Ask The Industry – Rob Eaglesham

This week we have Rob ‘Shamdog’ Eaglesham, an out and out lovely fella and manager of up-and-coming indie band Marsicans giving us his tuppence.

Tell us a bit about yourself Shamdog!

Hello, my name is Rob Eaglesham. I manage a pre-album indie band from Leeds called Marsicans. I sort of fell into management about 10 years ago when I stumbled across a band I really liked and just wanted to help them in any way I could. I’d been in bands myself in a previous life and was always the pro-active one in the band in terms of getting things done. I really resented doing it as a band member at the time but it’s all I do now. Funny how things turn out.

What does your day to day work look like?

It’s a cliché but there are “no two days the same”. In terms of the actual workload, it varies a lot depending but basically covers what I see as the three main areas:

• Touring – talking to our agent, working with promoters, assembling promo materials, hyping the shows, booking accommodation, advancing shows, ordering merch, driving the van, sending invoices, logging the gigs with PRS, emailing other managers about possible supports
• Releases – chatting with the band, booking recording sessions/video shoots/photo shoots, sorting out the mixing and mastering, registering the songs planning the release timeline with our label, keeping PR, radio plugger, streaming services and distributor abreast of what’s going on, emailing bloggers and press
• Social media – working closely with the band to try and ensure we have something going out every day whilst trying to keep things fresh

About 90% of my duties can be done via laptop and phone but, wherever possible, I try and meet people face-to-face. I think it really helps foster a good working relationship and it’s more fun than staring at a screen.

How do you generally discover new music?

Spotify is probably the main one. It’s great at pushing stuff at you that you might like and gives you the tools to delve deeper when the mood takes you.

I also try and get to gigs regularly, especially of any bands on Marsicans’ “circuit”. It’s good to keep up with who’s doing what – and it’s always cool when an artist on the bill you’ve never heard of impresses you.

What advice would you give to artists just starting out?

Write sick songs.

Make a plan.

Speak to people.

Be nice

What do you look for in a new act when taking on new artists? How do you know they are ready?

Regardless of the music, I’d want to see an artist who already has some self-generated momentum and hype. That tells me there’s drive and a good work ethic there. As a manager, I want to add value to what the artist already doing, I don’t want to create it myself.

I get emailed by a lot of artists looking for representation and in almost all cases it’s too early. It’s very hard to sell yourself to a manager who’s never heard of you.

Finally, what track do you have on repeat at the moment?

Slightly weirdly, I got into mariachi music recently – thank you, Spotify! There’s a track by Luis Miguel called Balajú/Huapango that is so joyous, it makes me want to head straight to Mexico!