Thirty Tigers Partners With Sony, Triple 8 to Form Triple Tigers Records
A week after closing its country radio promotion department, Thirty Tigers has announced a partnership with Triple 8 Management and Sony Music, establishing a new imprint, Triple Tigers, that targets the commercial country format.
Norbert Nix will act as Triple Tigers GM and develop a dedicated promotion staff. Nix was most recently Columbia Nashville vp of promotion, a post in which he worked with Thirty Tigers and Triple 8 to promote Chase Rice, who accrued top 5 singles on Country Airplay with "Ready Set Roll" and "Gonna Wanna Tonight" under that arrangement.
Russell Dickerson, who has already earned significant airplay on SiriusXM's The Highway, was signed as the first Triple Tigers artist.
Thirty Tigers renewed its affiliation with Sony's indie distribution wing, RED, in conjunction with the agreement.
Thirty Tigers has provided an artist-friendly option since its 2002 inception, typically offering distribution and marketing to artists while allowing the acts to maintain ownership of their master recordings. Signees to the new label will not have that benefit, which became difficult to maintain when Thirty Tigers incurred the cost of a radio promotion department.
"The contractual relationships in this venture will hew more closely to traditional deals," says Thirty Tigers president David Macias.
The joint venture with Sony and Triple 8 had no impact on last week's closure of Thirty Tigers' original promotion department, Macias says. He had, in fact, hoped to have both promo departments active, but that proved untenable when Luke Combs, the only act that was being worked at the time, left Thirty Tigers, ironically to sign with Sony's Columbia label.
Triple Tigers will not be required to sign management deals with Triple 8. Dickerson, in fact, is managed by Dennis Entertainment.
Triple 8 clients currently listed among Thirty Tigers projects include Josh Abbott Band, Pat Green and Whiskey Myers.