Devon Léger

Tell us about Hearth Music and what made you decide to start it.

I started Hearth Music and HearthPR in 2010 after I’d worked for about six years with the Northwest Folklife Festival. I love that festival and had a blast booking it and working with Northwest communities, but festival work is pretty heavy burnout. I needed something different and I thought that maybe if I tried a more holistic, community-based approach to publicity, that it might be successful. And it was! Our first two clients were Pokey Lafarge and Zoe Muth, and we sent them both out in a hand-wrapped package with a little note. It’s been all go ever since them. We currently work press, tour, and radio publicity for our clients and we work out of a cozy little home office in Seattle, Washington. We try to specialize in roots music, but we’ve also pushed pretty far beyond that label. Currently we’re working with folks like French-Canadian avant-trad band Les Poules à Colin, Swedish Americana artist Daniel Norgren, Canadian bluegrass nomads The Slocan Ramblers, and two flatpicking virtuosos Tyler Grant and Robin Kessinger, with lots more to come!

What would you say makes Hearth Music unique and what are you most proud of accomplishing with the company?

We have a very simple mission: “Our goal is to share the music we love with people we respect and trust.” We try to keep it just as simple as that and when we do the job is a lot of fun! We like to tell artist’s stories too, and we really love working with artists who have something important to say. I’m really proud that we’ve been able to work with a very diverse group of artists over the years. Personally I love radio publicity because all the DJs and music directors are just as nerdy about music as I am. It’s so nice to chat with people who “get it” and put so much love and passion (and often unpaid sweat labor) into sharing their favorite music with their listeners.

Tell us a bit about your personal career path that led to where you are now.

My original passion was Celtic music, but I’ve done deep dives since I was a teenager into traditional music from around the world. I’ve studied Chinese pipa, Inuit accordion, Balinese rebab, Irish fiddle, and I’m currently exploring the traditional music of my own heritage from New Brunswick and the Acadian communities of Canada. Because of this passion, I went to get an MA in ethnomusicology from the University of Washington which is what brought me to Seattle. Northwest Folklife hired me out of the MA program to help book the festival, and after six years learning about so many amazing musical communities in the Pacific Northwest, I realized I wanted to work more closely with individual artists, which is why I started my PR firm. But yeah it really all stems back to when I was 16 or 17 and just had this epiphany that I wanted to spend my career helping artists make their own careers better and more sustainable. I haven’t swerved from that path since and I’m 38 now.

What job do you think you would you be doing if you weren’t running Hearth Music?

I’d love to go back to the festival or production world, but honestly these are all my skills. I can’t really do anything else! Nor would I really want to.

What band/artist outside the realm of roots and americiana music would people be surprised to hear you love?

I listen to a fair amount of hip-hop, and we’ve done some work in that genre, but I’ve also really been getting back into early classical music, like Baroque and pre-Baroque. I’m obsessed with London avant-jazz band Sons of Kemet right now; they blow me away. I was just at the Pickathon Festival outside Portland, and loved both Arabic punk band Haram and Ethiojazz legend Hailu Mergia. And then just the other day I found myself singing along to “Ride the Wind” by Poison with my kids in the car. I was getting all teary-eyed, “Snifff…. THIS is what music USED to be like kids!! Isn’t it great!?!” So I guess I never quite left behind my 80s hair metal days .

What destination would you most like to visit and why?

Ooh it’s always changing, but I’ve been missing France a lot recently, and also really wanting to go to the US Virgin Islands. Smithsonian Folkways just put out an album of Quelbe music from there and I’ve been trying to find out more. Really cool Caribbean tradition of accordion and musical saw that’s right here on basically US soil. I’ve also been obsessing over Hawaiian music and trying to think up ways to write off a business trip there to get to know the music better. We’re also looking to branch out to Scandinavia, so we’ve been planning trips for that and one of our publicists just came back from Sweden/Norway.

You just won a million dollars. What are you going to do with it?

Take a frickin’ vacation. Haven’t had one of those in a long time. Take the kids to Disneyland. I mean, not to be basic, but I think that’s about my main goal for a vacation at this point. Maybe Hawaii too.

What is/are your current favorite TV obsession(s)? What is the best movie you’ve seen so far this year?

Best movie so far was “Ravenous”, out on Netflix. It’s a Québécois zombie movie (“Les Affamés” in French) and it’s hilarious and also legitimately scary. Great movie. Also Black Panther. For TV, I’m back on Schitt’s Creek, and just finished up the second season of Luke Cage. Man, the music in that show is amazing. Each episode ends with full live performances from really really great musicians. Must watch TV for music fans.

When friends/family come to Seattle, what is your favorite restaurant you take them to?

I love Tamarind Tree in the International District. Delicious Vietnamese food and cocktails and a real nice restaurant. But if they come to town early, we tend to have client meetings over Ethiopian breakfast at Jebena Cafe in the North end of Seattle. I’ve never found another restaurant that serves Ethiopian breakfast food and it’s absolutely delicious. They make Ful Medames, which is like a fava bean hummus, and then cover it in chopped onions, olive oil, feta, and hard-boiled eggs, then you dip crusty French bread in it. Yummmmmmm. And then the best kept secret in all of Seattle (don’t tell anyone!!!) is Ono Poke up in Edmonds. I think they basically buy the day’s tuna catch a seat on Hawaiian Airlines and just fly it over in the morning. The fish is so fresh. Oh yeah, and we do a lot of client meetings at Chili’s in the U District, which is this great S. Indian restaurant that makes masala dosas (giant crepes) that are hard to find but super delish.

You’re stranded on a desert island. What five well known people (dead or alive) would you like to have there with you?

Probably my friends, because who cares about hanging out with a famous person on a desert island if they end up being annoying, right? I mean, you’re all pooping in the same ditch after all. But if I had to choose, then I think I’d say Jack Johnson, because his music would relax me and he’d teach me how to surf; Tom Hanks, because he’d tell me stories about filming Castaway and he must have picked up some tips from that; The Rock, because he’s just awesome always and very positive; Gary Snyder, because his poetry is so lovely and that would also help me stay mellow; and someone from history who was super good at hunting and fishing and getting coconuts down from the trees. Not picky on who that last person is as long as they have a strong resume.