Golden Years
“ I was with Dizzee Rascal and he’ d never been anywhere and he was like‘ Whoa, hold on, you’ ve got a company credit card …’” Jodie Banaskiewicz on life as a music PR and 10 years of Stay Golden
There’ s a fantastic moment when you’ re talking to someone about what they do and suddenly the grown up disappears and the raw joy comes bursting through, that thing that got them into the business in the first place.
“ What’ s coming up that’ s exciting” I asked Jodie Banaszkiewicz, Founder and Director of Stay Golden PR, the Seven Dials based music PR company that this year is celebrating its 10th birthday.
“ Well, we’ ve been speaking with Warp Records and they called me and said‘ We’ ve got something you might be interested in’. And I was like,‘ Yeah, what is it?’ They said Stereolab. Oh, my god. I loved Stereolab as a teenager”. I loved Stereolab too- still do- and for the next few minutes, we sit in the garden of The Good Companions gushing about Stereolab. Frankly, there are few better ways to spend a sunny afternoon.
“ I remember hearing them on Radio One when I was here visiting my grandparents and I heard French Disko and I was like,‘ Who is this?’ It was fantastic. So yeah, it’ s a dream come true, working with them. The only problem is they don’ t want to do any interviews, so I’ ve been turning down cover stories”. Oh well. There goes the next question.
We’ re here to talk about Stay Golden’ s tenth anniversary, but I had to ask how she got involved in all this.“ I went in straight from uni to do work experience and just stayed. I was working with The White Stripes when they released Elephant, and that became really big and we did a lot of travelling around Europe doing interviews, taking them to MTV awards ceremonies and things like that.
“ I worked briefly with Dizzee Rascal, who won the Mercury Prize when he was 19 and I had to take him to Europe. It was the first time he’ d really been traveling anywhere, because he grew up in a council flat in Bow in East London and he was like‘ Whoa, hold on. You’ ve got a company credit card?…’”
Was it as much fun as it sounds?“ I was 22 and I was travelling around Europe being paid an absolute pittance, but I was travelling Business Class with bands, and when I was away, everything was covered. So it was fun. Yeah, it was fun. Every gig you went to, there tended to be an after-show party with free drinks. There was a lot of boozing, a lot of schmoozing. But I’ ve always worked on the indie side of things. I’ ve never been on the major label side where there was really a lot of money and a lot of parties.
“ Then I ended up moving to Domino Records when Domino signed The Arctic Monkeys, and that was obviously huge.” Jodie worked with the Monkeys on their album, AM. Seriously huge.
What’ s the key to good PR? What’ s the secret?“ I think that’ s changing all the time because there are fewer magazines than there used to be, and because of algorithms on Spotify and Apple, people are being told what to listen to. So I feel people think they don’ t need music journalism anymore, which really saddens me, because I think storytelling is still so important.
How do you keep it fresh and relevant? Where once upon a time the music press was super powerful, now maybe it’ s not so much. The weeklies are long gone and the monthly magazines seem almost exclusively concerned with heritage acts.
“ MOJO and Uncut are perhaps not as influential as they once were, but they are still important and appeal to an older, recordbuying audience. The job as a PR is to try and reach different audiences, so you have to keep asking what are the younger people doing and then try to keep on top of that.
“ I think the art of good PR is spreading the word, getting the news out there in the right way. You have to be really on top of what works well for a particular artist, but also sometimes think outside the box a little bit. What can you do that isn’ t just a straightforward interview, what might be more fun for the journalist and the artist? So for example, we’ ll always ask the bands we work with what their hobbies are outside of music.
We worked with an American female songwriter called girlpuppy, and she told us she loved horror films, so we were able to get her an interview with a horror movie podcast. Someone else we work with loves gardening. So we ended up pitching a feature where she took Polaroids of herself while she was gardening, and wrote about how that relates to her music. So there’ s things like that we love. You need to think about targets and what you want to achieve, but also It makes it a bit more fun for everyone”.
Ten years ago, life took her on a familar journey, from Hackney to Brighton-“ because it’ s the best place to live”- with her family and now 10-year-old dog, Betty. But the love of
music, the reason she got into all this, remains.“ This weekend, I’ m with Yann Tiersen, who’ s playing The Barbican, and I’ m bringing my mum, which is lovely. He’ s an interesting character. He’ s really into the environment, sustainability and activism, and tours by sailboat or on his own in a camper van.
“ We’ re also super excited about working with an up-and-coming Brighton-based quartet called The New Eves, who have already been labeled as one of the country’ s most spellbinding new bands.”
Has she got all 21st century with TikTok and all that sort of stuff?“ Not so much and that’ s probably an area Stay Golden might need to look into expanding into in the future. To me, influencers don’ t seem as genuine as actual music press. It’ s more like marketing and sometimes it seems that what they’ re marketing is themselves.
“ But you have to keep on top of it. My stepson is a teenager now and is suddenly more aware of music. He said,‘ Wow, you used to work with Arctic Monkeys’ because he’ s just discovered them through TikTok. Big bands like that are getting a resurgence through people sharing them online which I find fascinating. It’ s another way for older bands to have a new audience. It’ s the same with My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive”. A few years ago MBV had a resurgence because one of their songs was on the soundtrack to Lost In Translation. Now they’ re having another resurgence because of TikTok. Different generations finding the gold in old. Anyway, back to the important stuff. So when are Stereolab playing Brighton?“ They’ re at The Dome in December.” What chance do you think...