Even the Stars had to Knock on Doors

For those who are toiling away wondering how you could ever hope to achieve stardom, given your current situation that you feel needs to drastically improve – and do so right away – take encouragement from this week’s guest blog.  You’ll see that the big stars didn’t start into music one day and wake up the next sitting on top of the charts and the entertainment world.  Tony Michaelides, the guest from Episode 129 of “Now Hear This Entertainment” and the author of The Insights Collection: Lessons Learned From Rock And Roll, offers up this look at when he was working with a band in Europe that was just getting started out who became one of the biggest in the world.

In 1980 I was working with U2.  I’d been taking them in and out of radio stations prior to the release of their first single, ‘11 o’ clock tick tock’ and trying to get them in for interviews wherever I could.  They had released three singles in the six months from May to October that year and we had been working relentlessly driving up and down the motorways to talk to whoever would have us.  And then more of the same upfront of the release of their debut album, ‘Boy.’

You hoped all the hard work would pay off and that opportunities would come your way.  You’d take some risks, take a chance on something.  It might all go pear-shaped but you’d never know unless you gave it a try.  It’s the reason you try it in the first place.  If you believe it enough you won’t need convincing and you won’t need to convince others.

November that year was incredible.  There were a few of us at Island Records who believed in the band and we were all convinced they could be huge.  Rob and Neil in the press department had done an unbelievable job getting journalists along to see them play and were starting to get some really good feedback.  All their efforts culminated in an NME (New Musical Express) front cover at the start of the year.  I’ve rarely seen a band work so hard at cracking the UK.  The previous December they had done, I think, six London shows in ten days.

At that time there had still been no significant breakthrough with any national radio or television exposure and we all knew we would struggle to survive on press alone.  It was a catch-22 situation; in order to maintain the great press coverage they (the press) would need to see others pick up on the band, and to get radio and television interested you needed the press.  We were at the crossroads.  Something needed to give.  We needed to get that break otherwise it would be impossible to keep the momentum going.

I received some amazing news.  Tony Hale, the Radio One producer who was based in Manchester and therefore a contact of mine, loved the band.  Were they available to record a session for the Peter Powell show?  WERE THEY AVAILABLE?  Too right they were available!  Around the same time, maybe a week or so sooner, I got confirmation that Granada TV’s network kids show ‘Get it Together’ wanted to book them.  I couldn’t believe my luck.  All my Christmases had come at once.  I say luck but in all honesty I had been working hard on the band for most of the year.  We all had and genuinely felt we deserved this break.  This was the most significant result we’d had up until now from national radio and TV in the UK.  Now we were really starting to get others to believe in them.  At this point we were starting to think, just maybe…..

Tony Michaelides now resides in Florida but worked for many, many years in the UK, with clients that ranged from REM to The Police to Bob Marley, Matchbox Twenty, Elvis Costello, and Peter Gabriel, among many others. His career spanned more than 30 years and even included being asked to serve as the publicist for David Bowie’s “Earthling” tour.  Hear him tell more of his U2 story on Episode 129 of NHTE.  Visit his website and/or find the icons there to connect with him on social media.

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