Saving Songwriters

Videos by American Songwriter

One afternoon, singer/songwriter Hanna Schmieder was languishing in the recording studio when she had a capitalistic epiphany. She had been writing the lyrics to one of her songs in permanent marker on her jeans while she waited for the producer to roll-back tracks. That’s when she realized the perfect supplement income. “That was the lightbulb moment,” she told the AP in an interview, an idea that ignited the creation of Lyric Culture, a merchandising company that prints the lyrics from famous (and not-so-famous) songs on all types of clothing. “My goal is to save the music business,” says Schmieder. “This is about generating new revenue streams for musicians… The record companies take a piece of the tour and the merchandise, but they can’t take a piece of this.”

Schmieder has been able to secure licensing rights from all major music-publishing houses and has used tag lines from every sort of artist, from the Beatles “Can’t Buy Me Love” to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.” All artists who contribute their work to her merchandise earn equal royalties, whether you’re Neil Diamond or ‘next-new-thing’. And they aren’t cheap. Belts, T-shirts, pants, underwear with lyrics splattered all over them sell from $75 to $700 dollars. Ms. Schmieder has also reached towards cornering the cash cow of the music business, young adults between 13-17. Lyrix is the company’s youth collection and gathers all the Miley Cyrus’, all the Zac Efron’s and designs clothing numbers in every conceivable style. What’s better is that both Miley and Zac will most likely miss out on the merchandising royalties. That money, through license, will go to the songwriters. Check out your marketing potential at at Lyric Culture’s site.