Well, that didn’t take long. Just one day after longtime Roadrunner president Jonas Nachsin stepped down from his post at the label (and nine other staffers were let go), Roadrunner has named Mike Easterlin GM of the label. He’s been at Roadrunner for the last five years, and was most recently head of promotion there. Before his Roadrunner stint began, he was at Lava/Atlantic.
Here’s the part where metal purists start bitching: Before 2005, Easterlin worked in pop promotion at Virgin and Def Jam. And in addition to being GM at Roadrunner, he’ll continue as GM at another Warner Music label, Fueled By Ramen, a title he received just last month. Yes, the same guy that’s running Paramore and fun.’s label is also overseeing Roadrunner. While that seems a little dicey initially, as long as he continues to keep the label’s identities separate, that shouldn’t be a problem. And having worked at Roadrunner for the past five years, he should have a handle on the legacy of the label, and hopefully be able to maintain as much of it’s identity as possible. Here’s hoping, anyway.
Billboard.biz quotes a source as saying that Easterlin will oversee both Fueled by Ramen and Roadrunner, but they’ll continue to have separate staffs. Let’s hope that this isn’t a ‘rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic’ situation and that Roadrunner is able to serve as a solid metal/hard rock outpost of Warner Music.
