Rock’s Bullhorn

Mitch Schneider Company: Mitch Schneider Organization Born: Bronx, New York; 1956 Education: Sociology major at City College of New York Career Turning Point: Seeing Lou Reed perform in New Jersey at 18, writing an unassigned review of the concert, and getting it published in the New York rock publication Good Times. Most Influential People: Musician Richie Furay of Buffalo Springfield and Poco; film director John Waters; and Andy Warhol. Personal: Lives in Tarzana with his wife Rana Bendixen-Schneider and daughter Sorrell Schneider. “Our pets include exotic birds and truly spoiled cats.” Hobbies: Writing country songs. The song “Wheels Came Off” appears in the film “Off The Record,” currently airing on Amazon Prime, and its soundtrack album. The song was co-written with Aaron Beavers of the band Shurman. For the past 15 years, Mitch Schneider has run press relations firm Mitch Schneider Organization from an Encino office, but his career in PR goes back decades earlier. He has handled publicity from the MTV era to the digital age, creating awareness for David Bowie and Prince as well as Encino residents Tom Petty and Slash of Guns ‘N Roses. Schneider has publicized myriad musical festivals and happenings across the continent, from Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Electric Daisy Festival and Stagecoach Music Festival, to OzzFest, All Points West Music & Arts Festival and Cypress Hill Smokeout. Originally from the Bronx, he moved to Hollywood in 1979. Since 1988, Schneider has been living in the Valley, starting out in Valley Village before relocating to Tarzana with wife Rana in 1992. “We wanted to move to a place where the parking and rent is more attractive,” he said. Schneider spoke with the Business Journal about his storied career as well as transitioning from the musical scenes of the Baby Boomers and Generation X to today’s post-Millennials. How did you cross paths with Johnny Rotten? In 1996, we were approached to do the Sex Pisotals reunion. It came with this press conference at the 100 Club in England. The brilliance of Johnny Rotten was that he knew that everybody was going to attack and accuse him of doing the tour solely for the money. So he looked at them, with a beer in hand, and said, “You and I, we have a common cause — We’ve come for your money!” Thus, with that, he pre-empted what the press was going to throw on him. They called it the Filthy Lucre tour, that’s how it began. What was Rotten like behind the scenes? Honest, direct, funny, cynical. Did not suffer any fools. Just one of the highlights of my careers. Johnny Rotten, John Lydon (real name) — it’s the same person. He puts a lot of care into the image, the intonations; dead-on performances, dead serious. Any memorable experiences with him? I remember when the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame wanted to induct the Sex Pistols, the Sex Pistols wanted no part of it. I said, “John you’re going to have to come up with a statement because you’re not going.” He wrote this handwritten letter (telling them off). It was just really funny. They probably did the most punk rock thing they could do. Who are some other long-running clients? We work with Heart. They signed with us in 1987 and we were with them through 2001 and came back in 2016. In the 1980s, I worked with Poison, Kiss, Aerosmith, Whitesnake, Shotgun Messiah, Babylon A.D. If memory serves, we did that (1987) “Crazy Nights” (Kiss) album. Tom Petty used to live in Encino. I was Petty’s publicist from 1987 to 2003. Who else have you worked with? My longest term was with Ozzy Osbourne. He started with MSO in 1987 and ended in 1999. Then the reality show took the publicity in-house. And in 2005, he came back. By 1987, wasn’t Black Sabbath finished? Ozzy was already deep into his solo career. We worked with their recent reunion, the creation of an album, the release and tours. We were there for the birth of OzzFest in 1997 and 1998. The first OzzFest was two cities, Los Angeles and Phoenix. Was OzzFest all Ozzy’s idea or did his wife Sharon Osbourne have significant input? I really don’t know behind-the-scenes, except that Ozzy and Sharon wanted to launch a festival because Lollipalooza had turned them down. How did you publicize OzzFest back then? To capture a national spotlight, MTV was a force, Rolling Stone and Spin were really big. Was publicity easier back when you had so many print outlets: Rolling Stone, Spin, Blender, etc.? It’s different. Some major print outlets may be gone but it’s been replaced (by websites and outlets with strong online presence): NPR, Music, Pitchfork, Stereogum, Vice. If you’re into hard rock, there’s a multitude of sites that you can go to. I can tell you because I used to be a rock critic. Certainly, I miss the classic rock magazines like Crawdaddy, Cream and Circus. There was a wonderful point of view in those magazines. I do miss that. How did bands benefit? There was so many magazines, there was Faces, Circus, Hit Parader. Part of our job back then was to get multi-placements. A group like Poison, they would go from releasing their album’s first single to doing the video for the second single. Those groups were getting wall-to-wall coverage throught the cycle of an album. Today, it’s more about building anticipation once the album is out. It may do well or may not do well, but an artist will go, “Hey, what about my other band?” How has the internet affected your work? The Stray Cats put out their press release today. If you go to their PR, you can click and watch a documentary of their new album. So now fans are able to read about the news and go to Spotify where you can interact about the music rather than just read about it. I think the paradigm is better. The whole internet is the democratization of everything. You don’t have to wait for a gatekeeper. There are artists who have their own podcast; they’re becoming their own media. Given how live concerts have become critical to an artist’s bottom line, are new groups at a disadvantage over established acts? There are so many bands. Their advantage: they can put out an album without worrying about Columbia (Records). They have to make videos that make them look top-shelf. The bands have to be savvier on social media. In some ways, the bands have it easier but the flipside is that (for) some of the bands to break through, it’s hard for them to get attention. That’s why they hire companies like ours. You represented Kiss at a time when they had removed their makeup. Without the makeup, they were on the same playing field as other bands. But they had wall-to-wall radio play, at that point. They could play stadiums. Was there a sense of danger working with 1980s hair metal bands? They were so much fun to work with. One of the things that I loved about hair metal is that it wasn’t serious. It was no-holds-barred fun. We were doing the Whitesnake video (“Here I Go Again”) with Tawny Kitaen on the car with (lead singer) David Cloverdale. It was just fun. And we all know what happens next — grunge, who were calling out Kiss and Black Sabbath as influences. How did you transition from heavy metal into the grunge through the 1990s? MSO has always changed with the times. We knew the right managers. We were able to move into the Black Crowes, Soundgarden, Green Day. I think it was about moving with the times. Did it feel like a different era? I can tell you that the (grunge) music was great but it was not as much fun backstage. Poison, whether you like it or not, backstage, they would have massive speakers pumping out music, plenty of booze to go around but the fact is with those bands, it was the greatest party every time they performed on stage. When did you workwith Aerosmith? We worked with Aerosmith from the end of “Permanent Vacation” (1987) through “Pump” (1989). We parted ways with them at the beginning of “Get a Grip.” In the MTV era, they had wall-to-wall coverage in magazines but they were not headlining. Did you do publicity for any rap groups? Not really. Why not? It didn’t fall into our lap. We did work with Snoop Dogg when he had his tour Blazed and Confused. A year or two ago, we did a rap tour called the Rolling Loud festival (and Cypress Hill Smokeout). How is doing publicity for an artist different than promoting a tour package? When you do publicity for an event, it’s a very fininte point of time. It’s like two or three days, so all of your attention is on making your announcements line up, keeping media interest drummed up, making sure that the media’s needs will be taken care of. You may have 30 photographers shooting your festival but the headliner has approved only four photographers. We get to be the bearers of disappointing news. Does that really happen? It happens all the time. Why? Are they trying to control their image? Yes. Why do you think the Coachella festival worked? We were the publicist on Coachella for Goldenvoice (Productions founder and Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival co-founder) Paul Tollett. The thing about Coachella is they would always have good taste and Godlenvoice always has taste. If you look at the bill, it was very curated, it had big names on it but it also had daring choices. It may have been 75 percent bigger acts — Rage Against the Machine, Beck, Tool, Morrissey — but as you start going down to the smaller print, you’d have Chemical Bros., Fatboy Slim, etc. What was it like in Coachella’s early days? The festival struggled. Electronic music had not reached critical mass at the time. Paul Tollett lost money, he had to sell his house. With Coachella, people didn’t know what to make of it. The timing was really bad, it was only a short time after the bad Woodstock (in 1999, when violence broke out). The first Coachella only had 23,000 people attending and they needed 30,000 people to break even and they didn’t get it and that’s how you lose money. If you miss 8,000 or 9,000 people, that can make a difference. When did Coachella become profitable? The year that Radiohead, Kraftwerk and the Pixies played in one year (2004). That was the year that Coachella reached critical mass. Why did you stop working with Coachella after the first 12 years? They took the project in-house, they expanded their staff, they very graciously parted ways for us. But then they invited us back. They said, “Mitch, you have an evergreen pass.” And I’ve taken them up on it, I’ve been back. Why is your company in Encino? Next door is Total Assault, one of the big social media companies. On Balboa Boulevard is the Country Music Academy. What you have in the San Fernando Valley is all the business managers for the rock ‘n roll music world. One of them represents me and it’s massive — NKSFBGO — and you have David Weise and Assoc. There are even more on Ventura Boulevard. So much of the income of musicians is managed by these business managers in the San Fernando Valley. That’s something that goes back to the ‘70s and ‘80s. What makes the Valley so ideal? When I left Levine Schneider — that was the first company I worked for — and we moved to Sherman Oaks, when you’re with your clients, they asked me, “Why would you want to be in the Valley?” I said, “that’s where ‘Ellen’ tapes, that’s where ‘Access Hollywood’ tapes.” It’s 818. So many of your recording studios are in the Valley. It’s so easy to get around. When you’re going to a studio, they say, “Hey, bring the journalist to the rehearsal.” It’s very easy. The San Fernando Valley is just a great place to run a business. What festivals and projects are you currently promoting? We work with the Ohana Festival, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam’s festival in Dana Point. We also put out a press release for the band Live, which has partnered with (the band) Bush for a co-headlining tour in the summer. The Stray Cats will release a new album for the first time in 26 years. Do you still get excited coming across new acts? I think we’re a good combination of legacy and new. I remember Alanis Morrisette came to MSO three months before “Jagged Little Pill” (the biggest female debut album of all time) came out (in 1995). I isolated a song called “Mary Jane,” which was about eating disorders. I told her, “I don’t know if there’s a subject that’s been covered.” I was her publicist for that whole thing and all of her subsequent albums. I had a 10-year run. How do you feel knowing that “Jagged Little Pill” was recently adapted into a Broadway show? You never know that the person coming into your office can be a major star, a cultural shape-shifter, so we get a kick out of doing new and branded names.