How Cleopatrick Tricked Spotify Head of Rock to Get Their Music Played
"Fake it 'til you make it" isn't a phrase that was coined for nothing, and rock duo Cleopatrick knew just the trick to get their song "Hometown" heard by the masses.
"We wrote that song expecting it to be heard by like 10 people, because that's how many people would come to our shows back then," Luke Gruntz told Loudwire Nights. "The song was about being from where we're from and being like no matter how loud we are, no matter how hard we try, our voices aren't gonna be heard."
"It's a lot about the anxiety around that, feeling like we're putting everything we have into music, but we're just not sure how far that's going to get us," he continued. "I guess the irony of that is now a lot of people have heard it."
One of the reasons the song has become so popular is because it's been featured in an episode of Spotify's "Rock This" podcast as well as the corresponding playlist, which is hosted and curated by Spotify's Head of Rock, Allison Hagendorf.
"We put the song out, and I had been doing some online sleuthing trying to figure out how bands get fans, I guess," Gruntz laughed. He discovered Hagendorf and "Rock This," and reached out — by acting as a fan, rather than a member, of the band.
"I sent her this totally BS email of me pretending to be a fan of our own band being like, 'Oh my God, Alli, you've gotta check out this band Cleopatrick,'" Gruntz recalled. "Within like 20 minutes, she replied and had put us in one of her playlists."
How's that for a success story?
For more details on their goals as a band and the release of their debut album, listen to the full interview above, and check out "Hometown" below if you haven't heard it already.
Cleopatrick, "Hometown"