This is Industry Insider: a weekly 5-minute brief with key news, interviews, advice, smart picks & follows, built for artists and industry folks alike.
👆 ONE BIG THING
Show me a band still standing after a decade and I'll show you people who chose each other before they chose the business.
I met Christopher Gonda in the winter of 2015. I was a writer with more opinions than outlets. He had a publication and an instinct for who could actually swing a sentence. Eleven years later, he's the single biggest reason any of this exists. Cheerleader. Supporter. Creative enabler. The guy who said "yes, write that" before I had the nerve to send it.
What started as me pitching articles, reviews, and interviews into V13 has turned into co-founding several business units inside the company. That didn’t happen because the publishing split is fair or the contracts are tight. It happened because the relationship came first, and everything else got built on top of it.
That's what this episode of heartdea13r I listened to recently reminded me of.
Jordan Anthony and Chloé Caroline sat down with Chris to talk about writing a love song over Zoom. What actually came out is a clinic on why creative partnerships last.
The relationship has to come first.
Not the publishing split.
Not the tour calendar.
Not who's getting tagged in the press photo.
The relationship.
Because everything else (the songs, the deals, the shows, the press) depends on two people still actually wanting to be in the room together five years from now (or ten, or twenty, etc).
Here's the thing: most music partnerships don't die over creative differences. They die over little resentments nobody bothered to address. Unspoken scorekeeping. Money fights that were really respect fights. Whose turn it was to handle the unsexy stuff.
Protect the friendship and the business survives almost anything you throw at it.
Burn the friendship for a short-term win and the project goes with it.
I'm writing this newsletter because Chris kept saying yes for eleven years.
Find your Chris.
Be someone else's Chris.
The rest follows.
Check out the original conversation here:
Let's get into it.
🗞 INDUSTRY NEWS
A new report from Music Publishers Canada and Women in Music Canada explores caregiving challenges across the music industry.
Los Angeles-based creative technology company Tamber has officially launched its new sonic intelligence-powered creative suite.
💯 INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
Publicist Leasia Korbel joins us to discuss her six years working at FiXT Music and what she has learned about the music industry.
🏡 THE V1LLAG3
You put the work out. It got crickets.
Every Wednesday at 2PM EST, get 90 mins live with people who do this for a living — a publicist, a content strategist, a music-business operator, a publishing pro. The same people private clients pay $1,500–$3,000 a month to work with.
Bring one thing you're stuck on. Leave that same call with a straight answer you can act on. Not someday → this Wednesday.
Right now it's free. No card, no catch. It's free because we're in our founding chapter, building it with the first members — and the day pricing turns on, founding members keep the founding rate for life.
Worst case? You spend 90 minutes and walk out with more insights and professional feedback than you had going in.
🎧 INDUSTRY PODCASTS
In this K-ALL interview, Angel sits down with the rising global Japanese group ONE OR EIGHT right before their sold-out show at Racket NYC!
🎼 LATEST RELEASES
Discover exactly what’s missing in your promo strategy and which lever will move the needle the most…
🎵 ADD YOUR MUSIC TO OUR PLAYLIST
New single? We’re happy to consider adding your track to one of our obsessively curated Spotify playlists → Just reply to this email with the link…
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