We recently connected with Zoey Pollard and have shared our conversation below.
Zoey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
The first time I knew I wanted to pursue a professional career in the music industry, was in 2019, I was about to be a senior in high school and I went and saw 5 Second of Summer with The Chainsmokers. I had thoughts about going into the music industry but knew that it was going to be an uphill battle, senior year of high school is was music or dellve into chemistry (I was watching a lot of Criminal Minds). It was my sister and I’s first time going to a concert without our parents and we are massive fans of 5SOS since their early days on YouTube and touring with One Direction. 5 Seconds of Summer was kicking off their co-headliner tour in Boston at TD Garden, my sister and I had nosebleed seats but every person in the crowd was ecstatic to be there, singing along to every song in the pre-show playlist. The energy in TD Garden only went up from there, playing 17 total songs, we were enthralled. I walked away from that show, knowing I had to go into music industry.
In August of 2020, I found myself at Belmont University as a freshman music business student. Since COVID was still amuck, live music was on hold and the students were itching to get back into the scene. Around second semester, there was still no end in sight for the pause on live music, I got an email away from dropping out. I watched old videos of live concerts, talked to professors, and heard whispers of tours getting rescheduled with accommodations and precautions for COVID. After a year of primarily online schooling, Belmont announced they would be returning to in-person learning. I knew the collegiate music scene needed help, and in August of 2021, I launched The Tower Music, a non-profit publishing and promotional company that would aid Nashville collegiate level artists in furthering their career while still staying in school. The Tower launched the same day as Belmont’s first Showcase concert back in-person, Battle of the Bands with TK Collective, RV!, Sugar in the Gas Tank, and Keep the Eleven (band I currently manage). 3,000 people all in masks spread out over the main lawn and the music was incredible. Being back with live music changed everything for me, over the next 3 years I followed dozens of artists around Nashville, saw over 150 shows, worked internship after internship, met the best friends of my life, and learned exactly who I wanted to be in the music industry.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
What a great question. I started taking my professional career in the music industry seriously in October of 2021, after launching The Tower Nashville in August of that year. The Tower Nashville is a non-profit publishing and promotional company helping Nashville collegiate level artist advance their career while still staying in school. The Tower is still primarily run by students who post upcoming shows, help other artists book shows, make marketing plans, write press releases, and more. Since it’s creation, The Tower Nashville has worked with over 200 Nashville collegiate-level artists promoting their shows, new merch drops, releases, and everything in-between. The Tower also had a for-profit partner called The Tower Management with the main artist on roster is an indie-punk band called Keep the Eleven.
I started working with Keep the Eleven in November of 2022, I had just finished my first internship at a desk-job type company and was ready to get more hands-on experience. I had amassed a huge catalog of independent/college radios stations across the U.S. and wanted to help Keep the Eleven get some traction with the intent of signing and managing them in the future. I met with the guys a couple times and they were not interested, they were all about the DIY life. Over the next couple weeks, I would send them shows, festivals and battle of the bands opportunities to apply to and one stuck: Summer Camp Music Festival’s On the Road series. On January 19th 2023, William Laskey, one the best drummers I will ever see and have the pleasure of working with in my life, sends me the text that Keep the Eleven was accepted into the program. They would play February 2nd at Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville, which gave us a little over 2 weeks to get as many people as possible to this show. That night, I sat with my best friend, Madison Dawson (The Tower’s Head of Streaming and Distribution and A&R rep), and we crafted an insane two marketing plan that utilized everything we had learned thus far at Belmont. Digital, physical, and guerrilla marketing, the whole nine-yards. We printed over 100 posters and 200 mini-flyers that were stuck on every light post, wall, car windshield, sidewalk, building in every high traffic area in Nashville, you couldn’t go two blocks without seeing a poster. Show day comes along and everyone’s nervous, I had done my first show advance, none of us had every been on the backstage side of a venue this big. The band was chilling upstairs when I had to run out and grab a couple things from my car, when I came back I was denied in ‘no girlfriends, no guest list backstage’. I was taken aback, I had no formal title with the band but knew that they needed a manager. I told security my name was on the bottom of their advance sheet and that I was Keep the Eleven’s manager, he let me right back, and from that point on I was Keep the Eleven’s manager.
Currently I wear a lot of hats, I’m manage Keep the Eleven, book their shows and am currently routing their first multi-city tour (18-city East Coast Tour), pitch them to agencies, publishers, and labels, do all of their distribution, book their recording sessions, take photos and edit content, and manage their calendar. I’ve booked over 40 shows for the band in the last year, have pitched them to 10 different companies and love working with such incredible and talented people. I’m most proud of what Keep the Eleven and I have been able to accomplish together. From Keep the Eleven’s first studio EP ever, to playing Brooklyn Bowl a second time, their first couple press articles, first radio play with You’ll Never Wear My Sweater on Lightning 100, getting to play Summer Camp Music Festival in May, and now their first multi-city tour. There’s not another band I would want to do all of this with, starting as a fan, jumping around at their shows, to being their manager. Although we’ve hit some tough spots here and there, I’m so lucky and grateful to get to learn and grow alongside them.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
Oh absolutely, I had the chance to meet Pete Ganbarg (President of Atlantic Records) this past month and during our roundtable, I asked about his experience solely working through A&R as I had just finished Danny Goldberg’s book, Bumping into Geniuses, which mentions Ganbarg highly. Pete told some anecdotal stores and at the end of our meeting we got to talking and he commended me on furthering my music industry knowledge through reading about others experiences. I told him thank you and we briefly discussed his podcast, ‘Rock & Roll High School’, which I have been at full tilt catching up on. Each episode, Ganbarg interview different music industry moguls about their life inside and outside of the music industry, often with comedic stories or retellings of events but, each episode there is always so much to learn from both professionals.
‘Bumping into Geniuses’, where I first learned of Pete Ganbarg, is the captivating, thoughtful, and, at times, hilarious iteration of Danny Goldberg’s own upbringing and story of how he got into the music industry and the people he’s had the pleasure of working with. After reading Goldberg’s book he became an idol of mine, showing readers and aspiring music industry professionals that the music industry isn’t always linear, and working with good people and great music is the best way to live your life. Goldberg started in music journalism, since he was the youngest person on staff, they sent him to some possible mess of a festival to get coverage, that mess of a festival was Woodstock. After that he did, PR for Led Zeppelin and KISS, then moving to VP Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song Records, help launch Stevie Nicks’ solo career, and briefly went on to become the President of Atlantic Records. That covers about half of his professional career, in 1983 he started Gold Mountain Entertainment an artist management company that would lead the punk resurgence in the 80s and 90s during the height of MTV. Gold Mountain’s roster included, Nirvana, Hole, Sonic Youth, Bonnie Raitt, The Allman Brothers, and so many more. With an outstanding career on paper, Goldberg maintains such a friendly and personable attitude in ‘Bumping into Geniuses’.
Dave Ghrol’s, ‘The Storyteller’, reshaped how I reflect on my life with gratitude, the world can be busy, slow, amazing, sad, crazy, and incredible but reflecting on what matters helps you stay sane with it all. You can imagine how I felt fresh out of my junior year of college after I finished his book and a month later working artist relations for Boston Calling and I find out Foo Fighters is headlining (their first festival back after Taylor passed), asking my boss for 20 minutes to go see their set and him giving me an hour and a half changed my life, I’ve never cried more during a concert in my life, it was the most surreal experience ever.
Other books like ‘Bring It On Home’ by Mark Blake about Peter Grant, Led Zeppelin’s manager, David Byrne’s, ‘How Music Works’, which details about musical expression and the importance of history and technology alongside emotion, and Anthony Kiedis and Larry Sloman’s, ‘Scar Tissue’, where the Red Hot Chili Peppers members go into detail about breaking out of their neo-punk/rock scene in L.A. to become one of the biggest rock artists in the world. All those books and so many more have helped me figure out my music industry philosophy.
The goal at the end of the day, is to love my life, be happy, and enjoy the music and if I find that I’m unable to do that then I need to look around, find some gratitude, move positions if I need to, and get back to the people who make me happy. I want to leave a positive impact on the music industry like establishing better standards within the music industry around work/life balance, not just for artists but for industry professionals too.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
Part of my music industry journey has included working different freelance gigs here and there, by far one of my favorite was my first time working Boston Calling in May 2023. It was my first major music festival, I had no clue what I was doing but just knew I needed to show up, work hard, and help wherever I could. I worked 14 of the legal maximum of 17 and had two back to back shifts 9am-2am in operations then artist relations. The headliners were, Friday: Dropkick Murphys and Foo Fighters, Saturday: Alanis Morissette and The Lumineers w/ Noah Kahan, and Sunday: Queens of the Stone Age and Paramore. As a little punk kid who grew up on Foo Fighters and Paramore, raised in Massachusetts by a Dropkick Murphy’s Dad, my mom who adores Alanis Morissette (we have coasters and mugs of Alanis in our house), and my hippie folk sister who breathes The Lumineers and Noah Kahan, here I am working the biggest music festival in Massachussetts I used to dream about working. I remember riding the T home everyday after my shift and would just write down the moments during the day I was grateful for. The first show of the weekend I got to watch was the Dropkick Murphys and most of Foo Fighter’s set, Friday was my first double working in the morning around 9am getting off around 4pm then during Foo Fighters second to last song I would have to be back at the artist compound til they let us out around 2-3am. I’m standing in the Dropkick Murphys/Foo Fighters pit about 25 rows back watching the artists who I’ve loved for most of my life and I got to help set up there artist camps earlier that day; that was my first ever I’m making it moment. Throughout all of my years of high school being a music kid in every club and extra choir I could be in, then college and working so hard not knowing if I would ever feel like I was doing the right thing and making the right moves to get me to where I wanted to be, and here I was with my first day of bruising on my feet, jumping up and down, moshing in the pit for ‘Shipping Out To Boston’ and ‘I’ll Stick Around’ (with Shane Hawkins on drums, and there it was, the feeling of ‘I’m making it’.
I get home at 4:30am, immediately go to bed because I have to back onsite at 9am and do two more days of insane hours, so many people, but such good music. The last show of the weekend was Paramore, my boss let me off 30 minutes early, told me to enjoy the show, then to go home (I had to be back on-site again at 10am the next day for teardown/loadout). Security recognizes me and my friend from working all week and let us into the front of VIP, we’re third row, Paramore plays every song from my childhood through early adulthood, my knees hurt from working so hard and jumping up and down for two hours during the set, the show is a blur, and the confetti canons go off at the end of Paramore’s performance; I just start crying. I had just finished my first major show weekend ever, I was so proud of myself. Surrounded by the artists I grew up on and was inspired by to join the music industry. I get home and go to bed knowing I have three more shifts, then I can take a bath and get rid of all my back and leg pain. About 4 days later is the last on-site day, I was exhausted, the bottoms of my feet are bruised, bags under my eyes darker, and the worst t-shirt tan I’ve ever had, I got on the T for the last time that summer. An hour later my mom picks me up from the T stop nearest to our house, I open my phone and start crying, my boss had asked me to be his assistant for another festival he was doing. I don’t suggest working your body until exhaustion but I went to bed that night incredibly proud of myself and slept for 14 hours. I worked hard and nothing was going to stop me from doing the best I could throughout Boston Calling 2023 and the next festival. After working, those two festivals and continuing to intern my senior year of college, this upcoming summer, I’ll be Boston Calling’s youngest administrative assistant ever.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://zoey-pollard.wixsite.com/zoeypollard
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoey_pollard/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZJPollard/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoey-pollard/
Image Credits
Zoey Pollard