INTRODUCTION
Hi! My name is Steven Gerein. I am the creator of SongShop! I wanted to take a few minutes to introduce myself, and give you a bit of background as to how SongShop came to be.
I currently live in Alberta, Canada. Our winters are cold and long, our summers are short and (usually) hot! I’m a Powerline Technician (Lineman), musician, home studio owner/operator, husband, dog owner, ocean lover, and entrepreneur. I manage to keep myself busy with all kinds of things, and life is never dull or boring!
WHERE THE MUSIC BEGAN
I was born in a small town in Saskatchewan, Canada. Like lot’s of young kids where I grew up, my parents put me into piano lessons, then some guitar lessons, and then I got more interested in girls and sports and quit! It wasn’t until I was about 19 that I really took interest in it. I started playing coffee houses, and open mics trying to find my way, and eventually ended up starting a country band. We have had a few singles chart in the top 100 at Canadian country radio and kept ourselves busy playing shows all across the country! I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of some pretty cool stuff, and have met some great people along the way!
SMALL TALK
It was just another set up day – Spend the afternoon loading in gear. Set the stage and lighting. Line check, sound check, and then break until show time. Me and a couple band members did what most others would do – walked down to the bar and grabbed a beer. We sat and chatted for a while, just the usual small talk about the show, set up, and how we thought the night would go. But then we started talking about something else; something that sparked the idea for SongShop. One of the guitar players who plays with us also has his own project, and he had been prepping songs for his next album. I was also starting to prep for another recording, and we got on the topic of finding songs from other writers.
Now, being that we lived in a smaller city not close to any musical “hub”, making connections with writers wasn’t something very common. We had both been looking online for some type of online pitching service or song catalogue we could browse through, but it seemed like there was nothing out there. I really couldn’t believe it, so I started asking around my music community to see if anyone knew of any – my search came up empty.
I couldn’t believe that in today’s day and age, there was not a single place on the internet that an independent writer could host their song catalogue and advertise it to artists all over the place! I mean there are dogs and cats that have millions of Instagram followers… How can this not exist?
THE START OF SOMETHING GOOD
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to go to a website and browse through hundreds of original songs to record for your next album, or find that perfect single?? And if there was an online community, there would be the possibility to connect an artist from Canada with a writer in Europe – who would have never had the chance to meet before!
I decided that if I couldn’t find it, I would build it. I came up with the idea of SongShop – a place to shop for songs, and a place to shop your songs.
My goal was simple:
- Give independent songwriters a chance to have their songs heard
- Give independent artists a catalogue of songs to choose from
- Let both parties keep 100% of their royalties
- Give the independent music industry another tool to work with
- Provide free resources and build a community!
This last year has been full of building, designing, tweaking, and TONS of learning – But I am excited to say that SongShop is finally here! I truly hope that this becomes a valuable tool you can use, and platforms like this become more popular in the music industry.
Thank you so much for reading! Say Hi in the comments, and let me know where you’re from!!
