Day in the Life of Jaddan Comerford (UNIFIED Music Group)

CEO and founder of UNIFIED Music Group, Jaddan Comerford tells us about his beginnings in the music industry and what he's up to now. As he details many aspects of his work his passion for artist management, his business and the wider music scene is evident.

Pictured: Jaddan Comerford

Introduction – describe yourself and tell us what you do.

No worries. I'm Jaddan Comerford and I'm the CEO and founder of UNIFIED Music Group, which is a company based out of Melbourne, Australia, with offices in Sydney, LA and London. We're a music company that manages artists, we have record labels, we own festivals, merchandise business, and a number of other businesses within the music space. And basically, I have two main jobs, which is CEO, but I'm also a manager. So out of all the businesses within the company, management is where I spend my time when I'm not in meetings about spreadsheets and stuff like that as the CEO. So, I manage Tash Sultana for the Americas. And I manage Vance Joy with my wife, Rachael. And then I work with a number of other managers in the company across other artists like the Violent Soho and Dashboard Confessional. Yeah, just always helping out as much as I can with all of our incredible talent.

Left: ILLY, Right: Jaddan Comerford

What is the first thing you do when you wake up?

My first thing I do is yoga, in the morning. So, get up at 5:30 and I do physical yoga practice. And then I do a little bit of reading, like inspirational kind of stuff. And then I journal, I write my thoughts down and all this before I check my phone. Then that's where I’m sort of from seven o'clock onwards, in the kitchen, making breakfast, checking emails, calling people in America if they need me. That's generally how my day starts.

Pre-COVID… Do you travel to your offices in London and Los Angeles much? Or are you mainly based in Melbourne?

Yes, so I actually lived in New York from 2014 to 2016. And then I moved to from LA 2016 to 2018, which is when we established our first office. When I was in New York, I just worked from our apartment and had a desk at Warner Music. But in LA, we actually opened an office so I spent a lot of time over there. I moved back to Australia last year. I was in LA in February and came back just before the borders shut. I go to London quite regularly. But most of my time spent split between the US and Australia.

UNIFIED Music Group Melbourne Office

What is your home office setup looking like at the moment?

My wife and I live in a three bedroom apartment. So basically, we've just turned each spare bedroom into an office. Rachael and I both have an office. It's pretty simple. There's this painting behind me. There's my yoga mats in front of me. Also some books and there's a Vance Joy Double Platinum album plaque. And there's a Hold Steady poster over there who are one of my favourite bands. And there's a plant and some Rolling Stone hand sanitiser. Yeah, pretty simple. For a while I was working from the couch just being like, I'll go back to the office soon. Then I was like, I better get this thing set up.

What would one expect to see Jaddan Comerford doing during a work day?

A lot of my week is recurring weekly meetings, so weekly check-ins with my different teams in different parts of the company, so I'm a big believer in repetition. Some people might think that's mundane, but you know, using like an exercise analogy, the more you work at something the better you get. So, if you check in weekly, you've got a better chance of improving process and quality of communication, relationship and all sorts of things. So half my week is genuinely just check-ins like that. And then otherwise, it's just being there for people when they need me. And then for me, my time is then filled in with making myself available for opportunities like this interview. Or just doing my own work and reading and planning and thinking about the future.

Lunchtime – do you have a favourite spot for a quick bite or do you have lunch prepared?

When we're in the office in Richmond we often take lunch, just because we do cook a lot. But if there's one thing I miss, there's a place near our office called Pick a Pokit and it's these awesome falafels, and vegetarian. It's like falafels and stuff like that in a in a wrap with all these great salads. I miss that. But the best part of COVID honestly is cooking lunch every day, like cooking really good curries and pastas and salads. That's been such a highlight. I think COVID lunch is the win.

It seems like you have lots of one on one involvement with your teams, and communicate with them a lot. How important do you think that is in running and managing a business?

I think it's crucial. I think that you need to be available for people, you need to support people if you want them to succeed and if you want to succeed yourself. I also think proactive communication is key because if we did this every week for the next year, you know good things would come from that. I've often said this meeting might go for five minutes some weeks, and it might go for an hour other weeks. But the point is that we do it. We check in and we see where we might help each other. And so, that proactive repetition is really important I think. If you like managing an artist, Zoom has been one of the best things for communicating with artists during this time. Some people have said that they're actually communicating with their artists more now than they used to. Mostly because it didn't feel like there was a need to proactively check in - it was more like getting a call about something or getting a text about something and then act upon it. Whereas it's now it's like, let's get on the front foot. Even some of our teams do daily calls, where every night and every morning the team Zooms in and checks in and yeah, we will learn a lot about communication from COVID I think.

Is there a song or playlist that gets you motivated throughout your workday?

Yes. Well, what am I gonna say for this one? I have the weirdest listening habits. I listen to this band called The Regrettes from LA. I listened to lots of different stuff. I used to spend a lot of time listening to our artists. And because we work with quite a lot of artists, there are often new demos and unreleased music that needs to be listened to.

By 5pm how many emails do you think you've sent in a day?

There's a lot. There's at least 100, but I don't even know if that's a lot. Is that a lot?

Yeah, that's a lot.

On top of meetings as well, obviously, a big part of your role is communication.

I feel like, I'm like this old guy adapting to like new technologies, but I've started using Slack finally through COVID just for certain relationships and that's cut down a lot of emails. Emails are great, but they can be very time consuming and very time wasting, unfortunately. I like Slack because I was taught this thing, that email was invented to replace the fax machine. You wouldn't ever text someone, or fax someone like, “hey, do you want to get lunch?” Whereas people seem to want to converse via email. Email was invented to replace fax and the fax was there to distribute memos. And that's why for me, Slack has become a really good thing, because it's that ability to ping someone and say, Hey, what do you think this song? Or check out this video. So yeah, my new email saver is Slack.

Do you have any tips on working in the industry?

Yes. Interning, studying and managing artists, that's amazing, and that's exactly where you need to start. I was just really lucky that I had a friend that wanted to start a record label when I was at uni. And so that's how I got into it and managed to get busy really quickly. So, I didn't ever do internships, because I was kind of interning with myself. But yeah, I think just grabbing all the opportunities you can. And for me, also pre-uni, I was involved with Freeza and The Push, and did all that sort of stuff. So I think just making the most of the opportunities that are out there. Just sitting back and waiting obviously isn't going to work. But that's not going to work in any industry, so if you want something, you've got to go get it.

Finally, any advice on balancing work and home life?

And the balance. It's a hard one because it's something you care about, right? You presume the artist you work with, you're passionate about, and you don't have a problem with texting them at nine o'clock at night about some awesome idea or something like that. Whereas if you worked for an insurance company, and you were texting your boss at nine o'clock at night about insurance, they'd be like "leave me alone, this is crazy". But there is a point where it does become too much, and it's just trying to find that line. Boundaries are important because, particularly with artists, you need to have a professional relationship as well and being available out of formal business hours is important. But it shouldn't be over used, it shouldn't be abused, it shouldn't just be an entitlement. It should be only used when it really needs to be because you're also going to be at your best during the work day. This is when you're going to get the best work done if you've spent time with your friends and family and you've spent time making sure you're healthy and rested and educated and all these things. So yeah, boundaries are important. And also, you've just got to decide what you want out of your life because music and the music job, it's a lifestyle too. For me, I didn't move to New York to turn my phone off at five o'clock, and you know, watch neighbours, and then watch the news or something like that. I moved to New York so I could be out every night watching bands and networking and getting to know people and all that sort of stuff. And in the same way, once COVID opens up again, I can't wait to go to gigs - you know, The Grace Darling, the Northcote, The Corner and hang out. And it's fun, right. But once again, it's a balance and making sure you're looking after yourself and being physically fit, because there is a lot expected of managers as far as the ability to do your job. And if you're out on a Tuesday night, and you have heaps to drink or something, there's a good chance that Wednesday is going to be a hard day to be productive.