WAM Festival Speaker Profile: Adam Christou (RTRFM)

Name: Adam Christou

Organisation and Position: RTRFM 92.1 - Music Director

How did you first become involved in the music business? I've always loved music! I had a friend who was the music coordinator at 3RRR back in 2007, he suggested I try radio out and encouraged me to do my first graveyard radio shift. From there... I've done everything from intern at venues and booking agencies, work for a record label and plan and undertake national promotions campaigns for a variety of artists.

What's your area of expertise and what experience do you have? I guess for me... it's always been about music curation. I've always loved making mixes, mix-cds and playlists for friends. Now I do that professionally - helping curate all the incoming music that reaches RTRFM and selecting our key music editorial across the programming grid. While I have previous experience working in promotions and publicity, these days I'm mostly listening to music and working with our broadcasters to create exciting, dynamic radio programs.

What topics will you be mostly talking about at WAM? I'll be discussing music publicity and promotion, particularly talking about what it's been like to work on both sides of the fence as a publicist and as a music director.

What do you hope to personally take away from the WA Music Conference and WAM Festival events? Looking forward to watching a whole bunch of great local bands play the Saturday Spectacular - always a lot of fun! 

What's one question about the music industry you'd love to have the answer to? "What comes next?"

One piece of advice to make it in the music biz? Make sure you have SOMETHING else in your life to keep you preoccupied from time to time. I've taken up swimming - it's nice to have a small mental holiday and not think about music every now and then.