Popular

Popular is a multi-faceted music company based in Hoxton, London. With a team of 10 we manage artists, run the live events calendar at Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen and Electricity Showrooms, promote shows all over London, run clubnights in Manchester, Reading and Europe, a record label, a booking agency, radio pluggers, have a blog/magazine called Not So Popular and also produce TV and radio shows.

Leon Wright – Founder / Director

Leon’s introduction to music started by him being in a band himself where he toured UK/Europe for 3 years and learnt how not to manage a band which turned out to be a good place to start. He then jumped in the deep end and managed controversial punk band Selfish C*** to critical acclaim before taking on the bookings at infamous music venue Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen in East London. He set up Popular in January 2009 initially to promote shows of his own, release a few 7′s and manage a few acts (including Wild Palms who signed to One Little Indian). After three good years of building, in 2011 Leon concentrated on taking Popular further by setting up all the various other arms, expanding the current areas (including a deal to release albums across Europe with Pias / Tri-tone) and employing a great team to do it with him.

Leon says “the idea behind starting Popular was to set  up a fully comprehensive service for artists so we can work with them on all levels – be it managing them, booking a tour/promoting shows for them or releasing their music. I feel offering everything is a modern way of doing things by spreading the risk in these troubling times in music and at the same time knowing the artist will get the best possible service in all the different areas they can excel in. The ultimate aim is to ‘break an artist’ using this model … OR HAVE FUN TRYING!”

Ed Pearson – Head of Promotions

Ever since picking up his first pair of drum sticks at the age of 3, Ed’s passion in life has been music. There were thrash metal bands at school, playing Reading (his hometown) pubs at 16. But the draw of London soon became too much, and he moved up to study Architecture of all things at UCL. Turning to music even in his degree where he developed sound-art installations he finished his final years exhibiting in The Barbican and Slade as well as setting up CLUB.THE.MAMMOTH…

Starting in late 2009, with fellow band member Daniel Silvester Taylor-Lind, it kicked off with a bunch of Friday nights in Dalston but soon burst out to clubnight residencies all over London. Now an integral part of Popular team; as well as promoting clubnights for the likes of Too Pure (for their monthly single launch parties) at The Old Blue Last and Clash Magazine (for their magazine launch parties at The Lexington), he now also books Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen alongside promoting many other Popular nights up and down the country. The capital has also seen Ed & Dan Dj the likes of Fabric, Koko, XOYO, Offset, Field Day, 1234 Shoreditch and they have previously run stages at The Stag and Dagger and The Great Escape festivals.

Olly Stock – National Radio Promotions / Popular Radio

Olly started life in music part time at Incentive Records, then part of Ministry of Sound and run by the founder of XL Recordings/Positiva whilst he should have been studying at college. His job was simple, to listen through all the vinyl/CD/tape demos that were sent in and filter them into ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ piles for their A&R team and also representing the label whilst DJing abroad. From there a stint working at Hyperactive, part of the Music House setup on the phones speaking with DJs led to a job offer at Fleming Connolly Lander a leading Independent National Radio & TV promotions company, here he stayed for three years learning the world of radio promotion. Whilst here he worked on an array of artists/records from No.1 selling female in the world two years running Katie Melua to OK GO, Silversun Pickups, The Blood Arm, Kabeedies, Tinie Tempah, Common and Will.I.Am to name a few and working with labels EMI, Sony, Warners, Universal as well as many Independents. He also covered the plugging for The Sunshine Underground culminating in their 2007 NME Indie Rave Tour alongside New Young Pony Club, CSS and Klaxons. Since 2008 Olly has been an Independent Plugger initially under the moniker of 10 X Better Music and also freelanced at Virgin Records. He now heads up Popular’s Radio Department including their new radio show on internet station Shoreditch Radio.

Monica Melissano – Popular Agency

People might say Monica has a jetset lifestyle, she does! forever travelling between her native Italy (Genoa) and her residence in Hackney. In the past 3 decades she’s done almost everything related to the music biz: being a radio Dj from the tender age of 13, writing books about Brit-Pop and Radiohead lyrics, working as a journalist for various national Italian magazines (interviewing bands the likes of Placebo, Blur, L7, Interpol and Radiohead along the way), working as the head of music for Radio Città del Capo in Bologna for 8 years, and finally setting up her own label and booking agency (Suiteside) in 2001 – getting European press coverage and tours for the bands on the label like Candies, Morose, Damien*, The Banshee, whose last album “Your Nice Habits” was even chosen by BBC6 Tom Robison as “album of the year” in 2008.  As agent she has booked Italian and European tours for the likes of Xiu Xiu, Casiotone for The Painfully Alone, Azure Ray, Patrick Wolf, Swearing At Motorists, The Telescopes, Mono and many other international acts. She started working with Popular in late 2009, first booking Wild Palms (a Popular Management band) in Italy, and the relationship grew from there. Having now lived in the UK for the past couple of years, she’s developed her own impeccable roster of UK and Europe talent that’s now represented under the Popular Umbrella.

Daniel Baker - Popular Agency/ Head of Branding

Dan began DJ’ing house, techno and electro music from a young age, right throughout university but upon seeing Erol Alkan DJ for the first time, mixing indie music in to his to his electro sets, his eyes opened to a world of possibilities.  After leaving university he went on to work at labels including Brille, with bands such as Good Shoes and The Knife, and Lucky Number Music with bands such as Darwin Deez, Friends and Caged Animals. He also has a background in live promotions and running club nights, previously programming Tooting Tram & Social in South London, putting on bands and DJ’s such as James Yuill, White Denim and Fenech-Soler right up to bands such as Eagulls’ and Two Wounded Birds first London shows. He then went on to set up AmajorAgency, booking bands with Claire Coulton, before joining the newly formed Popular Agency as part of Popular. His current roster is very diverse covering many different genres, which reflects his taste, drawing influences from electro to indie music. Dan also heads up Popular’s branding arm, working with numerous brands and magazines to implement music strategies as well as a writer for Record of the Day.