Combustion Music Rides Unusual Business Plan as It Nears 25th Anniversary

When Combustion Music celebrates its 25th anniversary in January, owner Chris Farren expects the Nashville-based publishing company will be firing on all cylinders.

And maybe operating with an empty tank.

Like firms in nearly every sector of the economy, Combustion has been forced to retool its business model as the digital era has matured during the 21th century, and Farren has developed an unusual plan in which he typically sells off the firm’s entire catalog about every five years, then begins rebuilding for the next sale when the projections make sense.

While the company’s inventory isn’t currently on the market, Farren believes a sale “will be imminent.”

Neither Farren nor a pair of Nashville publishing insiders could name a similar firm that operates with the same game plan — if there is one, said one of those executives, it’s “not common.” 

Farren started his music career as a songwriter, generating such ’90s hits as Deana Carter‘s “How Do I Get There,” Boy Howdy‘s “She’d Give Anything,” Kevin Sharp‘s “If You Love Somebody” and Collin Raye‘s “If I Were You.” He produced Carter, Boy Howdy and Sharp during their commercial peaks and, more recently, guided hits for  Corey Kent and Jameson Rodgers. Farren also signed Jeffrey Steele (“Big Deal,” “My Town”) to his first songwriting contract, a move that started Farren’s publishing journey.

“As a songwriter, I had sold some catalogs along the way, and I realized I wasn’t scared of that,” Farren notes. “I found that the right deal could be really smart because it gives you money now and gives you money to invest for later, as opposed to just waiting for the money to come in.”

Cash flow historically posed a major hurdle for indie publishers. When Farren and then-partner Ken Levitan, of Vector Management, founded Combustion in 2001, it typically took three to five years for a publisher to begin seeing income. The first revenue comes a little faster now from streaming companies, though the most substantial income is still performance royalties from radio broadcasts, and since most country hits take three to four times longer to reach their chart peaks than they did 25 years ago, the biggest income streams arrive about three months slower.

At its start, Combustion was designed as a publisher and label, with much of its focus on developing soundtrack albums. Although once profitable, sales of movie-music collections plummeted as consumers shifted to streaming individual songs. That’s part of what spurred a change in the business plan.

Fortunately for Combustion, Farren is good at identifying young songwriting talent. During the Nashville Songwriter Awards on Sept. 23, contemporary Christian music’s Matthew West, a former Combustion writer, claimed his second songwriter-artist trophy, while Ashley Gorley (“You’re Gonna Miss This,” “All-American Girl”), also a former Combustion affiliate, took home his ninth. In fact, Gorley, Gordie Sampson (“Jesus, Take the Wheel,” “Just a Dream”) and rock band Kings of Leon were among the earliest signees for the company, which also counts Zach Crowell (“Body Like a Back Road”), Blair Daly (“Smile,” “Beer Money”), Matt Jenkins (“Cop Car,” “Song for Another Time”) and the late Brett James (“Something in the Water,” “I Hold On”) among its former writers. The current iteration includes Kent, Brett Tyler (“Man Made a Bar,” “Wild As Her”) and Thomas Archer (“Wind Up Missin’ You,” “Truth About You”). Two Combustion creatives, Archer and Blake Bollinger, were among the writers on Kent’s recent Country Airplay No. 1, “This Heart,” while Combustion composers Nick Sainato, Chris McKenna and Jessica Farren are part of the team behind Josh Ross‘ current single, “Hate How You Look.”

The writers are key to Farren’s catalog sales strategy. Publishers and composers split the rights to any title in their agreements. A Combustion sale transfers the publishing piece to the buyer, though the writers retain their own share. Meanwhile, the writers’ contracts remain with Combustion, so even as Farren sells off the copyrights, he keeps the talent that begins developing new titles for the next version of the catalog.

“We’re not starting with zero writers,” Farren notes. “We’re starting with zero songs.”

Once Combustion zeroes out the library, it also restarts with an established staff that’s incentivized to rebuild toward the next catalog sale. Farren offers employees a percentage of the revenue from those deals in exchange for a smaller weekly paycheck. All six current staff members have accepted that offer.

“It’s worked out well in every case,” Farren says. “It kept my overhead down. It kept me hungry. It kept us motivated. It kept us kind of aligned as a team — we’re all in it together and we all win it together.”

To collect their share, employees have to remain on the team through the sale’s consummation, an agreement that encourages continuity. VP Chris “Falcon” Van Belkom has been with Combustion 21 years; director operations Kelly Lyons has been in place for nine years.

Frank Liddell, who founded indie Carnival Music in the late 1990s, has routinely turned down offers to sell his catalog. But he noted that as publishing has grown more difficult in the streaming era, every business model that improves the outlook for independent companies is worth pursuing.

“Anybody can walk around and say, ‘We care about the music and that’s all we care about,’” Liddell suggested. “None of us would be in business anymore. So it’s a very delicate balance, and when somebody finds …  an engine or a vehicle to stay independent, to have another voice other than being a major, [that’s] necessary for our business to continue to flourish.”

Farren is optimistic that Combustion will be firing on all cylinders — creatively and economically — as the calendar rolls over in a few months to 2026, bringing a 25th anniversary with maybe two reasons to party.

“A payday as well as a celebration would be my goal,” Farren says. “That would be even sweeter to say: 25 years and everybody’s in a really good place. And they’re going to get a nice bonus.”