Industry Spotlight: Bryne Yancey (Punknews / BFG PR)

Hello again and welcome to a very special edition of our Haulix Spotlight series. Fridays are usually reserved for our ongoing advice column, but due to a wealth of timely content we want to roll out that feature is taking the week off. If you are serious need of an advice fix, we suggest going through our archives and seeing there is anything you have missed up to this point. We’ll return next week with one, maybe even two new advice articles. If you have any subjects you would like to see covered, please do not hesitate to email james@haulix,com and share your idea!

When we realized we were going to begin covering publicists in our spotlight series we knew a handful of individuals would come up who are viewed as notable personalities in both the world of PR and journalism. Many publicists cut their teeth on the journalism side of things, and likewise there are a number of journalists who discovered a passion for writing during their PR careers. To successfully transition between the two roles is no easy feat, and to maintain a good standing in both simultaneously is nearly impossible. There is a large amount of room for questionable behavior, such as reviewing releases from bands you also work with (or hope to one day work with), and many choose to avoid that hassle altogether by deciding to reside on one side of the press or the other . Still, some strive to have the best of both worlds, and today’s highlighted talent is one such soul.

Bryne Yancey has been writing, promoting, and otherwise living in the world of punk since the days of Geocities. His passion for music paired perfectly with his drive to succeed at a young age, and it did not take long for the industry to take notice of his efforts. Bryne eventually found himself at MySpace, then later took his writing talent to the front pages of more alternative sites, including Alternative Press and Punknews. In 2012 he started his own PR company, Ben Franklin’s Grave, and when we caught up with him last month he could not be happier with his two careers. You can learn about Bryne’s adventures through the music industry, as well as his advice for bands and others hoping to make it, below.

If you are at all interested in a career in alternative music journalism or promotion, you owe it to yourself to follow Bryne, as well as his family at Punknews, on Twitter. Comment below if you have any additional questions for Bryne and we will get them answered as soon as possible.

H: For those unaware, please state your name, the site you work for, and your role at said site:

BY: I’m Bryne Yancey, and I’m a contributing editor at Punknews.org. I’m currently in charge of the reviews portion of the site but I do a little bit of everything, including social media, podcasting and occasional news writing and copy editing when needed.

H: Let’s start before music became a business for you. Do you recall the first album you truly fell in love with?

BY: I’ll be 29 this year and like most punks my age, I initially discovered it through the radio with bands like the Offspring and Green Day. But the first punk record I bought on my own, previously unheard, was the Suicide Machines’ Battle Hymns. I remember getting my allowance that week, riding my Dyno BMX bike up to Spec’s Music (RIP) in the small Florida town where I grew up, and seeing it on sale there. I’d never heard the band before, but I thought the cover art was really cool and *looked* punk, and when I noticed there were 22 songs on it it seemed like a lot of bang for my buck at the time. I took it home, popped it in my boombox and was blown away by the band’s speed, energy and passion. I was hooked.

H: Having an interest in music is one thing, and deciding to attempt to turn that interest into a career is another ballgame altogether. When did you realize you were interested in pursuing this industry, and where did you find your first gig (unpaid work counts)?

BY: Not too long after I got into it, actually; I was a self-starter, though not a very talented one. I remember creating my own Geocities site (kids under 25, Google it) and reviewing records on it. After that, I started a real webzine called What We Hate that lasted a couple of years, overlapping briefly with my early days at Punknews. That was when I felt I had initially found my “voice” and thought I could maybe, eventually do this sort of thing seriously.

H: In the earlier days of social media, you spent some time working at one-time juggernaut Myspace Music. How did you come to work at the site, and how would compare the experience to working at publications and smaller websites?

BY: At the time, Myspace was in the midst of one of its many relaunches, and part of this particular relaunch was the creation of the Curators program—basically, they hired a bunch of writers/”internet personalities” to curate profiles based on specific interests, hoping it’d draw users back to their site. The person heading the program emailed me out of the blue one day asking if I’d be interested; at the time, I think I was freelancing for Alternative Press a little bit but it was almost certainly my work at Punknews.org that got me that gig. 

It ended up not working very well, mostly because of the reputation that precedes Myspace and the inability for them to shake it. It was different in the sense that I wasn’t writing or reporting very much as part of the gig; I’d find links to other content I thought was cool and share them with my audience, which in hindsight makes perfect sense in terms of how social media usually works. There just wasn’t enough time to build an organic audience there. But it was a lot of fun nonetheless, and everyone I worked with at Myspace was awesome and were both aware of the problems of the site, and were working hard to try to eradicate them. It paid surprisingly well for a freelance gig, too.

H: Having seen the first wave of social media fandom come and go, do you think the current reliance on Facebook and Twitter to do the majority of a band’s promotional efforts is a good thing?

BY: It’s important, but it’s not the whole story. The bottom line is bands still need their own websites independent of Facebook and twitter, even if it’s just a blog or something. Not everyone is glued to social media all the time, and Facebook *still* hasn’t figured out how to make their band pages that useful. For a while in the mid-2000s bands just had Myspace pages as their “official website” and look how that worked out. Learn from the past!

H: Currently, you’re a regular content contributor to the world of Punknews. What is it about the community at PN that attracted you to this team?

BY: More than anything else, Punknews.org has shaped me as a music fan and critic and that’s what made me want to be a part of it. The site hooked me on the fun and the thrill of discovery, and I’m still hooked on it.

I’d been a regular reader pretty much since the beginning in 1998 (!) and, I think in 2007 or so I started submitting reviews and weirdly, they were posting most of them. I began to gain confidence as a writer after that, and by the summer of 2008 I was a staff reviewer. Fast forward to May 2009, and I noticed that there’d been somewhat of a drop off in the frequency of news posts so I emailed Aubin Paul and Adam White to ask them if I could help out. They said yes. Let that be a lesson to all the kids out there: If you really want to do something, just ask. What’s the worst that could happen, they say no?

H: Punknews is one of the older alternative music portals online. What is it about your coverage that separates your efforts from those of your competition?

BY: We strive to give bands of all sizes equal footing in our newsfeed and in our reviews and try not to editorialize one way or the other, although in the last year or so we’ve taken a few light-hearted liberties in that regard. If I can speak for Aubin, I think the whole reason he initially built Punknews was that at the time, there just wasn’t a good site on the tubes that aided discovery of punk music and related genres, so we try to stick to that as much as possible. That covers both ends of the spectrum, too; we know a lot of our readers don’t like it when we cover major label bands, or dumb mallpunk stuff, but the fact of the matter is it brings younger readers to our site and potentially exposes them to other, much cooler aspects of punk subculture. Everyone has to start somewhere; no one was punk when they were born.

H: You launched your own PR company, Ben Franklin’s Grave, back in August 2012. Is PR something you have long been interested in?

BY: Honestly, other than a few fleeting thoughts here and there, not really. I love doing it now, though, but it was a completely happy accident in terms of how it started. My pals in the New Lows messaged me one day, asking for publicist recommendations and right then and there I told them, “Why don’t you just have me do it? I know the writers and have a rapport with them, and you guys *know* me, so why the Hell not?”

H: A pattern that has emerged over the course of our spotlight series is writers turning to PR work in hopes of more steady employment in the industry. Do you think this was a factor in your decision to explore this area?

BY: Oh, it *definitely* was. I was unemployed for a couple months last summer and at the time, thought I could make a few bucks doing press for bands and freelancing while I figured out my next real career move. It’s blossomed into this huge thing since then, in which I almost have too many clients to deal with, but it’s so much fun to work with smaller bands who have the songs and the talent, and just need a little extra push to get those songs out to the world. It’s definitely as gratifying as say, writing a big story for a website or a magazine, absolutely. Which I did not think would be the case when I started.

The fact is, the industry has been shrinking and coagulating for a while now. Most print mags are either going digital-only or ceasing publication altogether, and the amount of money one can make being a music journalist is almost completely unsustainable. Not that being a journalist of any kind is all about the money, but you know, you gotta eat and live, man, and unless you’re a Dumpster-diving freegan, that requires coin. Which is why the vast majority of publicists have backgrounds in journalism.

H: Outside of BFG and Punknews, you also hold down a full time job at a media company. How do you make time to ensure all of your projects stay current and up to date?

BY: It’s a difficult balance, because I don’t consider myself a workaholic. I enjoy spending time with my friends and family, going out, sitting on my couch, watching TV, being lazy, all of that. I make sure to not let my work consume or define me, because I know from past experiences that no matter what you do or how hard you work, 1) there’s no guarantee it’ll translate to advancement, acclaim or even a steady job and 2) your friends and family will resent you if you choose work over them too many times, because when the work is gone — and in this industry, it will almost *always* be gone before you expect it to be gone — they’re still there. You gotta take care of them first, and make time for them.

It’s also important to be bored sometimes. Boredom stimulates thought.

H: Having worked in the industry for half a decade or more, do you ever see yourself in a position where you only have one job title?

BY: There will probably be a point in the next few years where I’m only doing PR and not really writing or reporting, save for an occasional blog or review here and there. I’m still having fun editing and writing for Punknews — I don’t do any sort of paid freelancing anymore — and when it stops being fun or I’m too old, I’ll quit. Right now I’m fortunate enough to have the time to do all of it, though.

H: When it comes to discovering new music, be it for writing or PR, what sources have you found to be the most reliable?

BY: No disrespect to any publications, including ones I write for, have written for or pitch to, but Bandcamp is the best for discovery. I spend almost every Saturday morning browsing Bandcamp for new releases (and buying a bunch), because it’s just so easy to discover new bands on it and their platform is straightforward: no ads, no bullshit. They’re only about the tunes. I wish every band and label had a Bandcamp page.

H: Let’s say the bands are coming to you. What advice do you have for those hoping to catch your attention to help them separate themselves from the countless bands looking for coverage?

BY: First of all, you need to write good songs. Good songs trump *everything*. If you’re not talented, well, it doesn’t mean you won’t eventually do something great but you have to be level-headed about it and know when you’re ready.

Second of all, have patience. Thanks to the internet there are now roughly a billion bands competing for a shrinking landscape, and success won’t happen overnight, if it even happens at all. Set smaller goals at first.

Third of all, if you’re offered coverage, take it no matter the size of the publication. I have bands come to me all the time who want to be featured on Pitchfork or SPIN like, immediately, and it’s cute but it just doesn’t work that way. No site is too small; take interviews with everyone when you’re starting out. It all helps. If you’re working hard enough, generally someone somewhere big will eventually notice you.

H: When it comes to receiving music for review and feature consideration, which services do you prefer and why?

BY: I have to say Haulix here, right? Juuuuuust kidding.

I really do prefer Haulix over other digital delivery services because of its ease of use. A lot of the other delivery services bog computers down with weird bugs, crash problems or hard-to-understand navigation. Oh, and if I have to download some weird client just to listen to your record I’m probably not going to do it, unless you’re Keith Morris or something. Haulix is simple. Haulix is consistent. Haulix is good.

H: If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?

BY: Fan entitlement sorely needs to be put in check. The tumblr generation of music “fans” who leak records, don’t go to shows and generally lack empathy for how hard it is to make a living from playing music because they still live at home and have never had to work for anything in their lives really, really sucks. Not every kid is like that, mind you, but it’s definitely a problem. You’re a human; have some empathy. Don’t be so goddamned self-absorbed all the time.

H: Before we let you go, can you tell us a bit about what you have planned in the months ahead?

BY: On the PR front, there are some records I’m working coming in the fall I’m really excited about: The new Direct Hit! record for Red Scare is honestly one of the best things I’ve ever heard; I’m also gonna be working with a Puerto Rican hardcore band called KDC that I think are really gonna turn some heads. Iron Pier is firing back up with a great full-length from Deep Pockets and an equally cool EP from Self Defense Family that everyone will be hearing from me about real soon.

As far as Punknews goes, I’m just gonna continue to try and make the reviews as useful as they can be. We recently switched to a new daily review format that seems to be resonating. Aubin is also *this* close to finishing the newest version of the site, which will also be the best version of Punknews ever based on everything I’ve seen. He’s still the smartest guy I’ve ever met or worked with.

Other than that, I’m just gonna keep on working and living, man. I live in Philadelphia now, which I happen to think is the best city for punk rock in the world. Life is good.

James Shotwell