Meet Christon Bush | CEO, Artist &Licensing Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Christon Bush and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Christon, maybe we can start at the very start – the idea – how did you come up with the idea for your business?
Coming to Knoxville played a major role in not only launching our business but innovating our business model. While studying at UTK, the founders of BXSCO all observed visionary artists and talents year in and year out all sharing the same setback: a lack of space. More specifically, a creative space tailored to connecting creators with other creators i.e. if you make music then l0gically you should start meeting people within entertainment mediums to learn how to give your music opportunities and vice versa with film. That’s why being musicians who understood the full scope of a revolutionized music industry with partnerships in place with other powerhouse companies, it was a no-brainer to scale our efforts and go for a full-fledged creative agency AND publishing label. The emphasis is on publishing because therein lies the important knowledge oftentimes independents just don’t have organic access to it without extensive paywalls. By shouldering more of the upfront risk to offer this resource to others in hopes of lightening the burden throughout the creative process, we can make time to actualize ideas, focus on licensing globally and the process involved with collecting royalties on copyright – a topic staunched in stigma within entertainment industries – and lastly empower the creator. If we could do it for ourselves and immediate friends as case studies, with a little effort and consistency we could begin to roll this platform out for others.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
In the business, which can be summed up to client relationships, licensing administration, and catalog management, transparency can be the deciding factor between licensing a new work let alone signing a prospective talent. This is what sets us apart from others because, since most of the information necessary to fully exploit the capabilities of creative works and copyrights, it was easy for people with this critical information for artists to capitalize off of this vulnerability whereas we make education the primary factor in all our business collaboration efforts so should for example we end up not being able to license new music for one of our animated productions, the artists in talks with us can now go forward with newfound experience and confidence to play in bigger sandboxes.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Breakfast: French Market Creperie Downtown

Brunch: Smoothies at Scooter’s Coffee

Lunch at Nappy Wings is a must-do, top-priority to-do list item!

The cool thing about Knox is depending on where you are, by dinner time someone will have offered you at least five solid recommendations.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Our success couldn’t have happened without the diligence of our administration team. What started as temporary work-for-hires and internships soon was able to become paid positions because of the organization their help brought in managing the rights in our catalog. This translated to real-world opportunities I think would have slipped our attention which always hurts to focus on. Gladly, everyone was willing to give it 100% every day and 100% more if needed.

Website: https://blankxstates.com/studio

Instagram: https://instagram.com/blankxstates

Youtube: youtube.com/@lesweatshop

Image Credits
Tyler Daishun; Christon Dilworth; Diego Gianforti