Interview with Haywire - 11th Hour Technology

DJ agencies obviously forfill a hugely important role in the career of any aspiring, or established DJ - providing them with gigs and contacts, and expanding their horizons exponentialy. Or at least, that's the idea - but how excactly can this be achieved, and how does the agency work to provide the artist the chance to attain their potential? And most important of all, how does the artist convince the agency to take them on?

To attempt to answer these, and other questions, we got in touch with Amanda Burton, founder and runner of Haywire, one of the most successful and renowned agencies in the UK, and more and more so worldwide. Boasting a huge number of the countries finest eletronic talent, such as Two Lone Swordsmen, Daz Quayle, Mark Broom, Bass Junkie, Andrew Weatherall etc., the agency has expanded over time to become a large multimedia company, with projects ranging from on-line record stores (Bi-Wire), to website design.

With the project now including Lou Wilson, its expansion seems set to continue, with new night's in London showcasing its talent pool, and on-line broadcasting of its events. Within all this, they managed to take some time out from the busy schedule to help us out.

We are very proud to present Amanda from Haywire:

11th-hour How long has the Haywire agency been running, and when and by whom was it set up?

Haywire Haywire was founded in 95 as a multimedia outfit, we specialised in creating web sites for small independents, one of the first being Emissions Audio Output. The web [as we know it now] was still in its infancy, we handled the label's mail order, sometimes even their e-mail. The amount of enquiries we had via e-mail about DJ bookings kick started the Haywire Agency. '94 we set up the agency and the club where Daz Quayle [who now runs SCSI] became resident.

11th-hour What is your role within this, and how does a typical day progress?

Haywire I set-up the agency, and last year when we moved back to London Lou came to work for me god bless her! She now handles most of the diaries, leaving me to work on other projects.

11th-hour Do you deal mainly with established artists, or do you take risks with promoting unknown or inexperienced figures?

Haywire We look after some of the finest electro / techno artists around today. Rather than have a host of different DJs and producers we only work with a selection of artists, those who we feel belong here, who often collaborate on projects and whose music was the true inspiration of this haywire hub.

11th-hour How do you gather new artists for your roster - do you search them out or do they come to you?

11th-hour When making a booking for an artist, do you always have a specific DJ in mind for a certain night, or do you just provide who is available?

Haywire If we didn't think both the DJ and the club would enjoy it 100% then we'd turn down the booking...

11th-hour What is the nature of the contract between yourselves and the artists - how much freedom do they have over what nights they are booked for, and how much responsibility for their careers is passed over to you?

Haywire Our relationship has to be built on trust. We look after their interests, travel etc - they concentrate on the music We're here to advise, but at the end of the day the artist is in control 100%.

11th-hour Can you describe the process by which a promoter would book an artist with you?

Haywire Promoters contact us either via the our web site/e-mail/tel/fax, we'd ask them to send details on the event [venue/capacity/music policy/residents/guest DJs past-future/door price etc etc] they usually have someone in mind or ask for any suggestions, we'd work through any suitable options, then enter requests in the relevant diaries. We speak to our artists on a daily basis. Once agreed by the artist a contract is issued to the promoter. The date is confirmed once that contract is signed and returned.

Haywire Most of our artists hate planning that far ahead - 3 months then they start to feel the pressure! ;) however with tours abroad and big events there's often dates in 6/8 months ahead... anything more than that is just plain daft, most of these artists have studio time to fit in, it's difficult enough planning a weekend off.

11th-hour Do you create bookings mostly within the UK, or do you have an international dimension?

Haywire UK and abroad, Europe is really cool at the moment, great crowd, such brilliant people, only a few UK clubs left that are really doing it any more. End of last year we had DJs out in Japan, Australia, Thailand, Russia too.

11th-hour On average, how many bookings would you look to make for an artist each month?

11th-hour Are you directly involved with any other aspects of Haywire multimedia, or is the DJ agency a fully independent entity?

Haywire Haywire has spawned so many projects over the last 5 years, its been fantastic to find so many people believe in what I'm doing… the agency being just one. 2001 will see MachineMaid develop as our creative project.. mother to all, [a number a web sites currently in the making]. Haywire the agency, Bi-wire our on-line record shop [just undergone a re-design, more developments to come], The Haywire Sessions will continue our club events, [a regular London event is about to start.. more details soon!] We'll be launching our own Internet Radio station in spring.. can't wait ;)

11th-hour How important do you see the role of an agency within the structure of the music scene, and do you think its possible for an artist to survive in the scene without an agency?

Haywire Artists can survive without an agent, but why would they want to? When they're travelling [often on their own] they need to know there's someone in the background looking out for them.

11th-hour What are your personal thoughts on the state of the electronic music scene at this time?

Haywire Today I be mostly listening to:

Radiogram
Sigur Ros
John Tajada
Barbara Morgenstern
and various releases on the Focus label

A big thank you! to Amanda for taking time out to answer our questions! Cheers!