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On the latest Music Business Worldwide Podcast, MBW founder, Tim Ingham, interviews Aaron Bay-Schuck, the CEO and co-Chairman of Warner Records in Los Angeles.
Right now, Warner Records is on fire like no other time in its recent history. It’s seeing blockbuster success from several artists who, according to Bay-Schuck, are all true artist propositions – in this industry for the long-term, rather than just a quick streaming or TikTok hit.
These artists include the likes of Teddy Swims, Benson Boone, Dua Lipa, and – not least – country star Zach Bryan, whose No.1 US single, I Remember Everything (feat. Kacey Musgraves), continues to bounce around the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100… despite being released last summer.
Alongside his fellow co-Chairman, Tom Corson, Aaron Bay-Schuck last year led Warner Records to become the fourth biggest frontline record company in the US. According to Billboard, Warner Records’ current US market share jumped by 110 basis points in 2023, up to 5.96% from 4.86% in 2022.
Bay-Schuck’s industry story before Warner was an interesting journey – from being a junior at the A&R team of Atlantic Records, where he signed Bruno Mars, through to becoming President of A&R at Interscope, where he worked with the likes of Imagine Dragons, Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani, and Selena Gomez.
For Bay-Schuck, his more recent success with Zach Bryan and co. isn’t evidence of Warner Records suddenly becoming a ‘hot’ label. In his eyes, it’s evidence of a patient, long-term, and consistent A&R strategy.
Read an abridged/edited version of the Q&A below, or listen to the podcast above…
We’ve seen some real consistency of success from Warner Records over the last six to 12 months, particularly in the most recent months. What’s the secret behind that?
I would sum it all up with two things: patience and unwavering commitment.
When I say that, I mean patience and commitment from our artists, from this label. When I got here five-plus years ago, I was selling a vision that [meant] we may appear to be cold for a while, but if we are doing our jobs properly, we would wake up five years into this adventure with several of the biggest songs and artists in the world.
What that boils down to is all of these artists signed up for a journey. We told them very clearly that we are a label that doesn’t skip steps, that we like to take the long road to success, because we think on the other side of that road is a really strong foundation that allows you to have a very long, healthy, sustained career.
And that’s not always the easiest thing for artists to hear. They want to be successful. They want to be successful quickly. But… they have subscribed to this plan of taking your time, building a fan base, building a core, releasing a lot of music, and therefore earning their way into the landscape of having hits rather than anybody consider[ing] it a fluke or a moment of virality.
“We are a label that doesn’t skip steps… we like to take the long road to success, because we think on the other side of that road is a really strong foundation that allows you to have a very long, healthy, sustained career.”
Aaron Bay-Schuck, Warner Records
And so it’s no surprise to me to see Zach Bryan and Teddy Swims and Benson Boone all having significant wins at the same time. And although their path to success has moved at different paces, you really see that all of these artists were patient and committed to the process and they found beauty in that process. And I don’t think anyone can look at the success any of those three acts or others on our roster have and consider it a fluke, and that’s why we’re in a really privileged position.
I really think what’s happening with Warner Records is a real testament to the culture and spirit of Warner Music Group too. As demanding as [Warner Music Group Recorded Music CEO] Max Lousada is as a boss, the fact [is] he was willing to give us the space, and he had the patience to allow our thesis statement of signing early and doing the development work.
He supported us, he block-tackled for us when I’m sure people were starting to get a little impatient, and so hats off to him and hats off to the Warner Music Group for allowing this kind of story to develop.
Was there any panic during those years you were building the roster? Were you asking, ‘Is this going to pay off? Have I done the right thing here? Should I have signed more short-term viral tracks?’
I don’t know that I would go so far as to call it panic, because – having a front-row seat to what we were developing – I was always extremely confident that the roster was really special. Maybe perhaps the rest of the industry and the world didn’t know that yet, but I certainly knew what we had and believed in it.
So I would call [that period] more ‘very antsy’! Maybe, at times, I wished that the artist development process could be expedited, but I always remembered at the end of the day, you can’t microwave it.
So were there ever moments of panic? No. Did the desire to get hot a little faster inform our A&R decision-making process? Yes, definitely from time to time. But ultimately, our confidence in what we were building never really wavered.
Is there a throughline in terms of the type of artists that you want to sign to Warner Records, and what does that tell us about the identity of the label?
I’m a student of the business and I always considered Mo Ostin [to be] one of the greatest record company heads in history. And when you look back at the roster he created during his tenure, along with his team, that’s when you start to see a throughline that we wanted to recreate under myself and Tom [Corson]’s leadership.
If you look at any of those acts – that range from Tom Petty to Fleetwood Mac to Madonna to Green Day and the [Red Hot] Chili Peppers… they were all fearless. They were all incredibly unique. They all took risks. They all had something to say and there was just never anything traditional about them. And that’s what we wanted today’s Warner Records roster to represent.
“I had lunch with Mo Ostin just before starting, and I asked him, ‘How did you keep your run going for so long?’ And he said, ‘Look, I wish I could give you some crazy, intelligent answer but there really wasn’t any secret sauce.’ He was like, Just sign incredible talent, Nurture that talent, Give them the space to develop at their own pace.”
I had lunch with Mo Ostin just before starting, and I asked him, ‘How did you keep your run going for so long?’ And he said, ‘Look, I wish I could give you some crazy, intelligent answer but there really wasn’t any secret sauce.’ He was like, Just sign incredible talent. Nurture that talent. Give them the space to develop at their own pace, but also know when to lean in and provide support and create a culture at a company where your artists feel incredibly safe, where the art and the artists are prioritized, and create a culture within the company that is all about supporting those acts.
That’s ultimately what the throughline is with all of [Warner Records’ modern] acts: they truly are best-in-class talents who have very clear visions about who they are.
Zach Bryan is a big talent with a big impact on a younger generation, but he doesn’t seem to be what people necessarily think of as a ‘major label artist’. How did you discover Zach, and how did you come to sign him?
I’ve got to shout out to two A&R executives, Miles Gersh and Stefan Max. The two of them together introduced me to Zach Bryan and his music.
Miles initially found Zach through a data angle, and Stefan found him through a fan. Stefan has since gone on to join Zach as his co-manager, along with Danny Kang. And Miles is here thriving as the day-to-day A&R for Zach.
When they first shared his music with me, [Zach] had put out a couple of independent albums. He was doing about 1-2 million streams a week, which is evidence that something is working, but not a particularly explosive data story. But to our ears, Zach’s music was undeniable. From the very first listen, we were all absolutely floored by the quality, in love with the poetry, his use of lyrics, his melodies.
And then we got on the phone with Zach. And what we discovered was, he was incredibly confident. He was incredibly clear on who he is. You could tell very quickly that Zach was going to be unwavering in how he wanted to move as an artist. And that’s something we always want to see; labels always will do a better job if the artist is front and center and leads the charge in describing the world that they want to be creating around their music.
“Labels always will do a better job if the artist is front and center and leads the charge in describing the world that they want to be creating around their music.”
Aaron Bay-Schuck, Warner Records
More than anything, what gave us the confidence that Zach had the potential to be a really significant artist, was that he had built this following, albeit a small one, while being an active enlisted member of the Navy. He had never actually done a show, he had never actually touched his fans. He had never met them. Everything had been created from afar, with Zach just picking up the guitar, singing, posting videos on YouTube. [But] the fandom was very real.
They weren’t streaming Zach Bryan for any one or two particular songs – these albums were being consumed. And that is something we don’t see very often, and something we know we can scale.
What we’re all watching is very historic. The rise Zach has had from never having done a show to launching a stadium tour three years into being signed here, is just phenomenal. But he deserves it. He’s truly a generational talent.
There was a moment there, which coincided with you taking the helm at Warner Records, where the industry seemed to be prioritizing viral hits. A lot of these artists who were signed off their social media virality haven’t really developed into true artist propositions. Has the industry matured beyond that? What is your view, when you look back on that period?
It was a bit of a scary period, to be thrust into the role that I was in here at this company, where we had such reinvention to do on the A&R side, and to be having to do that while in real-time the industry is also shifting dramatically in how it discovers talent, how it pursues it, all of that. That was a challenging thing to get our head around.
I feel we at Warner Records really never wavered from our commitment to real artist development. On the one hand, that was because we just don’t believe it should be done any other way. And on the other hand, coming into this company five years ago, we really couldn’t be competitive on the data-driven signings that everybody was trying to close. We didn’t have enough success to point to, to show artists why we would be a better option than some of the other great labels out there.
So we had to sign early. We had to develop things naturally, we had to find the skill set of being patient and being committed to our acts.
“I think a lot of labels are seeing what we’ve been able to accomplish with some of the acts we’ve discussed, and are left thinking that perhaps… the instant gratification strategy wasn’t the right one, at least not for long-term success.”
Now that everybody has caught up to how to use TikTok and these other platforms, and how to interpret the data, it’s fair to say there has been a bit more of a migration [across the major labels] to using gut instinct and signing early. And a lot of labels are seeing what we’ve been able to accomplish with some of the acts we’ve discussed, and are left thinking that perhaps… the instant gratification strategy wasn’t the right one, at least not for long-term success.
A few years ago if you saw virality on a platform such as TikTok, you could more confidently predict how that would then migrate to consumption once a song came out. Now, it’s a bit harder to know. If there’s real pre-release traction, if there’s great ‘pre-search’, as we call it, it doesn’t necessarily mean that a song is going to come out the gates firing.
[That means] it’s very important to ask those additional questions to truly understand what it is that you’re signing. Is it just a song? Is it an artist proposition? How long has the artist been at this – do they have the skill-set to be successful once the viral period has waned?
All these things are coming into play in evaluating the types of artists that we sign, and I’m sure other labels do the same.
There’s a bit more of a hybrid process developing across most major labels. Data is now being used more to support and confirm our gut instincts rather than being the leader in determining what we go after.
Warner Music Group CEO, Robert Kyncl, recently suggested that major music companies and their frontline labels have never been more ‘relevant’ to the industry – despite the fact artists can do more independently these days than ever before. Do you agree with what he said?
Well obviously as the CEO of a major record company, I absolutely agree with Robert! And the truth is, he’s absolutely right.
There is no way to truly scale to become one of the biggest artists in the world without the infrastructure, relationships, financial capability, all of the things that a major record company can offer. Having an army is an indispensable thing.
“to truly be able to pull every lever required in the growth from an emerging act to a ‘broken’ superstar, you need a major record company.”
Can an independent artist have success on their own? Of course, we’re seeing it more and more frequently. But to truly be able to pull every lever required in the growth from an emerging act to a ‘broken’ superstar, you need a major record company. It’s just the truth.
Also our access to [A&R] data, our visibility into everything that’s happening out there in the world from a musical standpoint, is unmatched.
The skills that artists learn by releasing music independently – marketing and promoting it with just them and their team – are invaluable. [But] once you do sign to a major record company, if you decide to do that, and your major record company is doing those things at the same time, you’re increasing your chances of success tremendously.
This question is my favorite because it might get a different answer on a different day: If you could change one thing about the music business, if I gave you a magic wand you could tap to change one thing, what would it be and why?
I think today my answer would be about the ever-evolving deal landscape. What we’re seeing is, because all the labels are aware of all the different things that are moving out there due to our access to all the data and analytics and the tools we use to find new talent, it’s making it that much more competitive.
It’s driving up the price of deals… In such madness to sign, you’re given such little time to develop real relationships with artists and their teams. The [pay]checks are big, and it creates instantaneous pressure on both the label and the artist to perform quickly. It’s counter to an artist development philosophy in a lot of ways.
If you spend big money upfront, [that artist’s music] then needs to perform quite quickly for a label to be able to continue to reinvest, and I don’t think that’s ever a fair position to put an artist into. I don’t think it’s wrong for me to say that getting a lot of money upfront is a gift and a curse.
“If you spend big money up front, you need to then perform quite quickly for a label to be able to continue to reinvest, and I don’t think that’s ever a fair position to put an artist into.”
And… I don’t think it’s great for labels either. We at least get multiple shots; we sign lots of acts. Artists get one or two shots.
I never feel we’re doing our job correctly if we aren’t creating a world for artists where they can truly just care about their craft, that they’re going into the studio on any given day and they’re just there to make music.
In sports… there are all sorts of ways for athletes to hone their skills before they’re really ready for primetime. Yet in the music business, you can have a kid who made their first song in their bedroom, [the song] goes on to become huge, and all of a sudden you give them a seven-figure check. Then [the industry] puts this crazy schedule and level of expectation around them, and they’re not ready for it.
That’s a really unfortunate part of the business.
I want to go back to the start of your career, when you were a junior in the A&R department at Atlantic Records. As I understand, you signed Bruno Mars, but it took years and you stuck with him outside the company before you actually got ink on paper years later…
We started off this conversation [talking about how] patience and unwavering commitment have been the themes for Warner Records and our artists, and those were skills I learned all the way dating back to Bruno’s story.
I met him in a studio session, I think around 2005. I had built a good relationship with another songwriter named Phil Lawrence, and Phil was in the studio with me working on some records for some acts on the Atlantic roster. Phil turned to me and said, ‘Hey, there’s another writer I worked with for the first time the other day named Bruno; I think he’s great. Do you think I could have him come by?’
I said of course, the more the merrier. So in walks Bruno, who very clearly was not there to write for anyone else! He was there to pick up the guitar and do a little impromptu showcase for me, and I’m certainly glad he did because it was one of the best things I’d ever seen.
I walked into [Atlantic] the very next day as a junior A&R guy trying to figure out his first signing, and made a passionate plea to my boss about this guy Bruno Mars, and… my boss didn’t see it.
[Bay-Schuck, Lawrence, and Mars] attempted over the next kind of three, four years to repeatedly bring Bruno back into [the label] and get people to see what I saw, but I was usually met with resistance. So what we did over those three or four years was really work hard on honing Bruno’s craft. I was putting Bruno and Phil into as many sessions as we possibly could. And through writing for other people, Bruno ultimately did find his voice and the rest of the story is what it is.
[Bay-Schuck eventually signed Bruno Mars to Atlantic in 2009, four years after he first brought the artist to the label.]
“My inability to get Bruno [Mars] signed when I first wanted to has ended up being one of the greatest gifts that I could ever have asked for in my career.”
While living through that process, I was furious that I couldn’t get my boss to see what I saw. But now I look back on it, in the role that I’m in, and I’m incredibly grateful that he had the wisdom to say no, [that] he was able to see that a lot of the key ingredients weren’t there yet.
Because when I came back into [the label with Mars] for the final time, I brought in a star. I brought in a guy who had hits, I brought in a guy who had a clear musical direction, and all of a sudden it made sense.
Had I been given the green light to sign Bruno all the way back in 2005 or 2006, I think the story [would have been] different. He wasn’t ready. I, as an A&R guy, wasn’t as developed as I was a few years later when I finally got Bruno’s deal done. And so timing is everything with this sort of thing.
My inability to get Bruno signed when I first wanted has ended up being one of the greatest gifts that I could ever have asked for in my career.
It was a fantastic lesson in persistence. I think about it all the time.
