“We’re also doing the Colton album,” Lucas Entertainment Director of Distribution Richard Munguia said. “If it’s good, why not? Quentin Harris is producing. Nekked did a remix. Pink Noise did a remix. There are all these people involved with this album, so there are some big names behind the things that are coming our way.”
Ford has been a recording artist for 20 years, with a hit single released in April 2003, titled “Everything.” Ford followed that success with a cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered” which stayed at #7 on the Billboard chart for 15 weeks with remixes by Ralphi Rosario, Mac Quayle and Solar City.
Ford also was the subject of a 2004 documentary called “Naked Fame” which chronicled his transition from adult performer to pop music personality. Currently, Ford can be seen in the supernatural drama series “The Lair” on GLBT cable network Here! TV. The program debuted in June and Ford is featured in a reoccurring role as Sheriff Trout.
“The Way You Love Me” can be heard on Ford’s MySpace page.The upcoming album will be titled “Tug of War.”
Munguia worked in distribution for the music industry for 20 years before joining Lucas Entertainment. He pitched the company’s owner Michael Lucas on the idea of representing musical performers alongside their adult video catalog.
“It’s more of a creative outlet for me because there are a lot of artists getting lost in the shuffle — a lot of gay artists that don’t get publicity,” Munguia said. “So I talked to Michael about it and asked him if he would let me give it a try, and he always supports everything that I want to do, so he said, ‘Go ahead and give it a shot.’”
Aside from making the distro deal with Ford, Munguia also recently brokered a deal with acoustic techno group Nekked that scored the multi-award winning “Michael Lucas’ La Dolce Vita.”
“It all ties in, especially now. There’s so much cross-promotion with everything,” he said. “And what’s been really great is I’ve been approached by other gay artists, asking if we can distribute their products, so it’s really taken a life of its own.”
Consumers have been reacting positively, according to Munguia, buying the “La Dolce Vita” DVD and picking up the Nekked CD as an add-on purchase. Cross-marketing brings diversity to the company’s product line, while offering artists that might be passed over by mainstream music distribution companies a chance to be promoted.
“Some of these guys who are out there performing in porn have hidden talents. I hate that they get pigeon-holed and that was one of the reasons behind my thought of distributing music for gay artists, whether in porn or if they have done music for us,” Munguia said. “We’re a porn studio, and we’re going to distribute music from porn stars or whomever because these people do more and they do good stuff.”
