Yahoo Finance My first boss: James Brown, journalist and Loaded magazine founder
The people who helped shape business leaders
James Brown is a multi-award winning magazine editor, founder of first lads' mag Loaded aged 27 and author of Animal House. He is also a creative lead consultant for a number of leading brands.
I had two bosses who helped me significantly at a time when I was still very raw, didn’t eat vegetables, had a child's diet and no social skills or filters.
First, a fellow called Tony Stewart opened the door for me when I had my fanzine and began writing for a paper called Sounds. He quickly realised that I had the passion, contacts and eye for bands who were starting to make it. I gave him five covers on Sounds in seven weeks and I rewarded him by going to work for NME.
Read More: My first boss: Hovhannes Avoyan, Picsart founder and CEO
One month into my role, NME announced a new editor, Alan Lewis, who was furious that somebody had recently been appointed to the staff when he had been discussing the job. But he saw something in me and within nine months gave me the features editor’s job. I was still only 22.
From the outset he had given me basic tips such as the importance of always taking notes. When I ventured out onto the road, US hotels would have those little pads and I still occasionally find an old pile of papers with Metallica’s setlist and a load of scribbling. I still do it today — if you write stuff down the job is easier when you get to the end.
Alan gave me the platform to use my confidence. At the time I joined, in 1987, sales had started to dip to around 70,000 per week. By the time I left four years' later we were back up to around 130,000. It was phenomenal really and that was down to Alan.
He was very inclusive in his outlook. The NME had been quite snobby and elitist and the people there really should have been working on The Face magazine as they were interested in cool, new things rather than new, popular things.
The key to NME’s success was delivering great content, interviews and reviews on artists that people were genuinely keen to know about; Happy Mondays, KLF, PJ Harvey or more established artists at the time.
Read More: My first boss: Tony Jamous, CEO of global HR platform Oyster
The structure I learned from Alan was that twice per year we had to promote the paper. In April and September we had front cover CDs or cassettes and the content had to be spot on, with a hot, emerging artist like Sinead O’Connor and mixing it up with a confrontational band like Public Enemy, someone mainstream like Bananarama and then a real NME stalwart like New Order.
That combination of cool, populist and different aspects of an artist’s outlook is how we built the sales up and not being exclusive.
The worst case scenario would be when Alan said T’Pau would go on the cover. They were nowhere near the NME market, but they were in the Top 40 and the reality was that when you broaden the outlook, you could attract a new market. The same with Iron Maiden, who had their first massive hit with Bring Your Daughter… to the Slaughter after releasing their record on Christmas Eve and “to scare the living daylights out of Cliff Richard". We sold huge copies and some of those readers stayed.
When I joined the NME, which was under IPC Media, there was no cohesive direction. You can have diverse content if you are appreciative of each of your team’s interests and their commitment to it. What Alan did was getting us going in the same direction and we all shared a common belief in the music, whatever artist it was. Being a strong editor meant the paper also did well.
I took these attributes to Loaded when IPC were looking for someone to start a new magazine. There was no attempt to be everybody’s friend, it was all about making a great publication. The broad church, looking for new acts and combining them with heroes worked for Loaded. We weren’t trying to be cool.
It was Tony on Sounds who, referring to decisions that were unpopular with the existing staff, once said, ‘If I wanted to make friends I would join a f***ing country club’. Meanwhile, Alan’s way of leadership was to root out those who were problematic. It wasn’t a case of having ‘yes’ men, but he was popular for it and usually came down the pub with us.
When I joined Loaded he said that when I got my own office to always leave the door open. Alan’s trick at NME was to leave the door open, lights on and jacket over the back. At 4:30pm, staff would think he was still there but he had actually gone home early.
Read More: My first boss: Sharkey, top Irish artist
The key to everything when it comes to the necessity of print is that people used to buy newspapers on a Saturday night for the football results. Now it’s at our fingertips. Something that can still be attractive and delivered in a tangible format in a magazine is long-form, passionate, informed articles, which simply don’t prosper online. There is still a generation alive who take interest in that.
The big challenge for print magazines is that they are not necessary anymore. Max Hastings wrote about taking over as editor at The Telegraph and one of the first things he did was move the weather to a less prominent position. Readers were furious and the reality now is that people wouldn’t care as it’s readily available on our phones.
Music itself originates and regenerates when people go backwards and mix with contemporary and retrospective influences. The curiosity of music creators and music fans means that some of them will look at print, or look at using vinyl or cassettes because it offers a different experience and access to what they are already doing.
James Brown was speaking at Web Summit in Lisbon
Watch: Disney's joint sports bundle 'addresses consumer demand'
Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.
