Harmonix PR coordinator John Drake is spending a week in NYC on what seems like a never-ending press campaign for the new Beatles game. He's just finished a three-hour session on the QVC channel when I get him on the phone. A two-year veteran of the company, Drake has seen the employee base increase by 300 percent since he started, and he's maintained his spot in indie-pop band the Main Drag.
"The weird thing is going back and forth between band and work stuff," he says of the way his work duties tend to outshine the real-life rock ones. "I play Rock Band in auditoriums with thousands and thousands of people. I'm on TV for it. When I get back to Boston, I'll play a show with the Main Drag at the Middle East in front of like 30 people. Both are totally valid parts of the rock experience, I think. The former is just newer than the latter.
"We think of ourselves as a music company first and a music-game company second, so we need to always keep it filled with music people who are always thinking about music. Our bosses are more concerned with why you're not leaving early for a load-out that night or why you aren't using a guitar tuner on stage than why you're late coming in to work the next day."
Smith, for her part, is just hoping it all translates into a rad show tonight. "I'm generally stuck in my Web world — I have no idea how big things are. I just made sure that I got a Thursday night so people would head over straight from the office instead of going away for the weekend."
HARMONIX NIGHT, FEATURING BANG CAMARO + THAT HANDSOME DEVIL + DEATH OF THE COOL + THIEF THIEF + BREAKING WHEEL + ABNORMALITY | Middle East downstairs, 472 Mass Ave, Cambridge | August 20 at 8 pm | $13 advance/$15 doors | 617.864.EAST or mideastclub.com
Editor's Note: In a previous version of this article Bryn Bennett was identified as the Harmonix IT guy, when he is actually the company's game coder. AndJessica Smith was said to have sold out the show Sin of Angels at the Middle East downstairs, but she actually sold out two shows at the Middle East upstairs — Origin and Malevolent Creation. Both corrections have been made above.
