Randy Frisch 
President, LoveCat Music

“I was looking for what I called the ‘intersection’– the intersection of great music with great film and TV,” said Randy Frisch, president of LoveCat Music. LoveCat is an independent label and publisher that houses an eclectic collection of artists and a catalog of over 10,000 songs. “We work with all kinds of music, from Arabic to zydeco—in particular, we work with pop music from all over the world,” explained Randy. And although you may not have heard of LoveCat’s flagship artists like Angel Tears and Latin Soul Syndicate, you have probably heard their music in hit movies like The Devil Wears Prada and The Incredible Hulk and popular TV shows like Ugly Betty and SpongeBob SquarePants, both of which frequently license music from LoveCat. Randy kindly took time from his busy schedule to tell us more about his labor of love.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

In my heart of hearts, I wanted to be a songwriter. Then when I was around 15, I started reading books about the music industry and discovered the business side to music. So I wanted to simultaneously be a songwriter and be behind-the-scenes in the music business as a manager or a record company entrepreneur.

How did you pursue your career goals?

After college, I was in bands for a few years while working as a music publicist. Then I went to law school. I anticipated that I’d want to work for myself, and I thought law school would be helpful in navigating the music industry. For seven years, I was legal counsel to a record label; then in 1999, I stopped practicing law and started LoveCat.

Why did you start LoveCat?

Being a lawyer was great, but I wanted to do more than just negotiate the contracts. Any time I had the opportunity, I would try to get my clients’ music into films and TV shows. I wanted to have creative input. I wanted to find bands and find opportunities for them. I always enjoyed discovering music. I was looking for a structure where I could do all of that. It seemed that being a publisher would suit me best.

What makes LoveCat unique?

American pop and rock comprises about 25% of our catalog, but we offer popular music from all over the world and this really catches the ears of music supervisors. We’ve had Celtic harp and Spanish reggaetón in Ugly Betty and Italian dance music and Brazilian pop in ER. We’re the international gateway that films and TV shows come to when they want something that sounds a little different.

How do you find artists?

It used to be mainly by referral, but recently we’ve signed some great bands from MySpace and the Internet. Each signing is unique. For example, Latin Soul Syndicate is a collective of top Latin players that was referred to me by another musician. Angel Tears is a World music duo I discovered on a trip to Israel.

What do you like most about what you do?

I love calling a band and telling them the great news that their song is in C.S.I or Friday Night Lights. It’s satisfying for both of us because it means our work was successful.

What are some of your future goals?

We are in growth mode and our focus is on finding and developing new songwriters and expanding our catalog. We can’t compete with the labels breaking the next Leona Lewis, but we’d love to find the next Black Eyed Peas. Our dream is to have a pop hit from an unlikely country. We’d love to sign a great pop songwriter; he or she could be from China or Chinatown, New York, as long as the music is undeniably great.

—Veronica Dominguez-Garcia