Written by Eric Baker
People often ask me the secret to my 34-year career in the music industry. How did I get started? How did I land my first job at a record label, where I started in field marketing, then transitioned to radio promotions, and eventually started my own event promotions, festival and management company? Now as a partner at Primary Wave and manager to iconic artists like Jefferson Starship, The Isley Brothers, Bell Biv DeVoe, and recently passed Toots and the Maytals, I have to answer that the two most important tools have been RELATIONSHIPS and MENTORS.
Having benefitted from both, I feel strongly about helping others along the path. I firmly believe in following your passions, and one of mine is lacrosse. To stay involved in the sport, I am a high school lacrosse coach as well as mentor to student-athletes at my alma mater, Boston University.
That’s where my story about an NCAA Division 1 lacrosse player who is an aspiring art director and now album and packaging designer of Jefferson Starship’s Mother of the Sun album, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, begins.
I knew Nick Mohler and his family back before his days at BU. He was a high school lacrosse player and I coached at a competing school. He went on to Boston University to play lacrosse where he was assigned to me in the men’s lacrosse team’s mentorship program in his third year. I knew his skills on the field and that he was and is a student in the College of Communication. We’d had conversations pertaining to student-athlete development, but never about career goals or leveraging relationships. At the men’s lacrosse Alumni Weekend last year, both Nick and I were reminded just how successful mentorship can be.
I had just finished my keynote address at the annual men’s lacrosse Kickoff Dinner when I found myself in a group conversation about my experience in the music industry, my current clients and some of our upcoming plans. Jefferson Starship was just finishing up their first album in 12 years, including tracks co-written by Grace Slick. We were in planning on the go-to-market strategy on this politically and socially charged album from the iconic musicians and social activist band.
As I spoke about some of the plans, head coach Ryan Polley mentioned, “I don’t know if you know this, but Nick is a talented artist.” I didn’t know, but said, “Hey, maybe you should take a stab at the Jefferson Starship album art.” The entire alumni group looked at me like I was on drugs. I looked back with shock, saying, “why not, someone has to do it.” I felt secure with the band’s trust in my recommendation. We also had time, which is not usually the case.
In the weeks and months that followed, the band and I worked closely with Nick to put together the artwork. Then an audible comes up, and as artists and managers do, we come up with another “brilliant” idea. “Let’s create a limited addition ‘Space Box’.” We created a unique cube as a special promotional package for the Target physical music rollout. The launch has been a great success.
Then came release day, and it was my job to figure out how to make an impact since we are not on the road. Our Primary Wave team of public relations, digital marketing and branding have done an incredible job, but I needed a “WOW” moment for release. David Freiberg, one of the founding members of Jefferson Starship, has his bass guitar hanging in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so I decide to reach out. With enthusiasm, they say they would love to do a livestream and acoustic performance for the Rock Hall members. During the interview portion, Cathy Richardson, (Jefferson Starship’s lead singer) said “the incredible art designed by Nick Mohler, a college student, who our manager knows from lacrosse, created all the designs from collage art.” Everything that is promoted by the Rock Hall is recorded and archived. With that interview, Nick Mohler went from Division I lacrosse player to an art director with one of the great honors in music, being archived in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That was all based on an off-the cuff conversation at an unrelated networking/mentoring event.
The lesson here is that you never know where your next opportunity might come from or who, however unrelated they may seem, can help provide that game-changing opportunity.
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