Author: djfrosty

At an invite-only, dimly lit vinyl bar just outside of central Tokyo, a handful of pool cues are framed above the table. Each has a nameplate, but only one name belongs to an American: Brandon ­Silverstein. The prime placement represents much more than billiards skill — it symbolizes the years of work, and ultimate partnership, between Silverstein’s entertainment company, S10, and the bar’s proprietor, Japanese entertainment giant Avex. In March, the two companies cemented that partnership with the launch of Avex Music Group, the rebranded U.S. division of Avex (formerly known as Avex USA), and Silverstein was named CEO.
Silverstein describes AMG as “a boutique major with a global perspective” — and that ethos is exactly what drew him to Avex five years ago. After he launched S10 in 2017 as an artist management firm, his friend and collaborator Ryan Tedder suggested he start a publishing company. “I was looking for a partner — and was looking for a different type of partner,” Silverstein recalls while seated in the fifth-floor lobby of Avex’s pristine Tokyo headquarters.

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In 2019, Silverstein was introduced to Naoki Osada, then-head of Avex USA, and the two hit it off. In 2020, S10 Publishing launched as a joint venture with Avex, and soon after, Silverstein flew to Tokyo for the first time to meet with Avex founder and chairman Max ­Matsuura and Avex Group CEO Katsumi Kuroiwa. “From the initial meetings, [we had] very similar visions, cowboy mindsets,” Silverstein says. Today, S10 Publishing’s roster boasts nine songwriter-producers, including Harv (Justin Bieber), Jasper Harris (Tate McRae, Jack Harlow) and Gent! (Doja Cat).

In May, AMG announced it had signed fast-rising producer Elkan (Drake, Rihanna) to a global publishing deal and partnered with the hit-maker on his joint-venture publishing company, Toibox by Elkan — the first, Silverstein hopes, of many such deals. “Artists are some of the most incredible entrepreneurs, and they just need an infrastructure, the right infrastructure, to have their ideas prevail,” he says. That thinking is Avex’s backbone: The company’s approach to creation, Kuroiwa says, is “entrepreneurship, since we’re an independent company — and we would like to remain independent.”

Most recently, AMG scored a major signing with We the Band, famously known as Bieber’s backing musicians (evidence, Silverstein suggests, of his theory that “artists are finding talent first”). He says S10’s relationship with the act dates to when it signed member Harv to a ­publishing deal in 2021; soon after, Harv scored a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 as a co-writer/co-producer on Bieber’s “Peaches.”

For Avex — known in Japan as the fourth major, alongside Sony, Universal and Warner — the early investment in S10 Publishing was essentially a down payment on global domination, the initial step of a five-year plan that culminated this year in AMG’s launch. (In conjunction with Silverstein’s new role, Avex acquired 100% of the S10 Publishing song catalog and an additional stake in S10 Management; Avex now has the largest share in S10 Management, alongside Silverstein and Roc Nation.)

Since its inception in 1988, Avex has always moved the needle, largely thanks to Matsuura’s singular vision and healthy relationship with risk. “When we started, we were laser focused on Euro-beat, a really small genre and market,” recalls Kuroiwa, who joined Avex Group in 2001 and became CEO in 2020. “[We did] stuff that other record companies wouldn’t choose to do, and that has shaped who we are today.” It’s even part of the company motto: “Really! Mad + Pure.”

“I don’t think I would be here today if Avex wasn’t that kind of company,” adds Takeya Ino, president of Avex’s label division, Avex Music Creative, which has a roster of over 500 artists. “It’s about creating a new movement, and that has always been the way at Avex: disco booms, Euro-beat, Japanese hip-hop. And then we think about what’s next for us — and the answer would be the global market,” adds Ino, who joined Avex in 1995.

Despite now employing around 1,500 people across offices in over 50 cities and earning $1 billion in 2024, the publicly traded Avex still has that small-but-mighty mindset that allowed it to become “a comprehensive entertainment company,” Kuroiwa says. “You see a lot of that nowadays, but we were the pioneers — one of the first labels to have an in-house management business, scout and train our own artists, produce and host live events.”

Those pillars still support Avex, particularly Avex Youth Studio, the intensive training program for potential future superstars where over 200 trainees are enrolled. Scouts regularly scour around 500 arts schools to identify talent; once selected, trainees aren’t charged tuition because Avex sees them as investments.

It was at Avex Youth Studio’s main facility, avex Youth studio TOKYO, in Tokyo’s Setagaya City, that, roughly four years ago, emerging Japanese boy band One or Eight was developed. For the past two years, Avex has been testing its next act, with the current top seven boys (ages 14-16) training together. The boys’ influences include Bieber, Kendrick Lamar, Ed Sheeran and Morgan Wallen; clearly, from the start, the goal is global success.

It’s evident in how Avex produces live events, thanks to AEGX, a deal made with AEG in 2021 that has brought superstars such as Sheeran and Taylor Swift to Japan for sold-out stadium shows. “Initially, [AEGX] was built to support the overseas artists that wanted to perform in Japan,” Kuroiwa explains. “But now we’re entering an era where Asian artists will perform and succeed overseas, which means there will be demand for both.” After helping non-Japanese stars book shows in Japan, AEGX can now help Japanese artists book shows in the United States and elsewhere. For One or Eight, Ino has his sights on New York’s Madison Square Garden.

From left: Neo, Mizuki, Takeru, Reia, Souma, Ryota, Tsubasa and Yuga of One or Eight during rehearsal at avex Youth Studio TOKYO.

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And much like how teaming with AEG helps Avex and its artists tour beyond Japan, partnering with Silverstein’s S10 helps Avex and its artists score hits.

One or Eight’s debut in August 2024 marked the first time an Avex act had U.S. management in S10 (co-managed with Avex). And in May, Atlantic Records and Avex partnered on all future releases for the group. “The staff that are involved in this project are from Japan as well as the U.S., and so we have this cross-border structure in place,” Kuroiwa says. “Visionwise, it really comes down to creating a successful case model. This whole project, the purpose is to have global hits — and not just one.”

The band’s credits exemplify one of Kuroiwa’s mottos: “Co-creation is key.” One or Eight’s debut single, “Don’t Tell Nobody,” was co-produced by Tedder, and Stargate produced its second single, “DSTM” (which ­prominently samples Rihanna’s Stargate-produced “Don’t Stop the Music” — the first time the hit has been officially sampled). “DSTM” also credits S10 songwriter David Arkwright, who co-wrote Riize’s “Get a Guitar,” which Silverstein says was an early win for the publishing company. (Riize is signed to SM Entertainment, which in 2001 partnered with Avex to launch the subsidiary SM Entertainment Japan.)

“Our writers are getting early access to placing songs for [One or Eight],” Silverstein says, adding that many have attended writing camps in Japan. “This is an ongoing [exchange] where we’re creating records that may work for our next boy group or girl group coming from Japan, or whatever the group is.”

Fast-rising Avex act XG — the first project under the XGALX brand, a partnership with executive producer Simon Park — also embodies Kuroiwa’s collaborative vision. The Japanese girl group, which is based in South Korea, debuted in 2022 and appeared at Coachella in April. “We’ve seen how K-pop players ventured into the global market, but we didn’t have the right Japanese talents to get on that bandwagon at that time,” Kuroiwa says. “It took us five years, also because of the ­pandemic, but we trained [XG] in studios, integrating the knowledge and expertise from our side as well as their side, meaning K-pop. What you get from that is something completely new.”

For Ino, the success of K-pop — which he says “built that pathway for foreign music to enter the U.S. market and to succeed globally” — is, in part, what made him confident that the world would similarly embrace J-pop.

He cites Japan’s “aging society” as one of Avex’s impetuses to take J-pop global, saying that in terms of growth potential, it’s a primary driver for needing to market outside of Japan. He also points to the sturdy U.S. infrastructure that Avex has built with S10 and beyond: “Everyone said that now is the time, there is an opportunity, there is a chance to really go into the U.S. market,” he says. “Maybe it was Ryan [Tedder] who accentuated that point the most — he said that now is maybe not the time for K-pop anymore. It’s really the time for J-pop.” But, Ino adds with a laugh, “he is working with HYBE anyway.” (In February, Tedder teamed with HYBE to form a global boy group that has yet to debut.)

J-pop is indeed its own world. To Ino, the umbrella term represents a “more diverse” class of music. “And there’s the anime, manga and V-tubers [viral YouTubers],” he adds. “We have all these categories that we can really leverage and take advantage of, so integrating them all together, it will be our forte.”

Now, with AMG, that integration will only grow. Following S10’s 2020 joint venture with Avex, the pair constructed a studio house in West Hollywood for events and to build a creative community. In April, AMG upgraded to a new, larger WeHo home that previously belonged to A$AP Rocky and Rihanna that will continue to be used for community-building, as well as housing Avex’s executives when they visit from Japan.

“Creatives are craving boutique companies that are fresh and exciting and are globally positioned, and I don’t think there’s a lot of that,” Silverstein says. “We want to back the artist’s vision and the writer’s vision and the producer’s vision and allow them to be their own CEO. I think that’s the change [we need] — and I think Avex Music Group will prevail because of that.”

As Kuroiwa and Ino see it, AMG will prevail because of the groundwork it has laid so carefully over the last five years. “[S10] really helped us in creating something new,” Kuroiwa says. “There were a couple of companies in Japan that [attempted this] in the past, but they couldn’t make it happen.”

To which Silverstein says with a confident smile: “We’ve got the right team. We’ve got the right relationships. We have the right partnership. We have the right vision. We have the right momentum. We’re ready.”

This story appears in the June 7, 2025, issue of Billboard.