Join us for an exciting and insightful webinar as we dive into the world of punk rock and its impact on music publishing. This session will explore how iconic songwriters from the punk rock world discovered music publishing and some of the lessons they learned along the way. Featuring Joe Escalante (Music Lawyer, The Vandals), Jennifer Finch (Visual and Music Artist/L7), Brett Gurewitz (Mothership Music Publishing, Bad Religion), Molly Neuman as moderator (CD Baby, Bratmobile), this is one you won’t want to miss! 

PANELISTS

Brett Gurewitz is the Co-President of Mothership Music Publishing and the founder of the renowned independent labels Epitaph and Anti-. Over four decades, he has championed an artist-first approach, propelling punk and alternative music from underground subculture to mainstream influence. A founding member and principal songwriter for the seminal band Bad Religion, Gurewitz has penned over 100 songs, including “Sorrow,” “21st Century (Digital Boy),” and “Infected.”

A long-time proponent of technological innovation, Gurewitz has consistently harnessed emerging platforms to pioneer new models of music marketing and artist development. As an engineer, producer, and mixer with more than ten thousand hours behind the console, he founded West Beach Recorders in the late ’80s—an affordable creative haven for then-emerging artists like Rancid, NOFX, L7, Sublime, and Blink-182.

His label Epitaph’s first major breakthrough came with Bad Religion’s 1988 classic, Suffer, followed by landmark releases from The Offspring (Smash), Rancid (…And Out Come the Wolves), Pennywise, and NOFX. In recent years, Epitaph has continued its success with chart-topping rock artists such as Sleep Theory and Falling In Reverse. Meanwhile, under Gurewitz’s co-leadership, Mothership Music Publishing has grown its roster to include acclaimed writers like The Marías and Architects—reinforcing his commitment to empowering new voices while maintaining the independent spirit.

Jennifer Finch began her career as a visual artist in 1981 at age 13 when she got hold of a film camera and started capturing images of hardcore punk and art shows, as well as the queer scene, performance art, and skate events. While she is known for her iconic photographs of skaters, influential personalities, and performers, her raw documentation of life as a runaway and drug user in the early ’80s is both haunting and deeply transformative, offering an unfiltered glimpse into the underground culture that shaped her artistic perspective and later contributions to the cultural zeitgeist of the grunge, post-grunge and the evolving digital eras.

By the mid-1980s, Finch transitioned to stage performance, collaborating with other artists and musicians in guerrilla-style musical performances held in parking structures, powered by generators and car batteries. This raw and unconventional approach paved the way for her to explore more traditional musical avenues, leading her to write, produce, and perform with several influential bands, including Sugar Babylon (with Courtney Love and Kat Bjelland, 1984–1986), L7 (1986–present), Other Star People (1995–2001), and The Shocker (2003–present).

Currently (2025), Finch is completing an undergraduate at Antioch University in Applied Arts and Media and is considered advancing her degree.

JENNIFER FINCH THINKS A LOT ABOUT THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN “END-STAGE CAPITALISM,” EQUALITY, FEMINISM, POSTCOLONIALISM, PUNK, AND YOUR MOM.

Substack: Jennifer Finch ❤️’s You: newsletter, noise, and notes

Molly Neuman (moderator) is President of CD Baby, a leading music distribution company dedicated to empowering independent and self-releasing artists. 

As President, Neuman leads the strategy and management of Downtown’s primary D2C business, supporting millions of artists worldwide. She continues to shape CD Baby into the go-to platform for modern music creators, driving the launch of innovative technology, expanded artist services, and tailored marketing support to meet the evolving needs of musicians and songwriters.

Molly previously served as Chief Marketing Officer at Downtown, where she led marketing efforts for the company and its subsidiaries, including CD Baby, Curve, FUGA, Songtrust, and Downtown’s Artist & Label Services, Publishing, and Neighbouring Rights divisions. She also held roles as President of Downtown-company Songtrust, which grew under her leadership to manage more than 3 million copyrights for more than 350,000 writers in 145 countries. With a prolific career that has been focused on empowering musicians at all career stages, Neuman has been Head of Music at Kickstarter, Interim President and Vice President of the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), and has held senior roles in licensing in digital music, as well as label and artist management. Molly currently serves on the Advisory Board of Women in Music and We are Moving the Needle, and the board of Amplify Arts Project. She has previously sat on the boards of the Music Business Association, SoundExchange and A2IM.

In 2024, Neuman was awarded Music Weeks’ International Woman of the Year and has been recognized by Billboard in its 2018 Digital Power Players List, as well as its Women in Music Lists for 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2024. Her musical career began as a drummer in Bratmobile, a punk band who were in the first wave of the riot grrrl movement.