James Gilmore is a rising DJ and entrepreneur from the UK who founded the popular W!ZARD Radio in 2010. Since its conception, W!ZARD Radio has started its own label (W!ZARD Records), its own production studio (W!ZARD Studios), and even its own charity (#LOVEgiving), with Gilmore at the helm for all of this and more.
James hosts a weekly show on the network, and he has interviewed a myriad of celebrities, including our very own Jennifer Niven. Somehow he manages to do all of this and still study for his exams. Did I mention he’s only 17?
I was very excited to get the chance to chat with James about his business, success, and future plans — heard here first.
Germ Magzine: Hello, James! Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. I think I speak for everyone when I say how impressed I am with all you’ve done with W!ZARD Radio.
Tell me about getting your start. You were so young; what gave you the drive to start the station, and how did you hold on to that and cultivate it into the thriving business it is now?
James: When I was 10 or 11 years old, I used to “pretend” I was on the radio on the weekends when I was bored. I would either just play out music on my computer and talk over it or use online services to secret broadcast me talking, usually with 0 people listening! I enjoyed it, and it was an innocent pastime.
Around the time I started secondary school, I had less time to do this; but, one time, when I did pretend to be on-air, I called up one of my friends on Skype and we played out as if we were on the radio for a couple of hours. Whether he was telling the truth or not, he said that it sounded really good and I should perhaps try to do it properly. I think that was all of the drive I needed right at the beginning — I was always looking for projects and, at the time, was deeply considering what I wanted to do as a future career, so it helped to spur me on. And a few days later (after not much sleep!), we told some friends at school and did it “properly.” Word spread around school, and people who would eventually become some of my best friends tuned in. It was a lot of fun.
How have I held on to that drive? I think it’s been surrounding myself with people who are equally excited and interested about what we’re doing and generating this culture of “risk-taking.” When you’re not relying on an income to financially support yourself, you know you have very little to lose. That’s helped tremendously.
GM: That’s great. I have to know, how are you managing your time? You are the Director over all of W!ZARD Radio’s services and so forth, you’re still in school, you’ve presumably got a social life. Do you ever get time off?
James: It’s a challenge! Truth be told, I don’t get much time off, but I also don’t feel like I need much time off. The work we do at W!ZARD Radio Media is so exciting and thrilling that my “time off” is my few hours of sleep every night — and, even so, I have to budge myself to do that. I feel like I’m achieving my dreams… who would want time off from that? When I am feeling excessively stressed, though (especially around exam time), I play the drums. I’ve been playing for the past 6 or 7 years and am about to take my Grade 7 exam, so when I’m having a bad day, I can take my anger and stress out on the drum kit!
GM: It’s good to have something like that as a stress relief. How quickly were you able to start the record label? What artists are coming from you that we should be looking for?
James: The record label came about quite organically and was never something I was initially interested in getting involved with. From quite an early stage we have been showing support for upcoming and independent artists — playing their tracks and interviewing them, etc. My Assistant Director (who I don’t know what I would do without!) got talking to one of these artists a couple of years after W!ZARD Radio Media was formed, and we began very lightly managing her and giving her extra support on-air. It was all very light, though.
Over time we’ve signed a couple of different artists on recording deals, management deals, etc., and there’s been a lot of experimenting going around to try to discover exactly what we can offer artists and where our skills are best placed. We’re currently offering three types of deals: Management Deals (where we manage the artist), Publishing Deals (where we work on release-by-release basis, publishing and promoting music), and Independent Promotion Deals (far too complicated for a short answer), and I’m confident that we’re doing a good job with the artists we’re working on.
Currently I’m focusing on an Australian rapper called Losty; he’s one to look out for. His debut EP, Legacy: Chapter One Starting Again, reached Number 3 on the Australian iTunes Hip-Hop/Rap Charts in the first week of release, and he’s toured with Nelly as well as performed with Nelly, Lupe Fiasco, and B.o.B during one of their joint gigs. We’re now his Exclusive UK Management, which has been an extremely exciting, creative process to try to bring him over to UK audiences. We have an exciting summer ahead with him.
GM: You also have a production company that just debuted a radio documentary featuring Chris Rock. What was that like, and what can you tell us about it?
James: W!ZARD Studios is the newest of our products at W!ZARD Radio Media (there are 7 overall… now you realise why I say “few hours of sleep a night”!), and it really came about because I’m a “content guy.” I love producing and listening to content, which may sound strange, but it means that I would prefer to listen to game shows and features and interviews than just back-to-back music or short skits.
We got to a point whereby we had too much talent and too many proposed projects for the Station schedule to handle, so we needed to develop a platform which would enable us to produce more content without interrupting the Station’s operations. W!ZARD Studios is essentially a creative blank sheet of paper whereby I (and my team) can surround ourselves with the most awe-inspiring people to produce unique, innovative content. Whether that be podcasts, documentaries, or anything else.
The documentary with Chris Rock came about because we work very closely with Paramount Pictures, and they were releasing a new film with Chris Rock whereby he stars, writes, directs and produces — the whole package! I suggested the idea of producing a documentary for the release, and they loved it and have been really supportive throughout the whole process. The documentary is available online now to listen to or download for free.
GM: Great! Let’s talk about your charity work. You call #LOVEgiving a “charity for charities.” What exactly does that mean, and what have you been able to achieve through it?
James: I’m glad you’ve brought this up because we’ve actually just renamed it to W!ZARD Giving for reasons which will come apparent in the next few months (ooooh exciting!). The whole “charity for charities” thing means that we support other charities in what they are doing rather than choosing an individual cause ourselves. In the first year we worked with an American charity called charity : water who help to build water pumps in Africa. We ran an entire web campaign and raised money for them, which was hugely satisfying. Then we worked with a smaller organisation called PAGAKC, which aims to reduce gun and knife crime in London. Now we’re working with Teenage Cancer Trust and Stonewall on a variety of exciting projects; one with Teenage Cancer Trust was just announced, an initiative called “Night of Infinities,” which you can check out here.
Essentially, we’re there to work with charities we support to build awesome campaigns to bring to our audience and a wider audience as well. You know, fulfilling the social responsibility we feel we have!
GM: That’s pretty incredible. At what point did you feel like you were successful — that you were doing something worthwhile and something that would last?
James: In all honesty, I don’t entirely feel like I am “successful” yet, and perhaps it’s a feeling I will never encounter. I feel like we’re doing well, but we have many miles to travel before I’ll be happy and, even then, I would have found a million more miles to travel by then. I think that anybody who starts up a business to be “successful” will probably never be successful. You start up a business because you find a problem and you think you have a solution to it, and you are willing to give up anything else to make that work.
GM: Spoken like someone with a lot of ambition. Now, I know that you have worked with a number of celebrities, and to be honest, there was a twinge of jealousy in me when I saw that you’ve worked with McFly. I was embarrassingly obsessed with them in high school (and maybe still a little now). Have you ever been completely starstruck by someone you’ve met or worked with?
James: McFly were great! I had the pleasure of lounging in Danny Jones’ house once a week for 7 months last year (real work did happen, I promise!). I was interviewing Peter Capaldi on the red carpet a few weeks ago, and I was so mesmerised that I dropped my phone on the floor and broke it! Maybe when I met Brad Pitt? Or Steve Carrell? Or Tom Hanks? I’m not sure!
GM: All completely understandable! What advice would you give to your peers who are finding their purpose and passion?
James: The most important piece of advice I was ever given was from a video I watched of Steve Jobs. I completely idolise this man. He was a creative genius who was not scared to go against the status quo. “When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and you’re life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. I see that as a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it. You can push in and something will pop back out again. Once you come to terms with that, you will never be the same again.”
It’s so true because I feel like I’m experiencing that right now. Age doesn’t matter anymore in the face of innovation. You can do anything you want to do as long as you believe you can do it and you have the balls to put yourself on the line and run with it. Don’t do anything with 50% of your effort or attention. If you give everything 100% of your effort and attention, everybody will give you 100% of theirs.
GM: Great advice. Finally, are there any future plans for W!ZARD Radio that we should be looking out for?
James: Here’s the annoying thing: Most of the projects we’re working on are top secret! What can I say? W!ZARD Studios is releasing some new documentaries and projects later this year, and (an exclusive for Germ Magazine) we’ve just launched a Live Events department called W!ZARD Live which is working on some major projects at the moment, which is both tiring me out and thrilling me in equal measure. Also, this summer is huge for us in terms of the events and festivals we’re working with. Keep an eye out!
GM: Sounds exciting! Will do. Thank you again for your time; I know it’s precious. And good luck with your exams! I can’t wait to see what else will come from you because it will surely be great things.
James: My pleasure!