Dave Stewart signs wide-ranging deal with BMG

PRESS RELEASE:

Musician, songwriter and creative entrepreneur Dave Stewart has reached a wide-ranging agreement with Bertelsmann-owned new model music company BMG which will embrace not just music, but book and TV content and a string of other innovative projects.

The deal plays to BMG’s strength as the only music company to be integrated into a full-service global media business. It will also utilize Stewart’s skills as a creative entrepreneur to generate new synergies between BMG’s sister companies.

Under the multi-faceted deal:

• BMG will exclusively administer music publishing rights to Dave Stewart’s solo work including his work with fellow BMG writer Mick Jagger (the Golden Globe-winning ‘Old Habits Die Hard’ on the Alfie soundtrack), Superheavy (‘Miracle Worker’), No Doubt (‘Underneath It All’), Eurythmics (‘I’ve Got a Life’), Stevie Nicks (‘In Your Dreams’) and Joss Stone (‘Karma’), as well as his future work;

• This includes songs he has co-written with artists on his own label such as Thomas Lindsey, The Lake Poets, Hollie Stephenson and Shel, and the latest single by his daughter Kaya Stewart ‘In Love With A Boy’, named this week as the hottest new record at US Pop radio;

• BMG will administer rights in all contestants’ songs from the forthcoming prime-time NBC songwriting talent show Songland, created by Dave Stewart and co-produced by Dave Stewart and The Voice producer Audrey Morrissey;

• New American Library, a division of sister Bertelsmann company Penguin Random House will publish Dave Stewart’s long-awaited autobiography next year;

• Dave Stewart will record a live concert programme for Berlin Live, BMG’s collaboration with pan-European cultural television broadcaster Arte;

• Creative social network Talenthouse, in which Dave Stewart is the Creative Director and investor, is working with BMG to create new remixes of tracks from the seminal Trojan Records reggae catalogue as well as working on a documentary for this iconic Label.

• Stewart will act as a brand ambassador for BMG, responsible for driving new business opportunities through his extensive network, both to BMG and its sister Bertelsmann companies.

Dave Stewart
picture credit: Paul Boyd

BMG EVP International Writer Services Thomas Scherer said, “Dave Stewart is not only one of the supreme writers, artists and producers of the past three decades, he is a polymath active right across the entertainment industry with a unique ability to tap into the zeitgeist and to communicate with fellow artists. We are delighted he has decided to partner with BMG.”

Dave Stewart said, “BMG takes music publishing on to a new level. It’s creative, transparent and fair and no other music company can offer a multi-platform deal like this. Many companies talk about synergy, but few have pulled it off. BMG is a new company with a new approach, but at heart it’s a music company which really understands artists.”

BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch said, “Dave Stewart’s enormous range of accomplishments is a reminder that in our connected world, music no longer exists in its own self-contained bubble. With the backing of Bertelsmann, BMG is committed to helping artists and writers capitalize on the vast number of opportunities now open to them.”