We were lucky to catch up with Scott Roush recently and have shared our conversation below.

Scott, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Finding those key vendors can often be make or break for a brand. Can you talk to us about how you found your key vendors?

I make my living writing background music for TV shows and commercials. Most of the time, however, I don’t sell my music directly to the production companies making the TV shows or commercial commercials. Instead, I rely on companies called music libraries to act as the go-between that I can focus on making the music, and they take care of the sales aspect.

When I made my first 12 song album of background music and was searching for a music library to host it, I must’ve sent out about 30 cold emails. Although I used an email template, I made sure to research each of the music libraries that I was contacting and tried to include something personal from my research in each email, such as “ hey I checked out your music catalog and I really liked this album” or “I searched your catalog for similar albums and couldn’t find any, so I thought you might like to add mine to your collection.” After one month only one library had gotten back to me, so that was how I got my start. They took a chance on me, and I ended up working with them on more music in the future.

Since then, I’ve made almost 40 albums worth of music with about a dozen different libraries, and have discovered that the research into each company pays off. Now I look for companies who are based in different parts of the world or have distribution in as many countries as possible. Worldwide distribution can really help music get placed in more TV shows and commercials.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I work from my home music studio based outside of Nashville, Tennessee writing background music for TV shows movies and commercials called “production music” or “library music”.. I also work as a sideman playing drums with various bands around the city. As a drummer by trade, I’ve been able to make niche, percussion only based tunes that do well in a lot of sports programming and commercials. Epic orchestral, action, drumming type stuff. I spend my days writing recording, mixing and mastering the music so that it’s ready for release.

I find it to be incredibly useful to be able to do everything myself to maximize profit since I don’t have to hire other people to mix or master. However, I also love creating music with other people, and have been able to leverage my relationships with local musicians into collaborations and co-writes for styles like country, rock, funk, Americana, etc. The companies I work with love the fact that I’m providing them with high quality music with real instruments, written and recorded in Nashville.

Do you have multiple revenue streams – if so, can you talk to us about those streams and how your developed them?

As a musician, I always felt it’s important to have several revenue streams, but I also never want to work a non-music job, so that means trying to take as many different gigs as possible without getting burned out. Besides writing background music for TV shows, commercials, and films, I also teach Drum Lessons and play gigs and do recording sessions as a drummer around town.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Each time I write an album of music and I’m hoping to get it published by a music library, I end up sending out slew of emails trying to find the right library for each album. Usually, I like to contact the companies that I have worked with already, but a lot of times they might not be interested in the type of music that I have made for particular album. So then this means sending out 10 cold emails to new companies….. And I might not get any response. So then I’ll send out another 10 emails, and maybe not hear anything back. It can feel very disheartening put a ton of effort into writing, recording, mixing, mastering an album to be ready for release and then not have anyone interested in publishing it. But I usually remind myself that I just haven’t found the right company yet, So I’ll go back to the grindstone research some more music libraries and send some more emails. Often times rejection can feel personal, but I remind myself that it’s business, and have found that persistence pays off.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.rhythmscott.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhythmscott?igsh=cnZ4eTM2cnU2eHo3&utm_source=qr
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-roush-583a84265?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app

Image Credits

Photos by Sam Wiseman, James Paul Mitchell, and Scott Roush