Photo by Allison Young
Megan Loveless is a show promoter and the creator of To-Go Records and Nashville Shows To Go. In this interview, we talk about how she got into music, how she started her businesses, and so much more!
How did you know you wanted to work in music? What sparked your interest? I’ve wanted to be a part of the music industry since I was a kid, but thought it was just some lofty dream. Early in high school I began taking guitar lessons, As someone who has to figure out what they want to do for a career at sixteen-years-old, I decided I wanted to go to school for audio engineering as opposed to going to college for health & nutrition, which was the other option at the time. Later in high school, I fell in love with Sub Pop, which sparked my interest in record labels. I didn’t dive deep into the record label idea as a career until my sophomore year of college. When did you start promoting shows? I started promoting shows in 2017. I was a sophomore in college. I started interning for Cold Lunch Recordings in Nashville at the beginning of that year, running the door at Cold Lunch shows around Nashville every week, started meeting lots of bands and learning what was cool and how everything ran. I eventually asked Caroline at Cold Lunch to mentor me and started promoting my own shows through that outlet. They really gave me the freedom to learn and figure it out. What’s the most challenging scenario you’ve faced as a promoter? How did you get through it? Starting out as a promoter can be hard. When a show doesn’t do well, you never want to go back to a band and have nothing for them. I’ve paid bands out of my own pocket before when a show hasn’t done so well or bought a lot of merch just to help them out, especially if they’re touring. Every promoter has had those shows, whether it be from learning how to correctly promote and reach your crowd or you accidentally booked a show during Bonnaroo with similar crowds, for example. Every promoter has had a few shows that didn’t draw. Can you explain the process of show promoting? How do you go about making it all happen? Normally a band will come to you and say “I’d like to play a show in Nashville on this date.” You figure out how big of a draw that band has in town, figure out what size venue would fit their draw, and start reaching out to those venues for availability on that date. My favorite part of it all is putting bills together or finding the perfect bands to add to the lineup that makes people want to come to a show. You get a bill together and figure out how you actually want to promote it. [You] get a flyer, set up an announcement, and actively post on socials to let everyone know about the show. There are lots of different ways to promote a show: advertising, socials, radio underwriting, flyers, etc. You just want to find your target audience for the show and make sure you get that info to them. As a promoter, you oversee the schedule of the show and communicate all production, backline, and details to the band and venue. What’s a typical day like for you? Well, being a show promoter isn’t my full job, just part of it. I have a couple outlets in which I book and promote shows. I do it as part of my full-time job at TMR, and I also do it in my free time through To-Go Records. It’s basically a lot of emailing honestly! Being based in Nashville, do you think that scene inspired you to get into the work you do? I haven’t always been based in Nashville. I’m from Centerville, Tennessee – a very small town a little over an hour from Nashville. I grew up coming to Nashville, but didn’t fully get into the music scene here until 2015 when I started college at MTSU. Nashville did inspire me early in college to start going to shows, specifically DIY shows, and I think that’s where my ideas of possibly becoming a show promoter blossomed. What’s your favorite thing about the DIY scene in Nashville? What makes it so special? It feels like a community. There are several different realms of the Nashville DIY scene, but once you find where you fit into it, it feels like a family. I love going to a show at Drkmttr and running into everyone I know. It feels like home. What influenced you to start To-Go Records and Nashville Show To-Go Menu? I started Nashville Show To-Go Menu in 2018 along with Nashville DIY scene aficionado, Jacob Corenflos. My coworker had come up to me at work and essentially said, “I have this idea. I don’t have time to do it, but I think you would be perfect to do it and I think Jacob would be a good partner for this.” And I kind of took that and ran with it. We just wanted an outlet to inform everyone of shows happening every week in Nashville. It felt like people weren’t going to shows as much anymore and we wanted to change that. I hope we have at least a little bit. To-Go Records started in April 2019. Jacob and I had a meeting where he said he wanted to start a record label to expand Nashville Show To-Go Menu. I said “Sure! Why not!” I’ve wanted to start my own label for a long time, so I was excited to have that push. We now have seven releases, all which I’m very proud of. [I'm] especially [proud of] releasing a tape from DIY legend R. Stevie Moore. Where did the name To-Go come from? To-Go was inspired from our creation of Nashville Show To-Go Menu, so we kept the same theme for our next project. You’ve put on a ton of shows. Which one is your all time favorite? I have a couple that are a close tie. One would be my first ever show as a promoter. The lineup was Boyscott, Houseplants, Snake Cheney, and Harlan at Little Harpeth Brewing in August 2017. The other would be a show I put on at Drkmttr the night before my birthday in 2019. It was for a release show of my magazine I had made for a college thesis called Inoxia Mag, which covered the DIY scene in 2018. Sad Baxter, Datenight, Depression Breakfast, and Iven played. It was a special night for me. Who are your current favorite bands right now in the DIY scene in Nashville? Donors, Safety Net, Heaven Honey, Morgan, Kent Osborne, and many more! Does where you grew up inspire your work in any way? Where I grew up doesn’t inspire my work, but it does inspire me to work harder. It’s the typical story, coming from a small town and aspiring to go to the big city and follow your dreams. That’s what I did coming to Nashville, as cliché as it sounds, and I don’t ever want to take that for granted. Last question: if you could create a line up for your dream festival, who would be on it? I’ll try to keep it short but…Pavement, Bikini Kill, Galaxie 500, Cocteau Twins, The Velvet Underground, Hole, Sandy Alex G, Sonic Youth, The Cure, Squid, Summer Walker, The Melvins, X-Ray Spex, Fugazi, My Bloody Valentine, Arthur Russell, Cut Worms, The Clean, Big Star, Hoops, Black Country New Road, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Stereolab, Lush, and Dry Cleaning are what first come to mind.
Words by Melody.
