This week, Jon Bellion returned to middle stage after years of remaining behind the scenes: the veteran songwriter-producer launched Father Determine, his first album in seven years and a poignant reflection on fatherhood, together with his relationship along with his personal father and his experiences as a dad of three. A deeply private challenge that features a image of his mother and father on the album cowl and a voicemail from his uncle on the observe record, Father Determine additionally demonstrates Bellion’s standing as a gifted collaborator, with Luke Combs, Pharrell Williams and Jon Batiste lending their voices to his story.
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Bellion — who has contributed to hits by Justin Bieber, Maroon 5 and Miley Cyrus, and lately co-helmed “Friend of Mine,” Rihanna’s first new single in three years — says that he’s not enjoying a “numbers recreation” with the album, and that the metric of success he’d like to succeed in with Father Determine is extra summary. “If my album can provide you yet another day, then I’m cool with that — that’s the objective,” he tells Billboard. “To provide a listener one other day of inspiration? I may stay with that.”
But together with its emotional energy, Father Determine additionally provides a recent trade blueprint, because the uncommon challenge through which its credited co-writers will obtain a share of grasp royalties, or “factors,” on the album. Bellion labored alongside the artists that comprise Stunning Thoughts Initiatives — his administration, publishing and label firm — together with studio whizzes Pete Nappi, Tenroc and Elkan, all of whom additionally contributed to Rihanna’s “Pal of Mine.”
Bellion says that the choice to supply factors to his fellow songwriters was the results of his personal “frustrations of being a songwriter and being paid filth — morally paid filth — for 10 years. I don’t wish to hear folks speaking about, ‘Oh, he’s made cash and he’s profitable, so he can’t speak about how songwriters receives a commission filth.’ … Should you write a complete tune with a bunch of individuals, and there’s $10 and so they solely pay you 25 cents, there’s ethical injustice there.
“If it’s $10 million and so they solely pay you $250,000, there’s ethical injustice there,” he continues. “It doesn’t matter the way in which you microscopically change that — it’s an insane factor to say. I’ve at all times been vocal about that, and I don’t care what folks’s notion of that’s, as a result of songwriters receives a commission f—king filth.”
After self-funding Father Determine, Bellion admits that he does have “a brand new perspective and a brand new appreciation for what the label is doing,” however nonetheless believes that there’s a approach for file labels to allocate much less cash towards promotional efforts and extra in the direction of inventive collaborators. To that finish, Bellion says that he determined to focus his promotional marketing campaign much less on short-form content material, and extra on correct music movies for 4 songs from the album — together with the title observe, which acquired a shifting visible on Friday (June 6).
Bellion says that the album rollout has been a useful studying course of. “You’ve acquired to begin someplace,” he says. “I’m understanding the workings of the label, and stumbling via it. And even when I come out shedding cash — which I believe I’ll on this album — however nonetheless getting the writers paid no less than a degree or two, and giving them the braveness to enter the following assembly to say ‘Nicely, John did it!’ … Somebody must be the man to be like, ‘I don’t actually know the right way to make my a reimbursement whereas giving out a ton of factors if I’m funding the factor myself, however I’m gonna have to leap into the world to place my cash the place my mouth is.’ I don’t know if that is gonna work out, however no less than I attempted to do the factor.”
As Bellion gears as much as promote Father Determine from the stage — he’ll carry out a sold-out intimate present at SOB’s in New York, and headline Forest Hills Stadium on Aug. 23 — he hopes that his distinctive standing within the trade will flip his gambit with the album right into a profitable mannequin.
“I’ve been on either side of the spectrum,” he says. “I’ve been on the label aspect, I’ve been on the writer aspect, I’ve been on the author aspect, and I’ve been on the artist aspect. So there’s extra of a holistic angle, and I can attempt to convey every part in nearer, to get to a greater place, probably.
“I’m not trailblazing,” Bellion continues. “I’m gonna go to Capitol Hill and dedicate my life to — I’m not saying that. However placing my cash the place my mouth is, the place it really counts? It’s an excellent place to begin.”