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Getting in amongst it with Jonathan of Get In Publicity Reported by HarderFaster / Submitted 06-12-06 21:09 Once upon a time I worked full-time in a rather stressful deadline-driven office job, where I used to have to regularly screen my calls from a few over-enthusiastic promoters and PR bods who’d somehow managed to get my daytime number and, much to my manager’s displeasure, would consistently call with their ‘urgent’ feature requests that all had to be done, well, yesterday of course! One of these over-zealous upstarts was a guy named Jonathan who worked for a company called Most Wanted. I recall one particularly passionate argument about a ‘perfect’ feature that was ready to go now, yet as always I refused to make it live without reading it later outside of office hours. No dear reader this job isn’t all bubbles and frolics, you can make a good few enemies very quickly in fact. But I digress, times have changed, I no longer have an evil boss making me paranoid and I’m not the only one to have jumped ship to the world of self-employment, so has Jonathan Llewellyn. Like most of us who frequent this website, Jonathan grew up acquiring a love of dance music culture and this scene we know and love . . . and probably more! The PR face of Most Wanted until Summer of 2006, he was given the opportunity to go it alone and took the ball and ran with it . . . straight into the DJ Mag Top 100 Poll this year, which was without question the best yet. Now that the dust has settled after the madness of a changing summer, he kindly gave me a couple of hours of his time over lunch and a couple of Chardonnays to tell us who he is, what he does, and perhaps most importantly, what’s next. Hi Jonathan, good to see you on this wet Tuesday afternoon. For those who don’t know you, please give us some background. Where are you from and how did you get into PR? I’m a born and bred Welsh boy, who went to University in Surrey to study Media Studies, which I believe one Tory politician once called “a degree for the mindless!” I mainly did it to please my Mum! Apart from Mother and Father, there were no academics in the family, in the sense that no-one else had gone to university, that’s not to say I come from a thick family... far from it. It was a dreary course, almost 90% theory. I’ve always been obsessed with TV news since I was 13 or 14, and spent god knows how much time writing to the BBC in London, Wales doing various bits of work experience. I think if I’d been firing off letters to presenters in this day and age, it’d probably be classed as stalking......I was just passionate. It went from there... So how did you get into PR? I moved to London having found out the gay in me (yeah, it’s no big shocker!) had been awakening for a few years and got the opportunity to get it out. I got into dance music and progressed from GAY — an amazing club for young people like myself coming out — then one petrified morning I was dragged to Trade and spent way too much time there?! It was the best clubbing experience I’d had in my life. Way back then it was so different! It’s still difficult to put into words the experience I had when I first went to Trade. If it was possible to open a gateway to how it was back then I would, just to let those who love it now get a dose of how it was then. I got a job at the London News Network, who used to produce the London News, then got a job at Sky News. But my love of the dance-floor ended my employment there! I couldn’t afford to sustain the job as well as the lifestyle so left... what a fool! The job at Sky involved 12 hours of day shifts or the graveyard shift, so it had to go. A stupid move in hindsight, but it got me to where I am today. How did you manage to go from news to music then? Well it was all about my love of the dance-floor and the surrounding culture. I started writing and got a job for QX Magazine, then Trade got into some trouble. I offered my services as I was so passionate about it and got offered a full-time job. We took Trade all over the world — we set up residencies all over the world and I got to travel, miss flights and meet some great people. We put out four Trade compilations under my watch, and re-launched Trade Records. As with anything, my time at Trade came to an end, and was approached by DJ Alan Thomson to do his PR. Then came Anne Savage, Andy Farley, Steve Thomas and Frantic. The rest basically as they say, would have been history… I then met someone who lived in Paris. I’d been seeing him a year, back and forth on the Eurostar and I guess I was either tired or worn out. I thought... I’m gonna move! I’d gone from school straight to college, to Uni then straight to a job, another job and another job, and had never really travelled, as in buggered off to Australia or Thailand for a year, like a lot of grads do. I still kept my hand in, did a club night, wrote some stuff and worked as a head chef (yeah I can cook too). When the relationship came to an end I came back to London with enough money that would allow me some time to mull over what to do next. Jay Pidgeon, whom I’d known since he first stepped foot in English soil, had told me the then Head of PR at Most Wanted, Ms Kate Lynch was leaving and that Lee Bridle wanted to see me. We met up, he hired me and I spent 18 months there. I was Head of PR when I joined, and Director of PR when I left. I was just so excited to be part of what was deemed a huge part of dance music. After spending 18 months at MW, and having regained my passion, contacts and experience I’d mustered before I went to Paris, the right time came in August of this year to do my own thing. It was a hard decision, but my belief and confidence in what I was doing in that role began to deteriorate. Anchoring the DJ Mag Top 100 contract was the icing on the cake. As well as considering my own reasons, there was also the fact that it the link with Most Wanted DJ Management might be contentious when working on the DJ poll.... So I came up with the idea of Get In Publicity. It was then I decided to leave. A few clients wanted to come with me, and that was possible. I think doing such a good job on the DJ Mag Top 100 has opened so many doors across the world and has thankfully put me in a position where I’m turning down work. This is about to change in January as I am employing an utterly amazing person who shares my love and interest of dance music culture. We’re gonna make a superb team. I guess this is a good time to ask, what have been the highlights of your career so far? I was the youngest person to get a job at a TV station and managed to get a mention in my University’s prospectus... ooh the fame! Obviously Trade, working with Laurence Malice, going it alone twice.... Oh and getting a degree having done no work at all, well almost no work. I wrote a great dissertation whilst at university on ‘women working in the dominant patriarchy of TV news’: Anna Ford, the first female newscaster on independent television; Kate Adie, who’s a legend; Angela Rippon, who was the first women new presenter at the BBC and Julia Sommerville all lent their time in helping me produce it. I loved every minute of writing it. 15,000 words was a daunting task but I got so stuck into it. My obsession with TV news led to a great dissertation and a great read! I was doing what I loved, and meeting all these people. Anna Ford was the most senior newscaster at the Beeb. Kate Adie — say no more, and they were all so honest with me. I’ve still got the tapes from my dictaphone, under lock and key. Some of the things they told me during the sessions I spent with them were explosive. One of the funniest things Kate Adie said was about how a TV news bulletin shouldn’t be about the greying gent and the dolly bird as decoration! It’s changed a lot, now you often see one woman or even two women anchoring programmes — the way it should be! I interviewed Turnmills PR Manager Paul Stix a couple of months ago and he reckons his degree didn’t really help him get where he is today… Well it helped me get the job at Sky and LNN that’s for sure... otherwise I doubt they would have looked at me. It also helped knowing one of the main presenters. As for whether it helps you get into dance music PR — not really. You just need to be able to write well, be likeable and be able to sell. A degree is obviously important; it’s an achievement at the end of the day, and a good one at that. Whether or not you can use it to further yourself depends on the route you take to get somewhere. With so much behind you already, what would you say are your goals for the future? What I’ve got at the moment is good but it can obviously get better, and bigger. I’m not someone to sit back and rest on my laurels. I’m not greedy, just curious about what’s around the corner. I’m keen to work on the projects I enjoy working on. I’d never take on someone just because I need the cash. I’d never work something I didn’t believe in myself. When I was at MW and found out tidy were one of my biggest clients, it scared the living daylights out of me, because the scene had changed since I was doing my thing down at Trade — it was a new generation enjoying what I’d enjoyed. But saying that, I got stuck in and together we achieved some great results. Having recently started your own company, what would say are the challenges and pitfalls? Well I’m an early bird anyway. It’s very rare I’m out of bed after 8am, including Monday morning! I always started at 8.30 when I was working 9–5. Now it’s 9 till whenever! So in terms of disciplining myself it’s been easy. I don’t go out caning it anymore; there just isn’t the time to recover. As for pitfalls, there aren’t any really, certainly not when you’re so into what you do so much. The recent DJ Mag awards were a great success. Was it a difficult campaign? It was a great success, and all involved are immensely proud. I didn’t think I’d get it when I pitched as I’d really pissed off the business manager, Charles Ward, during my working of the Love Leeds campaign! So on advice from the editor, who’s also a friend of mine, I submitted a proposal. I met up with Charles, took what he gave me on the chin, put the past behind us and won the contract. It worked so much better than in previous years because DJ Mag had employed an outside production company to create the event, thus taking the majority of the workload away from the DJ Mag team. It was new territory for Source who are renowned for producing rock festivals etc. on huge scales, and new territory for me. Fortunately for me, I’ve managed to build up great relationships with similar PR companies around the world, so favours for favours came in very handy, and the result was a truly remarkable vote count. 217,000 unique votes cast, and over 50,000 different DJs voted for. The aftermath of the DJ Mag Poll is always a tough cookie to chew on; there are far too many people out there who just don’t get it. Just because there are more Americans in the poll and less UK artists, or DJs we’ve never heard of, people assume it’s fixed! Why on earth would a UK mag want to eradicate its home grown artists? People just don’t think. It’s a GLOBAL POLL, not a UK poll, end of. A lot of work goes into producing that poll, and even those working at the Mag itself don’t know who half of the artists are. I tell you, reading the forums a few days after the awards took place gets you quite wound up, and trigger happy... you just have to sit back and know that YOU know the end result was an honest one. How do you plan a PR campaign, or is each one different? Each one is definitely different. For example, working for big events like the DJ Mag Awards are 200% different to working for DTPM on a weekly basis. Every campaign is tailored, there’s no one blueprint. The same goes for albums or singles, hard dance versus another style and so on. How do you do it? Do you have to sit and go through everything with your clients? Usually there’s a shirts off email saying someone’s recommended I sit down with them. I listen to their material, be it an event, album, profile, single or whatever and if I think I can do something will do it. I’ve learned from mistakes in the past, that a fat client list doesn’t make a good PR company. Clients walking away happy is what gets you more clients, because we are in a tight community and people talk. I wouldn’t be doing so well if I’d done a shit job on someone... word spreads. What’s the point of taking on an album by any artist if you think it’s shit? It’s almost like a job interview. If you can’t sell yourself, don’t bother going! What makes a good PR person? Someone who’s honest! There are people who can talk out of their arse, get contracts and then fail to deliver.... That isn’t me. You’ve got to have passion for what you’re doing and self belief. If you go and work for a corporate company, they’ll hammer home the importance of time management and organisation, but I don’t think that matters so long as you get the job done and you’re passionate. If you’re getting your teeth into something and you’re heart is in it, you’re likely to do a good job — Paul Stix is another good example. That’s a rare thing in the dance music industry! You’re doing very well at a time when Most Wanted has been facing a few challenges. Why do you think this is? That’s absolutely true. I believe at the end of the day it’s about personalities, rather than the company itself. There were clients who would only work with my ex colleague there, Annabel, who’s also gone it alone and doing well, and vice versa, so my thinking idea has some backbone surely. I left Most Wanted PR in the hands of the very capable Kat Baker, so I know I’m going to have to watch my back! While working for Most Wanted you must have had some interesting experiences. How were the tidy Weekenders? Do you have any crazy anecdotes about them or touring with Amber D? HAHA! I only did one Weekender, it just wasn’t necessary to be at them all. I’m not going to divulge what happened at the Summer Camp, but needless to say it wasn’t pretty. When I came around, I ran to the chalet where ‘the event’ took place and deleted all the photos the culprit had taken with her camera, said my piece and spent the rest of the day watching Live Aid in my own chalet! Getting home drunk one night, logging into HarderFaster and posting “Are there any gays on here?” I had no idea I’d done it until I arrived to work the next day. I think someone replied, “Ain’t you on the wrong website?!” THE SHAME! As for Amber… you’ll have to ask her. Do you believe there’s no such thing as bad publicity? Yes there definitely is! Absolutely! One example that springs to mind is when I first joined Most Wanted and my predecessor had invited the Observer newspaper to the tidy Weekender. Obviously the Observer journalist was not of the same breed as the dance mag journos and the end result was some bad pictures and some pretty negative wording, which to your average Observer reader would be construed in the wrong light. At the end of the day they printed a piece that did tidy no good at all. That’s a perfect example of bad publicity. What campaigns are you working on at the moment? Coburn — they’ve got an amazing new album coming out in January on Frontier Recordings, and another shortly after. You’ll get to hear it soon — it really is incredible. People associate Coburn with the Citroen commercial and ‘We Interrupt This Program’, but they are much more than that. Prolific producers, DJs and a band! You’ll be seeing a lot of Coburn in 2007, mark my words. Christopher Lawrence — if anyone deserves to be at the top of the DJ Mag Top 100 it’s Christopher Lawrence. My job here is to obviously raise his profile. He’s already one of the USA’s biggest DJs, and by the time we’re done with him, that fame and popularity will have spread this side of the water. He’s just been signed to do the Gatecrasher Live album to be recorded in Moscow later this month. I’m still working with DTPM and Fiction, they’re one of the most professional outfits I’ve ever worked for, which in the world of club promotion is a rarity. They put so much into what they do, and I can’t foresee ever wanting to give them up. I’ve just finished the Marco V album, which was so well received, and am sure I’ll be working on him in the future, he’s a really easy guy to work with. Sander Van Doorn is on board as is Filthy Rich, Spektre and My Digital Enemy… way too much to be chewing on alone, so roll on January when my new girl starts. One of the keys aspects of being a good PR person would have to be networking. What advice do you have for the shyer people reading this? Do you have any tips for working a room? Have a pocket full of drink tickets, but be aware of who the liggers are! LOL! Don’t you know what a ligger is?! I believe some tabloid used it to describe Jarvis Cocker once.... someone who goes everywhere for free, and gets everything for free. Don’t use the drinks tickets to get laid, and know who’s who. What’s a typical day in the life of Jonathan Get In Publicity? A typical day is getting out of bed early and as boring as it sounds, I watch the BBC breakfast for half an hour. I warm up the computer, fill myself full of coffee and work with News 24 going on in the background. Yes, I’m still obsessed! If I’m working with the likes of Christopher Lawrence I have to work past normal hours because of the time difference and Skype is ever so handy! No two days are ever the same. I guess having a wireless laptop enables me to do what I want where I want to do it. If I ever feel like I’m going stir crazy in my place there’s a dozen wi-fi cafes in and around Shoreditch where I can go and hang out. If you weren’t doing PR, what else could you see yourself doing? I spent three months thinking about that when I got home from Paris and PR was at the back of the list. So to answer that… I’ve got no idea! Ideally if I could turn the clock back would I be sitting in a news room? But then I wouldn’t be sitting here would I?! Is there anything we haven’t covered that you’d like to be included in this interview? I don’t think so, ain’t you snooped enough?!! I guess just to hammer home, not that I need to add here, that dance music is far from dead, and there are just too many incredibly talented artists out there who will keep it fresh and alive. Share this :: : : : Follow HarderFaster :: Other Features By HarderFaster: HarderFaster Awards 2016 - The results are in! HarderFaster Awards 2014 - The results are in! Lashes, Dimples and the Brighton Music Conference HarderFaster Awards 2013 - The results are in! HarderFaster Awards 2012 - The results are in! The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable. Comments: From: Kellz on 6th Dec 2006 22:56.52 I've worked with JL for many moons now through my years at tidy and now my own company Red and I've got to say it's always been a pleasure. We've had many many laughs, a few heated debates but we always sing from the same hymn sheet. Well done to you babe, you've done yourself proud and I continue to look forward to working with you honey. Big love, KDC x From: Mizz_behavin on 7th Dec 2006 06:29.36 Congratulations Jon, I am thrilled its going so well for you and wish you lots of success in the future amanda xx From: JC-TAKTIKAL on 7th Dec 2006 10:11.27 haha you legend! From: tidyrichard on 7th Dec 2006 10:12.27 Good read Mr L !! The who is gay post did make me laff ... From: BottleofWater on 7th Dec 2006 10:17.24 I'm loving the pouts in all the photos From: mostwantedkat on 7th Dec 2006 11:48.13 Looking good Mr Llewellyn and I'd definitely have replied to your 'Are there any gays on here' post >;D xxx From: Mizz Chief on 7th Dec 2006 18:26.26 Wishing you lots of luck in the future xx From: Matt on 7th Dec 2006 23:50.03 I'm seeing more of a pucker rather than a pout Good interview! It takes a bold man to step out on his own. All the best mate From: StudioBopper on 8th Dec 2006 07:18.57 Jonathan L its Grant !!! When you ever decide to make me a star heres my email.. findgrant@hotmail.co.uk GoodLuck Think you've more then come out !!! From: Red Kate on 8th Dec 2006 08:49.46 Fabulous interview babe, so proud of you. Have always enjoyed working with JL, whether that's due to your enthusiasm and drive or your cruel sense of humour - Probably both! Bring on 2007 baby x From: Getinpublicity on 8th Dec 2006 09:45.39 Awww, thanks all. Just to clear up the pout, or pukker.....it's to hide my hamster cheeks! ;-) From: Mizz_behavin on 8th Dec 2006 15:17.37 I love your hamster cheeks though From: Allan@Nu Energy on 8th Dec 2006 17:16.01 nice one Jon! From: london dom on 8th Dec 2006 22:28.49 You fucking tosser. You know what they say about people who work in PR; they're all a bunch of self-involved wankers who spend their day talking bullshit about themselves. Only someone as vain as you would feel the world wanted to hear about your pitiful life. The funny thing about it all is that it's a piss simple job and you're not even very good at it. From: tidyrichard on 9th Dec 2006 13:39.48 Dom ...its fair to say 95% of what u say I find amusing and very accurate - but have to say ya off the spot with Jonathan , hes actually quite average ok fair to good and a nice bloke - I actually enjoyed the read , maybe I can go next with my interview " tidy the whole truth and nothing but the truth ...so help me god " I also have some lovely pictures , mind i dont look quite as camp in mine From: Tina Martin on 9th Dec 2006 13:45.30 haha.. that day at summer camp.. I remember it so well! Glad the new venture is going well for you and all the best for the future! From: Steve Twist on 12th Dec 2006 23:24.52 never trust someone with a down turned mouth. It's the angst fighting to get out. From: sunvisordude on 14th Dec 2006 12:40.49 ....remember the good ol' days jonathan.... From: Lisa B on 15th Dec 2006 13:35.50 Wicked interview babe .. So proud of you!! One of the best People i have ever worked with! Honest , Reliable and outspokenna d a fantastic friend. Miss our morning's together..... Luv ya babes xxx Good Luck in everyting you do xx

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