Nuclear Blast Internship Diary - Day 1

Over the next three weeks I'll be interning at the London office of Nuclear Blast, one of the most succesful Heavy Metal record labels on earth. 

For anyone curious about how a record label is run, I'm going to document each day on here - detailing just what goes on for an intern in the music industry.

 


Monday 26 October 2015

I arrived at the office before everyone else. Something I was hoping I wouldn’t.

The manager, Mark asked me where I was from and seemed surprised I didn’t have a Greek accent. Then Nik, the radio and TV guy I’d met while interviewing Dani Filth came in. So far everyone had been really friendly.

My job at the label consisted of posting links of Tumblr and Twitter. First time I’ve used both platforms in many many years. Putting up things about whichever band is on their books. They also said I should write the odd press release or ‘retrospective’ about a band every now and again, if I have any knowledge of their past output.

Lisa, the head of marketing told me the average life of a Tweet is four minutes. Something I really was not expecting to learn – that was the most interesting thing I learnt on the first day. Now I really felt like I’d transferred from journalism to PR and was visiting a whole new world of the office realm.

Posting the same thing over and over from different magazines and media partners was the bulk of my day. Such as the new lyric video from Anthrax who are set to release their new album next year. Video was being promoted by Metal Hammer, Team Rock, Prog Magazine and Classic Rock.

Something about Overkill covering a Johnny Cash track also made the rounds.

In the afternoon, all the others went into a meeting leaving me to cut up the latest edition of Zero Tolerance magazine and stick pages covering label bands into the scanner. They said I could play with the sound system so I blasted Nachtmystium and Woods of Ypres as I taught myself how to use a Stanley knife. 

Eventually they all came back and I spent the last hour filling out spreadsheets detailing which latest song had been played on which radio station last week.

In all it was a true experience of how the music industry functions behind the facade of celebrity and teenage angst and idolatry. So many millions of kids grow up wanting to be the next big thing, but do they ever spare a thought for those who help them get to that level of stardom? Here’s to all the backroom kids who keep the cogs grinding when giving the world its entertainment.