“You’ve gotta have the basics right. You can’t just turn up with a song and say to the label ‘here you go, you do all the work’.”
Mark Alexander
Golden Robot Global Entertainment is a worldwide brand that prides itself on being home to some of the most legendary bands and up-and-coming artists in the world. Starting with just one band in 2015, the company has expanded quickly to meet demand and spans a multitude of genres and styles. They are a truly global network, with bands such as Filter, Orgy, The Answer, Shepherd’s Reign, Rose Tattoo and countless more on their successful roster.
But there is much more to Golden Robot Records than meets the eye, with Mark Alexander, Golden Robot Global Entertainment Manager, joining HEAVY to tell us about some exciting new developments that will benefit musicians and artists of all levels of experience and stature.
“Golden Robot Records started nearly ten years ago now,” he began. “It basically started because my son was on Australia’s Got Talent – he was about nine at the time, he’s 21 now – and he nearly won the show. Coming out of the show, we thought, we don’t want him to be a novelty. We want him to have some sort of legacy. So we put him together with a couple of great guys and fantastic musicians – Steve Balbi was one of them – and they made this great album. They called it Orbiter and the band was called Moon. When I shopped that around, nobody was interested, nobody gave a shit. So I thought, you know what? I’m gonna do this myself. I’d given everybody a little present to thank them, a little golden robot, and when it was time to name the company we named it Golden Robot Records. We started off hard. We were signing some great bands in the States and Europe. I was working with Derek Shulman, who was the ex-president of Roadrunner Records, and him and I went along and got involved in quite a lot of things from about 2015, and we just kept growing. (but) this is a different year for us. We’ve had the hits and misses over the years. We’ve had some things that have gone to number one. We’ve had some things that have been a disaster, but that’s the business. The good thing about being an Aussie and working in the global world is if you make a mistake, you can apologise and fix it and get on with it. If you’re doing something well, we’ll celebrate it with you. It served its purpose, and it served us well, and we’ve worked with some great bands. We’ve got global distribution through physical and digital – and we’ve just changed recently to an even better set up – great PR, great marketing people. My team today is the best it’s ever been. We’ve had a few changes over the last six months, and I’ve got a really good team that just gets on with it. We’re just in it for the music and to get the word out about Aussie music across the world. It’s exciting.”
In the full interview, Mark tells us about the new developments at Golden Robot Records including Robot Distro, how to best get your music out there for mass consumption, what sorts of things a band should have done as a unit before seeking representation, how to successfully negotiate the music industry, how this all helps Australian bands and music, their new singing with rock band ORGY, future developments and more.
