Power 50 - #34: Jaime Gough & Matt Tanner

As an independent music publisher with offices in both Australia and New Zealand, Native Tongue continues to kick goals year after year, under the leadership of Jaime Gough and Matt Tanner.

Established in 2003, Native Tongue acquires rights to local as well as overseas writers and last year proved to be a particularly strong year with the music publisher signing a slew of impressive artists such as Aldous Harding, The Smith Street Band and Jen Cloher (Double J’s 2017 Australian Artist Of The Year) as well as Grammy-nominated engineer/producer Steve Rusch (US signing for the rest of the world).

The strong relationships Native Tongue have with major music supervisors in the US, UK, Canada and Europe also mean they are able to submit their clients’ work for use all around the globe. New catalogues recruited into the Native Tongue fold in 2017 include Ultra Publishing (The Bloody Beetroots, TOKiMONSTA, Anna Lunoe, Benny Benassi), Phrased Differently (whose writers have had success with the likes of Ariana Grande, Calvin Harris, Iggy Azalea and Britney Spears) and Wixen Music Publishing (who represent the rights of sought after artists such as The Beach Boys, The Doors, Neil Young, Tom Petty and Rage Against The Machine).

Also in 2017, Native Tongue oversaw sync activity in the US for hit TV shows as huge as Better Call Saul (The Bombay Royale) and Big Little Lies (Fat Freddy’s Drop). Some of the big campaigns Native Tongue synced songs for, locally, in 2017 include Bonds (Jazz Party), Optus (Vera Blue), Melbourne Cup Carnival (The Cactus Channel), and Mastercard (Stella Angelico). Native Tongue also hosted writing camps in Australia, NZ and US (LA), partnered with Music NT to offer the Song Of The Year prize and hosted Women In Electronic Music Masterclasses with Music NSW at their Sydney studios.

And just some of the other initiatives Native Tongue supported in 2017 include Your Choice, Support Act and The Australian Music Prize. Although quite a small company, Native Tongue pride themselves on being more proactive than their competitors, actively seeking out opportunities for their songwriter clients to write for - or have their existing songs placed in - films, television and commercial advertising.

There’s not enough room here to list all of the awards Native Tongue writers collected last year, but they had shares in 23 songs in triple j’s 2017 Hottest 100 and that speaks volumes.