A Famous DJ Group Got Credit For Our Biggest Song Over A Decade Ago
And People Ask Why I Don’t Want To Work In the Music Industry Anymore
For over a decade, I have been told not to make my personal feelings about my music career public. But now that I’m “too old” to have a solo career, what do I care?
Let’s spill some tea!
But first, a very important, and brief, history recap: I got my start in the trance music industry in 2005 with Matt Cerf and his then-partner, Shawn Mitiska. In 2008/2009 we picked up steam as a production group called…drumroll please… Cerf, Mitiska & Jaren (because we couldn’t agree on a group name). We released many vocal trance hits including You Never Said, Beggin’ You, and the one I’m about to mention, below.
When we had the enormous opportunity to work with EDM legends Dash Berlin in 2009, we couldn’t believe our luck! A collaboration? With us? How were we so lucky? What song should we send their way?
How about our new one, Man On The Run?
So we sent our version off, complete with Matt and Shawn’s production and my lyrics and melody. A few months passed before we received an audio file from Dash Berlin with their part of the production incorporated.
It was good. Beyond good. I think we all instantly felt that it would be a hit.
I needed to add a few more lyrics, but that wouldn’t take long. After a day of writing and recording, we sent the final vocals back to Dash Berlin and anxiously awaited their reply.
Silence.
Weeks later, without any notification whatsoever from our record label, Armada, or Dash Berlin, the song was released on the biggest trance podcasts in the world as Dash Berlin feat Jaren — Man On The Run (I always hated the term featuring as it implied to me that the singer was only a singer and not part of the writing process. These were my lyrics! My melodies!). There was no mention of my partners Matt or Shawn.
We were furious.
We wrote to our manager and the label immediately asking why we weren’t properly credited. All the artwork had already gone out for promotion. It would take time to fix. (It took ages, and when it was finally corrected, the damage was already done.)
I wanted to say something publicly, to let everyone know the song had its origins with Cerf, Mitiska and Jaren - but was told if I wanted to keep my career I needed to stay silent. The record label would clear this up…eventually.
Years passed and Dash Berlin would eat up all the fame surrounding Man On The Run. Tours, gigs, you name it. Anytime there was a function talking about the song, Dash Berlin were the only ones contacted to promote it —along with their name.
Man On The Run became so popular it went on to be listed as one of the top 10 trance tunes of all time by A State Of Trance.
At one point, Dash Berlin did invite me to do a live performance at an event in Los Angeles, whereby they were getting paid and I was doing the gig for free exposure (explain that to me), but the show ended up getting cancelled the moment I stepped onstage (something about the promoters not paying the event staff). I made the most of the situation by giving an impromptu acoustic performance to a handful of fans at the end of the stage, a moment I will never forget. But did that make up for the amount of paid performances we could have received had we all been properly credited? Absolutely not.
So, how do Dash Berlin or our former record label, Armada, right the ship all these years later?
I don’t think it can be done. I’m also not convinced they care or that they’d even want to after I publish this, either.
What I’d really like to know is if any of the members of Dash Berlin or at Armada even have a clue as to how much leaving our names off our own song would affect our lives so far into the future? Or how it would take more than a decade until we were finally able to release our own versions of our own original song under our own proper names? (It took more than two years of asking to release my piano version, which came out last week).
So when people ask why I don’t want to work in dance music, how it’s such a shame — I want to share this. I want to describe to them the sense of loss you feel when you don’t get credit for something you created that goes on to change the industry itself. More than that, I want artists to stick up for themselves, even if they’re being told their careers will disappear if they do so.
What would you do?
NOTE: This kind of thing happens in every industry. It’s a painful lesson to learn and we can only hope that by speaking out about it publicly things will eventually change.
ADDITIONALLY: I’d also like to mention that it’s very possible Dash Berlin weren’t made aware by the record label of the fact that CMJ were left off all initial artwork and promotional materials. But somebody knew and could have done something about it.
UPDATE: March 28th
There seems to be some confusion in the comments on my socials about copyrights. We, Matt, Shawn and myself, were properly credited as writers. What I’m talking about is the public-facing credit. Streaming doesn’t pay much, as we all now know, and so the bulk of an artist’s livelihood is made in live performances. We all know Beyonce, but how many of you know her co-writers? See my point? (I’m in no way comparing myself to the Queen, I’m just saying it’s all fine and dandy to be a co-writer, but if you’re trying to make a living on the live performance side, you’d better make sure your name is in the title credits. Period.)
