Southern State Artist Management Expands Roster, Adds Manager Greg Falchetto

Southern State Artist Management, recently started by James Aloisio with management clients mostly in the hardcore punk and rock space, has added a new artist manager in New Jersey hardcore mainstay Greg Falchetto, bringing additional support and bands to Southern State.

“Bringing on Greg is the start of a new era for the company and I’m excited to bring a like-minded manager I can show the ropes and tackle things together with, ” says Aloisio, who formed Southern State in January after stints with Unchained and Good Fight Management. “I’m looking forward to expanding together with these new artists.”

With a staff of six, Aloisio said an additional manager was needed to grow the company and take on additional management clients, adding to the initial roster that includes bands like Drain, SANGUISUGABOGG and Koyo.

“I was 15 when I met Greg when his band, The Mongoloids, was playing a venue called The Fun Zone on Long Island back in like 2010 and we’ve stayed friends,” says Aloisio, noting Falchetto’s experience in the hardcore and punk scenes producing festival events, digital marketing and tour managing. “The way it works is the roster is his, but we’re doing it together.”

Among the artists coming along with Falchetto are Bay Area punk band Spy, I Promised The World from the Dallas / Forth Worth area and Secret World, a band from Australia.

With Southern State, Aloisio brings an authentic, DIY ethos to artist management, which means sticking to the roots of the genre by playing GA gigs and building organically.  That means sometimes not having a manager, too. 

When it comes to artist management, “I think there are two situations,” he says. “First is when you believe in something so bad you don’t care how big it is or what they’ve done, and you will make it your mission to get them seen and heard. A bunch of bands I have worked with or am still with and may not be as hot as some of the others, but I believe in it, and I want others to believe in it.” 

The second situation is when a band needs support and expertise to take it to the next level and is unable to handle all creative and business matters itself.

“That’s when I come in and I always tell the artist the same thing: ‘Your job is to be the creative director of your business.’ You shouldn’t be dealing with all the back-end, day-to-day stuff. We take care of the rest and we make it so that you can just show up and play and not have to worry about all the not-fun stuff.”

Fun stuff includes festival appearances for bands at Sick New World and the upcoming Furnace Fest in Birmingham, Alabama, which is topped by Jimmy Eat World, Dropkick Murphys and Knocked Loose in October. Santa Cruz-based hardcore band Drain recently had its biggest gigs to date, able to headline into the 2,000-2,500-capacity range.

“If you look at my roster, there’s a connection to it, even if a band like Secret World is a Third Eye Blind/Jimmy Eat World-sounding Australian band next to SANGUISUGABOGG, who is a caveman, knuckle-dragging type death metal band. They can exist in the same world because the culture and background is the same,” says Aloisio. “It all exists at the show. No matter how you market it, no matter what you put on the internet, these fans that you’ll see at this company, they flourish and exist at the show. It’s a live environment, and I don’t ever want it to not be. It might not ever be headlining stadiums because it’s part of a niche, but not everything needs to get to that point.”

To that point, Aloisio says the touring landscape right now for smaller bands is difficult, but part of that is having unrealistic expectations or trying to be something you’re not.

“Post-COVID, every band was the biggest band in the world, and I think we’re seeing a lot of absolutely terrible turnouts or absolutely incredible turnouts industrywide,” says Aloisio. “For the middle-of-the-road bands, the landscape is very tough right now. The summer was not great at all. We see a lot of bands canceling tours. I really think people need to be a bit more conservative and actually play rooms that can do your business. I’m not a fortune teller or anything, but certainly think as a fan, like everyone could scale it back quite a bit.  People also forget what do the fans want to see? Would they be more stoked to see breakdowns in an arena or in a House of Blues?”

Southern State Artist Management roster:

DRAIN 

SANGUISUGABOGG 

KOYO 

HAYWIRE

END IT 

200 STAB WOUNDS

FROZEN SOUL 

SECRET WORLD 

SPY 

ORTHODOX

I PROMISED THE WORLD 

CREEPING DEATH 

UPON STONE 

BAYWAY 

DOWNWARD 

SHATTERD REALM

DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR