1. Would you please introduce yourself—where you’re from, what you do, and some of the bands you work with or have worked with?

Greetings! My name is Dan Volohov. I’m a publicist, owner and CEO of Discipline PR – an independent PR company representing a wide range of artists and independent record-labels. In January 2026, we’ll celebrate five years of our history. Over this period of time, we’ve done hundreds of campaigns across the globe working with artists from many different genres – from drum and bass and rap to grindcore, noise-rock, progressive rock. In addition to doing festival PR and book publicity. Our motto summarizes it as “from grime to grindcore” but in reality, it’s even broader. Which is something I’m incredibly proud of. There are not that many companies on this planet that can organically fit in so many artists and labels we’re honored to work with/represent.

2. Is it safe to assume your career path is an outgrowth of your love of music? If so, how and when did that love affair start and who were some of your foundational influences?

I spent eight years working as a music journalist while getting my bachelor’s degree in linguistics at the Faculty of Foreign Languages. My personal background is tied to post-Soviet territories. Quite a diverse cultural climate. Since USSR times, a lot of these territories and underground movements didn’t get outside of specific regions. That only sparked my enthusiasm to discover some interesting music nobody had really heard ( and, to be honest, cared of ). So my teenage years were massively influenced by a lot of classic independent labels: Factory Records, SST, Stiff Records, 4AD. In a few years, I started writing articles about these artists/labels and interviewing. Just meeting these people, talking to them and eventually becoming friends with some of them was a fundamental experience for me. I wasn’t even eighteen yet, when I started writing. All of a sudden, i Found myself becoming friends with some of the most influential artists of all time. Meeting Keith Levene and becoming friends with Keith was a huge milestone. I don’t think anybody even affected my life in a way he did. Besides my parents. But then, you end up talking to the artists you dearly admire. Who listens to your opinion, appreciates it and you just talk like every other human being. I’m very grateful for that experience and that person Keith was in my life for a while. Keith embodied something very special also important for me – a modus operandi that defined the punk and post-punk ethos of the late ’70s and early ’80s. Through that, I became confident about what I’m doing.  

3. Can you walk us through your career to date? How did you get started? What brought you to this point?

As a journalist, I became friends with a lot of these artists who inspired me one day. It’s a very typical situation for a lot of people in PR: you get to know one of your favorite artists, you hang out, spend some time and toss some ideas. And one day they would tell you something like: “I have this release coming out. Blah-blah-blah…Nobody cares!”. I felt it was morally and ethically right to help these incredible artists who once sparked my interest in music. So I’ve offered them my help – to write a review, to write news article, to put this guy in touch with that guy. And finally, became lucky to get paid for this (laughs). At that point, Mick Harris’ then label was planning on expanding its roster. They’ve gotten the biggest number of annual releases in their history, probably. For a few years I landed in the world of experimental electronics – drum and bass, dark-dub artists, various DJs of all caliber. And yep, the infamous collab of Mick Harris (as Scorn) with Kool Keith released over my time working at that record-label. Requests from my punk-rock friends never stopped coming – it’s difficult to distance yourself from your roots. Around then, Kira Roessler was putting together the details for her solo debut, which I was lucky to promote outside of the US. Eraldo Bernocchi has been trying to involve in some of his projects - after the absolute success of his Simm album, ‘Too Late To Dream’. At that point, we’ve gotten the best results over my few years of representing that record-label. Airplay on Radio 6, we’ve been discussing the record-release party at Rough Trade East. We’ve mastered our planning, process of putting releases together. Some of these plans didn’t work out through well-documented difficulties labels experienced over the pandemic. It wasn’t such a success as I’ve expected it would be. I was ready and confident to move forward without tying myself to any one genre. Eraldo and his wife Petulia were among the first people who eventually supported me a lot with the initial push I needed. It was enough to create a concept of a company that Discipline PR became. It didn’t change over the years. Certainly, evolved. But our principles are the same: Firstly, we never treat our clients as “clients” de facto. For us, these are either “very good friends/almost family members”( in fact, a lot of our clients are ) or “very interesting, precisely intelligent people we were honored to work with( and we hope our relations would grow and evolve)”. Secondly, we provide accessible services to the artists of all caliber. Whether these are local artists looking for the initial push or already established artists/labels/management teams. That’s something I’ve learnt from Steve Albini, Corey Rusk, and also from seeing how poorly some PR representatives treat artists. My record-label experience also taught me a lesson: I’ve seen how artists got treated. Different from this world I grew in, where you can meet the artist you like at a gig, exchange emails/phone details and keep in touch for years. And then, end up becoming a booking agent for them, a publicist, a manager. That’s also how the most successful and ethically-clear labels started once. Factory Records, 4AD, AmRep, Touch And Go Records, Dischord, Matador, among many others. So it certainly helped to keep these milestones. Also, being able to work with and represent some of these incredibly influential record-labels. 

4. Are there some prerequisites for your line of work? What educational background and/or experiences did/do you pull from?

I’ve gotten my college degree in pedagogics and later got my masters in Linguistics with an additional specialization in literature. Just like many people on our team. Most of my colleagues studied different languages or worked as translators/interpreters. We’re talking about fluent speakers of German, French, Japanese. One of our colleagues has written a thesis exploring the prose of Pat Barker. It’s interesting how useful some of these bits of knowledge can be within what we’re doing as a PR company. – not only the knowledge of languages, but also the knowledge of culture and a deep academic basis in neurolinguistics. It’s still a bit of DIY-ethos. But just like our team is pretty much spread across the globe, our clients are artists and labels from everywhere. Every client has their own goals or a specific focus. Every campaign is different. We never approach even two releases from the same artist in a way we did before. Which is why, at the very beginning I ask a billion of questions about the concept, the ideas, how everything turned out to be and how a client wants it to be presented.  

5. Tell us a little about the job description and what an average day looks like for you.

Most of my days are pretty typical: I wake up around 10 AM, start with checking my mailbox and the initial calls with our team. On an average day, I have from five to ten calls with different people: our colleagues, clients, tour managers, management teams, graphic artist, technical advisor, our partners – editors, journalists, podcast hosts etc. So a big portion of my time is filled with that. We’re in constant touch with every member of our team, as every day we come up with something new. Around 5 PM, I typically take a little break and go outside for a cup of coffee and a book, which does nothing but helps to recharge batteries and continue. With our clients, we have a joke, when I’m saying “If you need me to wake up at 2 AM for the sake of promotion – I have no issues about doing this!” it’s nothing but my way to show people we work with our respect and appreciation. But the truth is that most of the time, I do work until 2 AM. I love my job and everybody we’ve been honored to work with – just like other members of our team. Things can go dramatically bad on tour, or there could be flight delays, or some unplanned logistic formalities could affect the success of the campaign. Unexpected things happen all the time. I took the example of Corey Rusk and learnt to be with a client – to be in the time of need and when they need a friend, and supporter or somebody to get them through fire. It might sound dramatic, but that’s the nature of the beast. Luckily, it doesn’t happen every day (laughs).

6. Are there any career highlights or campaigns you are particularly proud of you’d like to share?

There are so many! I’d say I’m always excited to meet people who influenced my taste. Just like it was with Tom Hazelmyer and Amphetamine Reptile Records, for example. It was one of these labels that massively affected my taste, my ethical views. And all of a sudden, I was able to work with the specialist of Tom’s caliber and also discovering something from him – learn, see all the details in a wider perspective, and eventually figuring out that we share some favorite artists. I’ve always appreciated that chance Tom has given to me also learning from him. There’s no school for this business. People come and go. There are certainly some courses you can take, but most of them didn’t hit the context you might need to understand. I’ve learnt what I know working with people running all these incredible record labels we’ve been honored to work with. It’s not all only-positive-experience. People lie, steal, refuse to pay, or screw their artists in a billion different ways. That’s how indie music functions. There’s also the reverse side of it: you can get in the room with somebody who affected your life more than any teacher or any book you’ve read – simply by releasing this music you love or find exciting. You don’t need to talk too much with these people. But once you start doing something together, it blossoms – which is my favorite part about working with people like Tom Hazelmyer. I don’t need to spend a lot of time talking to them, nailing all the details and strategies. These people either work with you and trust you entirely, or they don’t. In the first case, we both share the same values, the same ethics. And eventually, it becomes one joyful moment.

7. How important is networking in your line of work?

I’d say it’s one of the fundamental aspects of this business – not forgetting about the work ethics. I’ve spent quite a while working as a journalist and, among others, was able to work with PR representatives who did nothing but treat you as their own milking cow. A lot of these people do. On a different level. It’s important to build relations that would ultimately lead to more people discovering the clients you represent, releases, tours, whatever you’re promoting. However, it’s also important to treat people you work with as professionals – get to know their personalities, preferences, music tastes. That’s the ethical part a lot of people keep on forgetting.

8. What’s some practical advice you have for anyone looking to get into public relations?

I’d say five:

First: Learn from the indie scene. The best specialists in the filed I’ve been lucky to know are not the people who graduated with a public-relations diploma.

Second: Attentive planning makes everybody’s job easier.

Third: Be ready to take multiple roles. And be as flexible as possible, for the success of a project. Even if it requires waking up at 2AM (laughter).

Fourth: Don’t expect anything to go viral.

Fifth: Treat every person you interact with the same degree of respect. Whether it’s the local teenage blogger or a journalist from The Guardian. 

9. Who are some current artists doing work you’re excited about?

It’s always interesting to work with new labels. We have a number of releases coming out from either relatively new labels with a small catalogue of releases, or from first releases of not-yet-established-labels. Those situations ultimately push you to step outside typical PR duties. In these cases, I’m very involved in the planning aspects of these releases. So I look forward to seeing how these will go and hope these labels get only positive experiences at the beginning of their path.

10. Last question: if you were stranded on a desert island by yourself and could only have five albums with you to listen to, what would they be and why?

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland

Cocteau Twins – Treasure

PiL – First Issue

Ahmad Jamal – The Awakening

Don Caballero – What Burns Never Returns

Each of these albums keeps specific ( and very dear ) memories for myself. These are either my friend’s releases I dearly admire or records that mean something to me. Of course, in the perfect-case-scenario there would be a lot more. But let’s pick these five today(laughs).