Lindsay Rimes is the first country songwriter to enter APRA AMCOS’ billionaire club
Lindsay Rimes collects a slice of history with his induction into APRA AMCOS’ The 1,000,000,000 List.
Raised in Sydney, now based in Nashville, the hitmaking songwriter and producer enters the elite circle for co-writing Kane Brown’s 2017 hit ‘Heaven,’ which passes one billion streams across all platforms.
With that particular feat, Rimes is the first inductee to be honoured for a country song.
‘Heaven’ is a project that came from up above.
Lifted from Brown’s self-titled debut album, the single was the result of a collaboration at a songwriting retreat hosted by Sony Music Publishing, during which Rimes was teamed-up with co-writers Shy Carter and Mark McGinn.
Produced by Dan Huff, the recording went to No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart; No. 2 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart; and No. 15 on the all-genre, all-format Hot 100 chart.
‘Heaven’ also hopped borders by hitting triple-platinum in Canada.
Stream Kane Brown’s ‘Heaven’
In an interview with TIO published in 2018, Rimes explained how the magic happens in the studio. Put it down to a touch of mystery, and a lot of hard work.
“I’m writing songs every day. As part of my writing process, I produce the demos. It’s a relatively new thing in Nashville, maybe over the last five years, where you’ve seen guys like myself who have a production background and a songwriting background,” he explained.
Rimes enters the studio at around 9:30am, and the writing sessions will start around 11am.
“Usually I’ll sit down with my guitar with the other cowriters and we’ll start playing and figuring out what kind of song to write,” he continued. “As we start digging in, I’ll start building the track.”
Writing every day and doing a demo every day “it’s like making a record every day. It builds up. A lot of guys with my skills are backlogged. We might be 5-6 deep, sometimes 20.”
Lindsay Rimes, Kylie Minogue and Phil Barton
Rimes threw his energies into music-making when an injury cut short his rugby career.
Rugby’s loss was music’s gain, as Rimes went on to work with include Busby Marou on their 2016 APRA Music Award-winner ‘Days of Gold’, the title track from Kylie Minogue’s U.K. No. 1 album Golden, Troye Sivan’s ‘Fun’; and releases by Lo Cash, Luke Bryan, Tyler Rich and many others.
He received the Overseas Recognition Award at the 2019 APRA Music Awards.
“We’ve been cheering Lindsay on over the years and couldn’t be prouder of all that he has achieved both at home and in Nashville,” comments APRA AMCOS Chief Executive Dean Ormston.
Rimes is published by Sony Music Publishing, through a deal struck in 2016 with the publishing giant’s Nashville arm.
Josh Van Valkenburg, Sony Music Publishing, Executive Vice President, Nashville A&R, adds: “Lindsay Rimes proved, once again, that he is a hitmaker on any continent. ‘Heaven’ was a massive song for Kane Brown and country music, and we are proud to represent Lindsay in all of his successes.”
The 1,000,000,000 List is based on streaming numbers from all major services including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, YouTube Music, Vevo, Amazon, and others.
To date, 35 songs have received the award, said to be the first of its kind to recognise a songwriter’s achievement.
Read the full list here.
This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.