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Label Manager
 | How long have you been working @ EMI & what was your first job here? |
 | My real first start at EMI was as a work experience person. I did a one-day-a-week 10-week stint as part of my uni degree. About a year after that, in July 2001, I started at EMI as a Junior Press Officer. It was my role to publicise our acts through teen and lifestyle press, as well as providing general support to the publicity department. I also had the large task of maintaining files on all the press that ran on any of our artists (no mean feat when some of your artists include The Beatles, Robbie Williams and Victoria Beckham).
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| | Current role @ EMI? |
| | I'm a Label Manager for Virgin Records. I work in a team of three Label Managers who all report to the Head of Virgin.
The Marketing for all Virgin artists is divided between the three of us. This involves everything from writing marketing and promotional plans for albums, DVDs and tours, commissioning CD artwork and music videos, creating merchandise and advertising, and deciding what to release when.
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| | What qualifications do you have or what on the job training did you do to get to where you are now? |
| | I have a Communications degree majoring in Public Communications/Journalism from UTS.
I also graduated from News Limited Award School (an advertising school) just before I started with EMI.
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| | A day in the life…. |
| | Depending on what projects I am working on at the time, daily activities include working with designers on advertisements, merchandise and CD artwork, liaising with the promotions and sales managers about how we can get our artists heard, dealing with the production team to make sure our stock is made by release dates, having meetings with advertisers, writing marketing plans for upcoming releases, and reporting to overseas as to how their artists are fairing in the Australian market.
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| | Best part of your job? |
| | Hearing new music first - and watching really talented artists crack the big time.
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| | Best thing about working for EMI Music Australia? |
| | EMI Music has the best artist roster in the world, hands down. Our local roster here in Australia is also so strong - its great working closely with Australian artists and watching it happen first hand.
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| | First job you ever had in the music industry? |
| | I started off in journalism, mainly writing about film and music. My first full-time job was as entertainment writer at a now-defunct website. My first job at a record company was the junior press officer role here at EMI
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| | Most defining music moment? |
| | OK this is a huge cliché, but probably when Kurt Cobain died - I wasn't really a Nirvana fan when that happened but at that point my whole school went Nirvana crazy and alternative music started to become apparent to me. I realised that there was more out there than what mainstream radio was playing. Through Nirvana I got into a lot of more obscure bands like Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear who had a huge effect on my life. The same year I was at home watching RAGE, who were doing a British Bands special. At that exact point I began buying NME every week and got very into Oasis, Blur and Pulp, and through them lots of older British stuff.
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| | Useful advice to someone wanting a start in the industry? |
| | Do work experience wherever you can get it!!
Realise that there are heaps of different facets of the industry and try to get a taste of them all in an unpaid capacity before you start your career... do you want to work for a record company, be an artist manager, a booking agent or a tour promoter? There are so many different roles.
If you want to work for a record company, do some research into what area you want to work in. The main areas are A&R, marketing, sales and promotions - if you have a clear goal of where you want to go it will be easier for you to figure out how to get there and what skills and experience you will need.
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