Pink Line Management is a fresh and new full-service management company, born from the passion and experience of two young artist managers, Maggie Fraser and Tori Leche. “We've been managing artists together for 3 years but we only just launched Pink Line back in September. We got to a point where we decided that this is what we want to pursue and it makes more sense to operate under a company name and that’s how Pink Line was born.” Tori says.
Pink Line expands beyond management and takes care of all aspects of their artist’s career, including branding, content creation, and occasionally some PR.
They currently have three artists in their roster: Zach Benson, a pop artist, James Lanning, who’s a rapper and J.Scott, a pop/R&B artist. They all play with genres and they don’t really make only one type of music. “That makes it really interesting for us as managers and it challenges us to solidify their brand and market them.” Tori and Maggie share.
Maggie and Tori: the faces and minds behind Pink Line Management
Maggie has been managing for the past 3 years and she’s been playing guitar for the past 13 years. Originally from Connecticut, she now lives in Brooklyn for about 3 years.
Tori, who used to be a singer-songwriter, is originally from Virginia and also lives in Brooklyn now.
Although they’re both creatives coming from a similar musical background, they’re no longer pursuing their artistic career, and decided to stick to the business side of the industry.
“Both of us were really drawn to music from an early age and we always kinda had that passion for music. We both grew up with the goal of working in the industry in any capacity.” they share. “We both ended up going to Berklee College of Music in Boston and that’s how we met. At first we both were trying to pursue an artist career but eventually we realized that the business side of the industry was more interesting to us and we both got into business management,” they add.
What really made that shift for Maggie and Tori - from pursuing an artist career, to focusing on music business - was the two-week tour that they went on as a duo band back in summer 2017. “The two of us were playing in a duo band back in college and we were doing all the management. We went on a two-week tour back in summer 2017 and organized the whole thing and at the end of it we realized that we were so not focused on actually performing, but more obsessing over the business side of it. Shortly after we decided to take on our first management client together and that’s what really did the trick. We’ve been doing it since then.” they say.
Working in music management can be really tough sometimes and not as glamorous as people might think when they get into it.
“The most exciting thing for us is touring and going to our artists shows. We’ve done a bunch of tours with our artists as tour managers as well,” they say. “During the pandemic, when we haven’t been able to tour, the most exciting part has been release days. It’s very exciting to see our artists’ new music out in the world.” they also add.
But these are not the only things that this job is about. Being an artist manager involves some way less exciting things: emails, behind the scenes, spreadsheets etc.. but as Maggie says, “it’s crucial to the job so I don’t mind doing it at the end of the day.”
To young girls and queer people starting out in the music industry
In an industry where women and queer people are still overlooked or considered less capable than some of their competition, it is crucial for us to find a deep motivation within us to keep pursuing our career path.
So in hope that this will inspire our readers, Tori and Maggie shared their biggest motivation with us.
Tori: “As cliche as it may sound, whenever the artists are happy and successful I feel really motivated, also because their success is our success too, so just having them being excited about their career and what they’re doing really motivates us; and for me personally, seeing other women, queer people and other minorities that are killing it, also motivates me because I eventually wanna get to that point in my career one day.”
Maggie: “I agree with that. We also motivate each other. Working together also really helps. If one of us is having a tough day the other one is there.”
“Don’t be afraid of anything. Just go out there and do whatever it is that you want to do because there’s always gonna be criticism. People are gonna say that you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing, but the most important thing is to just go for it, You don’t even have to have experience, just start anywhere and you will get experience from that. Try to explore within various aspects of the industry and figure out what you really wanna do by learning everything you can.” Tori adds.
“Make sure that the people you’re surrounding yourself with have a similar energy to you and that you really vibe with them. At the end of the day yes, it’s a job, but if you can get along well with the people you work with, that’s gonna make your job way easier. And as queer people and women it’s crucial to surround yourself with like-minded people that understand your experience more. You can build your team from the ground up, and if you all have a similar energy and goals you can really accomplish a lot.” Maggie concludes.
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