Gary Furniss isn’t really retired, although the word was used in the press announcement and there are numerous posts from artists and colleagues sending good wishes about it. But you will not catch him on a porch birdwatching, not unless he’s got his computer and portable keyboard with him.
Sure, he stepped down as president of Sony Music Publishing in North America after 33 years—managing director for territories in Europe, Asia, and Australia—and then went on a dream vacation to China with his wife, Eva. But he was back home in his professional recording studio, Stonehouse, working with one of the musicians with whom he got his start: Tom Wilson.
His official last day at SMP was March 31, 2026. If he calculated his exact start date, it would be fun if it had been 33 1/3 years, given his lifelong service to making records. “I never even thought of that,” Furniss says.
“It was a huge decision [to step away] because it’s like something being cut off that you’re so used to doing. It feels like I’ve got another week to go of vacation, then I go back to work.”
His work was predicated on an almost magic ability for identifying great songs and songwriters, nurturing them, and finding opportunities to advance their careers, in simple terms fulfilling their dreams. For example, Stephan Moccio wanted to work with Céline Dion, and she ended up cutting his Enya-inspired co-write with Aldo Nova, “A New Day Has Come.” It ended up the title of the album and the lead single.
In addition to Wilson and Moccio, the SMP Canada roster he built, alongside his creative team—David Quilico has been with him for 30 years and is currently VP of A&R and Mishelle Pack started as an intern from Harris Institute, taught by Quilico, and, 15 years later, is director of creative A&R—includes Mother Mother, LIGHTS, the estate of Oscar Peterson, Tawgs Salter, Intense, 254 Bodi, Liz Rodrigues, Pitt Tha Kid, Forest Blakk, Dax, Fefe Dobson, Anjulie, Joel Stouffer, Peach Pit, AP Dhillon. Early signings included Amanda Marshall, The Philosopher Kings, Chantal Kreviazuk, Dave Thomson, Hemingway Corner, Tara MacLean, USS, Edwin, Prozzäk, Our Lady Peace, and Rob Wells.
Furniss’ wife has been retired for a decade, and when the two would go on vacation, he would check his work email every day, he says. “When you’re the president of the company, you’re just checking in.” The couple also have five grandkids, all boys, ages three to 12. It was just time, he felt, to “retire.”
Last year, Furniss called his boss, American publishing executive Jon Platt, chairman and CEO of SMP, and said he wanted to have a talk.
“I think he was going to call about a business deal and I said, ’Well, actually, today I’ve been at the company 32 years and I’m going to be 72 in November. And he goes, “What?”—I think some people thought I was in my 60s—and I go, “I just can’t see continuing on without some kind of transition for the next teams, all the people behind me coming up through the ranks. Corporately, I’ve had a lot of great experiences and fun and a wonderful time. I need to put some more time back into the creative side where I started.””
Where he started was at London, Ontario’s famed Fanshawe College, which created a hands-on, in-studio educational program in 1970. He enrolled in 1973. At the time, it was called Creative Electronics (later, Music Industry Arts.)
In his third year, he fearlessly cold-called numerous industry professionals to meet with them, including producer Jack Richardson. “I must have hounded him for like a year. ‘No, he’s in LA, he’s doing Guess Who, Bob Seger, whatever.’ One day I get a phone call. He says, ‘It’s Jack here. Can you come down tomorrow and we’ll catch up?’” Furniss relays.
“I caught the Holy Grail. He was the No. 1 producer in the world at that time. I was right in the middle of exams, so if I don’t do the exams, I fail after three years, but I get to see Jack. And I’m going, ‘This is an important decision.’ So, I failed,” he laughs. “I went the next day and saw Jack. He spent hours with me. He was just doing [Seger’s] Night Moves.”
Years later, a few years ago, Fanshawe gave Furniss an honorary diploma and he gave a keynote speech.
“The lesson there is a piece of paper is important, but you’ve got an opportunity that’s not going to come again,” he says.
Richardson let Furniss use his studio, Nimbus 9, on downtime, which enabled him to record such acts as Demics, Figgy Duff, The Shakers, and Fictions. He says he even got to work with Richardson on the Fanshawe-created band True Myth for Warner Bros Canada, one of the world’s first rock digital recordings and first digitally recorded album in Canada.
In the early ’90s, Furniss was in New York shopping a band he produced to all the labels and one of the members told him that Mike Roth back at Sony in Toronto, was interested. When Furniss got home, he went to see him. Furniss mentioned that this guitarist Dan Achen had given him a demo cassette of his band Junkhouse that blew him away.
“He goes, ‘I’ve got the same tape. Why don’t we work together on this project?’” says Furniss. “And that was the start of Junkhouse. I started producing and then co-producing with them.” Their debut album, Strays, was co-produced by Furniss, Roth, Junkhouse and Malcolm Burn, and went gold.
For the next two or three years, Furniss engineered and mixed for Sony Music.
Then, one day, Richard Rowe, CEO of Sony Music Publishing, wanted to meet him. He was in the middle of making two records but flew down, and when he got back, was offered the gig as creative director of the publishing division in Canada.
“I had to make a heavy decision because Malcolm Burn and I were going to do some stuff together after the Junkhouse record and I said, ‘Guys, I just took a gig at Sony.’ They go, ‘What? And I go, “No, no, I think we can do some things there.” And it’s not a corporate gig; it’s going to be [taking] all the things we’re doing now and giving these opportunities to new writers.’”
That’s what he did. Along the way, he advocated for the rights of creators by serving on numerous boards, including SOCAN, SOCAN Foundation, MPC, CSHF, CARAS, and CMRRA, where he served as chairman/director.
Furniss is now working at his leisure in his home studio with Wilson, Junkhouse and Wilson’s son, Thompson. He has worked on Wilson’s music for his art shows, Beautiful Scars doc, and cut songs from the stage musical, which are available online.
As he said to Platt, “I’m retiring from the corporate world. I look at that like the musicians we work with: they go 23 hours on the road to do that one hour of magic, and that 23 hours on the road, it’s hard work. So, I looked at the corporate world as that time on the bus and now I just have the one hour of fun in the studio.”