Song Division is a global company founded in 2003 that brings some of the world’s most rockin’ musicians to corporate events worldwide to help groups write and perform original works. Imagine belting out your new original song with Billy Joel’s guitar player strummin’ along with you.
Andy Sharpe is Song Division’s director and founder. His background as a professional musician and businessman was key when he was asked to run songwriting workshops for indigenous school kids, as part of Australia’s Garma Festival. The song created during the two-hour workshop was handed to a local radio station and broadcast throughout the region.
Nine years later, Sharpe and Song Division are producing original works for big name clients around the globe like Microsoft, Virgin and PwC. Their musicians’ credits include David Bowie, Queen and Lady GaGa, to name a few.
Prevue: Andy, can you explain how your music program starts?
The first 10 minutes of our program pretty much starts the same whether it’s a conference up to 3,000 people or a teambuilding experience of 500. We just did PwC’s tax conference in Toronto. They walked into a general session and there was a band playing, and they played “Taxman” by the Beatles. They usually play something relevant to the audience.
The MC will then introduce the band. As you can see from our website, all our musicians have recognizable touring and recording credits. They’ve all played with the big stars. They’ll introduce the drummer who plays with Billy Joel and Iggy Pop. We’ll go around introducing them so everyone knows it’s not the local corner bar band; this is the real deal.
There’s a reason why we’re very successful in dealing with corporate firms. I just got back from the UK and there were 60 senior executives who were not up for doing a teambuilding event. They’ve got too much money and they’ve got too little time. If they’re doing it in the room with David Bowie’s guitar player then all of that melts away. So one of our main things is that we’re using the top musicians.
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