Josh Simons is an Australia-based entrepreneur and musician. He is the co-founder of the musician networking platform Vampr and the chief executive officer of Vinyl Group (ASX: VNL), an Australian publicly listed music and media company.[4][5] As a musician, Simons founded and fronted the indie rock project Buchanan, has studio and writing credits with artists including Travis Scott and Troye Sivan,[6][7] and has toured with Coldplay and Keith Urban.[8][9]
Simons was born in England and later settled in Melbourne, Australia. In 2008, at age 17, he dropped out of high school to direct and produce a feature film, The Vapour Boys.[2][10] In 2021 he became a US citizen.[11] He holds a Bachelor of Business from Swinburne University.[3]
Simons formed Buchanan in 2009. The band released two studio albums, Human Spring (2013) and Pressure in an Empty Space (2016), before retiring in 2019 with the mixtape The Crayon Collection.[12][13][14] The award-winninng band received chart impressions in Europe, America and Australia and toured with Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood.[8][15][16][17]
In January 2018 Simons co-produced and mixed Tre Capital single "Blue Eyes White Dragon Flow", which premiered on Complex.[21] The track was the lead single for Tre Capital's third studio album, Hero, released 29 June 2018, where Simons was executive producer and co-produced nine tracks which included notable contributions from Anthony Kilhoffer and WondaGurl.
In May 2018, Allan Kingdom's single "All Night", which Simons co-wrote with Kilhoffer, premiered on Hypebeast.[22] The release was the lead single for his Peanut Butter Prince album, released on 15 June 2018, where Simons co-wrote the tracks "Don't Wait", "Fall For You" and "All Night".[23]
In June 2018, Simons contributed a vocal and piano performance for "Stand By You", a charity single by EveryOneBand, raising funds for Australian charity Support Act.[24] The single debuted at number 1 on the AIR Singles Chart.[25]
September 2018 saw the release of Songs From the Ashes, Pt. 2, an EP from singer-songwriter Cobi, whose opening track "Church of the Lonely" was co-written by Simons.[26] In October 2018, King IV released the single "Basic", produced and co-written by Simons.[27]
The March 2019 release of Jenny Queen's album Baby It Was Real and We Were the Best on ABC Music included the single "Medicine", co-written by Simons.[28]
Simons wrote the film score for the July 2019 documentary Latter Day Jew starring Judy Gold, which was accepted into eight film festivals.[29]
In January 2024, Vampr signed Emmanuel Kelly directly to its distribution and publishing service ahead of the release of his single, "My Sky", which Simons co-produced, and which had its live premiere at the Australian Open on 23 January 2024.[30][31] "My Sky" was named by Spotify as one of the top 30 most streamed songs by an Australian artist in 2024.[32]
Kelly's subsequent No Zodiac EP was released by Vampr on 30 October 2024, and was executive produced by Simons, Kelly and Chris Martin.[33][34] Simons also played guest guitar in Kelly's band during the Australian leg of Coldplay's Music of the Spheres World Tour,[9] a record-breaking run that included new attendance records at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium with 227,000 fans over four shows,[35] and Sydney's Accor Stadium with 338,776 fans over four shows.[36]
Simons co-founded Vampr, a social and professional networking app for musicians, with Barry Palmer in 2015. In December 2017, Vampr was featured by Apple in its "Best of 2017" roundup.[37] In 2021, Vampr was nominated for a Music Week Award in the Music Consumer Innovation category, and was nominated again in 2022, alongside Apple Music, TikTok and Amazon Music.[38]
In March 2022, Fast Company listed Vampr among its Most Innovative Companies (Music).[39] Later that year, Google Play spotlighted the company in its Top 150 apps in the United States.[40]
In February 2023, it was announced that Vampr had been acquired by the then Sydney-headquartered music credits database, Jaxsta.[41]
In June 2023, following completion of the Vampr acquisition, Simons was appointed CEO of the company.[4] The ASX-listed company was later rebranded as Vinyl Group.[5]
As CEO, Simons established the media and music tech company and led it through a period of expansion driven by organic growth and acquisitions. Throughout 2024, Vinyl Group under Simons acquired The Brag Media (Rolling Stone AU/NZ, Variety Australia, The Music Network),[42]Mediaweek,[43] Funkified Entertainment[44] and Serenade,[45] while raising over $15 million in new funds for the company.[46][47]
Since then, and into 2025, Simons raised a further A$10 million and acquired digital city guide publisher Concrete Playground.[48][49] That same year, he secured a A$1.5 million credit facility from Songtradr while announcing plans to acquire the Vinyl.com domain[50] and consolidate the company's media assets, including new license Refinery29 Australia, under the Vinyl Media banner.[51]
In 2022, Vampr was listed in Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies.[39] In October 2024, Business News announced Simons as a winner of its Melbourne Young Entrepreneur Awards in the Digital Disrupter category.[55] The following month, Simons was subsequently recognised nationally as a winner of the Australian Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the same category.[56]
In 2025, he was recognised for innovation impact by his alma mater, Swinburne University,[3] and was named second in Deloitte's 2025 Tech Fast 50, recognising the fastest growing technology companies in Australia.[57]
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