Interview: Lisa Coverdale from Hold Tight! PR
I was thinking last week; who is absolutely fundamental to my blog but
never gets any recognition? PR people. Sure, the artists make the music but
without their record labels and the PR companies, their music wouldn't get heard and promoted unless they do it themselves, which does seem like a lot of effort.
PR people work a lot. They don’t stop. There’s so much to do and I
thought I’d give my homegirl Lisa a short break from supplying me with music in
order to answer a few questions.
Lisa Coverdale is one half of Hold Tight! PR (alongside James Monteith
from TesseracT). To quote their website: “Hold Tight! is a fast paced,
affordable music and alternative media PR company based in the UK working with
only the most exciting projects from around the globe.” In addition to this,
Lisa also helps run Basick Records... very busy lady!
I’ve been working with them for a while now and have reviewed quite a
few albums they’ve sent me including The Elijah, Campus, Karybdis and
Collisions. They’re both lovely people who have a passion for music and I would
highly recommend contacting them if you ever need and PR shizzle done for your
band!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this interview and laugh as much as I
did!
BOOZE:
What are you currently
drinking/last thing you drank? If it’s not booze, you better have a bloody good
reason...
Currently quaffing coffee,
freshly ground, with steamed milk and chocolate sprinkles. I'm a PR person, our
blood is 99% caffeine. It's 2.30pm, too early for boozy drinks and anyway I was
a bit tinkled last night after only 3 Jack and Cokes, I'm a rubbish drinker. I
don't do it often. Just not that into it.
What was your first ever
alcoholic drink? How’d that go for you?
Babycham probably, a horrible…god
I don't even know what it was, sparkly wine or something. It had a Deer on the
front anyway. Sneaked some with my friend at her house when we were teenagers.
It was gross. I've never liked alcohol really.
I am rubbish at it.
One beer. One Spirit. One
Non-Alcoholic drink. Go:
One beer – god no, it tastes
grim. I have tried many, I just can't get on with it.
One Spirit – whiskey, preferably
Jack Daniels. It tastes good, it smells great and after 2 I'm generally up for
most things.
Non-alcoholic drink – fresh
coffee, it's the tits.
What’s the most absurd thing
you’ve done while drunk?
This is exactly why I don't
drink. Drunk people are generally loud, lairy and very unbecoming. You've not
lived until you've had to chase a drunken James Monteith (my partner at Hold
Tight! PR/guitarist in TesseracT) around the streets to try to herd him into a
taxi. My husband is the same. Men get drunk, turn into toddlers and run riot.
He once stopped a taxi in the city centre of Glasgow, sprawled himself across
it's bonnet, just to show the taxi driver a King Kong toy he'd got at Burger
King. It didn't go down too well. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a rubbish
drinker and if I start to feel drunk I immediately stop. Not a great answer I
know. Must try harder.
BEATS:
Why’d you get into the music
industry?
Probably because I live, breathe, sleep and
eat music. Nothing else captivates me as much as music does. I listen to it non
stop, I talk about it endlessly and I've always been going to gigs since I was
a teenager. I never had the urge to be in a band, but I did love going to
discover bands and then want to tell the world about them. Turns out that's
actually a job, so I ended up in PR. To this day, nothing gives me more
satisfaction than listening to a band, and inside something clicks and you
smile and can't stop smiling and your next thought is – TELL ALL THE PEOPLE. I
get to do that every day, I'm incredibly lucky.
What’s the first ever musical
artist you ever remember enjoying listening to?
I've always listened to music, Shaking Stevens
was my favourite when I was a tiddler, then I became obsessed by the usual pop
bands, Wet Wet Wet, New Kids on the Block etc (yes…I am very old!). The first
band I ever heard and went…holy shit (ok I was about 9…so maybe it wasn't holy
shit but it was definitely along those lines!) was Guns n Roses. I'd only heard
pop before that. Guns n Roses hit the UK radio waves in the late 80's on
commercial radio and I was hooked. GnR were my entry drug to a world of amazing
music.
If you could only ever listen to
3 musical artists again, who would they be?
Oh god that's easy.
Between the Buried and Me. I have
a routine every day, I make my first coffee of the day to the sounds of Paul
Waggoner widdling over his guitar. Go to 4.43 in Selkies, listen from there on.
That's my 'making a coffee, chilling the fuck out' moment. Run that right to
the end from there, listen to those guitars. Goddammmn Paul and Dustie are
amazing. Love that band so much. The first time I heard them, I was like yeah
this is ok, hang on is that a country breakdown…..shit did they just polka. I
was hooked. Crazy progressive metallers. Did I mention I love them. Life
changers.
Pink Floyd. My husband got me
into Pink Floyd and opened a whole new dimension of music to me. I love
everything about them. Live at Pompeii was a game changer for me. Watch that
dvd. Now. Watch Nick Mason absolutely blissing out during One of These Days. I
dare you not to be captivated by that. Dude is rocking a headscarf and a
butterfly on his shirt and having the time of his life. He loses a stick,
doesn't care, keeps going. David Gilmour looks over smiling. Epic moments like
that make music really special for me. Watching musicians in the moment, lost
in their art, it's just gorgeous to see, rather than a band clearly going
through the motions. That's the difference for me, feel your music, don't just
repeat it night after night, like it's a chore. Pink Floyd are my favourite
band of all time because they got it, the music, the artwork, everything.
Making music a complete artform isn't easy, but they managed it and still are
the masters of it. No one can touch them. Yeah I love them….a lot. http://youtu.be/YgvAwBDbuIo
Ok the last one is hard….not as
easy as I thought. It's between Tool, Dying Fetus, Blotted Science and Yo Yo
Ma. You see my issue here – more progressive metal, death metal, crazy instrumental metal or a Cellist.
I'm going with the cellist.
Yo Yo Ma – I love classical
music of all sorts but what really hooks
me in is always the Cello. Right now I'm addicted to his JS Bach -
unaccompanied cello suite No 1 in G major, I love the whole 6 unaccompanied Bach
suites he does. There's such a purity and clarity about listening to the cello
pouring out it's notes that's incredibly beautiful and calming. http://youtu.be/dZn_VBgkPNY
Why the hell is your PR company
called that?
I should know the answer to this
but I don't. I joined the company after it was created, and I've actually never
asked the question. If it's any consolation, I ran my own PR company before
joining Hold Tight! PR and it was called Invisible Hippo. I guess PR companies
just like odd names.
You shouldn’t really feel guilty
about any of your choices in music, but really, what’s the one musical artist
you feel really embarrassed about telling people you listen to?
I don’t, I have nooooo shame when it comes to
anything in life and music is up there with that. I listen to so much music,
some of which other people would consider crap, to me it's all just part and
parcel of the same artform, whether it's good, bad, commercial or not – if it
makes you feel good, if it strikes a chord within you, then go for it. So this
is you wanting me to name and shame now…..have you seen my Last FM? In any
given week I can be jumping between Btbam, Rihanna, Abba, classical composers,
Katy Perry, Chimp Spanner, Stevie Wonder, Khanate, Shania Twain and Cannibal
Corpse. Is there one that is considered worse than all the rest by other
people? Um…….ok fine, I like the Spice
Girls.
Bites:
What are you currently
eating/last thing you ate?
Oh god….this is the wrong day to ask this. I
mentioned earlier I was on a rare night out last night, and had a bit to drink.
We got kebabs on the way home, I reheated mine and ate it for breakfast. OH GOD
THE SHAME….this is worse than the question above about guilty music choices. I
once woke up after a very very drunken night, asleep face down on a kebab.
Classy. I didn't need to reheat it which was a bonus. I did have to rock up to
my neice and nephews Christmas event at their primary school a few hours later,
still in the same clothes I'd had on the night before, reeking of stale booze
and kebabs. That's perhaps a personal highlight right there. There are reasons
I don't drink. I should probably avoid kebabs as well.
Can you cook? What’s your
signature dish? Will you make me an awesome sandwich?
Yes, I can cook, I love to cook
and I'm told I can cook very well.
Signature dish is steak and guinness pie, followed by homemade wild
berry cheesecake. I made a TesseracT themed steak pie once, it ended up a bit
wonky but we got there in the end. Picture to the right. Sometimes I'll make
cakes and take them to gigs, so far Chimp Spanner, Uneven Structure, TesseracT,
Monuments and Periphery have all had themed cakes with their logos or faces etc
on when they roll into town. I try to avoid processed food or junk food as much
as possible (the kebabs are a weakness….I'm still in shame!) and everything we
eat is cooked fresh, from as locally sourced ingredients as I can find. I love cooking. Will I make you an awesome
sandwich? If you make me a nice coffee and sing to me whilst I'm making you it,
yeah sure.
One Fruit. One Vegetable. One
Meat. One Cheese. Go:
One Fruit – mango. OMNOM get in
my face you wee orange orb of awesome.
One Veg – brussell sprouts, I
love those wee baby cabbage fellas, most other folk hate them, I eat them by
the truck load.
One Meat – I'm a sucker for a
good fillet steak. Done rare, dripping with blood, with a great blue cheese
sauce. Oh god I'm drooling.
One Cheese – any blue cheese, the
stinkier the better. No wait. ALL THE CHEESE. ALL OF THEM. I can't decide,
cheese is my weakness. It would be like making me choose my favourite child.
Can't do it. ALL OF DEM CHEESES.
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve
ever eaten?
McDonalds – seriously what's in
that crap. Even the burger buns look plastic. The only meal you can eat which
doesn't fill you up, doesn't taste how it should and looks like it was made to
last a thousand years. That's some seriously odd stuff right there.
Other than that, maybe squid. You
just chew and chew and chew and chew and still it bounces back to the shape it
was when you started. It's like trying to eat an elastic band.
BONUS ROUND:
What sports do you follow? What
are your teams? Do you play or are you a fat bastard?
I am officially a fat bastard, unless Zumba
counts as a sport. I love to Zumba. I don't follow any sports, not really my
kinda thing, although if the football world cup is on I'll watch some of that,
world class football is gorgeous to watch when played well. Used to follow the
tennis, used to follow Formula 1, now don't really have time for any of that.
Used to surf a bit back in the day, but other than that – nah…I am officially
rubbish and in need of a body overhaul. I love hill walking…can I turn that
into a sport? Is listening to Between the Buried and Me a sport, I'd be a
pro-athlete at that.
What would you do if you came
face to facewith an antelope? [Courtesy of Jadeski]
Oh god I love this question, probably smile,
say hello, hug it's neck and then have a discussion with it. I'll talk with, at
and to anything. It's a trait I think I may have inherited from my mother.
Sable antelopes look metal as fuck, so I'd probably throw the horns beside it,
take a picture, upload it to facebook, that's what you do isn't it?
How many times can you bounce up
and down on Satan’s big old trampoline? [Courtesy of Chris - @ckdsaddlers on
twitter]
Let's be clear here, are we talking about an
actual trampoline that Satan has or are we euphemising for his dick. If it's an
actual trampoline, I'll go all night on that thing, I love trampolines. Just
gimme a bottle of water and occasionally chuck some food at my face and I'll
bounce until the end of days. If Chris is asking how many times would I bounce
on Satan, I'm guessing probably once, I have no doubt that his penis is barbed
and would probably impale me, gut me like a fish and I'd just slide off, never
to be seen again. Interesting question Chris.
What would you be doing if you
weren't doing PR/Record label stuff?
I guess I'd go back to my old job
which was in Marketing and PR for corporate clients. Ughh…no I wouldn't global
corporations are evil. There, I've pretty much guaranteed I'll never get a job
again. I'd love to be a forest ranger. Seriously, if I had to give up this, I'd
retrain, become a forest ranger and spend all my time outdoors in the wild,
tending to forests and sorting stuff out there. I'd also learn to yodel.
What’s the most bizarre thing
you’ve currently got in your hangbag?
Dude, have you seen my handbag,
it's like the aftermath of a disaster in there. Honestly if I took a picture
right now you'd go…wtf is that. Ok…I'm going in…hang on. It's very heavy, I was
out at a listening session last night and had cameras, batteries and video
stuff with me….
Sunglasses, stamps, receipts,
headphones, make up, painkillers, a business card for Chamber Studios, battery
packs, sugar, pens, more headphones, train tickets, necklaces, a canon
powershot camera, a canon dslr camera, a canon 580EX II flash unit, a canon
50mm lens (I swear this is all coming out of one handbag), more makeup, another
set of headphones (3 so far), earplugs, a bank card (wondered where that was),
gift vouchers, more painkillers, polo mints, a hello kitty toy, cat treats, an
issue of metal hammer, a sock, £1.46 in loose change ratting about at the
bottom and a set of Kiss playing cards. Out of all of that – to me the most
bizarre thing is the sunglasses – it's never sunny in Scotland and it's rained
continuously for about 3 months now. No idea why those are in there.
Are the rumours that you
personally iron every single t-shirt that Basick Records sells before they get
posted true?
So in between helping Barley to
run the record label, running my own PR business, writing interviews, running a
house, caring for two very very high maintenance cats and being a good
samaritan, I now have to iron t-shirts too. Amazing, are you fixing cars whilst
writing reviews? The rumours that I put
horses heads into the beds of online journalists who ask me if I iron is true,
I'll give you that much. And no Nate, I won't do your washing; you've already
got me making you a sandwich.
And finally, where’s that
goddamn sandwich I asked for earlier?
HANG ON…..did we get married?! At
what point during this interview did I become your bitch? HAHA, you cheeky
monkey. Get up to Scotland; I'll make your sandwich gladly. Thanks for a great,
interesting, odd but fun interview.
I’d like to thank Lisa for taking the time out of her busy schedule to
inform us that she will make me a sandwich, she doesn’t think that bouncing up
and down on Satan’s penis would be very comfortable and of the contents of her
handbag.
I'd also like to thank both Lisa & Jim for sending me a lot of heavy metal music to review and for supporting my blog! You guys are awesome!
It’s been a pleasure!
Check out Hold Tight! Online:
And Basick Records:
Nate
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