How to become a global music director: Simon's story

Simon

Sentric Music is a music publisher, so we essentially look after songwriters and artists, making sure they get paid for every time they play a gig or every time they get their music played on radio or television. It's just making sure the people who create music get looked after. My job specifically here is to make sure we get our artists' music used on TV adverts, computer games, which is called synchronisation. So the next time you're playing a computer game and you hear one of you favourite songs, hopefullythat was my work. There is this whole massive thing behind being an artist, you know for a person to stand on stage to sing to athousand people, there are literally a thousand people who've helped that person get to that stage.

A band called The Foo Fighters, who I was obsessed with when I was a teenager, and I remember me and my dad were sat in the cheap seats at the back during my favourite song. The house lights came on and everyone was in this moment of kind of euphoria and it was then where I kind of thought I don't want this to be a hobby, I want this to be a career. And that's when I went away and did some research and found the course that I ended up doing at university and I wasn't very book smart as a kid. I was a really average kind of student – Cs a couple of Ds here and there, which I know that would have been Ds and Es if it wasn't for Bitesize, so thank you very much. It was when I started uni and I was learning about something which I was interested in where I kind of really came into my own.

Sentric is about 13 years old so, compared to the other publishers in the music industry, we are quite new. I've been here since the beginning. It's essentially a university project that's got out of hand. My job specifically is really heavy on the networking and personal relationships. I suppose that's a nice way of saying it's a sales job, cos the word sales sometimes makes you feel a bit yuk. That being nice to people, proving and hoping to show them that what we can do is better than what our competitors can do, I suppose.

If you wanted to get into the music industry, I would say, learn about the music industry. There is so much out there, free places to go and educate yourself about what's happening in the business. The music industry is so much more than the songs that you hear. Learn about publishing and master rights and touring and everything around it. If a certain kind of element stands out and you think, oo I'd like to know more about that, then dig into it really hard, look at the companies that are in that space. Look how well they're doing. Look at the trends. Listen to the podcast.

It's 2019, ignorance isn't an excuse any more and every time we hire, and we've been hiring a lot of people at Sentric, ranging from people leaving school to people who have been in the industry for 10, 30 years, and if they have not done their research about, not only us as a company, but the industry, you can tell straight away. It's always the people who know who you are and what the company have been doing and what's been happening in the world of music publishing over the last few years are the ones ultimately will get work.

What do I love about my job? I get to listen to lots and lots of music and work with music and artists that I genuinely love. Music is my favourite thing – it always has been and hopefully always will be. Not only listening to music that I love, but I get to work with the people who make it, which is kind of exceptional. And there's nothing better than being stood at a gig, watching an artist that you helped get to where they are sing a song which goes down incredibly well with thousands of people and you know that you've played your tiniest part in that, no matter how big it was. Yeah, music's the best thing in the world.