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November 4th, 2022, - Los Angeles -- After two years of quietly acquiring catalogs in stealth mode, Seeker Music is launching publicly as a major new player in the music-rights space. Among the company’s early acquisitions are the legendary Christopher Cross’ complete catalog of copyrights and recordings - Seeker has been bringing Cross’ full catalog to streaming for the first time this year - and masters of the first three albums from groundbreaking hip-hop duo, Run The Jewels.
The young company is led by Evan Bogart, who, as a chart-topping songwriter himself (“S.O.S” for Rihanna, “Halo” for Beyoncé, and more), brings a creator’s perspective to publishing along with lessons learned from his equally successful career on the business side. Over time spent working in A&R, management, touring, and more, he helped develop the likes of Eminem, OneRepublic, Maroon 5, and Ricky Reed.
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Founded in Los Angeles in 2020 - where Seeker will be opening a studio space and creative campus in 2023 - Seeker is a catalog and frontline-based company that brings that creator’s perspective to the worlds of publishing, records, management, and sync.
After only two years in business, and without any publicity, the company’s catalog boasts 11,000 copyrights and master recordings, including classic copyrights performed by the likes of Drake, Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, Rihanna and more. That a brand-new company has developed a catalog like that, that quickly, is thanks in part to the visionary approach the team takes to catalog acquisition and marketing.
Read more at Billboard: Can Evan Bogart's Seeker Music Become the Next Great Independent Music Company?
Every Seeker acquisition meets two criteria: First, it needs to be something Bogart, and his creative team, are passionate about – such as a catalog of songs he wished he had written, or projects he wished he had worked on. "As a creative myself, I've only found myself excelling when I got to work on things that inspired me,” Bogart says. Second, the team needs to see intrinsic creative opportunity. “We treat every catalog like it's a brand new artist/writer/producer that we just signed,” Bogart says. “Because you know what? It’s new and exciting for us.” He wanted to bring that same energy to Seeker.
Following those two principles, Bogart began building a roster that now spans from Christopher Cross and Run the Jewels to songwriters such as Mozella (“Wrecking Ball”), Brian Alexander Morgan (SWV’s “Weak” & “I’m So Into You”), and Sam Watters (Color Me Badd, Jordin Sparks “Battlefield”), to name a few. On an institutional level as well, Seeker has made strategic acquisitions from boutique publishing houses across genres, from a large share of Nashville’s country-focused Combustion, including 70 #1s, to select writers’ catalogs from UK’s hip-hop-leaning Notting Hill.
Fully immersed on the frontline side, too, Seeker takes the same individualized and passion-based approach. “Most publishing companies are in either the market share game or the quantity game,” Bogart says. “They sign as many things as they can and hope that one or two things foot the bill. And the only time they ever pay attention to their songwriters is when they're trying to sign them, when they have a hit, or when their deal is coming up for renewal.” With Seeker, Bogart is bucking those trends by taking a boutique approach to build a company creators will implicitly trust. “We understand what songwriters’ needs are and how to support them, because there’s a songwriter running the company.”
And in addition to working with individual songwriters, Seeker's also forged partnerships with fast-rising Danish music publishing, management and creative licensing company Tigerspring, whose clients include hitmakers Sylvester “Sly” Sivestren (Maneskin “SUPERMODEL”, Dua Lipa “We’re Good”) and Tommy Baxter (Ritual, Dua Lipa, 6lack); as well as the LA-based music company AntiGravity, which specializes in the creation of music for sync, as well as artist management.
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After just two years, Seeker now has a presence that spans Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, and London, and Bogart has recruited some of the top minds in the business to join him in leading the company. As CFO, Jennifer Scher brings over twenty years’ experience in private equity, corporate finance, financial operations and strategic planning at EMI, Spirit, Round Hill. Before becoming COO, Rob Guthrie ran Operations at SONGS Music Publishing and also had extensive label experience from his time at both Beggars Group/Matador & RECORDS. And rounding out the executive team is Head of Creative, Steven Melrose, whose roles, in addition to being a successful artist manager, having included: A&R executive and prior Managing Director at Epic (Sony) UK, and Head of A&R, Capitol Records and Big Deal Music. John Smith, who spent 10 years as CEO of BBC Worldwide, was appointed to Chairman of the Seeker board.
Watch this space for more to come from Seeker Music.
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About Seeker Music
Seeker Music is a modern day music company bringing a creator-led business model and perspective to the worlds of publishing, records and management. Founded in 2020 in Los Angeles by chart-topping songwriter Evan “Kidd” Bogart (“Halo”), Seeker follows a creative-first focus in everything it does, focusing on catalogs and music creators that most inspire Bogart and his creative team.
After only two years in business, Seeker has already amassed a catalog of over 11,000 highly curated copyrights and master recordings, including Christopher Cross’ full catalog, Run the Jewels’ first three albums, and classic copyrights performed by the likes of Drake, Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, and Rihanna.
Alongside Bogart, the company is led by an executive team consisting of CFO Jennifer Scher, COO Rob Guthrie, and Head of Creative Steven Melrose, and works with a Board chaired by John Smith and representing key investors M&G.
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