Radio Edit | 7.31.23

Having been the publicist to some of the most influential artists of all time, Big Hassle’s Jim Merlis boasts a resume that includes clients The Strokes, Tom Petty, and The Lumineers. One of the most genuinely kind people in the business, Jim was nice enough to join us for a discussion on the evolving PR landscape and even share the story of how he got his big break- working with Nirvana at the height of their fame in 1993.

RE: As you know, we're massive fans of the artists you've worked with over the years so we're fighting the impulse to ask you about them. Rather than the boring cliché of how you got into publicity, can you hone in on what you view your big break to be- specifically where that opportunity came from and how you took advantage of it?

JM: Well I’ll give you the story your question is implying and do some gratuitous name dropping while I do it…

[Editor’s Note: to read the story of how Jim found himself as Nirvana’s publicist during their In Utero album campaign, share Radio Edit with a friend and we’ll send the story to your inbox]

continued…

Having been in the game for a long time, how has PR changed over the course of your career?

I think that one of the most important things when doing PR is to know the person you are sending the pitch to as well as who your artist is. When I started, communication was done over the phone so it was easier to get to know the writers, you learned not only what they were writing about but who their editors would let them write about. Do they have a good sense of humor, do they have a sports team they follow etc. With email it can be so cold, while I try to vary my pitches to the writer it’s often hard because it’s often only a name. That said, about 13 years ago I was so frustrated with not knowing who a good number of the people I was pitching were. So before sending an email I would go to their Facebook account to see if there was anything I could glean about them, you know a way to humanize the pitches a bit…and it worked to a certain extent. I remember Randall Roberts from the LA Times was a big fan of the author Nick Tosches who I was friends with and a few weeks later I ended up going out to lunch with him and it helped me pitching him in the future, and Alex Bhattacharji who was a top editor at Details went to the same college as me and we’ve become friendly.

But there is another really sad big change in the shrinking of the media. Obviously fewer outlets, means less coverage, and whatever coverage media can give it’s got to be with something that will have a return (clicks). What both Ken Weinstein and I have enjoyed doing in the past is take on clients early in their career, sometimes before they have a record deal. This was the case with both the Strokes and The Lumineers (and countless acts that didn’t make much of a dent).

How has it remained the same?

It’s still about storytelling, or even more precisely, turning people on to cool music. I think that’s what most publicists are, the nerdy kid in high school who discovers a band first and tells all their friends and the world about it. Also even before things went digital, it was important to get viral moments. I remember when I was first working with Rufus Wainwright, I was at Geffen at the time and he was at DreamWorks whose marketing went through us. I sent out one advance CD to Ann Powers. At the time she was writing for both Spin and Rolling Stone. I knew she would love it and she did. A few days later both editors and Rolling Stone and Spin were calling me asking if they could hear it. It created that anticipation. I still try to do that, start with one or two people and see if it will spread from there. Often it won’t work, but when it does, it’s incredible.

Has securing press opportunities gotten easier or harder in the digital age? While there is more opportunity, I would imagine there is also more competition given the number of artists who now permeate the ecosystem.

All but a few blogs remain since the DSP’s, so that makes things much harder. A lot of the dailies have gotten rid of their music reporter relying more on wire stories, so yeah it’s a lot harder. But even before that, I always thought a big challenge in the digital age is time. Magazines were on the stands for weeks or months, but since digital a story is up and a few hours later it’s gone.

Just looking at the size of your roster gives us a panic attack- how do you balance that and make sure you're giving appropriate attention to each client?

Don’t panic, relax, have a sandwich. There are a lot of us at Big Hassle. There are two of us in LA (myself and Justin Ciccone), seven in New York (Ken Weinstein, Zack Kraimer, Leigh Greaney, Michael Eisele, Harper Beatty, Romy Bayhack, Kenzie Davis), one in Nashville (Madi Florence) and one in Kansas City (the great Emily Ginsberg).

From strategizing how you'll tell the story of a particular project you're working on to managing their artist's expectations, can you describe the relationship between a publicist and the artist's manager?

I find the best managers are the ones that let me communicate with the artist directly. I’m fine having frank and honest conversations with the artists themselves about what I think is possible. Too often things get lost in the translation with a middleman. Also working with the artist directly (and of course the manager is highly involved), lets you feel more like you're part of a team. The people at Activist Artists Management (I work with them on The Lumineers and Young The Giant), in particular, really understand this and I firmly believe it’s why the press campaigns have been particularly strong.

Why is having a great publicist important now more than ever?

Streaming, be it on DSP’s or YouTube, is extremely one-dimensional. Listeners are buying into the song, not the artist. Telling the artist's story is the way the listener moves from the song to the artist.

Synch-ing revenue

The ripple effects from the current writers’ strike have extended well beyond Hollywood- impacting all of the industry’s touch points, from hospitality to catering. Not exempt from these effects is the music industry’s synch business- which generated $382 million for record labels and almost $1.5 billion for publishers last year.

As the strike forces more and more projects to postpone their release dates, even secured licensors are being left in limbo as synch payments generally take between 3-6 months after release to hit. With synch opportunities in film & tv largely unavailable for the foreseeable future, labels and rights holders have adapted by diversifying their attention across areas like advertising, unscripted tv, and gaming.

Small numbers, big impact

Super Listeners- a classification of an artist’s most dedicated listeners over the past 28 days, are driving nearly 20% of all streams. A recent report shows that these super listeners, which make up just 2% of an artist’s listener base, are driving 18% of total Spotify streams on average.

The impact of super listeners is most seen on both sides of the spectrum. Artists with 0-10,000 monthly listeners saw 22% of their monthly streams driven by 1% of super listeners. Conversely, artists with 25 million or more monthly listeners saw 30% of all monthly streams by 5% of their listening audience. With respect to merch, these highly engaged listeners accounted for 52% of all merch purchases for artists with more than 10k monthly listeners.

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