shoebill music was originally founded in 2006 by Johannes Haage, Philipp Gropper, Christian Lillinger, Roland Schulz, and Sebastian Sternberg.

Soon after its first CD-Release (hyperactive kid sb06001) the original founding team dissolved: Haage, Gropper and Lillinger, who had been responsible for artistic matters, would concentrate on their own musical careers.

Sternberg, who had been in charge of operations and was going to set up an adjoined booking agency, left and moved south to pursue his career in the mobile phone industry.

Schulz, whose role had been that of a financial investor and book keeper, left to pursue his business shutting down nuclear power plants. He would found his own music label some years later up in Greifswald, which is not associated with shoebill music in any way.

From january 2013 shoebill music started releasing Vinyl records exclusively using its new simple business model:

Though supported and aided by shoebill music, the artists have the greatest degree of artistic freedom possible. All costs the artists have to pay, if any, are actual costs of production. They are openly disclosed to them so it is transparent what the money is used for. The artists get exactly the number of records they need to sell to cover their costs.

The net revenues of all other record sales of a production that are not needed to cover production costs are split evenly. shoebill music as well as the artists are free to sell their records anywhere they want.

The records come with personal download codes which the buyers can use to get a high quality digital version of the release- which is only available with the purchase of the vinyl record.