News October 18, 2019

BMG inks global deal with Wollongong’s Farmer & The Owl

The globe’s fourth biggest music publisher has inked a partnership with Wollongong-based independent label Farmer & The Owl to help export its acts, like Hockey Dad, Bad//Dreems, globally.

Heath Johns, Managing Director of BMG Australia, said:

“Ben and Jeb have established Farmer & The Owl as one of the finest independent labels in Australia and built a genuinely inspiring roster of established and developing talent. BMG is beyond excited to welcome F&O into our family of labels, and we look forward to amplifying their vision on a global level”.

heath johns BMG australia black and white

BMG’s Heath Johns

Ben Tillman and Jeb Taylor founded the Farmer & The Owl label in 2014 with the sole vision to build their hometown’s music scene. Farmer & The Owl released of the debut EP from Hockey Dad, whose latest album, Blend Inn, debuted at number six on the ARIA charts and scored four entries into triple j’s annual Hottest 100 countdown.

Farmer & The Owl, which got its name from the names of Jeb’s record shop Music Farmers, and Ben’s café/music venue Yours & Owls, has grown to become a venue booking agent, a label, and a promoter with the boutique Farmer & The Owl Festival, and the major two-day festival in Wollongong, Yours & Owls.

Yours & Owls 2019 was staged earlier this month to 20,000 people. The lineup featured Amy Shark, Golden Features, Courtney Barnett, and Hot Dub Time Machine.

Jeb Taylor, co-founder of Farmer & The Owl, said:

“We originally started the Farmer & The Owl label with the intention to help artists from our local area release their music to a wider audience after we’d witnessed a wealth of talent being overlooked. As those artists have grown over the last few years it has now developed into a full label operation.

“We are now really excited to partner with BMG for the next phase of this development in taking Farmer & The Owl to an international market,” Taylor added. “We had many discussions about the direction and future partnerships for the label and found that BMG were closely aligned with our vision and offered the best opportunities available for our stable of artists”.

Bad//Dreems. Credit: Ian Laidlaw

Farmer & The Owl and BMG have wasted no time in kicking off the partnership. Today sees the global release of Doomsday Ballet, the third LP by Adelaide’s Bad//Dreems.

The record’s second single ‘Morning Rain’ has received multiple plays on BBC’s Radio 1 and the band kick off a headline national tour starting on 25 October, followed by another UK tour in support of The Chats later this year.

Check out ‘Morning Rain’ by Bad//Dreems:

2020 will see Farmer & The Owl/BMG release Hockey Dad’s third album, and we can expect more global releases from F&O’s roster, which includes The Pinheads, Totally Unicorn, TEES, Tropical Strength and Bec Sandridge.

Farmer & The Owl’s label artists join a growing and enviable roster over at BMG. It features Aussie acts Dune Rats, The Living End, The Gooch Palms, and Dead Letter Circus; and international acts through BMG’s ties with Infectious (alt-J, RY X), Rise (At The Drive In, Of Mice & Men), S-Curve (Andy Grammer), Broken Bow (Jason Aldean, Dustin Lynch) and RBC (Chief Keef, Waka Flocka Flame).