Chris Gelbmann wants to help artists find their way
“We try to guide the artists, not to bend them. We want to help them find their own way.”, says Chris Gelbmann, founder of the Austrian music company Buntspecht and musician himself in an interview with Johannes Luxner for mica - music austria.
Chris Gelbmann had been A&R-manager of Universal music and in this post been responsible for the successes of stars like Christina Stürmer or André Heller. It had been a more than full-time-job he says and so there was no time left to make his own music. In favour of quality of life he quit the job and started his own music company two years ago.
His programm is simple: “We want to publish music that we like”, he says. Buntspecht does (nearly) everything related to music:
production, conception, marketing, licensing, consulting, publishing, management, label, etc. and Chris Gelbmann is thinking a lot about how to work together with artists. He tries to do things differently than the majors. He wants to trust the talent of the artists.
“I am constantly in a self-doubt-process. I find out more and more what you cannot give the artists. You can give them trust and support for their creative development. At a major label they are left alone very soon, I have experienced that back then. If you have a lot of artists to deal with you don’t have time for them.” At Buntspecht he has and takes the time to sit a whole night with a musician to discuss how the new album should look like. He does what he thinks is right but his ambition is, nevertheless, being able to earn a living with the company one day.
