Seeker Music Acquires John Ryan’s and Jon Bellion’s Catalogs

Additional deals signed with Bunettas’ Family Affair and Kara DioGuardi’s Arthouse Entertainment

Songwriter-to-songwriter deals spearheaded by Seeker CEO Evan Bogart prove company’s creator-led strategy

Read more in Variety HERE

January 12, 2023 -- Seeker Music, the new music rights and publishing company, has acquired the catalogs of two of today’s most influential pop songwriters: John Ryan (40+ One Direction songs, Maroon 5, John Legend) and Jon Bellion (Miley Cyrus, Camila Cabello, Eminem). 

Separately, Seeker has acquired select catalogs from two of its fellow songwriter-helmed music companies: Family Affair Productions (Julian, Damon and Peter Bunetta), and Kara DioGuardi’s Arthouse Entertainment. The Family Affair deal includes their share of John Ryan’s publishing as well as their share of publishing rights from another of today’s top songwriters, Teddy Geiger, while the Arthouse deal includes that company’s share of Jon Bellion’s publishing.

Read more at Variety: https://variety.com/2023/music/news/seeker-music-acquires-john-ryan-jon-bellion-catalogs-1235486440/

The songwriter-led, creator-focused perspective that Seeker brings to the catalog space was a significant factor in leading the songwriters, and songwriter-helmed companies, to choose Seeker. Led by CEO Evan Bogart, a chart-topping songwriter himself (Beyoncé’s “Halo”, among others), Seeker only signs catalogs of songs that Bogart and his team are incredibly passionate about, genuine personal fans of, and for which they see intrinsic creative opportunity. 

What else separates Seeker is the opportunity for songwriters to place their catalogs in the hands of not just a fellow creator in Bogart, but a peer and a contemporary. Over the last decade through to today, Bogart, Ryan, Bunetta and Bellion all “came up” alongside one another.

Now known for co-writing and producing the albums that led One Direction into superstardom (and thus changed the face of the music industry by re-energizing the boy band format for the 21st century, and launching some of today’s top solo artists), John Ryan was working in a small studio underneath Peter Bunetta's house when he first met Bogart.

“I was writing with my friend and collaborator Julian Bunetta, when John basically popped out from a door under the house. When I first heard his songwriting, I was just blown away by his craft –I’ve been a huge fan of his creative genius since the first day, and can’t wait to work with songs that I respect so much.”

While developing their respective songwriting careers, Bogart and Ryan’s paths crossed often. They both collaborated frequently with Julian, and Ryan went on to write many of his hits with Ricky Reed, a then-publishing client of Bogart’s, including Jason Derulo’s chart-topper “Wiggle” and Pitbull’s “Fireball.”

Steven Melrose, Head of Creative for Seeker, also intersected with Ryan over the years. As Senior A&R at Capitol Records, he first met Ryan through the Bunettas, and also worked on those One Direction records, too, when he was at Sony in the UK. “I’ve had my eye on working with John again ever since we all were connected on many of the Syco/Sony releases, so getting to work with his songs again at Seeker is a true privilege.”

For everyone involved, the deal was a full circle moment. Ryan said “Knowing and working alongside Evan for so long, Seeker made the most sense for my catalog. Evan ‘gets’ what it’s like to make music and I feel confident knowing I’ve put my songs in the hands of Evan and his team.”

Some of Ryan’s other credits include songs for the solo careers of Harry Styles, Niall Horan (“Slow Hands”) and Louis Tomlinson, Maroon 5 (“Don’t Wanna Know”), John Legend, Jessie Ware, Sabrina Carpenter, and more.

Julian Bunetta, whose brother, and partner, Damon, brokered the Ryan deal as well as Seeker’s acquisition of some of Family Affair’s back catalog, said “I’ve been pals with Evan for years, and know him to be one of the good guys in this business. He’s got a great vision for Seeker and we believe in his and his team’s ability to do special things with these songs.”

The Seeker/Family Affair deal also includes their share of Teddy Geiger’s publishing rights, adding even more songs from one of today’s biggest pop songwriters and producers (Shawn Mendes’ “In My Blood,” “Stitches,” “There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back,” Caroline Polachek’s “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings,” etc) to Seeker’s catalog.

Beyond John Ryan’s (and Geiger’s) work, Jon Bellion’s catalog also represents Seeker’s unique and forward-looking emphasis on contemporary catalogs, with strong and powerful songwriting, to complement their legacy acquisitions. Other modern-day songwriters’ catalogs that Seeker has acquired include: Mozella (“Wrecking Ball”), Ruth-Anne Cunningham (JoJo’s “Too Little Too Late,” Britney Spears’ “Work Bitch”) – who both also helped write some of One Direction’s biggest hits – and Sam Watters (Jordin Sparks’ “Battlefield”), to name a few.

In addition to being a well-known solo artist himself, Jon Bellion has co-written hits for Eminem and Rihanna (“The Monster”), Maroon 5 (“Memories”), Camila Cabello (“Shameless,” “Liar”), Miley Cyrus (“Midnight Sky,” “Prisoner”), and seven of the tracks on Justin Bieber’s chart-topping 2021 album Justice (incl. “Holy”). He has released two albums under his own name, 2016’s The Human Condition, which reached the Top 5 on the Billboard 200 and included Top 20 hit "All Time Low," and 2018’s Glory Sound Prep, which included collaborations with GRAMMY-winning producer Quincy Jones, Roc Marciano, RZA, B.Keyz and Travis Mendes.

Kara DioGuardi, who separately, alongside partner Stephen Finfer, brokered a deal to sell Arthouse’s share of Bellion’s catalog to Seeker (in addition to the deal between Seeker and Bellion himself), has known and collaborated with Bogart for almost two decades. Dioguardi said “"Evan is a multi-hyphenate whose accomplishments as a GRAMMY-award winning songwriter, creator, and businessman make his company the perfect home for an Arthouse song acquisition. We are fortunate to have found a partner in Evan, as his passion for songs and songwriters is unparalleled. We know he will treat these compositions as if he wrote them himself.”

Bogart said “These songs, and songwriters, haven’t just soundtracked my life (and everyone else’s) this past decade, they’ve defined what modern-day pop music sounds like. Getting to work with such influential songs – ones that will continue to define what pop music will be for years to come – is an opportunity that we at Seeker couldn’t be more excited about.”

Watch this space for more to come from Seeker Music.