Jared Gutstadt (born September 19, 1977), also known as Jingle Jared, is a Canadian-born entrepreneur, inventor,[1][2] and musician best known for founding the creative music agency Jingle Punks (2008), and the scripted-podcast network Audio Up Media (2020).
Through Jingle Punks, Gutstadt acquired and created a catalog of 500,000 songs and a roster of over 1,000 television shows.[3]
His latest venture, Audio Up Media, specializes in scripted podcasts that feature original music from known and emerging artists. Audio Up's present and future collaborators include Dennis Quaid,[4] Anthony Anderson,[5] Scarlett Burke,[6] Michael Cohen,[7] James Ellroy,[8]Maejor,[9] and Stephen King.[10]
His musical collaborators include Bob Dylan,[11] Steven Tyler,[12] Timbaland,[13] Nas,[14] Lil Wayne,[15] Brad Paisley,[16] Miranda Lambert,[17] Machine Gun Kelly,[18] Jelly Roll,[citation needed] and others.
Early life and education
Born and raised in Toronto,[19] Jared studied media and culture at the University of Western Ontario.[20]
As a video editor, Gutstadt faced a licensing conundrum: the shows needed music, but known names were too expensive.[19] After Chappelle's Show executive producer Neal Brennan discovered that Gutstadt had worked his own music into the edits, Brennan called him a "jingle punk," and the moniker stuck.[20][22]
Jingle Punks
In 2008, Gutstadt and Dan Demole co-founded Jingle Punks, a music publishing and licensing company headquartered in New York. With a catalog of nearly 500k songs, it forms one of the largest publishing libraries in the world.[3] Jingle Punks received ASCAP Film & TV Awards in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 for scoring The Voice, as well as their theme song for Pawn Stars, composed by Gutstadt.[23]
Within months of launching the company, Gutstadt and Demole released their platform, "The Jingle Player" which provides targeted music selection with a searchable interface.[1][2] Company-approved artists submit their music to the Jingle Player, with the profits split 50-50.[24]
In late 2012, talent agency William Morris Endeavor acquired a majority stake in Jingle Punks, and the company was sold again to ole Music Publishing in March 2015.[25][26] In January 2020, Gutstadt left Jingle Punks to found Audio Up Media.[27]
Bear and a Banjo podcast (2019)
After collaborating on History Channel's 2016 revision of Roots, Gutstadt and producer Jason “Poo Bear” Boyd created a musical podcast Bear and a Banjo, which follows the unlikely duo of Bear (Boyd) and Banjo (Gutstadt), who are placed in pivotal moments of American musical history à la the 1994 film Forrest Gump.[28]
In what narrator Dennis Quaid describes as “a true fiction of American music,”[28] Bear and Banjo stumble upon the wrongful conviction of Lead Belly, an ill-fated card game with Sonny Liston, the wedding of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the birth of the CIA, and a young Bob Dylan at a softball game.[29] The accompanying album was produced by T Bone Burnett with an original song written by Bob Dylan.[1]
Audio Up Media
In 2020, Gutstadt founded Audio Up Media, a production studio and platform for podcasts which Gutstadt imagines as “an HBO for your ears.”[30]
In May 2020, Audio Up received a 4.5 million-dollar investment from MGM Studios which includes a first-look deal at adaptations.[31] Two more rounds of funding included investments from the Weeknd, Ben Lurie, SiriusXM, Primary Wave, and Reservoir Media.[32][33] With offices in Los Angeles and Nashville,[34] Audio Up plans to produce at least 40 podcasts a year that it will develop into IP.[19]
In 2020, Gutstadt received two Adweek awards for Podcast Innovator and Producer of the Year.[35]
Musical Collaborators
In a decades-long career, Gutstadt has collaborated numerous artists across multiple genres.[36][37]
In 2014, Gutstadt produced Whiskey Sessions, a five-song acoustic EP for Jelly Roll which began Jelly Roll's transformation from Hip Hop to country and rock star.[citation needed] In a 2015 interview, Jelly Roll called Gutstadt "the jew who changed my life. . . he really built me into confidence in my voice and built the entire sound on what we are doing now."[42] They later collaborated on "Bad News Travels Fast" in 2016 and on Whiskey Sessions II in 2019.[43]
In 2018, Gutstadt, Poo Bear, and DJ Khaled wrote the theme song for the Miami Marlins baseball team "Just Gettin' Started" which was performed on Opening Day.[50][51]
On the 2019 Bear and a Banjo podcast, Gutstadt produced songs with lyrics by Bob Dylan and Zac Brown.[52][53]
