As Senior Account Manager at WildKat PR, what are your primary duties, and what unique challenges do you face within your role?
My primary duties are to work with people closely to get the exposure they are looking for to raise their profile. In the current music industry, this can be done in a few different ways from playlist pitching and structured ad campaigns to securing print interviews and podcast features. A big part of my job is figuring out which buttons to press to get the best results.
I also work a lot with digital marketing campaigns using my previous experience in the area. Giving advice on content editing, all the way through to structuring a digital advertising campaign to sell tickets to a concert or promote a new release.
A unique challenge I face is working with an artist and being able to translate the artist’s vision in the best way to the audience that is clear, interesting and distinguishable. And how that is received is different for every person, the correct wording and imagery is super essential while keeping the core of the message of the art intact and prominent.
What is a project you’re particularly proud of and why? What was the inspiration behind it?
I think a project I’m most proud of is a theatre show called KTSG, where I worked with Alicia Jane Turner and Chris Brett Bailey. We originally composed over 3 hours of music to condense it down into an hour, and my favourite part is using the harp of a piano with drumsticks for a percussive and thunderous piece. It was an intense creative period, and I'm very proud of how it turned out.
You previously worked in Label Management and as an Artist Manager. What inspired you to pursue a career in PR?
I decided I wanted to have a change and PR was the place where I had the least experience. Having worked as both a label manager and artist manager, I dealt with PR companies quite often and found the results very frustrating. In a strange way, this drew me to it to figure out why and experience it for myself. It's been quite revealing and gives a great insight on how different agencies operate and what is the most effective way of achieving results.
What is on your bucket list? What do you hope to achieve/do in future?
At some point, I would like to put time aside to score my own film soundtrack using the weirdest instruments I can find and experimenting. I'm also very keen to learn to play the violin and cello properly as at the moment, it usually involves having to put it through so many effects pedals and delays to make a half-decent sound.
What music/artists are you particularly enjoying at the moment?
I’m currently enjoying the new Alessandro Cortini album ‘VOLUME MASSIMO’ mixed in with a bit of ‘Soul Mining’ era The The and Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich.
Last film you watched?
The last film was The Two Popes on Netflix.
Favourite film score/soundtrack?
This is a hard one as there are so many great things and I'm a particular fan of Philip Glass, Koyaanisqatsi played super loud, but I’m going to go with Clint Mansell, Requiem for a Dream, also loud.
Last song you listened to?
Vad Hände Med Dem? By Brian Jonestown Massacre
You have a background as a composer. How do you think having a creative background has helped you across your professional career?
It has definitely helped me in my career as it has given me an understanding of how certain ideas or philosophies an artist holds about their work and the language to communicate them that gives it justice.
Certain things are definitely red lines to the artist, and so it’s having an understanding of how to respect them and work with them rather than it being a hindrance.
What advice can you offer to upcoming artists/bands who are trying to secure PR themselves?
My advice will be to check if it is the right time for you to employ a PR company. A lot of the time artists come and ask for PR but haven't got everything in places like decent pictures and a vision of how they want to be presented.
A thing that I've seen happen is that someone employs an agency with an album coming out in a month and pays a great deal of money, but then gets disappointed when there is only limited coverage. It takes a long time to build up excellent PR coverage and isn't just about emailing everyone on a mailing list, it takes time and is a marathon, not a sprint.
What do you get up to when you’re not working? Any guilty pleasures?
I fall down YouTube and Netflix holes quite often, and I enjoy slowly getting through a bottle of Irish whiskey to wind down.
How do you see the music industry evolving over the next 10 years? What big changes are coming?
Machine learning/AI, as it gets ever more sophisticated and smarter, is going to have a significant impact on music and music discovery. From accurate recommendations taken from persons listening habits and preferences (shout out to ‘groovecat’ who released an app called ‘cyanite’ last year that analyses music), through to thorough tracking of rights and getting the royalties into the owed persons' bank account. There is still a massive amount of mess and opaqueness in what artists and independents are owed and entitled to.
In the specific area of the industry I mainly work in, classical music, the way meta-data is archived and documented will change and develop to a more comprehensive and fit for purpose system.
What advice would you give your younger self?
I would tell myself to fail faster and learn to let it go when it does hit the fan, and that it's not always your fault. I think everyone can be guilty of holding onto something and having such great hope when it's doomed to fail.
When starting a new project, do you have any creative rituals or routines that help you brainstorm new ideas?
I create a playlist of ‘allowed’ listening and solely listen to that for the project I’m working on at the time so it can feed into what I’m writing or doing.
For more strategy projects, I like to have a ridiculously big whiteboard and write everything down I can think of that is relevant and scrawl and draw away, making the connections and what makes sense. Then try and talk about things to an unfortunate volunteer to make sure it all makes sense.
What is next for George Percy?
I’m going to continue working my way in the music industry and keeping on top of new developments and methods of implementing them for the artists I work with. Also, I’m still touring some of the theatre productions I do with Chris Brett Bailey with the next performances will be in Berlin in March.
