Like many aspiring talents drawn to Nashville’s music epicenter, when Zach John King moved to Music City in 2021, he joined a time-honored tradition, pursuing songwriting by day and waiting tables by night. He worked at Broadway-adjacent, upscale bar/restaurant The Twelve Thirty Club off Broadway, where he’d sometimes cross paths with country artists such as Jelly Roll, Dustin Lynch and Nate Smith.

“Nate Smith came in after his Opry debut, and I just walked up to him and asked him for advice,” King recalls to Billboard. “He told me his story about all the times he could have given up, but he didn’t and he kept going. He was just like, “Keep going, I promise, keep going.” Then two years later, I played some shows with him and brought that up. So it’s just crazy full-circle for me. It’s hard not to get discouraged about where you’re at, because you see it firsthand in Nashville. So you just have to be patient. Everyone’s at a different level.”

Now signed with Sony Music Nashville, King released the EP Slow Down last year, but in 2026, his schedule is only continuing to ramp up. His new song “Get to Drinkin,’” which he wrote with ACM songwriter of the decade winner Rhett Akins, Kyle Sturrock, Thomas Archer and Kyle Fishman, has been sent to radio. He’ll open more shows on Wallen’s Still the Problem Tour in April, and has opening slots on tours with Luke Bryan, Riley Green and Jon Pardi. He’ll also perform at Stagecoach this year.

“I’m so thankful that as things get bigger, there’s more work to do,” King says, adding that he’s learned lessons on work ethic and focus from watching how artists such as Wallen and their teams handle the operations propelling a massive music career.

“The artist on stage is having a blast, always. I think your perception is like, ‘This is just a blast. It’s just an hour and a half of fun,’ and that’s true. But what I really was taught this year is this business is more like a football game than a party. You have to be ready, you have to be focused, because at this point, we’re out with people that are the top of the top of the top. There’s no margin for anything other than the best we got. There are so many incredible people in this business that if you take your foot off the gas for a second, the tide will turn.”

Billboard spoke with King about his new single, his journey to Nashville, and more lessons he’s learned along the way.

What is the story behind “Get to Drinkin’”?

There’s a few songs that I just cut that literally aren’t even three months old, and that’s one of them. We had a [writing] retreat in December, the week before Christmas, right outside of Nashville. We were doing two writes per day for three days and the only people that were in every writing room were me and Rhett Akins. It was the last day and the last write on that retreat and we were trying to make a melancholy topic fun.

I’m not a big believer in enemies in songs. I think relationships and love and breakups are never black and white. There’s always a middle ground, where it’s not like one person’s the good guy and one’s the bad guy. The song is really tackling the moment where you’re sitting there thinking that this person still thinks about you, that this person misses you — the reality is that’s probably not the case at all.

Did you always want to be an artist?

I moved to Nashville just to write. There was no thought of artistry until about seven months in, when I started writing songs and started putting vocals on demos. Then it snowballed. Around that time, I started missing performing and the creative control of artistry. The thing about songwriters, and one of the most admirable things about Nashville songwriters, is the songwriter’s ability to navigate what the artist wants without shooting ideas down or without constricting the artist’s opinions. That’s a skill.

What were you doing before pursuing music?

I was a behavioral therapist in Athens. It was a great gig. I was working with children with autism and we were doing a therapy called ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis)Therapy, which is incredibly groundbreaking. It got a degree in counseling and ministerial leadership, and got the job through a buddy of mine. I tell people all the time, that was the most fulfilling job I’ve probably ever had. And I say that specifically to say: Music is amazing and it’s what I’m supposed to be doing, but there’s something about the selflessness of helping other people. The people that are on the front lines specifically with autism, the parents of children with autism, the kids themselves, the leaders in the clinic, I have nothing but praise to give everybody.

This past year has seen you elevate to a different level, career-wise. How did you end up opening shows for Morgan Wallen in stadiums, while still playing your own club shows?

I had hired my team basically two weeks prior to that. Morgan found me on TikTok and I remember it was that July 4^th that my manager Matt [Reed, of Hyphen Media Group] had lunch with Morgan’s manager [Austin Neal]. Austin also runs the Neal Agency, which is my booking agency. Austin was like, “I like Zach’s music,” and my manager asked who had showed it to him and it was Morgan. That was so motivating that the biggest country artist in the world enjoys what I do.

Then later, my team called me and asked if I wanted to do some shows on Morgan’s tour. He had added a performance slot. Of course, I wanted to do the show and asked when they needed me and they were like, “Can you be ready in three days?” And we did. I have an incredible team and a great band. And Morgan’s whole camp, including him, all top down, just some of the best in the business.

You are working on a full-fledged project. What has it been like creating the body of music for that?

The Nashville “machine” is sort of an interesting one because in a perfect world, I would be able to take four months off, go to a studio every day and work on a record. What really ends up happening with the schedule and the touring is you cut incrementally, you cut each little bit of time you have. So we get the best songs we can when writing and that’s mainly come from writing retreats. I used to write five days a week on 16^th Avenue. Now, I’ll come off the road and we’ll do a retreat for three days and get some songs and then we’ll look at the songs we have. I have a good chunk of the album done.

What is the last song you listened to?

“Ceilings,” by Lizzy McAlpine.

What is the first concert you remember ever going to?

Switchfoot at the Georgia Theatre in Athens. I was in eighth grade and it’s what made me want to play music for a living.

What are your on-the-road must-haves?

A Bluetooth speaker, plenty of water, we do have some Miller Lite, and a little Jack and diet Coke. I have to have running shoes. It motivates me to exercise more when I’m on the road.

What’s your favorite podcast right now?

I like Theo [Von]’s podcast. I’ve also enjoyed Modern Wisdom lately.

When you’re not on tour, what do you do to chill?

I go to the woods. It’s my favorite place to be, even if it’s just sitting in a deer stand or getting on a quail hunt. I love to fish and I love to cook, just turn on some music and cook. I’ll do homemade pasta or smoke a pork shoulder. I’m trying to get better at healthier options.

Two powerful hedge funds are vying to buy Reservoir Media, the publicly traded independent music publishing and recorded music business founded and led by Golnar Khosrowshahi, according to a press release from Reservoir on Wednesday.

Reservoir said investors Richmond Hill Investment and Wesbild put in an unsolicited joint offer to acquire all outstanding shares at a price of $10.50 per share. Richmond and Wesbild’s offer follows an earlier unsolicited bid from another shareholder, Irenic Capital Management, to acquire all of Reservoir’s outstanding shares at a price of between $10.00 and $11.00 per share in cash, as reported by Bloomberg last week.

Reservoir said it formed a special committee of “independent and disinterested” board directors to evaluate the two offers and other routes the company could take to “determine the course of action that is in the best interests of the company and all of its shareholders.”

“There is no assurance that any definitive offer will be made, that any agreement will be executed or that the transaction proposed … will be approved or completed,” Reservoir stated in the press release, adding that the company will decline to comment “unless and until it deems further disclosure is appropriate or required.”

Reservoir ranked No. 9 among the top 10 publishers who held stakes in songs that ranked on Billboard‘s Top Radio Airplay Chart for the second half of 2025, with a 1.19% market share. Reservoir’s publishing roster includes artists with evergreen popularity, including Snoop Dogg, k.d. lang and Kings of Leon, and it holds stakes in hits like Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” which was co-written by Reservoir songwriter Steph Jones.

Reservoir’s recent acquisitions have reflected the company’s focus on expanding overseas and finding new opportunities for its intellectual property, while also bolstering its U.S. repertoire. Last September, it acquired the publishing rights and recorded-­music royalties of late jazz great Miles Davis. It also launched an Indian subsidiary, PopIndia, and its first full catalog acquisition, Musicraft Entertainment.

Last July, Reservoir invested in London-based entertainment company Lightroom, to collaborate on the development of immersive entertainment experiences around Reservoir’s evergreen music catalog. Lightroom’s shows like Prehistoric Planet: Discovering Dinosaurs featured a score by Hans Zimmer, who composed other music (The Lion King, Gladiator) in Reservoir’s catalog, and have attracted more than a million visitors, according to a press release from July 2025 when the deal was announced.

Lily Allen is keeping receipts — literally. In clips circulating online from the singer’s tour supporting album West End Girl, which kicked off March 2 in Glasgow, Scotland, she wraps herself in a dress made of fabric seemingly printed with purchases estranged husband David Harbor made for other women during their marriage, if her lyrics are to be believed.

The moment in the show comes as Allen performs “4chan Stan,” one of the most searing songs on the LP. While singing the track — the lyrics of which include “Never been in Bergdorf’s/ But you took someone shopping there” and detail how she went through her ex’s bedside table and came across the receipt for the luxury store among other suspicious transactions — the British artist walks over to a prop nightstand and pulls out a long train of fabric, wrapping it around her body.

Along with lyrics from West End Girl and a receipt from none other than Bergdorf Goodman, the dress also shows a lengthy tequila bar tab and bills from other establishments. (The singer also shared a photo of her dress in an Instagram carousel of snaps from the first night of her tour.)

Billboard has reached out to Allen’s rep about the dress, as well as Harbour’s rep for comment.

Allen and the Stranger Things star wed in 2020, staying married for four years before news of their separation reached the public in February 2025. Since then, the musician has been open about how her mental health has suffered amid the split, and in October, she unleashed West End Girl, an album breaking down the crumbling of a marriage in unflinchingly straightforward terms. Lyrics on songs such as “Pussy Palace” and “Madeline” imply that Harbour pressured Allen into having an open relationship after she moved to London to star in a West End production before allegedly breaking their agreed-upon terms of the arrangement.

“It’s viscerally like going through the motions,” Allen said of West End Girl in an October conversation with Interview Magazine. “At the time, I was really trying to process things, and that’s great in terms of the album, but I don’t feel confused or angry now. I don’t need revenge.”

Harbour has stayed out of the West End Girl discourse. Allen has tour dates scheduled in Europe and North America through the beginning of July, and in October, she’ll embark on a run through New Zealand and Australia.

Los Angeles-based independent musician Jesse Barrera had just bought a house and had his first child when he sat down to write “No Reservations.” It was February 2023 when Barrera released the neo-soul song and video he filmed on his iPhone to YouTube. Within a matter of months, the song became Barrera’s best-performing track on YouTube, accumulating more than 4.3 million views as of February 2026.

The track’s success caught catalog investors’ attention, including Duetti, whom Barrera had dealt with before. A year earlier, the music rights company, which buys master and publishing rights to individual songs by independent artists, bought a stake in his cover of Shania Twain’s “Still the One.” Barrera said that deal, the terms of which were not disclosed, paid for several of his music videos. That led him to sell Duetti his masters for “No Reservations” and use the proceeds to fund his 2025 album, Gentle Noise. 

“The timing was perfect because it aligned with the recording of my full-length record,” Barrera says. “For what I’m trying to do, trying to accomplish and keep going as an artist, it makes sense to me.” 

Founded in 2022, Duetti has acquired thousands of songs like these for sums ranging from a few thousand to a few million dollars, and it is growing at a pace of around 80 songs and catalogs a month. With $100 million in backing from equity investors The Raine Group, Flexpoint Ford, Nyca Partners, Viola Ventures and Roc Nation and $205 million from two asset-backed securities, plus additional credit, Duetti and its investors are betting big on the future value of music’s long tail. 

Their strategy is three-pronged. Like any music catalog company, Duetti grows through acquisitions. But because it is acquiring what most investors still consider to be riskier music assets — songs by lesser-known artists released as recently as two years ago — Duetti has invested heavily in data engineering and forecasting so it can value songs and project future growth in-house, Duetti co-founder and CEO Lior Tibon says. That tech platform helps the firm acquire the most promising songs at scale cost-efficiently, he adds, and once acquired it is also used to improve management and royalty collections. Meanwhile, marketing staff work to increase streaming activity with slowed-down and sped-up versions of songs and remixes, which are placed on Duetti’s 3,000 actively managed playlists and pitched to influencers and digital service providers. 

“We are a company that really specializes in understanding the value — financial and otherwise — of catalogs and knows how to take them to the next level,” Tibon says. “It’s not about just financially aggregating rights. It’s about really managing and taking care — through marketing, collections — of music rights and making sure that they survive in this world where there’s so much new music coming out every day.”

Duetti has published a flurry of recent reports to burnish its credentials as a resource for reliable data on indie music catalog economics. In January, with support from Billboard, the company launched its Music Finance Index, a twice-annual poll about the state of music catalog valuations and investor sentiment from the perspective of independent artists, managers and lawyers in Duetti’s orbit. In February, Duetti published its 2025 Music Economics Report, with findings on how artists who earn between $100 and $350,000 a year from streaming music can build catalogs that generate durable revenue, which they consider to be a catalog that experiences less than a 10% decay in streaming activity in a year. 

The report found that songs that go viral may earn more money in the first three months than songs that grow more slowly, but within six to nine months both assets end up generating close to the same amount. It also guided artists to release electronic and hip-hop songs in the spring, alternative tracks in the summer and Christian and country songs in the winter for the greatest success. Artists who release at least three tracks a year had 18% higher revenue on average per track in the first year post-release, the report found. The report emphasized that for artists just getting started, two consecutive months of growth on YouTube is more correlated to catalog durability than similar periods of growth experienced on other streaming platforms.

As a startup, Duetti has raised $635 million, mostly in the form of debt. More than $200 million of that debt has come from two asset-backed securities; these notes sold to institutional investors, such as insurance companies, give Duetti access to money at an interest rate much lower than it would receive from a bank on a more conventional line of credit. For example, the U.S. Small Business Administration, which offers among the lowest interest rate loans on the market, charged between 11.75% and 14.75% on its loans in February. In contrast, Concord, which has raised more than $3 billion from ABS issuances, pays an interest rate of less than 6%, CEO Bob Valentine has said.

However, most music securitizations, such as Concord’s, were backed by hit songs from famous artists that are decades old and therefore have shown steady rates of return. Duetti was the first catalog company to issue an ABS backed by newer songs. The money raised from its ABS reflects the value of the songs backing it, but like any other type of this securitization, if the underlying songs lose value over the coming years, the company could face a capital call. That hasn’t happened to Duetti or any music company.

When he has spoken with debt investors, Tibon says he always points out how many individual listeners and streams a song must have to generate $10,000. Compared with other assets like auto loans that get securitized and sold on the debt markets regularly, that theoretical song provides millions more data points to evaluate.

“Maybe it’s easier to get comfortable with the value of a Bruce Springsteen catalog,” Tibon says. “But we’ve proven twice that we can do a securitization, that the catalog is worth what we think it’s worth, and that we are stable and continue to grow.”