Gabe Simon is a 2011 Belmont Grad in the MBU and ETP programs. While at BU he cofounded the musical group Kopecky Family Band. KFB is now an critically acclaimed rock band signed to ATO Records, managed by Red Light Management and represented by WME. In addition to touring and creating music for KFB, Simon is a songwriter, producer and manager. Over the past few year he has been involved in such projects as Marc Scibilia, Evan P Donohue, Heidi Feek, Ezra Carey, as well as, scoring tracks for shows as Grey’s Anatomy, Parenthood, etc. He currently reside in Nashville, TN yet tour over 200 dates a year.
Connecticut-native Colleen Taylor ventured south to pursue her dreams in Music City, interning at Big Machine Label Group in both the Royalties/Licensing and A&R departments. Upon graduating from Belmont in 2011 with a BBA in Accounting and minor in Music Business, she was hired as the assistant to arguably the most powerful and busiest men in town, BMLG President/CEO Scott Borchetta’s who signings include Taylor Swift, Tim McGraw, Florida Georgia Line and The Band Perry. Living the highly glamorous life of planning Mr. Borchetta’s day-to-day schedule, she often finds herself working directly with managers, artists, and many of the most influential executives in the music industry. With all of the excitement also comes a lot of late nights, early mornings and a ton of responsibility, or in pop culture terms … a cross between the Hollywood Assistants Tumblr and “The Devil Wears Prada” (except her boss is neither the devil nor Meryl Streep).
Matt Elam graduated Belmont University in May 2010. He is now an agent at WME, which gives him the inalienable right to sit on this panel. Matt books mostly indie rock bands, most notably the world famous crowd pleaser, Kopecky Family Band. His greatest accomplishments so far have been convincing a woman far above his pay grade to marry him and then convincing her to give birth to not one, but two baby boys, heirs to the Elam fortune, George Oliver and Charlie Omaha. His greatest disappointment in life is that his name does not contain the letter “z”. His collection of GK Chesterton first editions is pretty impressive, if you care about that kind of thing. Also, one time when he was 4 he got a rock stuck in his nose and then when he was 6 he ate a snail by accident. It was pretty much smooth sailing after that, though.