Backstage at the Harvest Festival, you get an introduction to Wayne Coyne, from the Flaming Lips. “Let me show you this photo,” he says.
Digging his glitter nail polished fingers into his pocket, he fishes out a bubble pipe. He dives back into his pockets to reveal the photo to you: the photo of seven decapitated human heads squashed together in a freezer.
All this is just another day in (or out of) the office for Steph Harmon, editor of music and arts magazine, The Brag.
“I still can’t work out what the highlight was: meeting Wayne Coyne, the photo, or the bubble pipe which he pulled out like ‘It ain’t no thang, I just carry this around.’”
Steph Harmon
The perks
Steph started as editor of The Brag back in February 2010. The publication is Sydney’s hottest independent street magazine, talking all things contemporary and new in the music world. It is released every Sunday night around the Sydney area. As editor of The Brag, you’d expect there to be a lot of perks in the job. This stereotype, Steph says, is completely true.
“I get free tickets, loads of CDs (sometimes I’ll get over 20 a day in the mail), and the chance to meet and talk to a whole heap of people, be they artists, freelance writers or music industry peeps.”
Despite this, there is still a lot of work that Steph has to do to make the magazine look as polished and effortless as it does. “The deadline madness and insane workload don’t give me as much time as I’d like to take advantage of all that,” she says.
The Sydney-based editor is set to travel to Austin in March to cover the South by South West music festival for The Brag. “I’m extremely excited about it,” Steph says.
The work
After graduating from University of Sydney with a Media and Communications degree, Steph landed her first job at a publishing company. “I met a bunch of people who I managed to sap some freelance work out of – blogs, event guides and the like – before starting my own music and arts blog in 2006,” she says.
Since freelancing for a variety of publications, she eventually made her mark as editor of The Brag.
“Editing a weekly title, I have horrifically little time to write for pleasure these days – I only take interviews that I’m super keen for, and pass the rest to our team of freelance writers. I’m mostly inspired by the artist. And of course, the need to meet the deadline!”
As editor, she is also witness to a lot of mistakes on the part of freelance writers. The biggest blunder, she says, “Not knowing the product.” She has been in contact with some freelancers who have said, “Here is a 2,000 word essay I wrote about different types of hats that people are wearing in Brazil. You guys have a fashion section right? How much can I invoice for?”
The interviews
Steph says the hardest interviews are the ones with artists she knows on a personal basis. “Getting drunk with a friend over a Dictaphone is all well and good, but deciding which bits of it you can actually use for the story can be excruciating,” Steph says.
And in her job, she has got to know a lot of artists personally, being on the music scene regularly.
But those interviewees she doesn’t know have sometimes left her starstruck.
“I don’t think I’d be able to do this job if I wasn’t so passionate about music, and when you’re passionate about something, that star struck thing never really goes away,” she says.
“I interviewed [American singer songwriter] Sufjan Stevens last year and was so thrilled about it that once I’d hung up the phone, I could remember exactly none of what he’d said. Which wouldn’t have been a problem if I hadn’t been so flustered that I promptly lost my dictaphone.”
The interest
When asked whether she is a trained musician, she answered, “Hell no! I’ve experimented occasionally with guitar and keys, but the results have been without fail astonishingly deplorable.”
Instead, her interest in music came from being around, listening to and learning all the words to Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers ‘Swing the Mood’ at the age of five. “I still can’t hum ‘Hound Dog’ without a seamless transition into ‘Shake, Rattle & Roll’. My parents were dorks!”
When she’s not working, Steph can be found reading magazines, going to gigs, listening to podcasts and eating. “I also watch [comedy TV series] Parks & Recreation. That’s pretty much a weekend right there.”
The tips
Steph’s tips for aspiring freelance writers is simple: “Read lots, research lots and meet deadlines!”
If you would like to learn how to write freelance articles on music like Steph, you’ll learn the skills you’ll need in Magazine and Newspaper Writing Stage 1 or Online Magazine and Newspaper Writing Stage 1.
You might also like...
Posted on: 4 January 2012
