Identical twins Alanna and Brianne Finn-Morris––doing business as the folk-pop duo FIONN––landed a deal with Vancouver-based label 604 Records after they were spotted busking on the streets of White Rock, British Columbia. Someone with a connection liked the young pair and sent word to label head Jonathan Simkin. Soon after, he reached out to the sisters.
But a deal wasn’t offered immediately. That was partly because Simkin didn’t feel that the pair was ready, and partly because in Canada people must be 19 to enter into contracts. At the time, the girls were legally not yet adults.
“It was really random,” Alanna recalls of their 604 hookup. “We were busking down by the beach in White Rock, a little town just outside of Vancouver. Someone with a distant connection to [604 label head] Jonathan Simkin said they could get us an audition. I think the only reason he let us is because they’d just opened a new soundstage and he wanted to test it out.” The girls were scarcely teenagers at the time.
The showcase went well. But Simkin didn’t feel that the sisters were yet ready for a deal. He suggested, however, that they stay in touch. “He liked us, but thought we needed to write better songs,” Finn-Morris explains. “It didn’t hurt my feelings. It’s kind of hard to write good songs when you’re 13. At the time, we both knew that we needed to be stronger songwriters. We felt like this was the push we needed. We kept sending him songs and often he didn’t respond. But when we sent him ‘Magazine Face,’ he liked it and asked us to come in for a meeting. That’s when he offered to sign us.”
The pair’s self-titled record is targeted for a fall release with single “Magazine Face” leading the charge. 604 Records was launched in 2002 as the production company of attorney Jonathan Simkin and Nickelback vocalist Chad Kroeger. The name FIONN is derived from the Irish spelling of Finn, the sisters’ last name. FIONN works with Canadian songwriter and producer Louise Burns, former bassist with now-retired band Lillix.
Date Signed: March 2017
Label: 604 Records
Type of Music: Folk-Pop
Management: Jonathan Simkin - Simkin Artist Management, [email protected]
Booking: Tom Kemp - Feldman Agency, [email protected]
Legal: Miro Oballa - Taylor Oballa Murray Leyland LLP, [email protected]
Publicity: Hannah Schwartz - Shore Fire Media, 718-522-7171, [email protected]
Web: fionnband.com
A&R: Jonathan Simkin
