ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the world leader in performing rights and advocacy for music creators, today announced that Nate Ruess, songwriter and vocalist for the GRAMMY-winning group fun., has extended his agreement for representation of public performances of his songwriting catalog. Ruess recently released his first solo album, Grand Romantic, and received the prestigious Hal David Starlight Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

"Nate writes big songs that capture universal emotions and bring us all along for the ride," said John Titta, ASCAP Executive Vice President of Membership. "That's a combination that will always win listeners and fans. Nate's success with fun. is only the first chapter of what we are sure will be a long career as one of the great songwriters of his generation."

"I'm very happy to be re-upping my membership with ASCAP," said Ruess. They've taken care of me since as far back as I've been writing songs."

As frontman for fun., Ruess has achieved incredible success by any measure. With the band he collected two GRAMMYs, critical praise, platinum sales of their second album Some Nights and a ubiquitous, record-breaking lead single in "We Are Young" (named ASCAP's Pop Song of the Year in 2013). The following year, Ruess earned an additional GRAMMY nomination for "Just Give Me A Reason," his writing and performance collaboration with P!nk. More recently, Ruess collaborated with Eminem on his song "Headlights," with Ke$ha on "Die Young," Zedd on "Stay The Night" featuring Hayley Williams, and co-wrote on projects with Maroon 5 and Ellie Goulding.

Now, Ruess is striking out on his own with Grand Romantic, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Rock Albums chart and No. 7 on the Billboard 200. The first single from the album, "Nothing Without Love," hit number 6 on the Hot Rock Songs chart on May 30. Ruess is now on tour through November 21 with dates in the U.S., Canada, Japan and South Korea.

ASCAP also recently renewed agreements with Max Martin (Pink, Katy Perry, Britney Spears), 2 Chainz, Lenny Kravitz, Garth Brooks, The Doors, Rick James, Richie Sambora, Sara Bareilles and Diplo, among others.

About ASCAP
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is a professional membership organization of songwriters, composers and music publishers of every kind of music. ASCAP's mission is to license and promote the music of its members and foreign affiliates, obtain fair compensation for the public performance of their works and to distribute the royalties that it collects based upon those performances. ASCAP members write the world's best-loved music and ASCAP has pioneered the efficient licensing of that music to hundreds of thousands of enterprises who use it to add value to their business – from bars, restaurants and retail, to radio, TV and cable, to Internet, mobile services and more. The ASCAP license offers an efficient solution for businesses to legally perform ASCAP music while respecting the right of songwriters and composers to be paid fairly. With 530,000 members representing more than 10 million copyrighted works, ASCAP is the worldwide leader in performance royalties, service and advocacy for songwriters and composers, and the only American performing rights organization (PRO) owned and governed by its writer and publisher members. www.ascap.com

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CONTACT:
Cathy Halgas Nevins
ASCAP
cnevins (at) ascap.com