Harvey

Isle of Man Music Chart: Harvey… From 90’s Camden to Spotify Success

By Alex Harris • 6 years ago

Feb
2019

Manx band Harvey have been in the Isle of Man Music Chart on and off all of 2018 and into 2019. With a sound a glimmering indie guitars and Crowded House/Teenage Fanclub – esque tunes, they achieved their most successful single release to date just before last Christmas with their gorgeous ballad, “Comet.”

We spoke to lead singer, Stuart Watret, about their journey so far and their plans for 2019.

GM: Hey Stuart, thanks for taking the time to speak to us…so to start with, why not tell us how Harvey got together?

SW: We emerged from the primordial soup that was made from Camden’s Britpop, vomit and urine in the mid 90’s.

I was holed up in a penthouse in Chalk Farm sending out ads in a publication called the ‘Melody Maker’.

Carl Holden answered one of the ads, he came round, I passed him a Rickenbacker and asked him to play and sing along, he did; we were married later that week.

At the reception we sat in the Pembroke Castle thinking of band names. We discovered both our middle names were Harvey and we loved Bristol Cream.

Boom, job done, partnership cemented with a sherry hangover.

Harvey

How would you describe your sound?

Guitar driven indie rock pop.

I hate labels and genres but everybody wants a starting place.

I was into Sugar, Power of Dreams, Teenage Fanclub & falling in and out of love.

Carl had similar tastes and we bonded over a Tascam porta studio.

All that formed our sound – although as time goes by things change and mature.

How do you go about songwriting?

We both write, normally things are 80% formed when we introduce them to each other, we throw in ideas and settle on a path.

These days we have much more time and enjoy the to and fro of ideas, much easier with technology as it is now.

I listen to all the new IOM Chart releases and save what I like. It is also a great introduction to playlists – which as we know are the real currency of Spotify.

Have you ever played live? Are there plans in the future to gig?

Rarely, being on the dole and living in London wasn’t the best idea, so actually forming a full band was beyond us, although we did manage a little showcase at a rehearsal studio.

Apart from that we played a few acoustic club nights in London with our neighbours, the very young and talented Truman Falls.

So who are you main influences?

I mentioned some bands above, but there really are too many, our tastes are eclectic, Scottish folk music, Dolly Parton, The 1975, The Blue Nile.

Our second album will slowly drag us away from the indie guitar side of things.

Harvey’s Latest Single, Sleepwalking, Click the image to listen on Spotify!

Tell us about your success and experience with regards to the Isle of Man Music Chart

We were late to Spotify – but what a great idea the IOM Chart was, not just for concentrating the local talent and its output to a wider audience, but introducing local musicians to their colleagues work. I listen to all the new releases and save what I like. It is also a great introduction to playlists – which as we know are the real currency of Spotify.

Like Francesca May, you managed to get yourselves on to a Spotify playlist with a big following ( a “Greys Anatomy” themed playlist)…did you apply via the official Spotify way through your Artist back office or do you have your own technique of approaching playlist curators? Ad if so, would you mind sharing that technique with us to help other artists?

Since Spotify stared letting artist ‘pitch’ their new tunes via the artists page we have lived in hope of an editorial playlist, but it’s tough; and so far nothing. What most people realise now is the playlists are like a ladder, those at the top feed of those at the bottom, plus twitter, plus PR. If you ask Spotify for the name of a curator they will say, ‘hey no need, if its good we will find it’.

But all the major record labels are on first name terms with these same curators. So as much as Spotify shout ‘it’s an even playing field’ – truth is, it isn’t. If you are not young, pretty, gigging in the uk and with a PR company, you are at a distinct disadvantage.

So what to do?

First, followers – we quickly realised the more followers we have the more people will get your new release on Release Radar playlist each Friday. We used Facebook ads, after a few ads, we hired professional help to analyse why we were not seeing much take up – they pointed out some things that were not working and some things that were. We adjusted our audience and ads, and had more success getting followers.

Secondly, marketing.

It depresses me the amount of artists who release a track, post it on their Facebook page and a few local musician pages. I’m like, ‘is that it’?

When you release something, Spotify knows, and your mums friends (who your mum told to like your facebook page) know. That’s it, the rest of the planet is in blissful ignorance! If Spotify don’t add it to an editorial playlist the IOM Music Chart might be the only exposure you ever get.

Harvey…A Band

For us, that’s why we have to think about marketing, and to really nail it down, a marketing budget. Googling “Spotify promotion” will give you an idea of the market which basically come down to two things. Pay for plays, or pay for marketing to independent Spotify playlist curators; there are thousands of these, some with 100 followers some with oven half a million. These are the playlists the editorials feed off, the more you are on, the more chance of rising up the ladder.

Pay for plays as far as I can tell is not allowed under Spotify’s T’s & C’s and if called out your track could be banned – so I’d be avoiding that.

Pay for marketing bridges the gap between artists and independent curators. You pitch a song at a marketing company, if they accept it you pay a fee and they pitch it at the right independent curators. Curators get paid to listen, but are under no obligation to include your track.

So, if you’re pumping out sh*t – that ‘no obligation clause’ will bite.

Good companies, will work with you to select tracks they think have the best chance of success, they might also share feedback with you to help you understand why you were not successful.

Being on the dole and living in London wasn’t the best idea, so actually forming a full band was beyond us, although we did manage a little showcase at a rehearsal studio.

For us the great bit about this is you see which tracks get on which playlists and the contact info for that playlist is available direct to you – but if they are partnered with pitching companies and earning revenue from listening to potential tracks – then an email out of the blue from you will probably go unanswered; you would need to invest more time courting their attention.

For the record we have had plenty of feedback as to why a track hasn’t made a playlist, get a tissue, dry the tears and move on.

Although huge, Grey’s Anatomy wasn’t our best return, the return is listeners v streams (and saves). You want playlists that have large followers who come back again and again – some stats that tell that story for our track Comet:

Grey’s Anatomy Playlist

Listeners = 3.6k

Streams = 4.7k

Bicycle to Brooklyn Playlist

Listeners = 690

Streams = 3.9k

So I’d prefer more like BTB than Grey’s for all its followers, although, of course, they all count! All of these placements were through promotion companies.

We have used four different companies, and also radio shows that are syndicated world wide – we are still searching for the perfect partners and routes for the maximum exposure and refine the plans with each release.

We think this might be why people are releasing so many songs not dropping albums, if nobody knows you from Adam, and you have 5 followers on Spotify why release an album?

Instead, to us it makes more sense to try and build an audience by releasing a number of individual songs to the point where there might actually be some interest in your album.

As a band, what are your plans for 2019?

Carl wants a new kitchen, I just need to get some more fibre in the diet.

Sleepwalking is just released and we are promoting that for a couple of months; then a 4 track EP in Spring featuring a track called ‘Here Again’ which we have been working on for a couple of years (on and off).

Later this year we will put out the first album, roughly 12 tracks. Then some more singles and probably 2020 the last album will emerge.

At that point we are all transitioning to an EDM group with the keyboard player from the boy band Jules Verne Theory as a dancer featuring gold lame hot pants, (it markets itself right?).