John Edginton – HuffPost 6.29.12

Mike Ragogna: Because you’ve done so much with musical acts, what advice might you have for new artists?

John Edington: I think Robyn Hitchcock is a huge role model. This is a guy who is in his late fifties now. First time I saw him playing live in Brooklyn, the queue around the block was twenty-year-olds, twenty-five-year-olds. The conversation inside, people knew every single word of his most obscure songs. It amazed me. These were young people who would normally, on the whole, be listening to Arcade Fire or something like that. So my advice is to just pick up that guitar and go and do it. Robyn takes a suitcase with him. He goes on the subway to the gig, he takes his guitar, and in the suitcase, he’s got all these records. He hangs around afterwards and meets everyone there. He’ll stay ’til midnight and sign records and chat with everyone. He’s the original low-fi guy who did it before the internet killed records. He was out there doing his “let’s just meet the fans and give them what they want.”

MR: He was social networking.

JE: Yes, social networking. You have to do that. Right now, basically, there is no real record industry strategy at all. The music business companies are all in crisis and they don’t know how to deal with it.

MR: They’re not making the kind of money they were making before, and artists really have no need for them except for their marketing connections. But a good publicist will get you there as well.

JE: Yeah. So unless you’re a huge breakthrough person like Adele and you win Grammys or whatever, you just gotta go and work your trade. But the best place to do it is with people, live. If you go to SXSW, it’s the most amazing event.