly remarkable experience for me to have seen this and serve many clients that have been with us since day one and that continue to be with us to this day.

With the evolution of our industry over the past 15 years, it is amazing to see that the music industry today is truly growing for the first time in many years. All of that growth should really be attributed to artists and in my view, independent artists for helping to democratize and create a new industry.

Distribution is easy, but it's only step one.

As the industry has grown, it has attracted more distributors, given the relatively low barriers to entry around creating a basic distribution platform. Many of these new companies have taken the “volume discount” approach, offering distribution, but not much else, for a ridiculously low price. That’s a good way to attract tens of thousands of users to your website, but I am left wondering how any small company can provide a high level of service to so many “clients.”

We actually think cheap distribution is super expensive. Ask yourself, what’s the true cost of not having a trusted and highly competent team pitching your music to playlist curators at Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, TIDAL, Beatport, and others? What’s the true cost of not being able to get ahold of a trusted advisor to your career when you need an important question answered?

Distribution is easy. Getting 10 million+ streams requires a team.

So the question becomes, who is the right team for your record label? For your career? For your artists?

It Takes A Team.

Everyone that is independent, whether artist or label, needs a solid team to maximize their brand, sound, social media strategy, video strategy, and more in today’s crowded music industry.

Since day one, our plan has been to build a strong team, enhance our technology, and ensure that record labels and artists have the personal touch and customer service that it takes to build great relationships. Today, I am happy to report that our team is growing and that we’ve re-launched our public identity to highlight what’s important to us as the industry evolves.

Finally, if you are still with me, I felt compelled to close this out on a topic of guarantees. We often hear false promises given to clients from previous relationships that they have had. This is what we as a company will guarantee you.

Symphonic will always:

Understand our responsibility. We are being trusted with art and it is important that we always work hard to ensure that art is heard and seen by as many individuals all over the world.
Never over promise what we cannot deliver. We will only promise you that we will work hard for you every single day that we are able to.
Work hard to be sustainable. We’re not looking to build a business just to be big, we want to build a business that can reinvent, reshape, and reinvest to provide a better experience for you every single day.
Hire and build the best team that we can. Symphonic’s team is not just for Symphonic. It’s mainly for you. Competitors haven’t always been fair to hard working individuals that have built them. We will work hard to ensure that we’re bringing aboard and taking care of the best music industry executives and managers to ensure that you are supported by a truly incredible team and that they have the tools to help you be successful.

Show you results. We aren’t doing this for fun. We’re doing this to help you expand your reach and to help you grow and that only happens with us delivering results to help you achieve that.
Be selective. While this may scare off a few of you, we want to ensure that we can work with artists, labels, and managers that we feel we can truly help, that are talented, and that are dedicated to doing what it takes to be successful in this industry.
Seek to distribute and promote the best music possible. Whether you make Hip Hop, Latin, Electronic, Country, Jazz, or anything that you feel is unique, we will be here to distribute and market the best and most quality driven music possible.
Continue to invest in creating incredible technology. We want to give you as much transparency, ease of use, and personal touch as possible. If we can’t build it today, we’ll find a way to get you what you need.

From our CEO