Dirk Hemsath, the founder and owner of Doghouse Records, has started a new venture to provide artist management services called The Working Group Artist Management LLC. Along with his wife Emily Hemsath, who is both General Manager and partner at their esteemed independent label, the tandem has helped launch the careers of artists such as The Get Up Kids, The All-American Rejects, Say Anything, and Meg & Dia. "We have been helping manage the careers, at least initially, for artists signed to Doghouse for nearly 20 years. In some cases we've helped them find managers, so we decided that we’d like to be able to provide those services for a few artists that we love, regardless of whether or not they are signed to Doghouse," said Dirk. The Working Group is a separate company from Doghouse Records, but will initially share some of its New York based staff resources, including the talented Dave Conway, who has been with Doghouse for several years and is responsible for many of its recent signings.

The Working Group Management offers a variety of services across a network of companies started by Dirk Hemsath, which aside from Doghouse Records, includes the distribution company The Lumberjack Mordam Music Group and a publishing branch entitled First Song Music Publishing. In this way, the artist will have a complete array of options available to them that would normally require separate outside deals. "By harnessing these resources we can facilitate both physical and digital distribution, and retail marketing. We can perform promotion, marketing, song placements, and a variety of other label services via relationships we've developed through Doghouse. Additionally, we can offer access to a major publisher via First Song’s deal with Warner Chappell. We have experience with merchandise exploitation and touring, so really it’s most of the resources that any artist could ever want or need, without ever limiting them to working only within our group," explained Dirk.

The Working Group will offer services similar to what would be offered from a label standpoint, but with the added opportunity of eventually working with a separate label.

The company was formed in many ways to meet the needs of two artists in particular. First is David Moore, the former singer of Chamberlain (one of Doghouse’s first big bands). "David is the most brilliant performer and artist that I’ve ever worked with. I’ve been dreaming about him having a solo career since Chamberlain broke up in 1999. His debut album is absolutely stunning, a masterpiece," described Dirk. The second artist is a hard rock outfit from Miami called Atom Smash. "I was introduced to Sergio, the singer/creative force behind Atom Smash, through a label/production team that I had worked with in the past. I had never worked with a straight-up hard rock band before, but I thought that Sergio was so amazingly talented that I had to be in business with him," said Dirk. The album was completed under the production deal already in place and soon The Working Group will find a fitting label for the project. "I want to be able to give the maximum service to each artist that we work with both as a label and as a management company, so we’ll keep our rosters relatively small," explained Dirk. The final artist to round out the roster is NeverShoutNever. Christofer Drew has found an instant audience online and was discovered by Dave Conway. His first recording the YIPPEE! EP will be self-released on July 29th.