Soundgraphics

Q1 : Can you briefly explain the history of Roastinghouse Music ?

A : RoastingHouse AB, established 1987, is one of Sweden’s biggest Studio complex (9 in house studios), Production Company and Management including an in-house Publishing division, RoastingHouse Music, which controls most of our artist rosters and our producers/songwriters who have several cuts on various successful albums. In 2009 we had two top 20 singles on the global charts and we are one of the most successful international publisher in Japan with countless cuts for their artists.

Q2 : How many songwriters do you have in your roster right now ? Can you give us their names ?

A : We have 17 exclusively signed songwriters all with their own style and genres and they are:

Anders Wrethov, Andreas Johansson, Alexander Holmgren, Anders Grahn, Mickey Huskic, Elin Wrethov, Amir Aly, Robin Abrahmsson, Maciel Numhauser, Peo Dahl, Johan Deltinger, Mans Ek, Martin Svensson, Dennis Dendo, Magnuss Johansson, David Fremberg, Joakim Dalqvist

Q3 : Can you name a few big cuts you confirmed in Europe or States ?

A : Since we started out mainly as a hard rock and metal production company and slowly built the foundation of our publishing through the albums we did with each artist, our song pitching didn’t really start until 2002 when we signed our first exclusive pop writer, Anderz Wrethov , and got our first big No 1 hit “Superduper kille” (Wrethov/Larsson) in Sweden and Denmark the same year with Swedish artist Sofie (Universal).
We later had a big hit in Scandinavia with “Ding Dong Song” (Wrethov/Söderlund) by Günther & The Sunshine Girls (Warner), which led to our first Top 20 hit in the UK. The singles/album was successfully released in several territories all over Europe and even USA and Asia. We later followed with singles and album cuts by European multi platinum artists such as CH!PZ (NL), Arash (SE) an legendary Smokie (UK).

Q4 : Talking about your song promotion in your territory or the rest of the world, how does it normally work ? Do you normally send your demo song via email or song link to A&Rs of records companies ? Or do you rather look for a chance to meet them up for your face-to-face presentation with them ? Or do you hire any dedicated song-pluggers for that ?

A : We do all those things, you always catch us at Midem and Popkomm to meet up with our partners around the world face to face but we also send songs by e-mail. We also have many people travel to us for co-writes because of our 9 in-house studios as well as sending our writers to Japan, US and in Europe. Through our successes and years of hard work we have built up a great network of friends in the business and most recently we signed an exclusive publishing deal with BMG Rights Management for Europe.

Q5 : As for the lead from records companies, do you often get it directly from A&R ? Or do you get such information from the global service like SongLink ?

A : We used to get many leads from such services like Songquarters etc but nowdays we only get them directly from our partners and labels.

Q6 : There are a lot of Japanese songwriters who are interested in being cut by international labels and artists, but what do you think is the most important factor for them to reach that ground ? is there any missing elements from Japanese writers in comparing with your own songwriters who have had a few big international cuts ?

A : When we started the co-writes a few years ago with Japanese writers they might have had a bit of lack of confidence and experience in the international market, but their worst “enemy” was the intense focus on the Japanese market from both themselves and the international writers and publishers who wanted to get the big cuts in Japan who were at that time doing so much better in CD sales compared to European market. Now, we believe there are no barriers left, there are several skilled Japanese writers that could do very well internationally, just wait and see…

Q7 : I heard the lyrics is one of the most important elements to be cut by international artists, but Swedish people are not the native English speaker either. How do you guys deal with this lyric issue ? Do you have any of your "first call" native lyricists to support your writers ? Or do your songwriters study a lot about how to write English lyrics ?

A : Yes, lyrics are very important nowdays but Swedish writers has always been very good at English and sometimes even lyrical “mistakes” can be a great hook in a song. It’s more important that the lyrics feels good in the melody than being a hundred percent correct in a pop song. Though in other songs you can’t even come close to a UK and/or US lyricist genius so that’s why we do co-writes as well.

Q8 : In Japan, mechanical income is quite huge, but I've heard the performance income, especially from the radio air-play, is way too huge in some European territories. Is it true in Sweden, too ? Or do you have any ideas how big it could be in other territories like GSA or UK, through your experience on previous cuts ? One of my German writers once told me the performance income per one airplay is like 7 Euro... If it's true, when you have a big radio hit single across Europe, the total performance income must be quite huge, almost the same amount as mechanical income from one cut with the biggest selling album in Japan. This is one of the most important area for all the publishers in Japan to learn, so please let me know as much as you know.

A : I must confess we’re not experts in knowing those datas because we use an experienced administrator to take care of all those details so we can concentrate on being creative, we have always loved the creative part and let others do what they do best.

Q9 : There are a lot of palladium shifts happening in music market. But what is your take purely from the publishing point of view ? What do you think is the next source for us to make money out of ?

A : Well, we can speculate all we want but the fact remains that people will always need great songs for artists, commercials, movies and and numerous on-line platforms. We just need a way to unite, to make a “standard” and bring back the value to a level that fits both ourselves and the “new consumers”. It will never even come close to what it was in the past, but we need to stabilize the market and support our societies and new good creative companies.

Q10 : I heard Roastinghouse is also interested in developing the profile of Japanese "artists" in European territories. What kind of "J-artists" are you expecting for ? What kind of "image" do you expect from such challenging artists ?

A : Yes, we are proud of being part of a strong creative team that is working on building Japanese artists for a global launch. There’s so much talent over there as we’ve seen through all the years we’ve been working in Japan but we’ve never seen any big efforts to make it work internationally. So that is our intension.

Q11 : Can you explain the facility and function of Roastinghouse studio ? Any chance for Japanese artists to us ?

A : RoastingHouse Studios is a studio complex of nine studios in the same 19th Century building in the very south of Sweden. All studios are available for bookings, recording, mixing and mastering and our clients are from all over the world, small and big. Our latest success is that we do a lot of mixing for bands, labels and production companies since many bands do their own recordings nowdays but you can never beat 20 years of experience in mixing, that’s what you pay for.

Q12 : Any message to us ?

A : I must say that if we didn’t meet up with Soundgraphics to start our collaboration we wouldn’t be the most important publisher in Japan, many greetings to you, Hide and your staff members.

Our biggest strength has always been that we’ve been wide open for good ideas and creative solutions, and no job is too small or big for us – just get in touch and let’s take it from there.

Here’s my personal statement

If you are involved in music, in one-way or another, there is always a chance to achieve great success. To be successful you have to dedicate all your time and efforts to reach your goals; it’s a commitment to the music. Many people think the music industry is a glamorous and easy money making business but I think it's unique, it's not only an industry, it's an art form and a way of living!