Empire Music Promotions is a new music promotion company working with independent bands, using the slogan of “Music Worth Listening To”. Eager to find out more, we caught up with CEO/founder Ryan for a chat.
Can you introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about what Empire Music Promotions does?
My name is Ryan Donnelly and I am CEO and Founder of Empire Music Promotions. Our goal is to work with serious independent musicians that need quality press in order to open up further doors in their music careers. Along with offering guaranteed quality press, we have a host of other useful services to help out our musicians; like “professional press release” help, “proper social media awareness” and “live venue support” to name a few.
What gave you the idea to start up Empire Music Promotions?
I have been a music journalist for quite a while now, and it has been a great experience to be able to work with so many talented artists through the years. The feeling of joy I get from musicians contacting me, excited about their great new article in a prominent publication or blog has been one of the best artistic exchanges I have had. Some of these musicians I wrote about I found randomly on the internet, and when I asked them for their “press release” package, they simply didn’t know anything about it. I decided to take a more active approach to helping musicians gain some better exposure, and offer them the tools to get noticed faster.
Are you working with any clients at present?
Right now we are excited to be working with some truly great artists. Starting with the very talented Laura Hickli, this emotionally driven songwriter is focused on creating music meant to heal. Not only does she embrace the strength to be found in vulnerability, but she manages to elevate the listener’s spirits through creating honest and deep musical soundscapes. Known as ambient acoustic and dark folk, Laura is much more than that, but you will have to check her out for yourself. She can be found in the Empire Music Promotions Artist Spotlight currently.
Another one of our artists that I would like to mention is the socially aware and very talented hip-hop artist J.Smo of BUNKS. This musician has a real love of old school hip-hop, and a serious ear for what makes a great track. He is also one of the hardest working musicians I know, as not only does he continue to create stellar music for himself, but he also produces music for many other artists as well; throw in a personal music blog and a music video, and you can see why we wanted to work with him.
How did it all come together when it came to working with these clients? Did you approach them, or did they approach you?
I would love to say that we have been around for many years and artists are just lining up to be represented, but I like to keep it all as honest and transparent as possible.
We officially launched the website a couple weeks back, after a long time of building professional bridges and friendships. We are now into the marketing phase of our company, and we know that it will take a while for the almighty GOOGLE to see us and share us with the public.
When it comes to Laura Hickli and J.Smo, we came to them, because their music fits our companies musical ethos “Music Worth Listening To”, and they have just that. We are quite excited to shine a light on what they have created! I have no doubt that as long as we continue to believe in the artists we choose to work with, and we continue to provide worthy quality press, that we will continue to get approached by great independent musicians.
If you could work with any band or musician, who would it be and why?
That is an interesting question, because many of the independent musicians that I want to work with have not been discovered by me yet, haha, and they still need to send us their music. However, that being said, I am excited about ANYTHING the incredible Alan Sacha Laskow (Perfect Fifth-Audio Architects) puts out! The creative mind behind the very impressive band Every Hour Kills, Alan is just one of those artists that deserves to continue to be talked about, and let me say now that if you are looking for a great sound engineer, look no further than this guy.
What’s been your proudest moment so far?
I am quite proud of the website to be honest, but nothing makes me more proud than when we receive great press for our incredibly talented clients.
Has there been any setbacks, or anything that hasn’t gone to plan?
Like every business venture, you are going to learn as you go, and people like to say that what you are doing is going to be hard, or that it will step on the toes of someone else, but the world is a big place, and I think we can all share a piece of the pie; I think so anyway, haha.
Are you looking to work with any other bands or musicians at present? And if so, how can they get in touch with you?
Yes, we are looking to continue to work with many more musicians, although with that being said I should mention that we won’t work with every musician. We require our musicians to operate at their most professional level before a campaign starts. They will need to send us a “professionally recorded” EP, LP, or Single (or a link to it to be specific), and if you don’t have one, check out Alan Sacha Laskow at Perfect Fifth-Audio Architects to take care of that.
We also work with musicians that have something special to offer. Not every band is ready for the marketing side of things, and our industry contacts expect us to provide music worth listening to.
We work with musicians that we want to work with, because caring about our clients is what makes this whole process worth it. We want to get you press, and we love sharing it!
If you want to submit your music, or if you have any questions, you can either go to our official website (linked below) or you can go directly to our contact form.
Where do you see EMP five years from now?
I see us providing musicians with an even more vast amount of guaranteed press opportunities, and even more professional help on the business side of their music.
It is the music business, and it is always changing; and we understand that the musicians need to focus on making the music, while we focus on keeping up to date on how to show that music off!
And what do you hope to achieve for the rest of 2016?
I hope to continue to discover and promote great new independent musicians.
Thank you so much for your time, we are huge fans of the great work that can be found at Soundscape Magazine.
Great Article!