Monday Music Meeting : Mushroom Group

Staff Writer

Welcome to a new segment on Radio Today – our Monday Music Meeting.

This is where I have a chat with a record rep about some of their key priorities at the moment.

You get to find out a bit about the artist / song plus get to hear it, see a clip or whatever else is interesting about the song.

It’s like a meeting with a rep in this neat little package. Might also be good to share with the rest of your programming team so they know what’s around.

Today I’m chatting with Myles Williams, National Publicity & Promotions Manager for the Mushroom Group. So let’s get into it…..

Myles: We’ll kick off with British India, the single is called ‘Summer Forgive Me’. British India signed to Liberation midway through last year, since then they’ve been in studio recording this record. It’s more of a mature, more confident sounding British India. Their previous records have been punchier rock records but this goes beyond that sound.

One single has already been serviced ‘I can make you love me’ :-

https://radiotoday.com.au/music/BritishIndia.mp3
or hear it here

That song had some love at Triple M, Radar Radio and triple j jumped on it straight away and put it on solid rotation. It also came in at #41 on the Hottest 100 and we’re just about to tick over gold sales for that single.

The album, Controller, is out March 22. Off the back of the album release we’ve got a national run of dates across cap cities and regional.

‘Summer Forgive Me’ has already been added to triple j on the first week of service, it’s also getting played on Radar Radio and was recently serviced to Triple M and 96FM Perth.

It was in the top 20 played on triple j and 10th most added song to radio in its first week.

Mark: It’s got a good hook, have a listen…

Mark: What's up next Myles ?

Myles: The Rubens, Lay it Down – taken from the bands self-titled album. They signed to Ivy League Records early last year. Their debut album dropped in September and debuted at #1 on the iTunes chart and #3 on the ARIA album chart, 'My Gun' was the first single.

With adds across pretty much all formats for that song. We had the Today network, Nova, Triple M and triple j on high rotation as well as a triple j feature record and it got to #10 on the Hottest 100.

The album was produced by David Kahne who has produced Paul McCartney, The Strokes, Kelly Clarkson and Regina Spektor. When David first heard ‘Lay it Down’ he approached the band wanting to work with them which led to him flying them to New York, putting them up and producing the album within his studio.

The record was mixed by Jeremy Wheatley who’s worked with U2, Taylor Swift, Empire of the Sun and Robbie Williams.

Just as a bit of background, The Rubens are 3 brothers from Menangle, which is just outside of Sydney, plus drummer Scott, their best friend from school.

The album and ‘My Gun’ have recently ticked over gold sales. The band are currently touring Europe before returning to Australia to play shows with Bruce Springsteen. They then head to the US to play some dates before returning home in April for a national tour in all major cap cities.

In its first week of service ‘Lay it Down’ was the 5th most added track to alternative radio.

They write a real punchy, bluesy, rock song. Given that we had so much success with ‘My Gun’ it’s a band that can crossover to all formats and we’re starting to see that with some of the regionals jumping on ‘Lay it Down’ already.

The Rubens have also recently signed to Warner Bros in America which will see a worldwide release excluding Australia, NZ and Asia.

The video below features Aussie actress Abbie Cornish.

Mark: Cool, let's check it out….

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Mark: This next song from Lowrider is great, love it.

Myles: Where did you grow up ? You’re not an Adelaide boy are you ?

Mark: What is that supposed to mean ? (laugh) You say that as if it’s a bad thing !! (laugh)

Myles: no no no (laugh)

Mark: I remember we supported the guys at Nova in Adelaide. They’re great, very cool.

Myles: Yeah the love out of Adelaide is really strong for these guys.

Their new album 'Black Stones' debuted at #67 and was recorded between the Red Bull studios in LA and Chapel Lane Studios (Adelaide).

'Golden Sun' is the first big priority off the record and has already had some triple j play and has been officially added to Nova national late nights.

It’s through the Illusive label (Bliss N Eso etc).

We recently took the below video to TV. It was shot in SA, actually on the salt flats north of Adelaide.

They also recently played in Adelaide at The Depot as part of the Fringe Festival, it was their album launch and that sold out within half an hour.

They have now hit the road to tour this record.

The video is awesome, it’s a great video !

Mark: agree

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Myles: Next one I’ve got for you is Robert De Long with a track called ‘Global Concepts’. This is one of our international artists who’s on the Liberator label.

This is taken from his debut record called ‘Just Movement’.

This is the first major priority off the record that we recently serviced to commercial radio. triple j have been on this now for a while, it’s sitting up in high rotation and from all feedback from them the response to the song whenever they’ve played it has been really strong. They’ve also had a lot of requests for it. It was also their second most played song last week.

Last week we had Nova Brisbane add it ATB and Nova national nights.

It also got played on The Bump (Today networks night show) last week too.

This week ‘Global Concepts’ was #12 in Top 20 songs on the alternative airplay chart.

Robert grew up in Seattle but is now based out of LA and is already touring in the states and building his fan base.

To get an idea of what Robert’s live shows are like, check out the video below. It gives you an insight into how he’s a one man band. He plays the drums, guitar, keys, he’s got a joystick that distorts the sound. On his Letterman performance last week he had a Wii controller that he was flicking around which was also distorting the sound.

Mark: Yeah I saw that in the clip after he played the drums and wondered if that was a Wii controller ?

Myles: It’s pretty awesome to watch.

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Myles: That of course isn’t the radio edit

Mark: I love that crunchy sound with a catchy hook.

The next one on your list, alt-J Breezeblocks, you’ve obviously been working this for a while now. Did the Hottest 100 #3 debut mean you have it as a priority for commercial radio again ?

Myles: The Hottest 100 chart did give this song another kick. It’s one of those songs that everytime it gets played on radio we see a massive spike on the iTunes chart.

With all the weeks we’ve had it at radio you can really tell it’s starting to connect and it’s on-sold to album sales. This is a really long-term band for the label. The album came out in June last year and it’s still going strong. The album has just ticked over gold sales and the single ‘Breezeblocks’ has just gone gold also, which is perfect timing because we had them out here for Laneway Festival.

Them coming out for Laneway was their second visit to Australia. The first time they came out they played Melbourne and Sydney. Both shows sold out within 15 minutes.

triple j have been really supportive and we recently had Triple M on the east coast jump on this – Sydney and Melbourne ATB and Brisbane at nights. We've also had some solid support from Radar as well as Nova 106.9 (ATB) and national late nights on the Nova network.

The album's been like a yo-yo. It has stayed within the Top 20 (peaking at #9) and has been in the ARIA charts now for 11 weeks.

The album has also gone gold in the UK selling over 350,000 units.

Off the back of Laneway they announced a one-off show in Sydney which sold out in less than 3 minutes. They’ve got this really strong fanbase over here. It actually works out that Australia is their highest charting territory in the world.

The Frontier Touring Company have just announced that alt-J will perform a special one off headline show at the Metro Theatre in Sydney this Wednesday, February 6th.

Mark: Last up Myles, have you got a song or artist that’s one for us to watch out for in the future ?

Myles: I want to introduce Georgi Kay to radio land. I thought she is an artist that could be good to put on everyone’s radar. We're yet to have an album release date but will have something scheduled for later this year.

triple j have jumped straight onto the first official single ‘Ipswich’.

Georgi is a 19 year old from Perth who’s been writing songs since she was 10. She taught herself how to play guitar on her Dads electric.

She grew up listening to a lot of her parents music – Bruce Springsteen, Rolling Stones, The Beatles as well as The Verve, Arctic Monkeys and Coldplay.

There’s quite a big vibe on Georgi at the moment. She was recently nominated for a Grammy for Best Remix as co-writer and vocalist on Ivan Gough’s ‘In My Mind’, which also won an ARIA for best dance release last year.

She wrote ‘Ipswich’ while she was vacuuming which is pretty funny.

The song is also being featured within a TV mini-series called ‘Top of the Lake’.

So here’s a taste of Georgi Kay ‘Ipswich’

https://radiotoday.com.au/music/GeorgiKay.mp3
or hear it here

Thanks to Myles for taking the time out to share these Mushroom Group priorities with us.

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