Meet Kelley Fox in Studio City

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelley Fox.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Kelley. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I started my career interning my ass off at six different companies, while working full time at Sprinkles and in school. You have the energy for that at 18. Additionally, I started a blog, bought a camera, and quickly taught myself how to take photos live just so I could go to concerts for free and get music sent to me before it was released. I was hungry for anything I could get my hands on. When I was finally offered my first big girl job, it wasn’t exactly what I had ever expected working in music. I wasn’t good at… anything I did, in WAY over my head, but I had the blind confidence we all have at 20 year old and made it work. I jumped from working from a management company under Warner Brothers, to a marketing company, to a tech company, back to management, all while falling on my face and making a LOT of mistakes along the way. The mistakes were absolutely without a doubt the best learning experiences I could have asked for. I’m so glad I was gracious to myself to let myself fall… a lot. Through mutual friends, and previous co-workers, I ended up in my job now working in music publishing with one of the best mentors and boss I could ask for, and learning a part of the industry I didn’t realize I would have such a connection and love for.

Has it been a smooth road?
HA. Absolutely not. If someone says it is, they’re either lying to you or really fell up. Every single human being goes through struggle whether it be personal while building a career, career troubles while trying to balance a personal life, or variations of different situations. The beauty is in learning the balance. And then when you think you’ve figured it out, you learn it again and again and again. As we grow and change as human beings, career women, build our personal friendships, relationships, move cities, get fired, get hired… you learn SO much about yourself.

As cliché as it sounds, I’m grateful for the things I’ve gone through along the way. The biggest struggle I think within it all, (and I still deal with and am mastering) is the art of comparison. Do not not not compare your success levels, your personal lives, etc. to those around you. We have everyone’s successes magnified and never see anyone’s failures on the surface. If we did, I think we’d have a lot more empathy and admiration to their journey and stories.

We’d love to hear more about the company.
The company I work for is a music publishing company. Music publishing for me has been many things; part time coordination, part time a+r, part time therapist, part time music lover, days where I’m not a music lover, part time activist, part time musical theatre, part time… Anything else I need to be in the moment. more specifically, I work under an incredibly talented songwriter who has written hits for everyone from Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, Flo Rida, to Lady Antebellum and Luis Fonsi. We started working together two and half years ago after I left management and digital marketing. I started off in what was meant to be an assistant role, and grew into so much more. Within the past two years, music publishing doesn’t even begin to start covering exactly it is we’ve done in growing the company. Having a hand in all the projects that my boss is involved in from not only the songwriting process but him releasing an album, opening an incredibly successful show off Broadway, being the host of a pretty popular music podcast, and passing the MMA, has not only been one of the most fulfilling parts of my career experience thus far, but has taught me so much on a personal level in so many ways. I am in awe of how much he does and I feel grateful just getting to pay a small role in keeping the train chugging along.

I think the thing I’m most proud of is just the services we provide to songwriters that we work with. I know when people or companies say “we’re like a family” it comes across weirdly manipulative and/or cheesy, but this is truly what our company is. The criteria we have when signing people isn’t just in their talent but in who they are as a human being. We don’t do egos and we only work with nice people. If you’re not waking up and loving who you get to work with or work on every day, you will truly find yourself unhappy and unfulfilled. I thankfully get to wake up and love the people and the job every single day, while also getting to learn something new each and every experience. I’ll say, the second you stop learning from the job you’re in, or you’re the smartest in the room, leave the room and pick up a book and learn something new.

The difference of what I think our publishing company does differently is challenge our writers in ways that aren’t just in their conventional day to day jobs. Whether that be writing outside of just normal studio sessions, we encourage our writers to experience life, in whatever that is they deem fit. There is no better way to become a better songwriter than to greater your life experiences.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I believe that LA is the absolute best city you can be in if you want to become a writer. A close second would be Nashville and London. If someone decided tomorrow that they want to become a songwriter, the first thing I would tell them is #1 – get a lawyer. #2 – move to LA. There is no better way to expand your community of writers and broaden your friendships and relationships in the industry than to be here and be in the action of it all.

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