President of Sony/ATV Publishing encourages MIA Students

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: LLIAM BUCKLEY
Fanshawe's Music Industry Arts (MIA) students got to hear more about the publishing side of music and how MIA alumnus, Gary Furniss, landed his current position being the president of Sony/ATV Publishing.

Students of Fanshawe’s Music Industry Arts (MIA) program were given an excellent opportunity to grow both musically and in their studies of the industry when visited by Gary Furniss.

Furniss is a man with a strong passion for music and deep roots in this industry. He is currently the president of Sony/ATV Publishing, vice chair of the SOCAN Board of Directors and chairman of the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency (CMRRA) board. Over the years, he’s also worked as the director of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame (CSHF).

He’s influenced and worked with many musicians from an artist development standpoint, with recent notable artists including Lights and K’naan.

Through Sony/ATV, Furniss represents a number of international song catalogues including those by artists such as Lady Gaga, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and even Lennon-McCartney. All of this made Furniss a great guest to come and educate the students on the current state of the industry from a music publisher’s standpoint and offer advice on music that the students themselves have been working on.

As an alumnus, Furniss was nostalgic speaking at Fanshawe, remembering when he himself attended the program before it was even known as MIA. At this time the program which was comparatively tamer in its facilities was titled Creative Electronics. After hearing about the course, he contacted the founder Tom Lodge about attending, only to be told that the current year had started a month earlier and he would have to apply the next year. Furniss did not take no for an answer however, convincing Lodge to allow him to come meet and play a song for him.

“I guess what I’m trying to get at is to show you [that] you have to keep being persistent in the business,” Furniss said.

Furniss said Lodge admired this persistence and a week later Furniss was attending the Creative Electronics program.

During his time here and upon graduating, Furniss partnered up with another student to form a small artist development company with the goal of finding Canadian talent and acquiring publishing and record deals for them. Although they faced many trials in starting this business, Furniss looked back on the experience with an optimistic eye, stating that they learned a lot about business, law and how to fail gracefully.

“If you’re into this, you’re going to do it no matter what and failure’s just a part of it,” Furniss said.

Furniss was encouraging current MIA students to not be afraid of such experiences.

Through his work in this field, Furniss eventually met now Fanshawe professor, Mike Roth, who was working for Sony Publishing at the time. Both being alumni of Fanshawe’s music industry programs, the two got along quite well, becoming good friends.

Roth began to bring in Furniss to engineer sessions for Sony and this eventually led to Furniss being invited by Roth to take over his job when he moved from publishing to artist and repertoire.

Furniss said that receiving a job as prestigious as this was not something that happened overnight, but rather the result of years of hard work and many healthy mistakes.

“It’s like all those experiences and failures [contributed to this achievement],” Furniss said.

Following his lecture and after taking the time to answer any questions that students eagerly had for him, Furniss stayed around for over an hour to listen to original songs the students had to share with him.

He offered his thoughts on each song as well as advice on how students could go about taking their music to the next level and pushing themselves further.

Furniss has positives to share, when asked what someone like Furniss looks for in an artist.

“You’ve got to find people that have the passion and the drive… and are committed… [those people] change the game,” Furniss said. There are certainly plenty of artists with that mindset in Fanshawe’s MIA program and even more after the inspiring and encouraging visit by Gary Furniss.