BEKA TISCHKER

Turns out Wide Eyed Entertainment is the perfect name for Beka Tischker’s artist/producer/ songwriter management and publishing company, which she co-founded with her husband Benjamin, and now represents such clients as Julia Michaels, Becky G and mega-producer Edgar Barrera, among many others. The Tulsa, OK-born daughter of a midwestern Methodist preacher from Kansas – her dad attended England’s Cambridge University on a prestigious scholarship – tries to remain open to creative and strategic possibilities with innocence, wonder and passion, backed by more than two decades of hard-earned experience.

Growing up in Iowa, Beka learned to play saxophone and piano, while singing in Church. “Music was just in my blood from a very young age,” the mother of two children aged 13 and two explains. She developed commercial ears by listening to Top 40 hits on the car radio and would insist to her mother that she’d one day work alongside the musical artists she’d see at concerts as a teenager.

Turned on to Nashville by a friend, Beka found a home at Belmont University and its famed music business program. During her time at Belmont, she interned all over Music City, eventually leading to a position at the local office of Desmond Child’s publishing company Deston Songs, during her last semester. With Child celebrating his series of hits with Ricky Martin, including “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” Beka got an early glimpse at the power of a Latin music genre she would explore more fully at her own Wide Eyed Entertainment.

A subsequent job at Garth Brooks manager Bob Doyle’s publishing company Major Bob Music had her traveling back and forth to New York, landing a job in 2004 at BMI, then A&R gigs at both Columbia Records and indie powerhouse Razor & Tie, establishing the latter’s Nashville-based, and very successful, publishing company, eventually acquired by Concord Music Group.

“I learned early on, I was not meant for major labels,” she says of her entrepreneurial spirit. “I’ve always preferred working for independent companies that had a degree of muscle, which enabled me to figure stuff out on my own. I don’t like being forced into a single lane. I enjoy the flexibility of working with people and projects I love and can be passionate about.”

Beka soon moved to Los Angeles to work at songwriter/ producer management company Advanced Alternative Media (AAM). It was while at AAM that she was brought in to help grow publishing company Prescription Songs. Over the next several years, Beka built the company into one of the most successful publishers operating today, working with collaborators like Katy Perry and Benny Blanco and overseeing a string of super smashes such as The Weeknd’s “Starboy” [feat. Daft Punk], Meghan Trainor’s “No,” The Chainsmokers’ “Don’t Let Me Down” [feat. Daya], Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball,” and countless others.

“I was empowered to build a company I was proud of, but it only stoked my desire to do it on my own,” says Beka about her seven years at Prescription Songs. “I’m a good multi-tasker. I have a constant tickertape of lists running through my brain. I’ve worked with some amazing, strong people, and feel I’ve really grown as an executive.” She met her French husband Benjamin 18 years ago while at BMI and the two have now been married 15 years. While Beka organizes the business strategy and operations, she lets Ben follow his artistic muse. Balancing work and family is very important to both.

“We actually fight a lot less now that we work together,” she laughs. “Ben is a true creative in every sense of the word., a real artist whisperer. He lives on a different planet. Only Ben can do what Ben does. He gets these crazy ideas and we make it possible for him to see them through.”

Wide Eyed Entertainment is a family affair as well – Beka first started managing Julia Michaels while she was still at AAM, while Ben has been working with emerging Latin star Becky G since she was 14 years old.

“Julia [Michaels] and I have always had a special bond,” says Beka of the hit songwriter turned artist. “I knew that she was incredible and brilliant as a writer. Her songs resonated with people from six to 60. But when I heard ‘Issues,’ it was so true to what she was. It was an artist-identifying song.”

Wide Eyed Entertainment, now a full-scale management and publishing company, signed a joint venture deal in 2018 with Josh Abraham and Scott Cutler’s Pulse Music Group, where their roster includes Texas-born producer/songwriter Gregory “ALDAE” Hein, with five co-writes on Justin Bieber’s recent hit Justice album, and Sarah “Solly” Solovay, who is one of the writers on Jason Derulo’s smash, “Take You Dancing.”

Other Wide Eyed clients include Elena Rose, a Venezuelan singer/songwriter who has become the most in demand Latin female songwriter in the business, Jada Kingdom, a Jamaican dancehall artist signed to Republic Records; five-piece Latin girl group Angel22, boasting members from Puerto Rico, Colombia, Brazil, and Cuba, along with a 20-year client who predates the company, songwriter/producer Nate Campany who co-wrote hits such as LP “Lost on You” and “Scared to Be Lonely” by Martin Garrix ft Dua Lipa.

“This is a real family, literally and figuratively,” insists Beka. “It’s a very close group of people who are all very passionate about the music, and that’s how we like it.

“I’ve always been attracted to artists who were also writers. It’s an indescribable feeling that they are so authentic, nobody else can sing their song but them. You can tell a Julia Michaels song even if someone else is singing it.”

As a woman who has worked hard to get to her current post as one of the music industry’s most successful executives, Beka is intent on giving back by taking under her wing other young women – and men – who are looking to find their own paths in a business she once never knew even existed.

“Mentoring young women is very important to me,” she says. “Helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses. I’ve always been supportive of other women, but I also hire the best person for the job, regardless of gender.

“Progress is slow, but women are starting to understand there is more than one seat at the table. You can pull up a chair, without kicking out the legs of someone else to claim it. It’s about women stepping up and leading by example.

Hopefully, the future will be better for my daughter, and for her daughter.”