Jimmy Harnen

Jimmy Harnen is the head of BMLG Records in Nashville and was involved in the signing of The Band Perry and Florida Georgia Line. He has also overseen the careers of Cassadee Pope, Brett Young, A Thousand Horses, Ryan Follese, Darius Rucker, Luke Bryan, Lady Antebellum and Eric Church.

His story began with singing on the bus with his mother as a child, inspiring her to take him to a local talent scout and sign him up for guitar and clarinet lessons. Later he was a drummer in his high school marching band.

In 1985, Harnen recorded two songs in a studio with four friends under the name Synch – one of which was “Where Are You Now?”. On a whim he called a local radio station that was promoting an upcoming Bon Jovi show and asked to be the opening act. The DJ had him audition for the program director who gave them the gig and put “Where Are You Now?” into rotation, a rarity in that the station generally only played established, national acts at the time. The song became so popular the station told Harnen to mass produce some records of the single. After independently selling 15,000 copies at local record stores, CBS Records signed the band and “Where Are You Now?” peaked at #77 in 1986.

Two years later, Nationwide Communications (owner of several radio stations) began to add older songs from acts like UB40 (“Red Red Wine”), Benny Mardones (“Into The Night”), Sheriff (“When I’m With You) and Synch (“Where Are You Now?”) into rotation, sending their past minor hits back onto the charts. After re-peaking at #10 in 1989, Synch followed the song up with Can’t Fight The Midnight, but the band had no further chart success, earning them the label of one-hit wonder.

In the mid-90s, Harnen began a career as a music executive in Nashville, climbing the ranks working for Curb Universal, DreamWorks, Refugee Management and then Capitol Records. In 2009, he accepted the position of running Republic Nashville (now BMLG Records).