Marc Brown, Founder at Byta

Marc got his start at Sloan’s murderecords, Canada’s premier artist owned label during the mid 90s. After working in A&R at the legendary London indie Creation Records, then at Alan McGee’s Poptones, Marc started his own boutique UK radio promotion company off the back of his success with The Hives. For over 10 years Marc worked with an impressive list of indie rock luminaries including Wilco, Bloc Party, Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes, Spoon and Refused as well as legends such as Tom Waits, Yoko Ono, Booker T and Mavis Staples.

In 2015 Marc founded Byta (https://byta.com) “the platform for music before it’s on streaming services”. Run as a distributed team across 3 different continents, Byta allows everyone to send & receive digital audio in a clean and simple way.

Marc currently lives in Gothenburg, Sweden.

What is your favourite part about your job?

Building something together with people who all have different skills and know exactly how to use them is immensely rewarding.

What is the biggest challenge you face in your job?

We all face the same challenge, be that an artist, a label or an audio platform like Byta. Awareness is of course number one though understanding is equally as important. You want people to not only know who you are but also know what you are about.

What was your first job in the music industry?

I dropped out of university to volunteer at Sloan's murderecords in Halifax back in the '90 and that turned into about 300 bucks a month. Artist run labels were rare and most Canadian music wasn't very good which is why there were zero massive Canadian artists on an international level. A different world.

Favourite non-music-related pastime?

I'm reading "history of ideas" at University of Gothenburg so that's got to be it.

Top 3 favourite albums released in 2018?

Mary Lattimore "Hundreds of Days"
Robyn "Honey"
Skee Mask "Compro"

Poutine, shawarma or pho?

I always order the pho but am secretly longing for a shawarma!