Education Guide: Unified's Nick Yates On Life After Study

Briefly describe what you do. I work as the Head of Artist Management for Unified. I oversee all the functions of the management side of the company and provide support to our artist managers as well as working directly on artists Illy, Violent Soho, The Kite String Tangle, Nina Las Vegas and Montgomery.

What did you study? I studied at JMC Academy in South Melbourne for two years (2005–2006) to attain an Advanced Diploma in Music Business. In 2007 I went on to do a third year of study at RMIT Melbourne to attain a Bachelor of Arts (Music Business).

What extra-curricular stuff did you do during study to give yourself an advantage? I just tried to immerse myself in the band scene as much as possible. One of my best friends was working as a stage technician for Kisschasy, who were just starting to have some commercial success at the time, so I put my hand up to help him whenever there was jobs to be done. This experience eventually led me to being a guitar tech myself, going out on national tours with bands such as Trial Kennedy, Horsell Common and Behind Crimson Eyes – through which I began to make my first significant contacts within the industry.

Is higher education necessary if you want to work in the music industry? Higher education definitely isn’t mandatory; I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would say otherwise. It’s also a very relationship-based industry – “It’s not what you know but who you know.” That said, studying does provide significant advantages. It gives students a basic understanding of the music industry; it’s impossible to get a true understanding of the music industry without practical experience, however courses such as the ones I studied are great in giving students a basic understanding of each of the different facets of the industry. Studying can give students the encouragement and drive they need to go and actually obtain a job in the music industry. There was a work experience component attached to my third year of study at RMIT through which I was able to get my first job in the industry, working for a boutique artist management company in Melbourne. Without this component of the course actually pushing me to go out and get a job I don’t know if I would be where I am today.

Any advice for someone who wants a job like yours? Studying is a good place to start if students are in the financial position to do so, but the best advice I can give is to just immerse yourself in the industry as much as possible. Go to gigs and introduce yourself to bands, their sound guy, the venue manager, whoever. Offer to tune their guitars, sell their merch or drive their van. If there’s a record label you like, offer to do data entry for them, answer their phones or buy them coffee for a year. Do whatever you can to get your name out there and build a rapport with people in the industry, and if you’re good at what you do, the rest should follow.