Garth Brooks Comments on Sony Head Gary Overton’s Resignation
When Sony Music Nashville CEO Gary Overton stepped aside this week, it shocked the country music industry and some of the label's artists. Garth Brooks says he got the news long after it was made public, and hasn’t yet reached out to his former boss.
If the singer was shocked, it was tempered by past experiences. “There’s always change, always in this industry,” Brooks tells Taste of Country.
“Sometimes you’re a person in the boat, and you’re not steering the boat. And it’s scary," he says. "So as an artist, when your label head is gone you wonder who’s gonna fill in and what’s gonna change.”
Brooks spoke to ToC during during Wednesday’s (March 18) grand opening of the Child Life Zone at the Children’s Hospital Colorado. The singer’s Teammates for Kids foundation played a role in getting the new facility open.
He signed with Sony in July 2014, and released his Man Against Machine album in November. It’s difficult to gauge the commercial success of the project as it’s only available digitally on GhostTunes, and those numbers have been tough to verify. Both singles from the project have failed to crack the Top 10, with “Mom” bowing out just inside the Top 40.
Brooks' wife, Trisha Yearwood, is also signed to Sony’s RCA imprint. Later in the same conversation he talked about how much more difficult it is for today’s new artists than it was when he started.
“I’m not sure it’s as hard to get a deal, but I guarantee it’s a thousand times harder to hang on to it," he notes. "Because everything is disposable.”
On Wednesday night Brooks played the first of nine shows over seven days in Denver, Colo.
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