Kip Moore Promises Yearly Bonus to Contributing Songwriters
With the advent of online music streaming, songwriters who have traditionally garnished income from performance royalties and record sales have felt the technological growing pains more keenly than anyone else in the music industry. Songwriter-turned-country music star Kip Moore is putting his money where his mouth is to find a solution, and not just figuratively. Moore is pledging a financial bonus to contributing songwriters on his album for any songs that don't make single status -- the money-making delegation that guarantees income for songwriters.
"I want to bonus people who had a cut on my record," Moore says in an interview with Billboard. "I'm hoping that this sparks something amongst the artists that are actually making a living out on the road. I know that all artists can't do this but my hope is that the big guns out there doing well on the road, that we can help kick back to the songwriters that are struggling in town."
Recalling his days as an emerging songwriter and performer in Nashville when he lived in a garage apartment and struggled to make ends meet, Moore says that his intention is to give songwriters the motivation and financial room to focus on what they do best: write better songs.
"My only hope is that we can find a way as a town to take care of each other, and it not be such a dog-eat-dog thing where everybody's trying to hustle to get with the artist and that these artists, these writers that used to all write together and just try to write amazing songs, can get back in the room and focus on that because they're not so worried about writing a single for the radio."
Moore says that he plans to reward his songwriters every year in December out of his own pocket to encourage them to keep writing.