Poems Publishing is just getting started, but the idea of the company has been in the making for over a decade. The new boutique publisher, based out of a midcentury modern house in Encino, Calif., was founded by a team of executives from all areas of the publishing business. Stefan and Jordan Johnson, who found Grammy-winning success as the writing/production duo The Monsters & Strangerz (Maroon 5’s “Memories”; Dua Lipa’s “Break My Heart”; Justin Bieber’s “Ghost”), always wanted to start a publishing company with their brother, Christian, a former vp of A&R at Big Deal Music and Hipgnosis. But for the past decade, they had been waiting for the right situation to come along.
That situation finally materialized a few years ago when the brothers discussed their aspirations with Mega House Music’s co-founders David Silberstein and Jeremy Levin, who have managed The Monsters and Strangerz for about 10 years. Together, the group teamed up with Mega House president Haley Evans and manager Laura Higbee to launch Poems with the goal of offering high-touch service and creative mentorship in fair deals that “everyone can feel good about,” says Jordan.
The company started slowly with the signing of one emerging singer-songwriter, Ella Boh, two years ago. Now, Poems is ready to expand. With a current roster of four — Boh, as well as Jack LaFrantz, Isiah Tejada and Jackson Foote — and an exclusive administration deal with Kobalt, Poems is seeing success with Benson Boone’s current Billboard Pop Airplay No. 1 “Beautiful Things,” which was co-written by LaFrantz (who is administered through a prior deal with Position Music), and “Love On” by Selena Gomez which was co-written and co-produced by Tejada (along with Stefan and Jordan).
“It’s really validating for us as a new publishing company,” says Silberstein of his writers’ recent breakthroughs. “It’s great to have songs at radio, performed by artists we love. It just makes us hungry for more. We’re trying to stack up those BMI and ASCAP awards.”
Why did it feel like this was the right time and the right situation to start a new publishing company?
Silberstein: Over the last 15 years, we’ve had a number of people approach us about different ventures. The Monsters and Christian have as well. It just never felt right. About two or three years ago, we started talking with Stefan, Jordan, Christian, Haley and Laura about forming a publishing company. We learned from our vantage point as managers that there’s a lot of value in having creatives involved at the publishing company that can provide mentorship and feedback that some executives might not have. We also know that Christian had been wearing the publisher hat for years and had a lot of valuable experience there. Our thought was instead of trying to do it all independently of each other, we could pull it all together and try to offer the greatest creative service of all publishers. Our goal is to be the No. 1 creative service publishing company.
Jordan: It was always our plan to start a publishing company some day. We’ve been working with Mega House for 10 years now, and when we started talking about the idea with them, it felt right to have them as partners. It helps Stef and I stay in the studio. We needed other members on the team who weren’t stuck in sessions eight hours a day.
Stefan and Jordan, you have had plenty of success creatively, and as Jordan said, your creative process can take up easily eight hours a day already. Why did you want to get into the business side?
Jordan: We’ve been through deals ourselves and seen what it’s like to not get the best end of the deal. We thought it’d be great to create a company where we can help the next generation of writers with their goals and with deals everyone can feel good about. It’s great to be in a place now where our success is not all just predicated on us being in the studio and writing songs. We can have more impact.
Stefan: There are some producers and writers that have created publishing companies that will far outlast them as a producer and writer and continue to create opportunity and help people’s dreams come true. We really love seeing the impact that’s possible.
What songwriter- or producer-led companies do you admire?
Stefan: Prescription Songs [founded by Dr. Luke], MXM Music [founded by Max Martin], Nice Life [founded by Ricky Reed], Pulse [founded by Scott Cutler, Anne Preven, Josh Abraham] — those are all amazing companies that provide amazing service. Some of them are even so big now that some people don’t realize that it started with one producer or writer.
Jordan: We love the idea of it feeling like an entity of its own. It’s not the Monsters’ publishing company. It’s a company that we are partners of, and we help in any way we can.
David and Jeremy, why was it important to have your longtime management clients as part of this founding team at Poems?
Levin: Having the Monsters on board is great. They can answer a lot of questions for whoever is signed to us from a creative perspective. They’re professionals in the truest sense of the word. Partnering with them was really natural and a great way to continue our relationship with them forever.
Silberstein: A lot of the places we are beginning to pitch songs to as songwriter managers are to the producers — when the producers have control or executive production credit on the project. The Monsters are just the highest echelon of producers and have access to top projects and also to all their peers of other great producers and great artists. It will bring great mentorship and opportunities for the roster.
All of you have creative and A&R backgrounds. What are you looking for in potential signees to build this roster?
Christian: We’re building a roster from scratch so the person side is important. You want to develop a community. The best thing that can happen is that you build your roster and the roster is its own self-sustaining thing. Where the writers are bringing each other into sessions and looking out for each other.
Levin: As a foundation for us, we want to have writers and producers across genres and with different skill sets so that we have diversity across the board.
Silberstein: When an opportunity comes in, we don’t want to be like, “Oh, we have five people for this.” Maybe just one or two. We want to build the right community within the publishing company so there’s no feeling of competition for the same things.
Jeremy and David, you have been managing songwriters and producers for over a decade. I often hear that managers end up picking up a lot of the creative and A&R work for publishers these days, especially when the A&Rs at the publisher have too many songwriters to keep up with. Did that prior experience help your transition to working as a publisher?
Silberstein: As managers, we always took the approach that, even though there are many incredible publishers, whatever the publisher did was going to be icing on the cake. We always had the mentality that as managers we would have to do it all, whether that’s setting up sessions, pitching songs — the things that publishers do. If we have a great publishing partner, that’s great, but we are going to service our clients regardless. We definitely take this mentality into our role as publishers now. We take this role super seriously because we’ve seen both the good and bad. There’s some incredible individual publishers who are just slapped with a 50-person roster, and it’s no fault of their own that they can’t service them fully.
Management companies that expand into publishing or records often sign whoever they manage to their new label or publisher. Do you plan to do this with your Mega House roster?
Levin: I don’t think there’s anything super wrong with that model, but it’s not something we’ve done a lot of. We try to keep them separate if we can.
Silberstein: We’ve found it’s the most impartial to represent somebody just as a manager and then try to help them negotiate a publishing deal with you as well.
You had a huge success recently with your signee Jack LaFrantz, who is the right-hand man for Benson Boone and co-wrote on his breakout hit “Beautiful Things.” What does this early win mean for Poems?
Silberstein: It’s really special for Poems, and I feel so proud and happy for Jack. It’s cool to see a writer as kind and talented as him have their first hit. It’s even cooler that Jack and Benson have been working together since Benson’s earliest days. They believed in each other through the years and stuck together.
Levin: Jack is so talented musically, and he’s one of those rare people that when you meet them you fall in love with them right away. He’s got a magnetic aura to him. The second we had a meeting with him, we knew he was great.
What’s the value of choosing a boutique, songwriter-led publisher like Poems over a large indie or major publisher?
Stefan: You can be at any one of the majors, and you can have a go-to person that’s really amazing. I don’t want to downplay what any one of the bigger publishers does, but with a boutique like us the engagement you’ll get is very high. We have more people on our team right now than we have writers because we want to provide the highest level of service, and we want to build our roster right. We’ve all been in the game long enough to know what a good and bad publisher does.
Jordan: Because of the way the team is rounded out, there’s always going to be somebody on the team who has the answer to a question or the expertise needed.
Christian: We will only grow very deliberately — that’s one of the words that we use frequently. When we sign, it is with intentionality, and songwriters can expect the service that comes with that.
