Hannah Overton - Secretly In Charge
Hannah’s time in the industry coincides almost exactly with the rise of digital music - from Napster and Myspace to Spotify and Instagram.
She shares the important lessons from her experience rising through the ranks of the music business as a young woman with no obvious way in - and has some great advice for people just getting started…
AI Transcription
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
artists, music, people, a&r, record labels, music industry, record, entrepreneurship, hannah, meet, anr, secretly, world, brilliant, newcastle university, bands, industry, independent, physiology, label
SPEAKERS
Andrew Dubber, Hannah Overton
Andrew Dubber
Hi, I’m Dubber. And this is the MTF podcast. Today, how to get ahead in the music business. Hannah Overton wasn’t always a powerful and respected music exec as a teenager she loved music, wanted to work in music had no idea how to go about it. And so she just made a start. Today, she’s General Manager of secretly group a collection of independent record labels that represent artists like Bon Iver, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Angel Olsen, Moses Sumney, Sharon Van Etten, and, and more. I spoke to Hannah at Un-Convention in Manchester and we talked about the process of getting into the music business, which isn’t always a straightforward affair. There’s certainly more than one way to do it. But Hannah’s got some great advice and some useful insights into the world of independent music. Here’s Hannah Overton. Hannah, thanks for doing this. Thanks. Okay. So tell me a little bit about your journey because you’ve ended up basically being at the heart of the independent music industry.
Hannah Overton
Yeah, I am. I’ve always been. I’ve been a music fan since I was a teenager. And I loved music. I grew up in the middle of the countryside. I grew up in the middle of the North Yorkshire Moors National Park. So I was not surrounded by music. And I’d, you know, I fell in love with music by listening to the radio. When I was 14, my family moved across the other side of the country. And I spent some time in Cheshire as a teenager, which is obviously accessible to Manchester. So I got really into music. And I started going to gigs in Manchester. And few and far between, you know, once every few months, because as a teenager, you know, you’ve got to persuade somebody mom or dad to drop you off or pick you up. But I just I, my love of music just grew and grew and grew. And I never thought I could ever work in music. It just it didn’t even cross my mind because I didn’t know anybody who worked in music. It seemed like a far fetched thing that people like me don’t do, right. So when I got to university, and I started meeting people who did work in music, I got involved in the dance committee at Newcastle University. So I help them book exam. We had a great venue space in the Union. And in the late 90s, bands used to tour Newcastle a lot. And this is when UK tours used to be a little more comprehensive than perhaps they might be today. So Newcastle University was on the circuit. So I used to work on the doors to work side to stage used to help look after the artists. And I just gradually met more and more people in touring parties, people from record labels, got involved in student radio. So I got in touch with record labels who would send us music, hosted a show was head of music there.
Andrew Dubber
And then when was this?
Hannah Overton
This was late 90s, early noughties. So I was at university between 98 and 2001. Right. Back then some companies like to have a student rep to rep their brands and local university towns and I actually became a rep for IPC magazines. So I represented NME, Melody Maker, music magazine, which was a dance magazine, uncut, and weirdly loaded magazine. And so I got involved in IPC, and, you know, met people who worked at NME and all that sort of thing and just helped them put on some events. And I just I met lots of people. And I had a moment of clarity during my physiology degree, where I thought, oh, other people are doing this, why not me? So I just then poured all my energy into extracurricular activities, and probably to the chagrin of my tutor in the physiology department. Because that’s what I decided I wanted to do. All right,
Andrew Dubber
and to be clear, where has that taken you? Where are you now
Hannah Overton
so I am currently managing director of Secretly Group for Europe. And secretly group is a group of three independent record labels Dead Oceans, Jagjaguwar and Secretly Canadian. We release music by bands such as Bon Iver, Sharon Van Etten, Shame. I’ve got some brilliant records coming out this year by artists like Stella Donnelly, Faye Webster. Sure. So it’s a brilliant, really exciting place to work.
Andrew Dubber
So what is the day at work look like you?
Hannah Overton
Ah, my day at work well, I try to get in early before everyone else to you know, clear my head, make some coffee. Unfortunately, fortunately, or unfortunately, I’ve got some keen young staff who tried to beat me into the office now. And so I spend my day, sometimes doing a bit of ANR sometimes talking to our artists, and I do lots of one to one mentoring sessions with my younger staff. I approve budgets. And I look at a lot of emails.
Andrew Dubber
Occasionally, everybody’s job isn’t getting around.
Hannah Overton
Yeah, I mean, I you know, I started off doing creative I started off doing ANR and I still do some of that and that’s what I really love. And I also love inspiring people and mentor Young people, we have various different aged staff secretly. But I do like seeing young people progress. We have a really nice gender split in our office, as well as people from different backgrounds. So it’s nice to be able to do my bit just to help change the music industry in a tiny, tiny little way.
Andrew Dubber
Right, right. I mean, there’s been a lot of changes along the way since you started. I mean, were you talking about 98 99 2000? I always sort of think, you know, post Napster. But pre social media, that sort of five year gap between 99 2004 was a really interesting time where everybody was trying to figure out what to do, do you think we sort of come anywhere sort of sensible since then, and we ended up in a new industry.
Hannah Overton
It’s not a new industry, it’s a changing industry. And, and I, you know, I spent a good part of my early career worrying about music leaking, and that affecting our release plans, I don’t worry about music leaking anymore. And it might do but it’s on such a small scale. And music fans don’t really seem to want to get a dodgy downloaded audio pirated stream. So they they wait for it to come available, because a lot of people have got a Spotify account. So why would they need to, you know, get a leaked version of an album. So I think we’ve taught people that they have to respect music. And there is a reason for that.
Andrew Dubber
But also, there’s no shortage either. So people aren’t sitting around waiting for new music to happen.
Hannah Overton
So I think yet, streaming legally has made music more accessible. So we don’t need to worry about piracy too much. Yeah, but social media, I mean, has definitely made things change. It’s made you more accessible to your fans. But it’s also made things a bit more stressful for the artists, you know, you have to be better at more things were, arguably, many, many years ago, all you had to be good at was making music and performing on stage. And so there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of weight on the shoulders of artists these days. It’s a 24 seven, process of making sure your social media is up to date, and you’re making content all the time,
Andrew Dubber
it was said a lot, particularly sort of the early days of the internet, that we’re not going to need record labels anymore, you know, to what extent has not that we don’t need them, but to what extent has the role of the record label changed?
Hannah Overton
I think labels are still needed to perform similar functions. So people need, they need to create music, and they need to create it brilliantly. And then they need their music distributed and promoted. And record labels perform a really important function for that. And I think one of the best ways that a label can support their artists is to facilitate their vision. And I think artists who work without a label sometimes don’t have those complete teams around them to help do that. And they don’t have those complete teams around them in every single territory. I think the a&r process is really important. And the a&r process, starts with the writing, and continues right through the marketing and promotion of an album. And artists who are missing that, I think will will struggle to get their complete vision out into the world.
Andrew Dubber
You say, a&r quite a lot. Like it’s a thing that everybody understands. And it’s kind of a dark art people don’t really know what the a&r processes. How do you know how to bands get discovered in inverted commas? And how’s that process taken through from there?
Hannah Overton
Yeah, I guess I use a&r quite broadly. You know, when we talk about artists and repertoire, and it’s a very old fashioned term, and it’s about matching vocalists with songwriters. And that’s not quite the way things work these days. But I mean, scouting is one thing we can talk about. An artist can be discovered in many ways. And it can be through social media, it can be through SoundCloud, but it can still be by supporting an act in a in a regional town, it can also be getting to know your local rehearsal room, and forming a great relationship with the manager of that rehearsal room, he might tip somebody off. That’s quite old fashioned, but it’s it still happens. You know, I think an artist needs to get really good at music and really good at creating this world around them. And then at that point, when they know what they want to get out into the world, I think that’s a good place for a record label to get involved. And but when I talk about a&r with artists that already signed, I’m talking about the conception of everything creative that they do. So making sure that the songwriting is good enough, making sure the artist has had enough time and the right environment, to write the best songs that they possibly can. And then be able to To record them in the best way that they possibly can. And sometimes they might not get it right straight away. So that’s giving them the confidence and the facility to get it right. But after that, I think once the music’s right, it’s important to get the story, right. Everything has to link back to the music, but the visuals, the video, the photographs, the way they portray themselves on social media needs to have a strategy behind it. And, and you need to hone in on the essence of that artist, if you want people to really buy into what you’re doing.
Andrew Dubber
Right, right. I mean, you have visions of artists being groomed and given a haircut that doesn’t suit them or these sorts of things. But I guess from the independent sector, it’s very much about bringing up the true character, I guess of the Yeah,
Hannah Overton
yeah. And that’s what I mean by distilling the essence. And it’s not about a haircut or what clothes you’re wearing. It’s, it’s about what’s important to the artist, what are you trying to say to the world? Do you have something valuable to say? And if you do, and if you can find a way to connect with your audience, that’s when you’re going to be successful?
Andrew Dubber
It sounds like you had I mean, the way you tell the story that you you were doing physiology, and then you decide to be in the music industry. And then this is all the doors opened for you. And then suddenly, the you are running this group of independent record labels. What’s been hard along the way, what are the challenges been?
Hannah Overton
Things have been hard. I mean, I had a job in reception for you, that was my first job. And I was very happy to have that job. Of course, it wasn’t my end goal, I didn’t want to be a receptionist. But that allowed me to meet lots of people find out what everybody did in the record label, and work out what I wanted to do. And I mean, still, at that point, as a 22 year old female from North Yorkshire, I didn’t really set my sights on ANR, because I didn’t think that was something that I could really do. But a job opened up at the company I worked for. And because I was the most enthusiastic person in the company, and I went to every single gig I could, because I was so excited to be able to go to gigs for free. Plus, I was skint Plus, I didn’t really have any friends because I just moved to London. And they said, Well, why don’t you do ANR, Hannah? I said me, really. And they gave me an opportunity. So I started off working in publishing. And I just threw myself into it. Just once every gig occurred, I met everybody I could it was almost like blind dating the music industry, you know, I’d, somebody would say, Oh, you should meet so and so. And I’d pick up the phone and call them, email them and just meet somebody for coffee, take them for lunch, meet them at a gig.
Andrew Dubber
And how much of that is, how much of that is, you know, the sort of, you know, I do ANR. So therefore you will meet with me, is that sort of confidence built into that sort of presupposition of the title or
Hannah Overton
when you say I wasn’t particularly confident at the time, but I had a focus I had a job to do. So that’s what I put my effort into, I needed to create a network around me and I didn’t have a network. And you know, the a&r fraternity was friendly in one way, and that people love to meet up and talk. Also not that friendly, and it’s quite clicky. So you know, there was a lot of men wearing the same clothes driving the same Audi cars. And I definitely wasn’t part of that subset. But right, but that’s okay, because I could go off and do my own thing.
Andrew Dubber
And were there any ways in which there was an advantage to you.
Hannah Overton
And I found it quite tough early on as as a female and being quite young. And I found a lot of older managers didn’t take me seriously. So I perhaps make first contact, and then they just want to speak to my boss. And that was quite hard to deal with. I don’t think a man in the same position of me would’nt have had such a hard time. And although On the plus side, people remember to I was because there just weren’t many female a&r at the time. And the other more senior female analysts I met were very supportive. I could always call them or email them, I would meet up with a few people occasionally. And that would just help to bolster my confidence that there were other people out there doing it and being successful.
Andrew Dubber
Right, right. And presumably, now that you have this management role, you get to choose who these younger people are in the office with you To what extent does your experience sort of impact on the choices that you make?
Hannah Overton
Well, I try not to hire through my gut instinct, because I think that homogenises the industry and I think that’s why we have a lot of middle class white males work in the industry, because people do hire with gut instincts. I’ve tried not to do that. And I tried to hire for the team, not for the position. So I know if we’re missing something in the team. If we’re missing somebody with electronic music knowledge, then I will prioritise that if we’re missing somebody from a different type of background. And we have artists from that background, and I know we need to recruit somebody who can offer that experience when we’re talking about creative and marketing. So I tried to be quite strategic when I’m hiring, but I always hire the best person for the job, which has meant we have a really nice fairly equal gender split. Which also means we have people from different backgrounds, right? So that’s really helped me to focus on what we need as a company. Because I believe that diversity increases creativity. And the more creative we are as a company, the more creative our artists will be, the more successful or be, and ultimately, that will lead to us having higher revenues. So it all makes sense to me in my head.
Andrew Dubber
Absolutely. So the journey that gets you where you are today has been also characterised by a lot of changes in technology. And obviously, you know, you, you’ve gone through the MySpace thing, and then you’ve gone through all sort of the download platforms, the limewire, and those sorts of things. And we’ve ended up in a really interesting place, I think, to what extent can you use that strategically now as a group of record labels?
Hannah Overton
Definitely makes me look at things when new technology comes about, I think I’m interested in it, and we should consider it. And also we need to consider the longevity of it. You know, do we pour all our energy into getting a Bebo account? No, you know, my space was brilliant at the time, but it faded away, it also makes me look at the company and how we operate. You know, you have to look at the long term, the longevity of any different systems you put in place. I think we look at streaming now. And I think, when we stream music in 10, or 20 years time, we’ll laugh at the functionality of some of the streaming services. Now, they’re just not good enough, you know, the interface isn’t good enough, we can’t get in depth with our artists. You know, we know the technology is out there. But as a music fan, when I was a teenager, and I used to buy my CDs, I used to read the booklets from cover to cover. We are not allowing people to get that in depth with the artists. I think people do want to see who produced the album, they want to know what a producer is, and what a producer does. I remember looking at publishing credits thinking was a publisher. So Can’t we allow people to be curious. And if we let people be curious, that will inspire their curiosity, and allow them to get into the act in a much deeper way.
Andrew Dubber
I wanted to ask you a little bit about the fact that you move to London. And the fact that there is this kind of I don’t know if it’s a method, or whether it’s something that has just affect the music industry, is that if you want to go to the next level, you go to London, or you go to LA or you go to New York, and there are these kind of centres. And despite all the technology in the world, that is still a right I need to pack my bags I need to move to London Is that still the case or
Hannah Overton
I mean, moving to London, specifically for me was was was always something I wanted to do. And it wasn’t just the music industry that was attracting That, to me, I wanted to give the big city ago and I’d grown up in an extremely rural place. I wanted to try something different. I mean, I still love the countryside. But I’ve you know, I’ve chosen to be in a big city. And you absolutely don’t need to do that. I think there’s a vibrant music industry, all over the country. And the beautiful thing is music really attracts entrepreneurship. So there isn’t something going on near you. Chances are that people want that to be perhaps you can create it.
Andrew Dubber
The entrepreneurship thing is really interesting, because it’s, it feels like a new term in the context of music industry. I mean, obviously, in the independent music sector, people have been entrepreneurs forever. But this idea of entrepreneurship as an activity that people aspire to and wanted, that seems quite new. Is this idea that the professionalisation of independent music? Is that kind of what’s happening? Or is this some other kind of cultural phenomenon that sort of makes entrepreneurship and particularly entrepreneurship and innovation, usually grouped together as these things that people now do? And that’s how they make a living? Because it’s, it’s it’s never been the greatest get rich quick scheme in the world has an entrepreneurship suggests that money is the object. So what’s the connection there between sort of indie, I guess, indie labels, and the managers, indie artists, and this sort of badge of entrepreneurship?
Hannah Overton
Well, I think tech and music are quite closely linked. And, and obviously, there’s this idea of entrepreneurship in tech is, you know, is all over tech. And I can’t I don’t see why the two can’t be interlinked. And of course, there’s always been music entrepreneurs. And that’s how every independent label started. It’s how every independent promoter started and every venue. And I think putting a label on it can really empower people. And it’s important that people should feel empowered to go out there and come up with fresh ideas within music. And I also think in this digital world where we can communicate remotely, we can be connected with people in a way that geographically we couldn’t previously. I think that does give people in remote locations of fire to go off and start their own thing.
Andrew Dubber
What are your biggest challenges right now and what most excited about I
Hannah Overton
think our biggest challenges at the moment are within the industry. And working out how the streaming industry fits in with the old model of physical records about how the per stream rate works, how an artist can look at all its different revenue streams and make a go of it. It is particularly difficult for artists to begin their live career right now. And that’s such a driving force to get people listening to music, that there is a little mismatch between the record industry in the live industry right now. I think the live industry perhaps should be putting more money into artists at the beginning of their career to get them going. But also the the difficulties are being heard. There’s a lot of noise out there more artists than ever putting music out. So as an artist, how did you get heard? How do you rise to the top? And still, I think I think we’re still working it out.
Andrew Dubber
Okay. And you said you hit we’re really excited about some new stuff coming out soon. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Sure.
Hannah Overton
We have an incredible raft of young artists coming through secretly this year, we’ve just put a record out by Durand Jones and the indications that’s a band originally from Louisiana and are based in Indiana. They’re doing they’re making incredibly beautiful sweet soul music for 2019. There are really great live acts as well. And we just put out a wonderful record by Sharon Van Etten. And you know, she has a really brilliant fan base already. But this record is just incredible. She’s, she’s really matured. And it’s a real grown up record, I think a very, very confident record. And we have a couple of new artists which we’re very excited about an artist called celadon me from Australia, but a born in Wales. And she talks about contemporary issues that women are faced with today. And she she does it in a brilliant way. We working with an artist called Shura, who is an alternative pop artist, again, she has made a really beautiful record all about falling in love. Which, you know, she’s put her own spin on it. And it’s a really gorgeous record. We also have another artist called Faye Webster from Atlanta. She’s actually emerged from the hip hop scene, but she’s making out alt country. And it’s a really amazing match. She’s also an incredibly talented photographer, and works as her own right as a photographer. And she’s still 21. And she’s done amazing things already. So yeah. tonnes of amazing music. And we have not asked Shane who are writing, he will be back very soon, no doubt. We have some brilliant artists on our roster, who I hope you’ll be hearing new music from soon including artists like Angel Olsen, and on their slowdive. And you know, lots of new slowdive record would be great. I completely agree.
Andrew Dubber
If you could sit down with the young you who just arrived at university, what sort of advice would you give? Hmm.
Hannah Overton
ask more questions. Don’t be embarrassed about asking questions. Because I think it’s really easy to think oh, my goodness, I should know the answer to that. So I’m too embarrassed to ask. But I think as a young person, the assumption is you know nothing. So if you always act with the assumption that you don’t know anything, but there’s a lot to find out,
Andrew Dubber
you will find out quite a lot. And so thanks so much for your time. Thanks, that’s Hannah Overton, General Manager of secretly group in the UK, and that’s the MTF podcast. If you can think of someone who would benefit from him as advice, please do pass it on, especially if doing so would result in more diversity and representation throughout the music industries. That’s it for now. Have a great week and we’ll talk soon. Cheers.
