Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Zimmermann.
Hi Alex, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My name is Alex Zimmermann. I’ve spent the past 13 years here in Nashville, but I’ve been recording music since I was 13 years old, playing in different bands. I grew up in the church, playing in the church band on just about every instrument, and eventually running sound. That was a huge part of my upbringing and a big part of what brought me to where I am today.
Fast forward, and I spent a lot of time working in the Christian music industry. I saw a lot of problems, and I really believed the industry needed to change with radical generosity.
Steve Sivulka, out in Oceanside, had already started a music venue, a young adults ministry, and was throwing concerts, events, and festivals. He’d built a studio in his house where he was recording bands for free. The only thing he was missing was the music industry infrastructure, so we brought it together and created a nonprofit called Near Kingdom Records.
We help artists at all levels. We keep a small roster on purpose. Our whole mission is to impact culture in a positive way while giving artists the money they actually deserve. We don’t own any masters. We don’t operate like a traditional record label at all. We’re just doing things a lot differently.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It definitely has not been a smooth road. There have been a lot of challenges and obstacles along the way.
I was already working in the Christian music industry when we started this, so the first challenge was how to get it off the ground in a way that was ethical and honoring to the other projects I was part of.
The Christian music industry is basically run by three corporations: Sony, Warner, and Universal. Those aren’t bad companies or bad people, but it has siphoned the creativity and the output into three pipelines. That’s a real challenge. We’re operating outside of those pipelines on purpose. We’ve had opportunities to operate within them and we’ve turned them down, because we want to do things differently. It’s kind of an obstacle we’ve created for ourselves, to be truly independent, but it’s something we really believe in.
Finding donors is another challenge. We’re always looking for people who want to give in a radically generous way to join our donor team.
Near Kingdom is a nonprofit. We all have full-time jobs, and we don’t take a paycheck from Near Kingdom Records at all. So balancing life, our full-time jobs, and running the label can be quite the challenge, especially since a lot of us have families and children. It truly is a labor of love.
We’re a very small team. Most record labels have dozens of people, and we really just have three. But my experience working for various record labels over the past seven years has really come in handy, and we’re able to work more efficiently than really any record label I’ve ever been part of.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I started playing guitar when I was about 12 and started recording music shortly after that on an old Tascam Porta Studio my dad had from college. Nobody in my family was particularly musical or connected to the music industry, so I just did what I knew to do: I joined my church band and started my own bands in middle school and high school. I got to do a lot of cool things with those bands and even traveled all over the world with my high school band at a very young age.
When I graduated, I headed to Middle Tennessee, started at MTSU and ended at Belmont with a degree in songwriting and music business. After graduation I spent a lot of time producing records, writing with folks, touring in bands, and working at barbecue restaurants. I did that until I started weaseling my way into the record label system, where I worked at BMG, Concord, and Integrity Music for a long time. That whole time I kept producing records and making my own music under various projects.
It’s been really fun to take all of those experiences and pull them into a business role at Near Kingdom Records, where I’m working on the operations side and the A&R side, but I also get to flex my creative muscles and use the things I’ve learned over the years to help our artists get songs across the finish line. We believe the music coming from our roster should be the best music people have ever heard, and so far we truly believe that’s been the case.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
What makes me happy? People and songs.
I love spending time with my two boys and my wife. I love spending time with my friends. And I love songs that I want to repeat 17 times in a row. Those are the things in my life that I’m constantly chasing down: really great people and really great songs. Those are the things that truly bring happiness into my life.
I’ve been fortunate enough in the Christian music industry to find a lot of songs that have brought me comfort and peace and hope in darker times. I’m very thankful for music, and especially Christian music, for being a sort of compass for me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://nearkingdomrecords.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nearkingdomrecords/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61569422728270
