Emma Van Duyts: “I was about seven or eight years old, and I watched the Madonna Like A Virgin tour on video. I thought she was the coolest fucking person I’d ever seen in my life. I started picking up magazines like Smash Hits and Just Seventeen and got super into music. There was a magazine article in Just Seventeen about someone who was a publicist, and I was like, ‘That’s what I’m going to do with my life.’ I got my job at Warner Bros. as a press assistant on my 17th birthday. The rest is history! It was Madonna’s fault.”
Alyx Holcombe: “I’ll say it: Avril Lavigne, man. 2002. Avril Lavigne! I was like, ‘Oh my God, she’s so cool! I want to look like her.’ All of her videos, early on especially, were like, ‘Yeah, I can be really cool and be one of the dudes as well.’”
Clare Maxwell: “I had the red [Hayley Williams] hair. Hayley’s definitely up there as, I don’t know, playing with the boys, right? And being like, ‘I can do anything I want and I can be as cool and as much of a part of it.’ She just owns it.”
Jasmine Hussain: “I don’t know if anyone remembers [the TV show] Warped Tour Roadies? I saw Lisa Brownlee and she was the tour manager for Warped Tour. I was like, ‘Holy fuck, this is life-changing. There are women that run this shit and they are amazing at what they do.’ From that moment on, I just completely looked up to her.
“At my first Slam Dunk, I was freelancing. I was doing artist liaison and PVRIS were playing on the main stage, which was my stage, and Lisa was tour manager. We worked together the whole weekend and after she landed back in the U.S. I got a text from her saying, ‘You were amazing this weekend, it was great working with you.’ It was such a great, emotional moment. I just burst into tears.”
Emma: “She’s a fucking badass! She ran Warped Tour like a tight ship. You didn’t fuck around with her. She doesn’t take any shit but she’s also lovely.”
Anna Maslowicz: “I grew up in Hong Kong. I absolutely loved music but there was nothing, no live music. When I moved back here for university, I went to gigs all the time. I was just like, ‘This is what I want to do.’ I went to Goldsmiths [university], I did a media degree, and then afterwards I was temping.
“I started at Universal and about four days in and they were like, ‘Hey, do you want a permanent job?’ When my boss was doing publicity for Hole, Courtney [Love] just used to ring and send these really long faxes. The other day I found a 19-page fax that she sent one day. She [would say things like] ‘Do what you want to do. Don’t listen to anybody.’ She was a super-inspiring woman.”