Paradigm has acquired Christian music booking agency Third Coast Artists Agency, and will incorporate it into the firm’s Nashville office. Third Coast president Mike Snider will bring his entire team and roster into the Paradigm Nashville fold, including such artists as Audio Adrenaline, Mercy Me, Jeremy Camp, Natalie Grant, Hawk Nelson, Red, David Crowder Band, and Chris Sligh.
“Paradigm Nashville has been quietly putting together an aggressive strategy to expand our presence in this market,” Paradigm Nashville co-head Greg Janese tells Billboard.biz. “One of the first steps in that direction is to acquire an agency that fits the profile of Paradigm’s culture and mission, which is identifying those entrepreneurial-driven boutique agencies that are successful but have very strong, experienced and capable people that can walk in and by joining forces create a one-plus-one equals three situation. And Mike Snider and his team fit that profile, just as [Monterey Peninsula founders] Dan Weiner and Fred Bohlander fit the profile four-and-a-half years ago when [Paradigm CEO] Sam Gores purchased Monterey Peninsula Artists.”
Snider co-founded TCAA with his wife Lisa in 1999 and the agency has rapidly grown to be a force in the Christian music market. Snider says teaming up with a larger agency was something he had long considered, adding he “admires and respects” the team at Paradigm. “The way they’ve grown their offices is very similar to the way we’ve grown our company,” Snider says. “Being at a boutique, although we have grown tremendously, we [now] have an opportunity now to do the things CAA and William Morris have always been able to do, to compete on a different level.”
Despite a down economy, “there is still a lot of business that can be generated by this town, in several different artists and formats,” Janese says. “The Christian music industry is a very important part of Nashville, and bringing Mike and his team on is bringing in the best guys in that market.”
Under Janese and co-head Curt Motley, the Paradigm Nashville office books such acts as Toby Keith, the Del McCoury Band, the Eli Young Band, Mike Farris, Jack Ingram, Marty Stuart, Patty Loveless, Shooter Jennings, Junior Brown and many others.
Paradigm has offices in Beverly Hills, New York, Nashville and Monterey, Calif. Their roster of music artists include such acts as Coldplay, Dave Matthews Band, the Black Eyed Peas, Aerosmith, the Dead, Phish, Robert Plant and Alison Krause, Fergie, Jason Mraz, Avril Lavigne, the Fray and Smashing Pumpkins.
Film and TV clients include Philip Seymour Hoffman, Adrien Brody, Chris Cooper, Katherine Heigl, Michael Cera, Laurence Fishburne, Gary Oldman, Andy Garcia, Damon Wayans, Teri Hatcher, Neil Patrick Harris, Michael Clarke Duncan and Hayden Christensen.
