While she completes recording for her sophomore album, expected by year’s end via Capitol, Melissa Auf Der Maur will also be scouting up-and-coming bands as part of a new job in the A&R department of EMI Canada.
The assignment is a byproduct of Auf Der Maur moving back to Montreal in recent months, after spending much of the past decade encamped in Los Angeles and New York, as well as touring the globe with Hole and Smashing Pumpkins.
“Although I am signed to EMI, I’m signed through Capitol in the United States,” Auf Der Maur tells Billboard.com. “So, I have practically no relationship with my label here in Canada. But they heard I’d moved back, came down to one of my [showcase] events [at the Pop Montreal festival] and approached me. They want to bring some more creative thinking to their business. When you think about it, artists should be running the business!”
Auf Der Maur will scout bands in Canada and in the midst of her travels, and is also evaluating music sent to her by colleagues at the label. “The major labels in Canada are almost more like independents in the States,” she notes. “It’s pretty different. This department here is two people! They don’t have as many resources.”
“If I can bring any quality music into the system, I feel really, really happy to be able to do that,” she continues. “Offering advice to young musicians trying to figure out the pros and cons is what I’ve been doing since as long as I can remember. All my friends are musicians. I want to do right by music.”
