Peermusic CEO Jamie Cerreta on His Frontline Focus & the State of Indie Publishing: ‘A Hit Can Come From Anywhere Now’
Categoria: Musica
"In our business these days there are somewhat short-term goals around the business," says Cerreta. "Publishing is not a short-term goal."
Por Billboard | 01/10/2026
When he was in his early 20s, touring bassist Jamie Cerreta was doing what he calls “the worst thing you can do” as a musician: looking for a job in the music industry. “I was trying to do both,” he jokes now, 30 years later. “When you’re an artist, everybody says you’ve got to give it 100%, but I thought I might like to get into the music business, too.” Cerreta sought an interview with an executive at peermusic, which he says was largely informational and didn’t lead to a job. “But obviously, I had big hopes of where it would lead,” he says. It inspired the young Cerreta to make a career pivot from being the one onstage to the one scouting talent from the crowd. He eventually landed a gig at Mercury Records in 1997; in 2002, he joined Chrysalis’ publishing division, where he found he had a penchant for building up rosters from scratch — something he’d go on to do many times in the coming years. Related Global Music Publishing Revenue Grew 9.6% in 2025: MIDiA Hilary Duff to Receive Outstanding Pop Tour of the Year Award at 2026 Billboard Live Music Summit Judge Rules Woman Accused of Shooting at Rihanna & A$AP Rocky's Home Mentally Fit to Stand Trial “There was basically no roster, and we were charged with building up one in the U.S. as a competitive alternative place for songs,” Cerreta explains about his time at the U.K.-based Chrysalis. “We became known as the development place.” His first signing was Ray LaMontagne , and from there he signed a stable of tastemaking indie talents like My Morning Jacket , Manchester Orchestra , St. Vincent and Bon Iver . But as the 2010s set in, the independent publishing market shifted — Chrysalis was sold to BMG, along with a slew of other independents such as Bug, Windswept and Cherry Lane — and Cerreta went on to co-found his own outfit, Big Deal Music, in 2012, focusing more on chart hits. “A lot of those companies sold because they weren’t sure where the industry was going,” Cerreta says. “We could also see the tea leaves as Spotify was emerging: A lot of middle-class artists who would sell half a million records — and that was a really good business to be in in 2010 or 2007, with good publishing earnings — unfortunately found it a lot harder to earn money with the advent of Spotify.” The plan for Big Deal worked: With hitmakers like John Ryan, Julian Bunetta, Dan Wilson and Teddy Geiger , Big Deal talent regularly wrote songs that landed on the Billboard Hot 100, including hits by Shawn Mendes , One Direction and Taylor Swift , and the company became a dominant force in independent publishing. Eventually, in 2020, Cerreta and his co-founders sold the company to Merck Mercuriadis ’ Hipgnosis. Now, Cerreta is enjoying a bit of a homecoming. In August 2025, he was named president of the U.S. and Canada for the nearly 100-year-old family-owned publisher peermusic, the same company that sparked his interest in the music business in the first place. His mandate is a familiar one: Build up the f