Label Look: How John Summit Built Experts Only Into an Indie That Thinks Like a Major

In his earliest days arsenic a creation producer, John Summit spent galore hours connected his machine making music, past emailing it to indie creation labels helium hoped mightiness motion his demos.

He received a batch of rejections, but yet gained traction erstwhile helium signed his Touch Me EP to the Atlanta-based Psycho Disco! successful 2018. A flurry of consequent tracks were signed by Lee Foss’ Repopulate Mars, Gene Farris’ Farris Wheel Recordings and different artist-led labels. Summit pinballed from imprint to imprint arsenic his illustration roseate to apex status. Now, he’s the 1 combing done the submissions inbox.

“I ever knew I wanted to marque my ain statement and person a location for the adjacent procreation of artists,” Summit tells Billboard. “I ne'er expected it to turn and stroke up arsenic accelerated arsenic it did.”

Like seemingly each things attached to his name, Summit’s Experts Only is simply a runaway occurrence and a caller powerhouse successful the creation statement landscape. Launched successful 2022 and distributed by Darkroom Records since aboriginal 2025, Experts Only maintains the nimbleness of an indie portion besides functioning similar a major, due to the fact that it’s tally by execs with large statement experience. Toby Andrews, the erstwhile president of Astralwerks, is statement manager, and Jack David, who spent six years arsenic caput of physics music, planetary astatine UMG successful London, is caput of marketing.

The halfway squad is rounded retired by Will Weston, who comes from throwing underground parties successful New York and present manages Experts Only events — including the buzzy namesake shows Summit and his signees play crossed the U.S. and beyond. Named for Summit’s emotion of skiing, Experts Only events person taken spot connected the slopes of Lake Tahoe and Vail, on with much accepted creation circuit destinations.

Summit is, of course, the label’s de facto leader, moving connected everything from curation to selling portion besides barreling done planetary clubs, festivals and large-scale venues (last play helium headlined London’s O2 arena), and playing statement euphony for tens of thousands of fans. His managers, Holt Harmon and Parker Cohen of Metatone, besides oversee Experts Only alongside different halfway elements of Summit’s sprawling business.

“My attack is to bring unneurotic the hungriest radical who bring their unsocial operation of acquisition and specialization to lend to the team,” Harmon says. “The squad is made up of radical we’d crossed paths with implicit clip who people felt similar a acceptable for bringing our large visions for Experts Only to life.”

Over the past 3 years, those “big visions” person generated a slew of hits, a No. 1 ranking connected Beatport’s statement illustration and a sprawling unit of affiliated artists whose enactment has helped specify the Experts Only sound, individuality and ecosystem, and whose careers extracurricular the statement person been boosted by their transportation to it.

“Being connected a large is possibly 1 of the hardest places to beryllium successful creation euphony close now,” says Andrews. “The curated, artist-led labels — america and the radical astir america similar Gorgon City’s Realm, Fisher’s Catch and Release and Chris Lake’s Black Book — I deliberation we’re radical who are having a batch of amusive astatine the moment, due to the fact that radical evidently respect the artists who tally these labels, and everyone’s curating their ain sound, their ain radical of artists and their ain vision. I’m not definite however to bash that from a large position successful 2025.”

This play (Sept. 20-21), the imaginativeness expands with the debut Experts Only festival astatine Randall’s Island successful New York City. Co-produced by Medium Rare and Relentless Beats, the two-day fest volition diagnostic a brace of headlining sets from Summit, on with statement artists similar Roddy Lima, Tini Gessler and Layton Giordani. Joining them are artists who’ve been influential to the statement and country astatine ample (“he’s the champion selector of our generation,” Summit says of Experts Only NYC creator and revered curator Pete Tong) and artists whom Summit simply likes.

“The evident adjacent measurement is throwing a festival to showcase everyone,” helium says. “I’ve grown adjacent friends...