Spark Management Launches in NYC
NYC-based music talent manager Ollie Hammett has launched a new venture, Spark MGMT, with an expanded roster of producers, songwriters and engineers.
Under Spark, Hammett continues to represent his (formerly Rocket Management) clients – songwriter/producer and film score composer Dan Romer (Ingrid Michaelson, Jukebox the Ghost), artist/songwriter Teddy Geiger, and mixer Mark Saunders (The Cure, Shiny Toy Guns) – and has signed a few more, including writer/producer Paul Savoy (A-Ha), mixer/producer Andrew Maury (Ra Ra Riot, RAC) and writer/producer Mark Alston (All That Glitters, Tiësto).
“They all have one thing in common,” says Hammett of the roster, “they’re exceptional at what they do and their work speaks for itself.
“On the flip side they’re all very different aesthetically and in terms of their strengths.”
Indeed, Romer – a producer who recently relocated from Brooklyn to Los Angeles – has proven a unique sort of talent, finding success as a film score composer with the award-winning Beasts of the Southern Wild, while also still actively producing/engineering records. He’s just produced and mixed the new album by A Great Big World, Ian Axel’s new band project now signed to Epic Records.
And Maury’s is a different wheelhouse, producing and mixing records – including the new RAC album for Cherrytree/Universal (new single “Let Go” is out this week) and the new Panama Wedding single – as well as remixing and FOH mixing on the road for acts like Ra Ra Riot. Then, there’s songwriter Paul Savoy, the man behind A-Ha hits like “Take On Me”, who Hammett calls, “one of the most prominent (and arguably underrated) songwriters of his generation, who is a fantastic producer too.” Now based in NYC, Savoy is in the process of building a new private studio in Brooklyn, and getting geared up for more production/writing for other artists – and Spark will be representing him for that work.
Ollie Hammett
An Englishman born in London, Hammett moved to NYC in 2007 to run Mark Saunders’ Beat360 Studios in Midtown and later setup a joint venture with Elton John’s Rocket Music where he began to develop his writer/producer roster.
Now with Spark, Hammett can look at the bigger picture, take risks, blaze his own trail…
“I’m very open minded to business development and I’m not afraid to work on something I believe in even if it takes a moment for the business side to make sense,” he says. “I’m constantly exploring new ways of structuring the deals behind the projects so they make sense in terms of how everything works in 2013.”
So naturally, the roster is diverse. One of Hammett’s new signings is Devin Kerr, an LA-based mastering engineer and software developer who’s just mastered the High Highs forthcoming track and is in the process of launching his new hifi music player iOS app he developed called CanOpener. Another new signing, Mark Alston, is a dance music producer with a recent Tiësto collaboration under his belt and more pop co-writes in his future.
As a producer manager in an era of new models and few rules, Hammett sees his role as one of “minimizing distractions”, and helping develop his clients careers by “building smart business frameworks for and with them, fully understanding their strengths and helping them play to them.”
Hear some of the Spark roster’s work get in touch via http://www.spark-mgmt.com.
Also, Spark is hiring! Hammett is looking for a management assistant who can learn and grow with the company. Get more details and apply here.