Stephanie Davenport sat cross-legged, half hidden behind her computer screen, as twangy guitar chords spilled from the speakers on either side of her keyboard. Her chin bobbed with the beat of the song, quickening as the verse faded into the chorus. She finally paused the track to grin at the woman sitting across from her on the office couch.
“Yeah, I love it,” Davenport said, tapping some keys as she spoke.
“There’s just so much love for this song, we want it to go to a good home,” said Emily Peacock, the 33-year-old senior creative director of Tree Vibez Music.
Peacock, a 2012 graduate of Belmont University, attends pitch meetings with Davenport at Warner Music Group once a month where she advocates for the songwriters she represents at Tree Vibez including Tyler Hubbard, Raelynn and Jordan Schmidt. However, her story has a much humbler beginning, on a small farm in rural Winchester, Indiana, where she initially cultivated her passion for country music and entertained vivid fantasies of the day she would finally move to Nashville to begin pursuing that dream at Belmont.
“I remember mowing the grass and listening to Garth Brooks,’ ‘The River.’ I would think about how I wanted to do everything I could to get to Nashville and work in country music,” said Peacock.
Her junior year at Belmont, Peacock’s wish came true at an internship fair on Belmont’s campus. The Tom-Leis Music table drew her in because she recognized the company as Sarah Buxton’s publisher, one of her favorite singer-songwriters at the time. Kimberly June, the office manager at Tom-Leis hired Peacock, and on her first day in the office, Peacock met her boss, Leslie DiPiero, who was a partner in the company.
“Emily was a standout from the get-go,” said DiPiero. “We had so many interns, but it was different with Emily. I knew her name and her work ethic immediately.”
After graduation, Peacock continued to work part-time for Tom-Leis and DiPiero’s husband’s company, Love Monkey, another publishing company on Music Row. The couple promised Peacock that if she proved herself, they would eventually offer her a full-time position. She worked part-time for one month before the DiPieros offered her a full-time job.
“When I was working part-time and just trying to pay rent, the DiPieros would take me out to dinner every night. They made me feel so appreciated, I didn’t think about going anywhere else,” said Peacock.
Since then, DiPiero said Peacock has become a major player in the industry. She continues to work for DiPiero at Tree Vibez Music where Peacock supports the company’s writers by scheduling co-writes, strategically planning who is in the room during these co-writes, cataloging the finished songs and sending their work off to publishers who will play the songs for big-time artists like Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean, Cole Swindell and Kane Brown.
She also frequently acts as a production coordinator for her clients’ live shows. Overall, their company represented 17 No. 1 hits since its conception in 2015 according to their website.
“I call her an air traffic controller for a bunch of drunk pilots who never crash,” said DiPiero. “You can definitely set your clock to Emily Peacock.”
Despite her attention to detail and organizational skills, Peacock still found the music business industry to be tricky to navigate as someone who wasn’t exposed to the harshness and competitive nature of that world from a young age. Peacock said avoiding feelings of imposter syndrome in a role like hers requires constant grounding. She reminds herself of her value to the industry with two strategically placed signs on the wall in her house.
“One of them says, ‘I still remember the days I prayed for everything I have now,’ and the other one says, ‘Not to spoil the ending, but everything is going to be okay,’” said Peacock.
Peacock is not only an asset to the music industry because of her preparedness and reliability as an employee, but because of her huge heart for others, said DiPiero. While her small-town upbringing kept her from the hubbub of the fast-paced music business industry in Nashville until her freshman year of college, Winchester did foster Peacock’s love of family, which is one of the reasons she values her work at independent publishers like Tom-Leis and Tree Vibez Music. As the oldest of three sisters, Peacock was an expert at nurturing the people she cares about, fighting for the people she loves and fostering community with her classmates, coworkers and friends.
“She has always encouraged me, always picked up the phone and talked to me when I needed her and always been supportive. Emily is always there for those she loves,” said Lauren Peacock, Emily Peacock’s youngest sister.
DiPiero agreed that Peacock’s big-sister instincts set her up for success in her post-graduate career.
“I have a yorkie that is 16 years old, and her name is Bagel. I call Emily my human Bagel. I would say she is my emotional support person instead of my emotional support animal,” said DiPiero.
Peacock said her Belmont education also played a big role in defining her career trajectory. She knew she wanted to be connected to country music, but she didn’t know what that looked like prior to attending college. She started with management because it was the only thing she knew, but during her upperclassman years, she fell in love with publishing after helping with liner notes for a record.
“Everyone has a right and responsibility to, if they are passionate about something, see if they can make that a part of their life and career,” said Peacock.
Peacock worries that today’s students are pursuing music business for the “fun aspect” rather than out of a place of service. She believes that in this industry, people like her are meant to support the songwriters, and if they are in it for personal recognition, they are missing the point. If people in the music business are not there to lift up the art, then, Peacock said, they will never experience the greatest extent of fulfillment out of their work.
Lauren Peacock said she is inspired by her older sister’s servant attitude and believes her dedication to others and her willingness to bend over backwards to provide support for those she loves is what makes her so successful in her line of work.
“She has motivated me to be more thoughtful and caring in other people’s lives by the way she lives hers,” said Lauren Peacock.
As a senior at Belmont, a professor told Peacock to let her passions be a compass rather than a map, and that advice stuck with her throughout her professional journey as she continued to open herself up to where opportunities led her. She said she hopes that students aspiring to start their professional career in any industry never stop fighting for what they want.
“Don’t miss opportunities. Be willing to be open to whatever is there. You never know what will happen. Just say yes more than no, and don’t be afraid of the hard work,” said Peacock.
Peacock had no idea a chance encounter at a Belmont internship fair would lead her to that moment, perched on the edge of her seat in Warner’s office building as warm sun spilled across her sandaled feet and onto the wood paneled floors. From the back wall, Dan and Shay’s platinum record and Hunter Hayes’ one million records sold plaque glisten in the midday light, casting rainbows across her computer screen. On the coffee table, Dolly Parton’s book supports an amber candle with the words ‘Love Country’ sprawled across the label in script. She drums against the couch’s armrest with the edge of her thumb, meeting Davenport’s encouraging smile with her own. This, Peacock said, is where she always knew she was meant to be.
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