Moore is ReadyToBreak

"Unfortunately, it's been intangible over the years," said Paula Moore of the Artist & Repetoire "A&R" world. Having spent six years in the music industry, first as a booking agent, then as an A&R executive, and lately as a CEO, Moore hopes to put her experience to good use. Her company ReadyToBreak (RTB), which is currently recruiting in the Princeton area, not only provides A&R intelligence to record companies, but also offers a training course for those seeking work within the field.

The RTB program is the first of its kind and is a much-needed asset to an increasingly competitive industry. "There are so few A&R executive jobs available," said Moore. "Years ago there were about 450 A&R executives and today [there are] fewer than 150."

Before any such program existed, Moore, like many other A&R scouts, had to find her own road into the industry. Her primary interests in college were business and psychology, though she gravitated naturally toward music. She started booking bands at venues and promoting nightclubs, eventually breaking bands in Dallas.

After a few years as a booking agent, Moore had the opportunity to start her own record label at the age of 22. The label was regionally successful and allowed Moore to build up her business and make more contacts before she moved on to a bigger company.

For about a year, she worked for her first major label, RCA Records, remaining in Texas as a regional scout for the New York-based company. She was eventually headhunted by MCA Records, whom she scouted for over several years. She went through her first major label merger at MCA, during the union of Polygram and Universal records.

Once the merger was complete, she was asked by MCA to move to Los Angeles and launch a new A&R research and scouting department for the company. It was within MCA that she built her first venture similar to RTB — a scouting model so successful that it would come to attract offers from at least five other companies.

Up to that point, there hadn't been much else to compete with. "There was only [one other] regional scouting model ... at Columbia Records," said Moore. She stayed with MCA for another year after moving to LA before eventually going on to work for Warner.

Her program has produced a number of successful scouts, "a couple of whom have seen far more success than I have," said Moore. She stayed at Warner for nearly five years and decided to leave after undergoing a second label merger. Moore took a break from the corporate world for a while, and it was during time that she began to contemplate starting a new company.

"There's an enormous amount of consolidation ... there's a huge concern and debate on how the music industry is going to sustain itself and how're they're going to continue to see profits in the years to come," said Moore. These consolidations have made things especially difficult for those looking for jobs as A&R scouts.

Furthermore, as Moore relates, higher-level executives don't mentor, but often just "give [scouts] a phone and a computer and say, go find some talent." This can make for a specially difficult year for first-time scouts as they often have little or no experience to guide them.

Moore launched ReadyToBreak in September 2005 as an independent A&R company, dedicated to finding talent as well as training potential scouts. Through the program, she hopes to standardize the methodology she has for so long applied to her own work. Internships are a way for people to gain experience in the field, said Moore, though most A&R executives are not very willing to share the process.

As an A&R scout, she typically used her contacts at performing arts schools or within the music community to find talent. Scouts, especially those oriented toward rock, are known to go out to shows as well.

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Beyond searching for talent, Moore sometimes delved into artist development, especially with those whom she considered not ready for signing consideration. She worked on song development, for instance, bringing in producers and involving herself with the record-making and administrative processes.

"You have to do things that people recognize and associate your name with," said Moore, whose program, simply by virtue of being hers, has already gained renown in the industry. The course is comparable to an online college course. Students download monthly assignments, roughly seven to 15 pages long. They also receive a monthly call from Moore or her colleagues, as well as an individualized coaching session.

There are 12 assignments overall, though due to the large number of college student participants, the program allows for a great amount of flexibility. It can be completed in 10 to 15 months. The program is also offered for free.

"It's just something that I really want to do ... I really want to help people. I want to make sure that this is a sustainable career." To that end, Moore is also launching a book entitled "A&R: The Missing Manual."

In addition to training prospective A&R scouts, RTB functions as an independent A&R company. Artists and their representatives are allowed to upload their information onto the site for signing consideration, while A&R executives filter through the data that will eventually be shared with record companies.

By bringing the A&R process online, information can be accessed by several labels at once, creating better odds for the artists. "The thing about working inside a major label [is] ... only one person that makes the decisions," said Moore. "I'm not looking at just one artist a day ... I could be looking at 30 artists."

As a result, A&R scouts are often unable to secure deals for all the talent they find. Artists either look to other labels to sign them, or are never signed at all. As Moore recalls, when one of her trained scouts brought in The Killers for signing, Warner ended up passing on the group. Moore herself was the first to present rapper Slim Thug for signing consideration, only to see him passed up as well.

The RTB model, however, allows artists a greater amount of exposure to many labels at once. It's an ambitious move, one the industry hasn't tried before, but Moore still sees it as a valuable model.