Schape is a booking and management company that takes care of everything from live bookings to concept creation for musicians and artists like IKHANA and Name The Pet. It’s run by Madlen Schneps and Stina Grape, who are also DJs and club arrangers amongst other things, and we met the duo to find out more.

So what are your respective backgrounds in music and how did Schape come together?

We found each other at an afterparty for the P3 Guldgalan almost two years ago. From there we’ve taken Schape’s concept onwards to what it is today. We’re both very ambitious and were fed up with the mainstream structure of the music industry. We felt certain that we could start something from scratch and did it. We saw the chance to take part in the development of the music scene in Sweden. We share a background where music has always been present in different ways. We’ve arranged festivals and clubs all around the country, have been on boards of non-profit music organisations, have been project managers, and on besides running Schape we also are DJs, night club managers and music curators.

For people who might not know, what is the role of a booking and management company in the music industry? What goes into the day to day running of Schape?

In short, we’d describe it like being a parent, haha. Being supportive, taking care, and ‘developing’ the person without being in control of the person. Our role is booking gigs for our artist and keeping a strategy and a plan for each of them of where and when they are doing gigs. Working towards getting our artists the shows that suit them best.
The management part is about helping the artist with negotiations and strategies, kind of like being a project leader, keeping all the things around the music together. It’s especially super nice that we have this family we’ve created around us with all the fantastic artists and people that we work so tightly with. Stina lives in Gotenburg and Madlen in Stockholm so we are agents for different artists and work in different location, but due to our type of work that isn’t a problem. We are on the phone and our computers at all time, keeping ourselves up to date about what’s going on and sending lots and lots of music links and funny gifs to one another

You’ve spoken about how you want Schape to help push new artists, to be a support resource for them. Is that approach important to you, to give Schape an identity and an ethos?

All the artists we´re working with at this time sound very different to one another. We don´t want to attach a label to our company and tie artists to it that sound ´right´ for that label. It wouldn’t feel right. Instead we work together with artists we really like, no matter what their genre is. As long as they are ´contemporary´ without being just trendy for the sake of it. And that they have something to develop in the long term. To have a variety of artists and sounds is only positive. Together we create Schape and drive what Schape is today.

Can you introduce us to some of the artists you’re working with now and their releases over the next few months?

We have just signed the artists Name The Pet and Vinter to the Schape family. They’ve just released new singles which everyone should listen to! In 2017 they’re gonna explode! It´s always fun to start to work with new brilliant artists that contribute to the Schape family. We’ve been working with Terra, Vanligt Folk, IKHANA and Mowgli for a while now. IKHANA will release her debut album (We´re super excited!!!) in March 2017 and will go on a live tour for the release. Mowgli is soon going in to the studio to record new material and we want them to play more live in 2017. Terra and Vanligt Folk are some of the best live acts you can see and in 2017 they’re releasing new material as well. All together, we in Schape are taking over the Swedish music scene! With so much talent and fresh material coming out, 2017 is gonna be a crazy year. Couldn’t be better!

Where do you see yourselves going as you develop Schape further? How do you want to grow it into the future?

We want to be something people count on in the music scene. Being a platform for artists with a wide range of sound, influences and voices. We want to grow to have more impact on the industry. Also, we want to develop how our company works today, which is to avoid splitting up the various processes like the main companies do. We are going to work hard, hopefully we will have a lot of fun collaborations coming up, and of course we want to see our artists play at the biggest venues. We’re looking forward to put Schape on the map in 2017.

Words: Austin Maloney