Today we’d like to introduce you to Owen Ingram.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Owen. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
So, I started as most people do, finding a general love of music, which lead me into a record store in Maidstone, Kent. UK called Plastic Surgery… I worked for no pay for the first year as I really wanted to get into the industry & ten years later I left as a co-owner at one of the world’s leading electronic dance music stores… during that time id made a few records, some of which did fairly well & honoured me a few of those Gold Discs & a Top 40 chart position… As record sales fell & MP3s took over, I started a record label with some friends called Toolroom Records, again, dance music based, initially I was there as an artist but soon fell into the world of A&R, signing artist contracts for releases on the label & some music licensing… I was there for nine years, signing some great artists to exclusively release singles on the label, Coldplay, Florence & The Machine, David Guetta, Tiesto, the list goes on & on… in 2011, I found myself in LA, I came to visit for four days, realized I could live here & so went back to England, sold my house & told my business partners I was moving to Hollywood & arrived six weeks later… although I’m still a co-owner of the label, after a year I went my own way, managing a few artists & consulting for a couple of other labels. Just over three years ago, I was introduced to the owners of SoStereo, a tech-based music sync company, which I where I work today, I find music for TV Ads, movies, computer games… I work with artists, managers or lawyers to clear the music for use, its super fun & not like working at all… id been in Hollywood for nine years & felt I needed to be beside the ocean, so made the move to Santa Monica at the end of August 2020… where I continue to enjoy the music world & the joys it brings!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I find it hard to believe anyone has a smooth road really, even if you have all the money in the world, there will still be bumps along the way, I’ve had lots of ups & downs on my journey but if you believe in yourself, you’re true to yourself & you’re nice to people & work hard, you can achieve wonders… being on your own in LA is never easy, def something that makes you think about life itself, but if I ever struggle, I just look up & the blue sky, think of England & I’m fine again…. I’m not going back!
SoStereo Music Group – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
SoStereo is a music placement company, we connect indie artists & labels with brands for mostly ad placements… we’ve come a long way in the 3 ½ years I’ve been here & developed some amazing technology that really helps move the music licensing industry forward, even during the lockdown it’s been great as were an online tech company, so it’s easy for brands like Nike, Starbucks, Toyota to work with us. We’ve had lots of great things happen over these few years, but for me personally, there’s nothing better than telling an indie artist they have a placement with a good brand & it’ll probably pay their rent for the next year!! Priceless!!
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
There has been lots of great moments, but the first one that springs to mind, is signing Coldplay to release a track Exclusively on my label, I mean, the biggest band in the world at the time, that was signed to a major record label (Warner Brothers) wanted to put out a release with me, that would help their forthcoming album “Paradise” gain traction before they released it… no indie label that I know of at the time had ever done that before… we got it to No1 on all the dance charts & the Exclusive first play on BBC Radio 1 – Pete Tongs Essential Selection.. in two weeks.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oweningram/
Image Credit:
Thank you to https://www.instagram.com/petiapavlova/
Suggest a story: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
