RYAN FARLEY (UK)
RYAN FARLEY (UK)
Managing Director & Head of A&R at Cooking Vinyl Publishing – a London-based music publishing company, part of the Cooking Vinyl Group. Ryan’s career has focussed on working directly with talent, facilitating their development and
helping them achieve successful careers of their own. Starting out interning at Radio X, BBC Radio 1, Columbia Records, RCA, Polydor Records, SuperVision Mgmt and Steve Budd Management, he also managed artists and guided them in developing their brand, release schedules, live shows and industry profile. Following this he booked and tour-managed a rock band around the UK & Japan for 18 months.
Once back in the UK, Ryan joined Warner/Chappell Publishing as a talent scout, earning promotion to A&R Manager within a year. Songwriters he signed had cuts on six UK No.1 albums, with worldwide sales totaling over 10 million records. These included Madeon (Lady Gaga, Ellie Goulding, Porter Robinson), Starsmith (Ellie Goulding), Wolfgang (now known as Max Wolfgang), Cold Specks, Hannah Yadi & Olivia Sebastianelli. Whilst at Warner/Chappell he started a club night in East London called Knew Knowledge to promote the exciting new talent he was discovering. Artists to have performed live included Little Sims, Jacob Banks, Krept n Konan, Riz MC (Riz Ahmed), George The Poet, Sinnead Harnett and Shystie.
He also mentored songwriting and production students at London’s Institute of Contemporary Music Performance, Academy of Contemporary Music and Westminster University.
After leaving Warner in 2014, he developed the Knew Knowledge brand into a management and consultancy business and worked with the likes of F Block Studios & Publishing, A-List Management, Boy Wonder Publishing and Saulty Songs, and held artist development consultancies with Montana, Matt Linnen, Denmark’s Wafande/Black Dylan and Nashville artist Sarah Darling, who’s album Wonderland’ he A&Red and led to her achieving her first UK Country Album #1.
Throughout his career Ryan has developed strong international contacts, most recently as the Managing Director of Cooking Vinyl Publishing, joining in the summer 2018. Here, he is responsible for a diverse song catalog of over 8,000 titles and in the past 3 years has sourced and negotiated a raft of new sub-publishing and licencing agreements with international partners and overseeing a complete modernization of the publishing business. With a focus on pro-active A&R and writer development, he continues to work directly with talent including The Waterboys, The Orb, Avelino, Raf Riley, July Jones, Robbie Jay, Jacob Attwooll & Matty Benbrook, amongst many others, helping to shape and guide their songwriting careers.
He also served on the Board of IMPEL (a digital licencing collective of independent publishers) for the past 4years and sits on it’s Operations Group Committee, and is a member of the PRS Dance Music Committee.
