“You cannot go wrong with a whistle hook.”
The words of Apple Music‘s Zane Lowe, who featured catchy anthem Home, by Good Neighbours, as his “World First” record on January 17.
Since that moment, things have gone pretty bananas for UK duo Good Neighbours – aka Oli Fox and Scott Verrill.
The band currently release music through Ollie Hodge’s independent Some Action label (via Virgin Music Group); they’re managed by London and Los Angeles-based Various Artists.
Home was originally teased by Good Neighbours in January via a demo clip of the track’s chorus on TikTok. When the clip took off, the duo worked in tandem with Various and Some Action to quickly master a full version of the track, which was released on January 17. Since then, its popularity has snowballed.
In the past fortnight, Home has become a UK Top 40 and Billboard Hot 100-certified single – at No.34 and No.77 respectively.
Having peaked at No.2 on the Spotify Daily Viral chart, Home has amassed over 36 million plays on Spotify, where Good Neighbours already have over 9.7 million monthly listeners… off one song.
Sure enough, the digital virality of Good Neighbours has drawn the attention of some very senior corners of the music business.
Good Neighbours played a tiny show at The Victoria in London’s Dalston on Thursday, February 1.
Notably, that date took place as most of the blockbuster music business was hobnobbing in Los Angeles for Grammy Week.
Still, MBW’s spies tell us that attendees on the guest list at the February 1 show included reps from the likes of 10K Projects, Raine Group, Giant Music, and Darkroom, plus both UK and US reps from major record companies spanning Atlantic Records, Columbia Records, Island Records, Interscope, RCA, Polydor, Republic Records, Warner Music, and more.
Since then, meetings between the band, their management reps, and label execs are understood to have been taking place in the US – again, with senior figures from all three major record companies involved.
MBW’s sources suggest this one is moving fast, with many sides keen to make a swift – and potentially substantial – deal. (The current skirmish between Universal Music Group and TikTok momentarily saw Home taken down from TikTok earlier this month, but it has since reappeared.)
MBW texted Joe Etchells, who handles management of the band at Various alongside David Bianchi, for more details over the weekend. Etchells simply offered back that Good Neighbours have “several excellent songs at varied degrees of completion”.
Good Neighbours’ next live show is a sold-out date at London’s The Lexington in April.Music Business Worldwide