Onelove Overhauls Ops With A&R, Touring, Management Arms & More
19 April 2016 | 4:02 pm
|
Mitch Knox
The stalwart Aussie dance brand is reinventing itself in a massive way
It's no secret that the music industry is one of the fastest-paced, most competitive arenas out there, and the organisations that survive are those savvy enough to adapt with the times.
For most of its 15-year existence, renowned Australian company ONELOVE has traded primarily as a premier brand in the electronic dance music community, though it has been years since that was its exclusive pursuit. However, with a swathe of changes transforming the organisation's operations to create, in the words of consultant Michael Parisi, a holistic artist development company, ONELOVE is swiftly positioning itself as a multi-faceted major player on its scene and beyond, well placed to move forward with the nebulous and ever-shifting industry in which it dwells.
Among the changes, ONELOVE has expanded its scope to include several new operational arms, including publishing, A&R, management and live touring, as well as bringing its public relations in-house.
"We've transformed the company," Parisi told The Music, "from a club-focused brand into a holistic artist development company, where we have a publishing arm, an A&R arm of course, with the ability to put records out ourselves or license them onto other labels."
"I wouldn't call ONELOVE a record label as such; it's more an entertainment company now, which has many strings to its bow." — Michael Parisi
Parisi says that the broadening of ONELOVE's scope was a matter of necessity as much one of prescient choice, with the company's fresh diversification allowing them far greater efficiency for, and control over, a wider scope of their artists' interactions with the industry.
"I just think the industry's changed so much, and if your business is just predicated on selling music, you're going to be up against it," he said of the impetus for the shake-up. "You need to be able to manage all income streams for your artists, or try to manage all the income streams for your artists and develop different paths for them."
"I wouldn't call ONELOVE a record label as such; it's more an entertainment company now, which has many strings to its bow," he continued. "The idea is to keep developing new artists, to keep discovering new artists, keep recording them, and then obviously manage their income streams, manage their publishing, manage their live touring — manage all aspects of their career, essentially."
The reimagined ONELOVE sees Parisi consulting with the company as well as overseeing its joint publishing venture with Mushroom, while founder Frank Cotela's primary focus will be a live component, developing new events and tours over the next 12 months — though he's not giving much away about what he's cooking up in the pipeline.
"I can't really say, but I'm really gearing up towards summer — that's my main aim," Cotela told The Music.
Beyond the live touring aspect of its operations, ONELOVE's A&R and artist development will be led by Ant Celestino, who will oversee all aspects of the company's artists & repertoire purview, aided by team members such as Rob Pix (also responsible for club-based licensing and online, subscription-driven compilations) and newly signed Sydney-based producer Miracle performing A&R duties out of SYdney as part of a new imprint running alongside ONELOVE.
"Mira is working on more of a diverse modern urban tip and releasing new artists on an entirely brand new imprint," Celestino said of the scope of current activities, "while Rob holds down strictly club material and I develop A&R across in all streams as well as continuing to focus on signed artist-based projects with larger scope — EPs, singles, albums.
"I can also see us exploring options with whatever other projects (or people) that we meet who are doing excited things in whatever genre, and we think that we should back, basically! And with some of our signed artists, like Slumberjack, starting to take off, I think it's a good time to make these changes."
New additions Melissa Jong will drive artist management and Christina Rinaldi the in-house PR, keeping the more-versatile-than-ever ONELOVE in a fine position for its reinvigoration as a diverse and dynamic force in the Australian music industry.
"It may not always be a one-size-fits-all model for everybody, but I think having the advantage will be in being able to make decisions that work for artists," Celestino said. "Not just along recording lines, where it's like, 'OK, how are we going to make income from these recordings alone?' — where it can often be a bit of a zero sum — but if you can look at more like, maybe we have a bit of publishing, or maybe we're doing some live touring with an artist, or doing management with an artist, we can mix those things up so it actually makes sense when we dig into 15-plus years of experience at what we're doing to make those dots connect for an artist.
"Then we can be a lot more selective about what we're releasing and how we're releasing it."
More From Our Network
