David Bowie

Steve Martin, founder of Nasty Little Man PR, talks about working with top clients like Paul McCartney, Foo Fighters, David Bowie and more.

If you build up goodwill with a client and tell them, “This is the exception” or “This is the one person who you should talk to,” you can get someone who is press-averse to trust you. You have to be really adaptable, do a lot of research and make sure you’re making the right choices, especially when a lot of my artists don’t like to do much of anything. At some point during the meeting, I remember [then-label president] Gary Gersh saying, “We’ll have ‘Hello Nasty’ name tags for every record store employee and ‘Hello Nasty’ shopping bags at every music chain.” I was like, “What is going on?” That’s when the band broke it to me — they did a really good job of making sure that didn’t leak to me. They’d always target Dave and say, “You think the drummer from Nirvana is going to be as big of a rock star as this band you’re turning down?” I’d always say, “I just like their music better.” I never understood why somebody would want me to represent them if I didn’t like their music that much. I write the entries, email them to him and he tells me whether he likes them or not. Very DIY: I had a small one-bedroom in the West Village and I was servicing press out of my house, [the landlord] was willing to look the other way because the building wasn’t zoned for business. When I got back from that trip, my first call was to my business manager to ask him, how do I whittle the roster down just to the stuff I love and go back to being more hands-on? You’re just a nasty little man!” I thought that was so funny, but it reinforced my belief that I had to figure out a way to work for myself. It got me back into gauging when was the right time to ask each band member to do the interview and going over talking points with the writer — basically, being a publicist again. Managers would say, “We like working with you, but we’re getting offered a seven-figure deal from Interscope.” Finally, I went to a couple of them and said, what if I started a company just doing what I do? Back then, you’d go to the show by yourself and make friends there — some of my closest friends to this day are people I met in that scene. I was the first-born kid, but the last to find my special purpose.