Celebrating Women In History Month 1996: A Career in Music Has Always Sounded Good To Her

Date: Fri 29-Mar-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Location: A-9

Quick Words:

Women-Michele-Cousens-music

Full Text:

(feature on Michele Cousens, VP/media relations @record co., 3/29/96)

Celebrating Women In History Month 1996: A Career in Music Has Always Sounded Good To Her

(with photo)

By Shannon Hicks

BETHEL — Michele Cousens has always wanted a career in the entertainment industry, somehow related to music. It is an industry difficult for anyone to break into, made even tougher by legendary glass ceilings that hold back too many talented females. But Michele is a tenacious, hard-working woman who will not allow gender to play a role in how far she is going to go with life.

Today, at age 27, Michele is right where she wants to be: She is vice president of media relations for Phylum Records, an independent record label based in Bethel, her native hometown.

Michele has always had the ability to go for what she wants in life, whether working to gain knowledge in a customer service department or giving an audition for a radio station that so impresses station managers they hire her without question. She is a hard worker, a dedicated employee, say friends and former co-workers, and has always seemed to have a full-steam-ahead attitude towards everything she does.

Phylum Records was established in 1991 by John (Basil) Merlot; he was joined by partner James (Chip) Leonard in 1992. Michele joined the Phylum family in 1995, first as office manager and then as VP/media relationships.

Much of Michele's job is networking. She is on the telephone almost constantly, with radio station directors, pushing the artists on the Phylum label. She's good on the phone: she has confidence in herself and the artists on the label to be aggressive without being pushy, confident without being arrogant, and exudes intelligence without being smug.

"My title is VP of media relations," Michele said recently, taking time between telephone calls and the ongoing research of her job. "It's a fancy title for doing just about everything, wearing all kinds of hats and having lots of fun," she continued with a laugh. Don't let that laugh fool you, however; Michele Cousens takes her work very, very seriously.

"The main thing about my position is there aren't many women who do this. It's a fantastic opportunity for me, definitely something that doesn't come around often for a woman in the music industry," said Michele.

After setting up a working office for Phylum during her first few months with the company — including retail and radio data bases and collecting research — Michele now spends much of her time on the telephone. She calls and confirms radio formats (in-state and college stations), radio directors, sends out media kits and makes follow-up calls for feedback, does research in finding the stores to carry Phylum label artists, and sets up appointments for Phylum's sales staff.

Michele is waiting to hear whether she has been accepted into Women In Music, an organization of artists and professionals in the music industry. The group holds meetings, seminars, panel discussions and networking events for its members. Its membership can gain strength, share knowledge and advise each other in a very male-oriented business.

"This is a great opportunity for women in this industry," Michele says. "It is sort of a mentorship kind of thing, and I am hoping to learn from others' experiences. I'm hoping it will enhance my position here. This may provide resources to me the guys may not have."

Basil Merlot and Chip Leonard, president and vice president of Phylum, respectively, met Michele late last summer when their VP/marketing, Chris Chamberlin, introduced the three to each other.

"The thing about Michele," says Mr Leonard, "is she's focused. She can work very independently. We don't have to sit there and look over her shoulder all the time. She knows her weaknesses, and she expands on that. It's exciting; she grows from it."

"[Michele] is very detail-oriented, very efficient," says Chris Chamberlin. "She is a pleasure to work with," Mr Chamberlin continued. "It's great to have conversations with someone who is so knowledgeable about the business. She has a great attitude, and she brought in a lot of experience. As soon as she came here, she was off and running."

Michele and Chris met through a mutual friend last year when she was working as office manager for a radio syndication company. She enjoyed her job, but was working for someone she describes simply as "difficult."

Michele was not the only person running into conflicts with her employer of the time; the company had a very high turnover rate. But Michele did not roll over. Instead, she had decided to give the job another year before packing it in.

During that year, Michele acted as a sponge: She learned a tremendous amount about the business side of the radio industry, and after the 12-month self-imposed trial period, Michele threw in the towel. This was 1995, when she met Mr Chamberlin.

Phylum Presents was an evening of networking at the Bethel studio last September. People from all aspects of the music industry were invited to meet — from A&R people, marketing people and other indie label presidents — and a Phylum artist entertained. Mr Chamberlin suggested Michele attend the party to see what the record company was all about. Michele worked as hostess at the door, meeting and greeting guests as they arrived.

"I met Chip and Basil that night," she recalls. Phylum is a close-knit company. A small-office atmosphere, friendships are formed as well as strong, supportive working relationships.

"I was able to tell them about my radio background, my management history. Apparently they were impressed with my resume... it was then that I became office manager here."

When Michele entered Phylum's picture, it was a very smooth transition to go in and tell her new employers "This is how an office runs." Michele took care of getting office equipment the company needed, had stationery printed up — things that were needed and necessary, but had been secondary to other projects Phylum had been working on. Long-needed work was immediately tackled and taken down by Michele.

"What ended up happening was, Basil and Chip said `Here's what needs to be done, go do it,'" Michele said.

"Immediately, there was autonomy, there was trust," she adds triumphantly. "It was a fabulous experience for me, having just worked for a maniac... It was nice to come in and have [Basil and Chip] say `We trust you to figure out how to accomplish these things.'"

Making It Happen: A Lifetime of Hard Work

Always drawn to the entertainment industry, even as a child Michele was the one who played disc jockey back in grammar school, inviting friends to her house and spinning the records on her Radio Shack record player for dance parties. At school dances, Michele would show up with records from home, still playing the part of music provider.

"I have always, always had a real strong feeling and pull toward music," she says. When she started college, Michele went in as a biology nursing major. Although she excelled in school, Michele's heart was not in her studies.

She may have been fulfilling her parents' wishes, but career happiness was elsewhere. It wasn't until she quit college and worked full-time as a nursing assistant that Michele began asking herself tough questions: "What do I want to do with my life? What's going on?"

The answer was easy: Only the music industry was going to make her happy.

Encouraged by her then-boyfriend (now husband) Rick, in 1989 Michele applied to the Connecticut School of Broadcasting. This was three years after she had graduated from Immaculate High, a parochial high school in Danbury. Prospective students audition to get into CBS, so Michele put on the headphones and sat in a mock radio studio to read a commercial. She was a natural.

Not only did she impress instructors with her first cold-reading of copy, Michele went on to graduate at the top of her class a year later, being voted "Most Likely To Become A Morning Personality" — the shift to get in the broadcasting world.

Unfortunately, radio was put on the back burner for a few years, not because Michele wasn't ready to tackle it full-time but because, like many jobs, radio does not pay the big bucks until one becomes very big in the industry. For Michele — single at the time and living on her own — it was time to find something that was going to pay the bills for a little while, until she could afford to live on a salary in music a little easier.

Moving out of Bethel, Michele found an apartment in Norwalk and took a temporary job at Micro Warehouse, Inc., a mail-order company in South Norwalk. After temping for two weeks, the company hired her full-time as customer service manager. She worked for 12 months as a telemarketer, earning telephone/customer service experience.

The company's vice president then approached her with an offer to start her own customer service department. This is where Michele earned valuable management experience through the hiring and firing of employees and attending classes or seminars on office management. After two years, Michele again began thinking seriously about a career in radio.

CSB graduates have a lifetime "free pass" to go into CSB studios, so Michele went in to make a tape and presented it to her neighbor, the programming director at Danbury's radio station, WDAQ/98Q FM. The radio station liked what it heard, and Michele was hired on a part-time basis.

Donna Rev, currently the weekday DJ at the station, recalled her experience working with Michele quite fondly. Michele worked at the station part-time, filling in on shifts leading into Ms Rev's show.

"She's got a lot of energy," the radio personality says. "She was very organized, she wrote down everything! Most people don't take that much time, or that much energy, when they are starting, but Michele was very dedicated.

"You have to make it sound like you're not reading a card [when you're on the air], and Michele is always smiling... that comes right through," Ms Rev continued. "You have to be likable, personable — that's the hardest thing to do for listeners — and she's very kind. When she went one-on-one with the listeners, her personality came right through."

Ms Rev also called Michele a "good team player," saying, "She's not concerned with taking over. She fits right into the team; she's not afraid to put out her foot and take a step."

These initiative footsteps including everything from showing up at the station when she wasn't on the schedule, filling in on shifts when other DJs couldn't or didn't show up for work, to showing up at 98Q functions away from the station.

"She always showed up, whether her presence was necessary or not," Ms Rev says. "She was never afraid to help."

After a year with 98Q, Michele moved on to Westport-based AM station WMMM full-time, which ultimately led to an opportunity with 60 Second LP, Inc., in Westport. The chance arose for Michele to work in radio syndication, offering the best of both worlds: 60 Second LP gave her the chance to get back to management, while remaining close to the music aspect of the radio business.

She stayed here for one year; this was the volatile atmosphere Michele was working in when she met Chris Chamberlin last summer. When she was looking to change jobs, Chamberlin offered her a chance at Phylum.

Michele's job at Phylum has been 50-50 in terms of knowledge she brought with her and on-the-job training. When she arrived at the label, she was unfamiliar with the genre of music Phylum holds dear: the folky, singer-songwriter style.

So Michele has spent a lot of time learning the "Who's Who" in the industry, reading and subscribing to trade magazines so she — and everyone else in the office — can be up on what is happening in the rest of the industry.

She also familiarizes herself with who is doing similar things, and how Phylum can do it differently, better. This has been Michele's biggest learning experience with the label.

And while Mr Merlot and Mr Leonard tend to be more of the "business gurus," as she calls them, in the arena of pushing Phylum forward, Michele sees her own responsibility in management.

"It's an exciting process," the young, hungry VP says. "There is a lot of energy here.

"Basil's tough. He's a tough cookie, but he really promotes the idea of women in prominent positions in the music industry and he's really given me a fabulous chance here to do something creative and yet be very visible within the industry."