Samantha Ronson––that’s right, the reputed London DJ whose romance with Lindsay Lohan drew her enough limelight for a lifetime––is shy about her music.
In March 2015, Ronson, along with drummer/producer Pete Nappi and singer/songwriter Ethan Thompson, wrote a batch of songs and recorded them to analog. “We did it altogether,” Ronson says. “Pete did 90 percent of the production, Ethan and I did 90 percent of the writing––and we tortured each other 100 percent of the time.”
Thing is, once the songs were finished, Ronson wasn’t too keen on sharing them with anyone: “I didn’t want to be rejected, so I didn’t want to play them for anybody and have them say they weren’t any good.” Regardless, a friend of hers who was freelancing as an A&R rep and manager for various labels in New York, slipped the songs to the A&R department at Hollywood Records. Based solely off those demos (well, Ronson’s reputation probably didn’t hurt, either), Hollywood Records signed Ocean Park Standoff to a 360 deal on March 17, 2016, even before seeing the band perform live.
“We tortured each other 100 percent of the time.”
Following the signing, the pop/rock group played a gig in front of 200 people at South by Southwest. On the way back to their hotel, they heard one of their songs on the radio for the first time.
“It was such a cool moment, we’ll never forget it,” Nappi said.
Indeed, the memories are already piling up for the young band, whose self-titled EP dropped in early March. To date, they’ve toured with Silversun Pickups and Third Eye Blind, staged their own tour and played on the Today show in front of Kathie Lee Gifford.
Despite all the attention the newbies are drawing, each of the three bandmates emphasized throughout our conversation that they chillax as much as possible. Thompson says the trio “writes songs in [Ronson’s] backyard for fun,” adding that Hollywood is letting them format their music to the band’s liking.With an arrangement like that, it seems like only a matter of time before Ronson’s shyness wears off.
“We keep waiting for something to go wrong, but it hasn’t,” she says.
Date Signed: March 2016
Label: Hollywood Records
Band Members: Pete Nappi, Ethan Thompson, Samantha Ronson.
Type of Music: Pop/Rock
Management: Gabe Saporta with T∆G // THE ARTIST GROUP
Booking: N/A
Legal: N/A
Publicity: [email protected] and Stephanie.Durning@42West. net and Sharrin Summers, [email protected]
Web: OceanParkStandoff.com
A&R: N/A
