You’ve found the full text version of the Gigsby Giglog interview with Aurelia Group president and top electronic music publicist Lainie Copicotto. If you’d rather just read the summary version with our favorite quotes (we recommend it) click here.
Cisco:
So, here today, I’m having a little interview with Lainie Copicotto. We’re going to be going through publicist – being a publicist – correct? We have a couple of questions for you and we’ll try to keep it simple.
(Lainie laughs…)
Cisco:
Not too difficult. Um, so, you know, I guess we’ll start off by having you tell us a little bit about yourself. I mean, how you became a publicist and what interested you, what interests you about being a publicist.
Lainie Copicotto:
Well um, I kind of fell into the business.At a really early age, you know. I had an older sibling who went out clubbing a lot, and basically took me along one night, dressed me all up with Jodie Watley earrings out and Doc Martins in the early 90’s and, um, I, I fell in love with the music and the scene and next thing I know I had a job as a flyer girl for Limelight and Palladium nightclubs here in New York. And I kind of took that and um, just worked my way up. You know, starting with the little things you know, just sub-promoting until I had my own lists and you know, became a manager and started throwing my own events at these nightclubs.
But in the time I was doing that, you know, I was going through high school and college I didn’t realize that what I really wanted to do was get into a proper marketing role in the music business. And, um, the owner, Peter Gatien of the Limelight, Palladium, Tunnel club, USA nightclubs, um, he was going through stuff at the time, you know, I mean Guilliani had become mayor and we were trying to figure out other ways to generate revenue into our club place
So we had kind of like, started the whole sponsorship aspect of our club nights haphazardly. Just out of necessity because our budgets were cut. They were like, “sorry you’ve got to pay for lawyers, so uh, we can’t really pay for your DJ’s.” So we would go to, you know, restaurants, we’d go to tanning salons, we’d go to anybody, going “I will sell you the back of my flyer if you’ll pay for this thing to get printed.” We started doing all these kinds of events, uh I remember probably one of the last events that I did at Tunnel was uh, for the Moulin Rouge – soundtrack for the movie.
The record company like paid for all of our promotion.They sent us posters, I had people coming costume like it was Moulin Rouge and it was a great promotion and we realized that this is the future. You know, doing these theme parties and events and having them basically corporate sponsored so from there when the nightclubs closed, um, I got into a friend’s website. We were like…this was like when the whole online promotion started and he owned a small website at the time called Club NYC – which eventually turned into Club Planet.
Cisco:
Okay, I think we all know that.
Lainie Copicotto:
Yeah, and we kind of came up with this concept of um, you know, selling mailing lists and selling off, you know, stickies on message boards and getting the online communities to matter more that handing out a flyer on the street, and kind of organically it became new media. It became publicity, it became PR, so… kind of just saying yes all those times and all those experiences kind of put me where I am.
Cisco:
Mmm great, that’s really interesting in terms of seeing the kind of progression of how the industry – also I’m sure you’ve seen the industry go up and go down and all these kind of things.
Lainie Copicotto:
I’m going down amnesia lane right now, oh my God.
Cisco:
Oh no it’s great, it’s definitely good that we’re interviewing. It’s the way to get the best perspective, it’s awesome. Um. So, you know, I think the next question to be touched on is where do you draw the lines between new marketing, different marketing and, you know, strictly being a publicist. I mean there’s so many different types, obviously, different types of marketing. Every day we hear about a new type of marketing: interactive – you know so many different types. Where do you draw the line, you know, from your role or a social media marketer’s role – or is it just kind of all muddled or…
Lainie Copicotto:
Yeah there’s a lot of grey area right now.
Cisco:
Of course.
Lainie Copicotto:
I think that’s some people, um they don’t even know what their role is. They call themselves publicists and they’re not. Uh, you know, I think some people, you know, use the word PR, they don’t really know what it means. Yeah, in my perspective PR is public relations. So, I’m taking my clients and I’m constantly keeping their name relevant in the public’s eye. Um, whether it’s you know, somebody like Paul Van Dyk, you know, doing a remix for Madonna. Or somebody like DJ Rap coming out with a full artist’s album or a charity they might be involved with. Or you know a, a, huge show they might be doing – something that’s relevant, um some people think that, you know, just promoting a night and sending out like a press release, you know, by e-mail is enough – it’s not. A lot of it’s relationships.
A lot of it is, you know, coming up with a lot of ideas for your clients, doing your homework in pop culture and going “hey, there’s a new TV show coming and I want to get you on it – how, how do I get you on with Lopez tonight? How do I get you on Chelsea Handler? Just because we’re in nightclubs and we’re in DJ culture doesn’t mean that it limits us to you know, just being on certain websites or certain magazines. Like David Guetta right now is probably one of the biggest examples of what the machine can accomplish, so…
Cisco:
Well if you want I’d love to go into a little bit more about that with some questions later, but might as well jump to that.
Lainie Copicotto:
Okay
Cisco:
I’m sure it’s something that you know a lot about, and I’d love to hear more. Just in terms of how he’s done and how he’s built his career and what he’s dont to sell and become almost this pop culture icon and what, yeah, it’s great.
Lainie Copicotto:
Like I’m all about it. Go, David, go!
Cisco:
Haha, yeah.
Lainie Copicotto:
Because he’s taking a lot of people who might not have been recognized along the way. I mean Paul Oakenfield did it in the early 90’s back when Slim definitely – I think it’s back when Slim shattered the glass, dealing for DJ’s by doing Brighton and having DVDs, you know, come out. I think that um, festivals like Ultra Music Festival and Coachella haven’t had a lot to do with us breaking through. But um, it’s about these artists and DJ’s and their teams and what they do with these opportunities to make sure that we break through that, that ceiling. Um I think that the deal that David and Caroline did with respect to Virgin and everything that he’s done up until now.
It’s kind of funny when you talk to radio guys who are like Pop radio in the US, and they’re just like “Have you heard about this David Guetta guy,” I remember when he was opening, for like Eric Morillo at like Cheetah and I would be going to, I’d just gone through my attic the other day, and I found flyers for like Winter Music Conference 2002 and he was like in the side room, but it’s great because this sound, this electronic sound, which I think that a lot of us took our cue from synth pop back in the day – is making such a strong comeback that it’s not even – the people aren’t getting influenced by us, they’re stealing from us blatantly. Kanye West is sampling Daft Punk..
Cisco:
Yeah, they’re all electronic.
Lainie Copicotto:
Yeah, you’re looking at – I mean the entire Black Eyed Peas album – I’m not sure if people even understand that it’s not just Guetta on there, Funk Agenda’s on there, Mark Knight’s on there, and much respect to Toolroom, and it’s a beautiful thing. You know, we’re so influential and people want to make fun of us because they’ll see, like, this show, like, Jersey Shore and you’ll have like the Guido fist pump and stuff, but…you know what? I guarantee that somewhere in America somebody has listened to dance music even if they didn’t know if it was dance.
Cisco:
No well, I mean it’s everything. It’s in our culture, it’s become so mainstream almost, which is exciting, it’s good.
Lainie Copicotto:
And if you want to use auto-tune you can blame us too in the beginning.
Cisco:
Naw, haha, stay away from that one.
Lainie Copicotto:
Stay away from auto-tune it’s the devil.
Cisco:
No no, I mean hey, it’s what people like. So…
Lainie Copicotto:
Yeah but, I mean, um, other PR aspects it’s like he’s doing it right. He’s saying yes to every opportunity.
Cisco:
Can you tell us a little bit more about the deal with Virgin, how exactly – what, what are the details kind of?
Lainie Copicotto:
That, that’s a Caroline question. I know because of what they did it allowed several labels to promote him simultaneously and it gave him access to a lot of people that probably smaller labels couldn’t afford. And he, he did it right you know. And Caroline Prothero has been his manager for a long time. Smart lady. Much respect to the ladies too, getting it done for the boys.
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