A conversation with Alyssa DeHayes, who is a publicist and media relations specialist for record labels, festivals and independent artists at Riot Act Media. She loves demystifying PR and marketing strategies in one-on-one consulting sessions for artists and labels who aren’t quite ready for a full publicity campaign. She spends her lunch hour twice a week teaching music publicity and promotion at The University of Georgia’s Music Business Program, and volunteers for Girls Rock Athens.

We'll discuss the value of PR for artists in 2021, managing growth over the course of your career, managing expectations, and setting realistic goals. We’ll also talk about records release plans in general from the perspective of Alyssa's label.

Pertinent links to Alyssa’s happenings: 

• Publicist at Riot Act Media
• Founder of Arrowhawk Records
• Project Manager at Asthmatic Kitty (Sufjan Stevens)

ALBUM RELIEF

Album Relief is a four week course to teach artists how to approach handling their own publicity for albums, singles, and tours. A full-on campaign isn’t always the right move for every artist, at every stage, and this DIY course provides an alternative.

I guess we can just start with something super open-ended and that is what is the value of a PR campaign for an artist in 2021?

But I think the biggest thing for me is growth. I think especially when you begin working with an artist you really can't make specific guarantees or No, maybe just kind of rewinding the process a little bit. Like, I feel like some something I try to convey to artists is that publicity isn't like a menu you can order from it's wonderful to go through wishlist and have targets and goals.

But it isn't like you can roll up and be like, yes, I'll have one Pitchfork. I'll have two stereo gums and I'll finish it all off with a fader feature interview. But. Ideally, you will end your campaign further along more with more awareness for your art than where you started. And, you know, I think if you have moved the needle in some way, then you've grown and there's value there.

And I think Publicity and specifically music press can really help you tell your story in a way that you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell it on your own and you know, kind of the obvious one to reach new fans. You know, if you're at the point where. You have decided that you want to bring someone onto your team to do your publicity.

You've probably been spending time on your social media. You have probably at least built a name for yourself in your local market. And now it's time for someone else to sort of pick up all the pieces for you and run with it and help you expand that sphere of influence.

I think it's really important. The menu metaphor is so great. I'm going to start using that. Thank you. Yeah.

I mean, they don't have to be the human Rolodex that a publicist needs to be, but just have a sense for, you know, what is, what is a little bit influential for. The kind of music you're making so that you can have targets and goals, but just not get too pinned to any one thing as your idea of success.

Alyssa DeHayes: [00:03:25] Yup, yup. Or a, you know, not, not to Not to rag on anyone, but there's always this funny increase where an artist is really set on something and you have to explain like that outlet folded two years ago, or, you know, maybe they don't do that column anymore.

And they probably won't bring that column back if they haven't done it in two years. Just because I reached out to them. Since I'm not the editor of that publication.

That's a great record and it's willing to do the damn thing, but like a debut artist that hasn't even set up their website or social media yet you can do PR on your own. And we'll get to that a little later. I know you have something to talk about, but I think it's really important for people to know. I don't want to speak for you, but I think.

You don't need to be hiring out the work until it's overwhelming for you to do it yourself.

And it's an investment. So, you know, in a, in a perfect world, we would all just have unlimited resources and we could hire lots of people to do any of the stuff that we're not good at, or we're not getting results at, or we don't like to do, or we don't have time to do, but you know, very similarly to, if you were starting a business, Some people starting a business are in a position to just go right out and hire a full staff.

But other people who are running maybe a small business you grow a little bit and then you might bring on your first employee and then another need might arise and you bring on your second employee and you'll be scaling and growing. But there's a timing to it when you know, when you can afford it, when it, when there is work.

To be done. So, you know, in terms of timing, there's sort of a two-fold thing to look at, which is just where are you at in your growth stage as an artist, whether that is, you know, have you done anything you can do on your own, and you're kind of starting to plateau and have you done enough on your own to set the foundation that.

Now a publicist can hop in and run with it. And then there is proximity to the album release itself since, you know, most media need to know about things pretty well in advance. And if you're reaching out to someone and your albums already been out for six months they can still help you share it with media, but it's not going to have the same punch as if you'd have properly time.

Alyssa DeHayes: [00:06:38] Yeah. It's one of the only things you can control. Right? So like, There are always things you can do for better outcomes, but you cannot force someone to fall in love with an album. You can't control what else might be on their editorial calendar, but you can control whether or not you stay on time and stay on track.

And at least give people the amount of time they would need.

And I sought them out because I get a question all the time. Regularly enough, not all the time and artists like, Hey, I see such and such is releasing a record on their own record label. Should I start a label? And obviously you're not an artist, a band, like doing your own thing, you've just run a label.

So it's a little different, but what does, and this, I realized this could be a very long conversation, so we could just go for the highlights here, but. Release timeline, release plan for arrow Hawk records. What does that look like? Inception to distribution and all the other messy things in between.

Like, do you actually want to run a label? And if the answer is like, yes, I really want to give this a shot. I want to sign other artists and share with them this platform that I've built for myself, these resources I've built for myself. I mean, I also work for asthmatic kitty. I work for a artist founded label.

But other times I hear artists bring up. That should I start a label? Because they think that if they self released an album, it's not going to look good or that they might have better success. If it's like, if they're just says something, something records after their name. And in those situations, I'm always personal opinion.

I'm like, don't bother doing that if you're just doing it because you think it'll look better. Add air quotes again for, for listeners too, who aren't seeing this zoom. I really don't have to come up with a fake label name just because you think it might look bad. And sometimes they honestly even suspect that like, if you are trying, if one of your goals is to work with a label in the future, then.

It might behoove you to appear available and not appear like you are currently in an agreement that is actually just you, because you didn't want to say self release. Self releasing is awesome. It's it's totally bad-ass it's you know, why not take credit for all your hard work?

I'm like picturing bands accidentally wearing fake wedding bins. Just move along.

That's so cool. And lots of established artists released, like I work with Laura veers. She releases her own music on her own label. And or she releases her music herself and also you know, there, there's no shame in being like, yeah, I'm going to do this myself.

Alyssa DeHayes: [00:10:50] I guess to go to your timeline point timelines for us are pretty lengthy and that's for a number of reasons.

One is just we're small. It's me and a couple other people, and we all have other jobs and other projects, and really want to make sure that we give ourselves enough time and we want to give every release its own window. There, there's nothing wrong with kind of having campaigns overlap a little bit like ships in the night or passing trains, but I really like to try to give a.

Every album it's kind of own, own time to shine, own time, to like really be the focus of the email list and the focus of our socials and really the focus of our attention. So when it comes down to timelines, we typically are working about a year into the future, which can be. You know, I, I know that's not uncommon.

I know a lot of labels are working two, three years into the future. It, it does always present the challenge of like, you want an artist to still be excited about an album when it finally comes out. And, you know, they've been working on this music for so long and could feel really weird if it's like, all right, great job, three years from when you wrote these songs, they'll finally come out.

But You know, there's the spacing out on our calendar and we really time everything around the physical elements. So if we're doing a digital plus tape, plus some kind of creative merchant item, we can turn that around a lot more quickly. But if we have a vinyl component, Vinyl is super backed up right now.

And it's for a number of reasons there's just straight up increased demand, which is fantastic. I think a lot of people spent a lot of the pandemic, maybe getting their listening stations at home, really kind of like done up and cozy and fun. And I think people really. We've always known how important it is to directly support artists with your dollars.

But I think it really hit home when touring stopped that like you need to buy records and there's PVC shortages on the horizon. And you know, there have been staffing hiccups during the pandemic. So vinyl it's pretty slow. So if there's going to be a vinyl count component, that is. What we kind of base everything around and then.

We talked to our distributor because our distributor is going to know, you know, I, I reached out to our distributor with a timeline I wanted the other day and they were like that bumps into record store day and stores will have just spent a lot of money on record store day titles. You should wait a little second so that they can recoup a little bit and then start buying new stock.

So insights like that are so valuable to me to have kind of other people in your corner who can tell you what's going to be going on in the world. That might be a blind spot for you. But yeah, typically I'd say in the shortest case scenario, it takes about eight months for us to. To turn something around between physical product, getting marketing plans together retail marketing with stores and then the press component, which takes about as long as the vinyl.

I'm trying to think of what else to ask you about. Label life, obviously, you're, you're an Indy. I think you're a very well-run indeed, by the way. There's all shapes and sizes of labels out there. One thing that I come back to a lot, for people, people who are like, okay, or they come to me.

And they're like, I've got this record. I want you to be my publicist, but I'm going to shop it to labels first and I want to put it out in three months. I'm like, no, that's one of these things might happen, but not all of them. I really hope you do land on a label, but also why are you seeking a label if you already have the record in hand, I guess you know, it just comes down to goals, right?

That's really every facet of any plan. How do you get to your goals? And I don't think people necessarily realize maybe you don't need to be chasing a label. I think it could be, but what do you really need? You know, do you just need the bank or looking for some stamp of approval that might not carry as much weight as you think it does?

Yeah. And

And it's not a gift it's alone. It's it's alone that you will hopefully recoup. So. You know, that's even something to keep in mind because I've also, over the years, seen certain artists getting labeled deals where that recoupment point just gets run up so high. And the spending is so much spending is occurring that you're like, Oh honey, you're never going to break even.

And so that's always something to consider is even like how much financial support do you want and how much financial support is the right. Sized what, what is actually necessary for where you're at? And the other thing I think about a lot is like, can the label take a good bit of administrative burden off of you?

Or do they have experienced and things that you don't have experience in? Do they maybe have connections or partnerships with people? That you could not reach on your own. Do they have audience that you would like to tap into? Like, is there a community, is there an audience? Because I feel like there are some, some labels definitely have people who just sort of like follow the label.

Maybe they have a niche or a sound and start to build this community of fans that are like, whenever that label signs and artists, I always check it out. I know I'm probably gonna like it or are they more. You know, there, there are other labels that I think are a little more low key and more project support based where maybe they're not super forward facing themselves.

So those are kinda like the key factors I think about because it's not just all about financing because you could go with someone who's just financing, but maybe can't help you reach new fans. Or you could go with someone who maybe can't finance. A ton, but could help you tap into a community you want to be a part of, or connects you with fans and other artists.

Like there there's so many ways it could go. And I think of us maybe a little more on the end of, you know, we, we finance a lot. We can't finance everything where it's small operation, but. Over the years. I think we have carved out a little bit of a niche. Like it's, it feels good. I've had friends recently be like, Oh, check out this band.

It sounds very Aero, hot core. And I'm like, Oh, we have a sound. We have a sound you're aware of it. That's cool. And so I think like something that makes me feel really happy even though I love a ton of different kinds of music and it wasn't really intentional to start forming a niche at a certain point.

It does feel kind of nice to be in a spot where we have a lot of repeat customers and it's cool to see the same name, pop up buying from maybe four of our artists and be like, okay, we're kind of acting as a little bit of a conduit that can help you connect with, with, with new fans that are going to like put you're working on.

That's

Alyssa DeHayes: [00:19:05] No, I, I get so hyped up. If I see a name pop up even twice, I will like search back in my inbox and be like, Bob Smith, that sounds familiar. Oh, they bought a Chris Crofton record and then they bought a Jeffrey Silverstein record.

They're following along with that, it feels so good. I love it. It makes me real happy.

Alyssa DeHayes: [00:19:37] Yeah. So album relief is a a week workshop for artists who want to learn to do their own publicity. I've also had. Some past you know, workshop attendees, I guess is the right word.

I've I've had folks who work at labels, take it. And then I've had folks who are maybe trying to learn how to do press for someone else, take the workshop. And it all sort of came about because sort of two-fold motivation. One for five years, I taught music, publicity at UGA in the music business program.

Which is such a wonderful experience, but I wanted to also have some kind of Avenue to teach different lessons directly to artists. So much of what I was teaching was like, so you want to be a publicist, here's how to get into the industry. But then for artists you know, the same questions were always coming up over and over.

How do I plan a timeline? How do I. Pitch media. When do I pitch media? Or I would have so many phone calls from bands who would be like, yeah, I threw my album on band camp about six months ago. Nothing happened. Can we do publicity now? It breaks my heart. Every time I have to say, Oh, no, you didn't do any groundwork.

You didn't, you didn't do any prep work. The answer is usually like, well, I couldn't afford a publicist at the time. Yeah, it, it breaks my heart because if you haven't done any groundwork and you just throw your album on band camp, like yes, surprise drops are a thing, but you have to have an audience to be surprised.

Like a surprise drop is not gonna work. Unless there are a bunch of people who are going, Whoa, I'm so surprised. I can't wait to buy this album. So. I wanted to try to put something together that was kind of in a middle zone specifically for self released artists who are kind of like, look, I'm just not in a place to hire a publicist.

I'm not there yet either financially, or maybe they're just putting out their first single. Maybe they really haven't built that foundation yet. And I wanted to show artists all the stuff that they can do on their own. And I think once. You have learned to do this stuff yourself and maybe set up some press, play placements for yourself.

You'll have a better chance of linking up with your dream team in the future, because you'll start raising your own profile a little bit and then down the road, if you're like, Hey, this is a lot of work, which it is, and you decide to hire a publicist. You will probably work together. More harmoniously because you'll understand the circumstances and parameters that your publicist is working within.

You'll you'll understand even how to tell your story, like something we work on a lot in one of the modules of the course is just figuring out your narrative and your talking points and your angles. Because even if you're working with a publicist and I'm sure you run into this too, you can only know what the artist tells you.

You know, you'll be like, I'm totally just making up examples, but I feel like there are so many times that I get almost done with the campaign and then the artist tells me something that is so fascinating or is tied into what's happening in the world. You know, you're like at the end of the campaign and your artist is like, Oh yeah, I learned to play guitar because I fell off a horse three years ago and couldn't walk for a year and I laid in bed and taught myself guitar and you're like, Damn it that's a story like we're artists are storytellers, publicists are storytellers.

We need stories to tell and whether you're doing your own press or working with a publicist, it takes some work on the artist side to just kind of dig, you know, w we can, we can interview the artists we work with and try to draw stories out. But. It makes such a difference when an artist has maybe put in the time and kind of figured out like, okay, you know, hard question, but what's interesting about me or what are maybe some anecdotes that shaped who I am or shaped the music I make who shaped me?

When did they shape me? You know What is motivating me to write the music that I write. Who do I hope it's for? Like, there's so many questions you can ask yourself either if you're in a workshop to do your own PR or working with publicists. So I just made a really long-winded answer of that. But it's a four week workshop it's opening up again in June.

Yeah, I hope I hope folks. Join in. We had a lot of fun during the first session we had we had some fun guests from Pitchfork and consequences of sound and rolling stone that we did some live Q and A's with. And it was a lot of

Yeah, I'll be sure to link to that as well. So listeners can find their way over there. It's really cool you're doing that.

Releasing an album or marketing yourself or promoting yourself, you know, it's but it's so important.

Alyssa DeHayes: [00:25:25] Yep. And, and it's so refreshing. When you see folks with like clear, actionable advice, because. It's a, it's a big old wide internet and everyone's a guru. And you know, at the end of the day, you're just like, tell me what to do. So y'all do a good job of this. And I really strive to have advice. That's like, here's what you can do today

Alyssa, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.

Of course, of