I turned on the Channel 10 News last month and saw you performing live, which is a key part of your promotional strategy. Tell me a little bit about the people in your life that make these things happen?
My manger is Adina Friedman and she has her own company called Good Kid Entertainment and she also works for Warner Music Group, so she has a lot of great connections and she’s really hungry for any and all opportunities, which is great for me. She’s just been getting things left and right and since we started working together a lot of positive things have happened because of her. She’s the head of my team and then I have a couple different people like Nicole Lipman (Hey Cole!) that does my college bookings and assists in general and I have my publicity crew, and that’s really it right now, we’re still putting a complete team together. I have to say that my band is the best and they make things so easy. I can go in and say ‘All right guys, I wrote this song over the weekend and I want to do this and that and they just go, ‘Okay.’ They’re so intuitive that I don’t have to worry about any of that.
You’ve placed several songs on television shows like MTV’s The Hills and Newport Harbor, and now you have two songs in the new Rob Schneider movie Wild Cherry, correct?
Yeah, very exciting stuff. I have ‘The Bells’ and ‘High School Memory’ and that movie’s coming out in February I believe.
Can you tell songwriters that are trying to break into publishing what they should be concentrating on?
Start your own publishing company, it’s so easy to do right now so—until your touring and making a steady income from it—just go after any possible licensing deals and get your stuff out there. It’s not only income but its also valuable exposure and I also think music supervisors are the new A&R. They’re the ones breaking bands so if you really want to get your music on a show or a movie, that’s half the battle I think. Once you develop something great, it gives you the upper hand in negotiating.
You’ve also been on the Perez Hilton radar. How did you get away from that unscathed?
You know what’s funny? My manager sent him the CD and when he listened to it he put ‘Colors’ up and loved it and blogged about it and then I met him at a party in New York and he was like, ‘Lets do a little video’ and I was like, ’Wow, okay!’ I mean he’ll definitely let you know if he doesn’t like something but once he likes it, he really gets behind it and I think that’s super cool because he could have forgotten who I was but he didn’t forget and was very genuine. I know he gets some slack for his persona but he’s also giving artists a lot of attention and we’re all pretty thankful for that.
