Sean Denny

It’s hard to believe at just nineteen years old, Sean Denny was just starting his career in the music industry and at such a young age, who knew what he could achieve. He started as a temp general assistant at Sony Music and his career continued from that point. Sean has now had 12 years in the music industry but with what can only be described as a Eureka moment, he might not be where he is today.

Sean started out with his love of music and wanted to be a DJ but one idea lead him to his career now and that idea was just to move to London and work at a record label. Although this can only sound like a non reachable dream to some, to Sean it seemed simple. He told his parents and went on to do a lot of research into what he wanted to do. During his research he stumbled across the Sony website and sending them a CV would seem like the obvious answer to many but this was not the case as he was told that they get sent a lot of CV’s.  Sean did some research and decided to contact them and ask what he would need to do to get into the job he wanted, this is where he found out about a temp general assistant job and after a few interviews and meetings he got the job.  Although it started out as making teas and photo copying it did not damage his determination to succeed in the music industry.

This determination and love for music got him to become a label assistant then a label manager. During this time he was told he would make a good radio plugger and was approached by various people and was attempted to be ‘poached’ a few times. He continued to make moves to various labels including Champion Records and Gut Records. After a short spell away from the music industry, Sean became an independent radio plugger and started work in A &R with RCA which he still does now. He was also offered his own record label under RCA which is called Space in Time.

During Sean’s talk we found out a lot about his career and what he does but he also had the opportunity to give his opinions and advice. The major points of his job as an independent radio plugger is to simply convince people to listen to music that he thinks is good and worth a listen and radio play. As part of his role within A&R at RCA, he helps to build artists and bands up the ranks.

Sean had a lot of advice and experience to give but one main point he continued to make is that you should stay true to who you are, be individual and not to follow what you don’t want to do, just go out and do what you want to do and what feels right. In Sean’s words in the music industry the rules are there are no rules, so just work hard and stick to what you feel is right.

When asked his favourite genre of music for Sean it was just one answer and that was music! This showed that his love and passion for music is evident and a major part of himself and his work. I left truly inspired and if there was anything to take away from this talk is that a good work ethic and passion and love for music is key and everything else will follow.

By Jessica Sansome,  Level 3 Music Technology student