We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alan Avry a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?
Funny story, so as a kid, I grew up in Denver, CO with my mom where she built her own studio in the basement of our home. This was at a time before Home studios were a thing, I mean she really built a real studio in the basement! Control room, vocal booth, tracking room, really impressive when I look back at it. But that was where her band practiced, played and recorded her music and it was off of Fulton street, so when I decided to name the business, it was easy… Fulton House. Buuuuut… turns out, after sharing the name with mom, she reminded me that we never lived on Fulton street… We lived on Fillmore street! So I guess I just pulled the name out of nowhere idk.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Music has been a part of my life since I can remember. One of my earliest memories is at 5 years old playing outside of a Florida Airstream trailer where my mom practiced with her band. Basically grew up in a studio, but it wasn’t until my mid 20’s when I decided that I would pursue music as a career. I was an artist pushing my own music for a while, but over time, I started to pivot to more of a producer/engineer role. Once the opportunity to move to LA presented itself (My silver lining of Covid) some friends and I took the leap and made the move.
After landing in LA, my good friend Ciel, who is also an Engineer and Producer, had some great projects for us to work on with FKA Facebook now Meta, and BMG. We, along with other producers and writers contributed tons of music to BMG’s catalog for placements in Tv shows, and with Meta, for their content creators catalog. Super proud of the growth that took place in that first year because of how much work we were doing. In the studio literally everyday, touching different genres of music, and working with lots of different artists. Definitely a time I’ll never forget.
But this was also when I started to really see the value in SYNC. Seemed like an area artists weren’t really privy to. So I made Fulton House, a Record Label that focuses on SYNC. We collaborate with various artists to not only make and create music, but also license their music for Tv, Film and video games through our network of filmmakers, advertisers, and video game developers.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
You have to have resilience in this industry, There’s going to be more “No’s” than “Yes’s’ ‘, so that’s something you just have to get used to. But I knew it would take time to actually start seeing any profits. A lot of networking and building relationships needed to happen, as well as creating the music and building a catalog for clients. That itself took a year. Another aspect of it that I hadn’t previously considered was just how difficult it would be trying to get people onboard with the vision, especially when you know it’s going to take time before anyone sees a profit. But being consistent has definitely helped establish my reputation in the SYNC licensing world.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
Learning how to pitch and learning the business. I think a lot of artists aren’t familiar with the music business and how it works and music supervisors can sniff it out a mile away. Sups are trying to avoid licensing pitfalls like clearing samples, and rights management issues, so when an artist isn’t absolutely sure about these things, they may shy away from using your music. On the other hand, when you can show that you’re at least a little educated in these areas, and you can make it easy for them, aaand the music is good, then there’s a much better chance they’ll take on your music.
Contact Info:
- Website: Nailah Darby
- Instagram: @AlanAvryMusic
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-avry-352b78160/