Hello and welcome to a brand new week of music industry insight and advice here on the official blog of Haulix. We are beyond excited to share the content we have in store with you, so please take the time now to bookmark this page and ensure you never miss another update. [content stuff]
There are a few paths one can follow in the world of entertainment journalism and blogging to find a lasting career, but few are as demanding or rewarding as becoming the editor-in-chief at a popular music publication. Between writing copy, building posts behind-the-scenes, editing other writers’ work, interacting with bands and labels, sifting through promos, managing staff, and of course writing your own original works, it’s a full-time job even if the paycheck says otherwise. The returns for those that put in the work necessary to succeed in these roles however, are both vast and lasting. You not only build a reputation for yourself and your team, but also a living, ever-growing body of work that goes beyond your individual efforts and makes an impact on the world at large. A great editor-in-chief can lead a group of contributors to create industry-changing editorials and reviews, and in our opinion that is exactly what the person at the center of today’s spotlight feature has accomplished with their career.
Doug Moore does not consider himself a journalist. He’s the editor-in-chief at Invisible Oranges, but when asked about his job he prefers to describe what he and his team of contributors create as skewing closer to music criticism than anything resembling news. Either way, the content found on IO is indispensable, with article after article offering insight on the latest and great heavy music to be found anywhere online. There are admittedly not a lot of blogs we read every single day, but Invisible Oranges is one of few we rarely go more than a handful of hours without visiting, and in the interview below we learn about the man that keeps things running smoothly on a day-to-day basis.
If you would like to learn more about Doug and his efforts with IO, please take the time to follow the site on Twitter. Additional questions and comments can be left at the end of this post.
H: Before we get started, would you please tell everyone your full name, job title, and the site you’re most often associated with:
D: My name is Doug Moore, I’m the editor-in-chief at Invisible Oranges.
H: Thank you again for participating in this series, Doug. I am a big fan of your work with Invisible Oranges. Has music always played a major role in your life?
D: Perhaps not always, but I’ve been interested in it for as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest clear memories involve listening to my parents’ music in their car as a very small child.
H: When you think of formative moments and experiences that steered you toward the career in music journalism you have today, what memories come to mind?
D: First, I should make it clear that I am not a journalist. Journalists report on facts; they work for institutions with apparati designed to support that reportage. Though I do regularly post news at both IO and BrooklynVegan, I’m not out there pounding the pavement or filing FOIA requests. IO doesn’t have a fact-checking desk or an ombudsman. What I do is much more like arts criticism than it is like journalism.
To answer your question: I grew up in a musical household, in the sense that my parents are big music fans who played rock records a lot when I was a kid. They also encouraged me to pursue my interest in writing generally, as did several teachers I had when I was in elementary and high school. There weren’t many people in my town who were interested in heavy music, so I ended up exploring the nature and history of the genre mostly through music writing — metal blogs, metal magazines. I admired the way that skilled music writers could discuss the music in a way that added something to the listening experience itself. Since I couldn’t find anyone to form a band with, it made sense to try my hand at writing instead. I started writing about music for fun at 16, and started writing for LastRit.es (which was then called MetalReview.com) about a year later. (MetalReview was founded by Matt Brown, who also founded Haulix.)
H: Who was the first band or artist you found yourself obsessing over, and how did you originally discover them?
D: The first album I really loved was Grave Dancers’ Union by Soul Asylum. My parents bought the album when it came out in 1992.
H: Let’s talk a bit about your history with writing. When did you first begin to consider a career in journalism?
D: Again, I don’t consider myself a journalist. But I actually never expected my career as a music writer to become even as serious as it has — I considered it a hobby until very recently.. I suppose that I’ve just taken advantage of the opportunities that I’ve been lucky enough to encounter.
H: Do you recall the first piece of music journalism you wrote?
D: I’m not totally sure, but I think the first album review I ever wrote was of a Curl Up and Die album, which was (fortunately) never published anywhere. My first publicly posted review was of Annihilation of the Wicked by Nile.
H: If my research is correct, you journey Invisible Oranges in 2011. When did Invisible Oranges first come on your radar, and what events lead to you applying to join the team?
D: I initially came across IO in 2009, but I didn’t become clear to me what a special writing talent that our founder Cosmo Lee is until about a year later. His worked ultimately hooked me on the site. I happened to be between writing gigs when Cosmo stepped down from the site and opened up an application process for new staffers, so I applied.
H: Was there any application process, interview, or trial period involved with joining the team? If possible, please tell us a big about getting started with the site.
D: It was pretty simple. I sent Cosmo a résumé and some writing samples. He liked the stuff I submitted and asked me for a few trial pitches, and we went from there.
H: You’re currently the editor of Invisible Oranges. When did you gain that title, and what exactly does it mean in regards to your duties at the site?
D: I started as IO’s editor in September of 2013. My core duty is to ensure that we run at least one piece of quality music writing per day. This duty entails a great many other tasks — writing copy, building posts in WordPress, editing other writers’ work, interacting with bands and labels, sifting through promos, managing IO’s staff, running the site’s social media accounts editing images for use on the site, and so forth. I haven’t done much tech-side development of the site, but otherwise, I pretty much do it all.
H: Without going too in-depth, please run us through a typical work day:
D: I have multiple jobs aside from IO, so walking through my workday would involve a lot of info that isn’t super pertinent to this interview. Suffice it to say that it’s not terribly glamorous and involves a great deal of e-mailing people.
H: Invisible Oranges joined the BrooklynVegan family in 2013. What did this acquisition mean for the site, and how – if at all – has it changed the way you run IO?
D: BV purchased IO well before I took over as editor, so it hasn’t changed the way I run the site.
Though BV has always covered metal, its coverage is more news-oriented and does not involve as much analysis and commentary. The two sites essentially share resources; BV has an excellent set of industry resources at their disposal that have done a lot for IO, and IO shares a great deal of its relevant commentary with BV.
H: Do you have any current openings on the IO team? If so, what should people do if they are interested in contributing to your efforts?
D: I am always open to pitches from new writers. Those who are interested should e-mail me at editor@invisibleoranges; I typically look for some background on the writer’s taste, some writing samples, and some notion of what kind of stories the writer is interested in putting together for the site. There’s no formal process for joining the staff, but people who contribute a certain number of pieces and who seem invested in the site eventually get added to the masthead.
H: When it comes to receiving music for review/feature consideration, which distribution platforms do you prefer and why?
D: I have typically had very good experiences with Haulix, but in general, I strongly prefer platforms that allow me to sample the material by streaming it before I download it. My hard drive is very, very full.
H: There are a lot of up and coming acts featured on IO. Where do you turn when hoping to discover new music?
D: A combination of sources, as do most music writers, I suspect. Some new finds come from promos; some of them come from friend recommendations; some of them come from pure serendipity, or a good live experience.
H: What advice would you offer unsigned/independent talent hoping to one day appear on IO?
D: We accept unsolicited music submissions, though we don’t cover all of them. If you want your band to appear on IO, the first thing you should do is focus on recording good music. I also strongly prefer streaming promos to promos that require a download. After that, it helps to write an easy-to-read pitch e-mail that is reasonably free of spelling and grammar errors — describe your band and provide any relevant biographical details, but keep it relatively short. Play up the stuff that makes you weird and distinctive — that’s what people will remember.
H: You’ve accomplished a lot in your career as a writer, but I am curious what drives you day-by-day. What are your current career goals?
D: Between my various jobs, I work between 60 and 80 hours a week every week. My schedule doesn’t give me much time to reflect on where I’m going next, but I put a lot of effort into making sure that IO maintains a standard of high-quality, thoughtful writing about heavy music. Hopefully it shows.
H: Aside from paychecks and steady employment, how do you measure success in your career?
D: Numbers can tell you a lot, but they don’t always tell the whole story. I read every reader comment in an effort to get a sense of what our audience is thinking. But honestly, my main method of gauging success boils down to reading the stuff we post and asking myself whether I am proud to be associated with it. I suspect that I’m a harsher critic of our output than most readers.
H: If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
D: I’d like to see musicians get paid the way they deserve to be paid.
