For 40+ years Ottawa born Mike Gormley has been journalist, record company executive, artist manager and marketing/PR expert. He has helped launch the careers of film composer Danny Elfman, massively successful pop band The Bangles as well as Rod Stewart, Rush, BTO, The Police and Supertramp.
At 18, Mike was already a weekly columnist and writer for the Ottawa Journal, covering major pop music stars of the day from his base in the San Francisco Bay area. He interviewed such as icons-to-be as The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, etc. After returning to Ottawa to write for Canada’s Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Gormley was recruited as columnist and youth editor for the Detroit Free Press (then the fifth largest morning newspaper in North America).
Three years later, as Director of Publicity for Mercury Records, Mike engineered the introductory and continuing PR campaigns for Thin Lizzy, Rod Stewart, The New York Dolls, Rush, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, The Runaways, The Ohio Players as well as many others. He was highly instrumental in signing the pioneering punk band The New York Dolls and the groundbreaking German Electronica artists, Kraftwerk.
Eventually Mike worked at A&M Records where he rose to the post of Vice President of Publicity and Assistant to the Chairman. In this position, he worked closely with The Police, Supertramp, Herb Alpert, Squeeze and others.
Mike left A&M to partner with Miles Copeland, then manager of The Police and founder of IRS Records (REM, The Go Go’s, Fine Young Cannibals and others). They formed the management firm LAPD, (Los Angeles Personal Development). He convinced Danny Elfman, leader of the legendary band, Oingo Boingo to write the score for Tim Burton’s first movie “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” spawning Elfman’s mercurial climb to the top of the film composer world.
In the 1990s, Mike co-founded and ran Wildcat Records. In the year 2008, Mike established the UCLA Extension's continuing education program called, "The Insider's Guide to Music Management."
Mike is a past President of The Conference of Personal Managers and a past board member of L.A. WoMen In Music as well as being on the board of Music Manager's Forum U.S. He was on the Board and is past-Secretary of the Folk Alliance International and its Executive Committee. Mike is also on the Management/Legal Advisory Committee for SAG/AFTRA and a Director of Ombience, a center that provides aid to musicians. Most recently Mike joined the Advisory Committee for Music From the Streets.