Vinten Will Also Serve as A&R Consultant to Warner Bros. and Warner/Chappell Music

 
Warner Bros. Records (WBR) today announced that the company has partnered with award-winning songwriter Justin Tranter and Katie Vinten, most recently Co-Head of A&R for Warner/Chappell Music, to launch a new label, Facet Records. Vinten will also serve as an A&R Consultant to Warner Bros. Records and will continue with Warner/Chappell in a consultancy role, working with a selected roster of songwriters.

In making the announcement, Warner Bros. Records Co-Chairman & CEO Aaron Bay-Schuck said, “Justin is a true visionary and one of the greatest songwriters in the game, with a remarkable ability to bring the best out of people. Justin is a fierce champion for artists and their songwriting peers, takes risks, dares to be different, and fights daily for the causes they believe in, both within and outside the scope of the music business. Katie is a brilliant A&R person who has been the guiding force behind an incredible roster of chart-topping songwriters, Justin among them. To be able to partner with both of them in their mission to identify and develop the next generation of superstars is an honor and a privilege for all of us at Warner Bros. Records.”

“I am beyond honored and excited to begin this next chapter with Warner Bros. Records,” said Justin Tranter. “It makes perfect sense to partner with my queen Katie Vinten on this label venture, since we built my songwriting career from the ground up. The work we have done with Aaron Bay-Schuck on artist projects like Selena Gomez, Gwen Stefani, and Imagine Dragons changed our lives forever. And now, as we continue working with him, we can’t wait to change other people’s lives as well. Thank you so much Max Lousada for this beautiful opportunity. I named our label Facet because the most precious stones deserve thought-out, passionate facets to make them really shine. I know, with the help of Aaron, Max, Tom Corson, and the whole WBR team, that’s exactly what we are going to do.”

“It has been a great privilege to work with Jon Platt and the team at Warner/Chappell over the past six years,” said Katie Vinten, “and I’m thrilled to be able to continue consulting on a limited roster. It is with great enthusiasm and joy that Justin and I announce the start of Facet. We’ve had an amazing run of success at Warner/Chappell, much of that in collaboration with Aaron, and we’re already hard at work lining up our first artist endeavor. It all started with a belief in each other’s potential, and we launch this label with the same relentless faith in what we can accomplish together. Special thanks to Max, Aaron, and Tom for their support and recognition of our abilities to nurture success with the quietly shining stars of today, who will get the global recognition they deserve tomorrow!”

Justin Tranter is one of the most successful and admired songwriters and collaborators in the music business today, with over 40 million single sales and seven billion streams to date on Spotify. They went from graduating Berklee College of Music in 2002 to founding New York glam-punk band Semi Precious Weapons in 2006 to landing their first mega-hit by co-writing Fall Out Boy’s 2014 quintuple-platinum “Centuries.” Since then, they have co-written smashes such as Selena Gomez’s “Good For You” feat. A$AP Rocky, Justin Bieber’s “Sorry,” DNCE’s “Cake By The Ocean,” Hailee Steinfeld’s “Love Myself,” Fifth Harmony’s “Dope,” Britney Spears’ “Slumber Party,” and Gwen Stefani’s “Used To Love You.” In 2017 alone, they landed four Top 10 smashes at pop radio: Imagine Dragons’ “Believer,” Julia Michaels’ “Issues,” Halsey’s “Bad At Love,” and Maroon 5’s “Cold.” Meanwhile, Billboard proclaimed Selena Gomez’s “Bad Liar” (co-written by Tranter) as the best song of 2017, and Tranter stood out as the only pop songwriter to land two songs on Variety’s “HitMakers” Most Consumed List. 

Kicking off 2018, they became the only songwriter nominated for both Song of the Year at the Grammys® with “Issues” by Michaels and Best Original Song at the Golden Globes® with “Home” from Ferdinand, performed by Nick Jonas. Tranter won Songwriter of the Year at the BMI Pop Awards for the second consecutive year and received a nomination for Songwriter of the Year for the Spotify Secret Genius Awards. Among many recent credits, they co-wrote Linkin Park’s “Heavy,” Imagine Dragons’ “Natural,” Bebe Rexha’s “I’m A Mess,” Shea Diamond’s “Kesha Complexion,” Leon Bridges’ “Beyond,” Cardi B’s “Thru Your Phone,” Janelle Monáe’s “Make Me Feel,” and Lady Gaga’s “Heal Me” from A Star is Born. 

A powerful advocate for the LGBTQ community, Tranter continues to give back as a GLAAD board member. In October, they hosted their second annual Spirit Day Concert in Los Angeles to benefit GLAAD’s anti-bullying campaign and support LGBTQ youth. A month earlier, Tranter made a donation to their alma mater, The Chicago Academy for the Arts, to fund a state-of-the-art recording studio and hire a part-time music teacher for the next three years. 

Katie Vinten joined Warner/Chappell in 2012, serving initially as Director, A&R, before being promoted eventually to SVP and Co-Head of A&R in 2016. She has been instrumental in the careers of songwriters Justin Tranter (Justin Bieber, Imagine Dragons, Bebe Rexha, Janelle Monáe, Gwen Stefani, Fall Out Boy, Selena Gomez, DNCE, Hailee Steinfeld, Kelly Clarkson), Audra Mae (Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson, Miranda Lambert), Captain Cuts (Walk the Moon, Halsey), Mattman and Robin (Imagine Dragons, Janelle Monáe, DNCE), Nick Monson (Lady Gaga, Selena Gomez, Nick Jonas), Asia Whiteacre (Hailee Steinfeld, 5S0S), and Felix Snow (SZA, Kiiara), as well as performing artist/songwriters Bishop Briggs, Kygo, K Flay, Hailee Steinfeld, Julia Michaels, and Christina Aguilera.