Where copyright is managed by a rights organisation you cannot circumvent that by going direct to the composer for permission. When a composer joins a rights organisation they appoint the organisation as their agent. It is no longer in the composer's gift to give permission. The rights organisation will track down what it perceives to be unauthorised use and demand a licence fee.

I had a situation where my band recorded a track written by one of the band members. He wasn't a member of MCPS and was able to give his permission to use it royalty-free. It went down as "copyright controlled" on the list we gave to MCPS, which indicates it was not their copyright to administer. Several years later a different band member recorded the track on a solo album. The composer was not eligible to join MCPS himself as the first recording was self-released (and the fee would have exceeded his expected earnings) so he assigned his rights to the record label, which was already a member of MCPS, and they would pay the royalties to him. MCPS then came after us for the original use, and wouldn't accept that we had permission from the then rights holder before MCPS took it on. I don't think the point was ever settled, and we had to ask the record label to sort it out.