M Magazine Issue 55

new kids on the rock Kicking out the jams

bands and brands Artistic alliance

Members Music Magazine Issue 55 March 2015

ALL WE ARE The story behind the success

ADAMSKI GANG OF FOUR

HERBERT KRETZMER THE ROLLING STONES

contents

FEATURES

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MEMO Welcome to your first M of 2015. This year, we’re raring to go with a newlook website and a few more tricks up our sleeves. As well as featuring even more videos and playlists, we’ve also launched specialist genre areas covering all the wonderful music you create. You’ll also find more tailored career advice and publisher news. Be sure to check it out!

Here in print, our cover stars are the Liverpool-based All We Are – a psych-pop trio who’ve have a phenomenal 18 months. We spend time with the band and their producer Dan Carey to chart their route to success.

We’re also peering into the once murky world of band and brand relationships to uncover the new commercial breaks up for grabs for songwriters at any stage in their career.

We celebrate the genius of one of the UK’s most underrated songwriters.

From Les Miserables to Kinky Boots, Peter Sellars to George Martin, Herbert Kretzmer has an impeccable track record that spans hit musicals, TV shows and pop gems. Get to know him – and his work – on page 26.

Alive and kicking

18 all we are Utmost good

Our final feature explores British rock’s phenomenal comeback and meets some of the bands at the forefront of the new metal revolution.

We hear from rowdy duos Royal Blood and Slaves on the current state of play, and from PINS’ front woman Faith Holgate on the route to independence.

You’ll also learn the inside track on the iconic Rolling Stones gig at Hyde Park 1969 from music aficionado Andrew King – the man who hosted the gig and was tasked with releasing thousands of white butterflies live on stage to honour the death of Brian Jones.

As usual, we’ve tapped up some interesting members for our perennial I Wrote That, 60 Seconds and Sound Effect pieces, while our business news explores the ongoing digital debate and the relationship between rightsholders and tech companies.

We hope you enjoy this issue and find some time to jump over to M online to see what’s new.

22 bands & brands Value exchange

26 herbert kretzmer Meticulous perfectionist 22

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REGULARS 5 members and music

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8 money and business 31 i wrote that 32 60 seconds 34 picture this 32

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new kids on the rock Kicking out the jams

bands and brands Artistic alliance

Members Music Magazine Issue 55 March 2015

EDITORIAL

PRODUCTION

Editor Paul Nichols

Production & Design Carl English

Associate Editor Anita Awbi Staff Writer Jim Ottewill

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14 rock

ALL WE ARE The story behind the success

ADAMSKI

GANG OF FOUR

HERBERT KRETZMER

cover: all we are

ROLLING STONES

Membership Advisor Myles Keller

CONTRIBUTORS Naomi Belshaw, Olivia Chapman, KaKei Cheng, Andy Ellis, Liam McMahon, Vanessa Reed, Alex Sharman, Cerian Squire.

PRS for Music, 2 Pancras Square. London N1C 4AG T 020 7580 5544 E magazine@prsformusic.com W www.prsformusic.com The printing of M Magazine is managed on behalf of PRS for Music

by Cyan Group Ltd, Twickenham. www.cyan-group.com Advertising 020 3225 5200 ISSN 0309-0019© PRS for Music 2015. All rights reserved. The views expressed in M are not necessarily those of PRS for Music, nor of the editorial team. PRS for Music accepts no responsibility for the views expressed by contributors to M, nor for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations, nor for errors in contributed articles or advertisements. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited.

M is printed on paper manufactured using chlorine-free pulps and the raw materials are from fully managed and sustainable forests.

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engage with fans online Digital consultant Jessie Scoullar specialises in direct-to-fan strategies for artists, labels and brands who want to sell music, tickets and merchandise to fans online. Her clients include Elvis Costello, Kobalt Label Services and Paul McCartney.

DEAN CHALKLEY

Late last year, he agency Wicksteed Works published the Direct-to-Fan: Which Platform report, which profiled the top 10 service providers out there for artists and labels. She analysed each in turn, from Bandcamp to PledgeMusic, CrowdSurge to Music Glue, profiling their features and pricing.

‘Each of these platforms offer unique marketing and retail services, with their own strengths and selling points,’ she says. ‘Some can be fully customised, some are excellent at fulfilment or brilliant at ticketing, and some offer a broad suite of services all gathered together. But which should you pick?’

Earlier this year, we teamed up with the Sebright Arms to host a gig in celebration of Independent Venue Week. Stripped-down postpunk duo Prinzhorn Dance School (above) headlined, while buzzy newcomers Tuff Love (below) supported.

It’s been seven years since Prinzhorn Dance School first caught the ears of LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and his DFA label issued their fractious debut record – a minimal celebration of guitars-drumsvocals that flourished at the sharp end of post-punk.

Since then, the acclaimed duo released the stark and stunning followup Clay Class and have been busy working on their third long player, Home Economics, expected May 2015. Over on M online, you’ll find an interview with the pair about the new record and what else they’ve got in store for 2015. You can also watch live footage of both Prinzhorn Dance School and Tuff Love.

Intrigued by her findings, we caught up with Jessie to glean her top tips for engaging with direct-to-fan websites, building fan relationships and winning their support online.

First things first: you need to build your mailing list Before you get anywhere near thinking about sales or direct-to-fan platforms, it’s vitally important to build your mailing list. I recommend having a mailing list sign-up function on your website. It’s pretty simple to set up and doesn’t have to cost very much, if anything.

I would always recommend using a digital incentive to encourage people to give you their email address. It could be anything really; be as imaginative as possible. A free MP3 download is good – but it’s been done to death. Try to think of something creative that remains digital so you can keep reproduction and distribution costs low.

Test your sign-up process Once you have created your mailing list sign-up, you need to test it.

It’s surprising how many artists don’t bother! You need to make sure it works across mobile and tablets too. Get a friend to go through the process and tell you what they find. Often they will discover glaring errors or points in the process where you missed an opportunity to engage the fan. You don’t want to leave them staring at a blank screen thinking, ‘What should I do next?’ These are simple issues to fix.

You have built up your mailing list. What next?

When it comes to email marketing, it’s all about treating those people on your mailing list as best as you possibly can. These are people who have opted in – they’ve given their permission for you to contact them, so they need to get the best news, exclusives and benefits first.

studio week Over on M online we’re celebrating the art of production. From old school technical wizards to the new breed of bedroom talent, we chat to leading lights about recording, producing and mastering, and even go behind the scenes at Abbey Road Studios to get the inside track. Check out our How To guides, video interviews and in-depth coverage now. m-magazine.co.uk

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Before you get anywhere near selling, you need to put processes in place to manage your email list. You might have offered an incentive which tipped the balance for the fan to sign up to the list. But what’s next? You might decide on an ‘on-boarding’ process, where they get two or three automated emails in succession.

To learn more about ‘on-boarding’ and discover which platforms Jessie recommends for artists and songwriters at all stages of their career, visit m-magazine.co.uk/careers

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union j

fat white family Scour your dictionary for the definition of ‘rock and roll’ in 2015 and you’ll find London’s Fat White Family leering insanely out at you.

Over the last year, this gang of reprobates have become one of the most talked about British bands, thanks to a visceral, often naked live show and their scuzz-filled debut album, Champagne Holocaust.

Formed back in 2011 out of the musical swamp that is South London’s squat scene, the group first bared their teeth (or lack of) via intense live shows at Brixton’s Queen’s Head pub. Led by vocalist Lias Saoudi and guitarist Saul Adamczewski, the band are an antithesis to the more sanitised pop music currently dominating the charts. The Fat Whites look and (possibly) smell like a pure distillation of all things rock and roll, seemingly oozing filth both in their

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style and unhinged songs. Album highlights including Cream of the Young and Is it Raining in Your Mouth? cut through the greasy hyperbole, mixing up the rockabilly of The Cramps with lyrical weirdness and overdoses of raw country and blues.

Key gigs at last year’s South by South West, The Great Escape, Glastonbury and pretty much every other festival that would host them, has given the band a reputation as hard working as much as for hell raising. They’ve built a loyal following and have more recently been living, recording and partying in New York, constructing a hotly anticipated follow-up album with unexpected musical ally Sean Lennon. Other projects include a collaboration with Sheffield’s oddballs Eccentronic Research Council and point to an exciting year ahead. Amid the fog of rhetoric and rumour surrounding them, is an amazing rock band, cracked yet creative, constantly on the brink of spontaneous combustion. It’s this life out in the margins which makes them and their music so compelling. fatwhitefamily.bandcamp.com

It’s been over two years since boy band Union J went from talented unknowns to overnight sensations on the 2012 series of The X Factor.

It’s been something of a rollercoaster ride for Josh Cuthbert, George Shelley, JJ Hamblett and Jaymi Hensley after debut single Carry You, follow-up Beautiful Life and their self-titled debut album all hit the top 10 in 2013.

With a sold-out 18-date tour now under their belts and a spring 2015 tour with The Vamps, the quartet have also released a successful second album (You Got It All), two books and launched their own successful merchandise range. unionjofficial.com

hooton tennis club Whether or not the Liverpool band Hooton Tennis Club have a love for Andy Murray or know how to win a Grand Slam is up for debate. What is clearer is how they’ve aced their way to the top of tastemakers’ lists with their lovelorn indie rock. Initially scouted

by The Farm’s Carl Hunter and signed up to The Label Recordings,

the foursome recently inked a deal with Heavenly Recordings after winning over founder Jeff Barrett at Liverpool’s Sound City Festival. The band have since been working in the bedroom studio of former Coral member Bill Ryder Jones, perfecting their melodic charms and preparing for 2015 to swoon at their feet. Latest single

Jasper is the first fruit of their labours.

It manages to sound like the best bits of Pavement and Teenage Fanclub if they were from the UK’s ‘paradise peninsula’.

facebook.com/ HootonTennisClub m55_march 2015_5

members & music

have faith

Retro-inspired singer-songwriter Paloma Faith beat off stiff competition from Ella Henderson, FKA Twigs, Jessie Ware and Lily Allen to take the Best British Female prize at the 2015 BRIT Awards. On picking up her gong, the Hackney born artist said: ‘It’s taken me 14 years to stand up here and accept this award and it means so much to me. I make so many mistakes and I’m a bumbling wreck but I’m so grateful. I want to dedicate this to all the underdogs and the grafters who work so hard.’

Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith landed two prizes each at the glitzy ceremony at London’s O 2 Arena, while James Bay and Royal Blood were awarded one apiece.

Sam, whose debut album In the Lonely Hour has sold millions of copies on both sides of the Atlantic, was also the biggest winner at the 57th GRAMMYs, scooping a total of four prizes.

Elsewhere, Paul Epworth collected his third Producer of the Year award at the Music Producers Guild (MPG) Awards 2015. Multimedia entrepreneur and former Eurythmic Dave Stewart received the MPG’s Outstanding Contribution to UK Music Award, while other winners on the night included Goldfrapp, Sam Smith, Mandy Parnell, Richard Russell and Damon Albarn.

Watch our exclusive video interviews from the MPG Awards

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Top: Paloma Faith Left: Sam Smith Above: Dave Stewart

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why are independent venues so vital?

Indie venues are a British institution. A rite of passage for bands and gig-goers alike, their wellworn stages help musicians earn their stripes and connect with fans. But with more and more revered venues shutting their doors for the last time - from Soho institution Madame Jojo’s to Leeds’ Cockpit we ask promoters, venue owners and songwriters about the current state of play.

Tobin Prinz, Prinzhorn Dance School

Max Helyer, You Me at Six

No tapes. No trickery. That’s the beauty of intimate live performances for me. People interacting on a stage. Anything can go wrong. But anything can go beautifully right too. @thehornthehorn

Right now I think live music is at its most important period. With sales of CDs being at their weakest point ever, musicians have to go out and play live shows to make a living if they want to pursue their dream. @Maxmeatsix

Rebecca Walker, promoter, Leadmill, Sheffield

David Jones, Cavern Club, Exeter

Indie venues have an opportunity to invest in breakthrough acts from a small level that national promoters and chain venues can’t. But we don’t have the luxury of the cash flow and back up of major sponsors that chains such as O 2 Academys do. We have to gamble in terms of what acts we book and investing in breakthrough acts – although they have to be educated gambles. @_rebecca_walker

When we first started, I saw the promotion of underground bands as a way of transforming our environment. It was simply something we had to do, in order to have somewhere to go. The secondary advantage of the venue is that it acts as a platform for local talent, with local bands understanding their level by comparing what they do with what the bigger touring bands are doing. @ExeterCavern

Frank Turner Playing live is key to helping artists establish an audience as well as making them a better band. @frankturner

Jon Ouin, Stornoway It seems to me that audiences and musicians value indie venues for the ‘non-conformist’ platform they can provide for all types of artist. @StornowayBand

Dominique Frazer, owner and manager, Boileroom, Guildford Independent music venues don’t just provide a stage for people to see established acts play on their doorstep. But they also act as a platform for smaller artists to get their voice heard and to contribute to the arts community at large, breaking down the barrier between artist and audience. Being an independent business, it’s in our nature to collaborate with others. We’ve built strong ties to local colleges, schools and universities as well as other arts organisations, businesses and individuals to create a real collaborative culture, supporting each other rather than competing, and benefiting everyone involved. @Domczopor

Visit m-magazine.co.uk for more on independent venues and to read the full interviews. Join the debate at @M_magazinePRS #livemusic

m55_march 2015_7

money & business songwriters vs streaming?

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Ever since Thom Yorke’s band Atoms for Peace removed their albums from Spotify in 2013, a heated debate has raged over the value of streaming services for songwriters, publishers and the wider music industry. As attention now shifts to the long term viability of the streaming model, we ask PRS for Music’s Chief Executive Robert Ashcroft for his views on the current state of play.

Can you briefly explain PRS for Music’s online licensing stance?

We have always taken a positive approach to licensing online music services. We were the first society to license iTunes; the first to license YouTube. Our strategy has been to sign relatively short-term, experimental licences and then use the data we capture to analyse the performance of these new businesses and renew our licences on terms that reflect the growth and success of these online businesses. This approach has seen our online revenues grow steadily over the past decade, to where they now represent over 10 percent of the total combined revenues of PRS and MCPS. How has the market evolved?

Over the 10 years since 2003, when we signed our first download licence, we have seen online revenues grow to £61.2m. This did not, as we know, replace the revenues from the sale of CDs and DVDs, which fell from £180.4m to £80.7m over the same period. But as downloads are beginning to decline, we are seeing strong growth in revenues from streaming services. In fact, last year they exceeded revenues from downloads. The future is definitely about streaming.

What new developments are you seeing in streaming?

The market can be divided into two. There are subscription streaming services and there are ad-supported services. From the rightsholder perspective, though not without their issues and not yet mainstream, premium subscription services show significant promise. Ad-supported streaming services on the other hand, are more problematical and have simply not yet proven that they can be a meaningful source of revenue for songwriters. We are trying to understand whether ad-supported services drive the take-up of subscription services or hold them back and the future remains uncertain.

Overall, and despite some bright spots, the streaming market is not yet working for songwriters and this is a critical problem we have to solve.

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the big numbers

Total number of digital music services currently licensed by PRS for Music

14.8m

*

Total number of tracks streamed by the British public during 2014 * excluding video platforms such as YouTube

‘The streaming market is not yet working for songwriters and this is a critical problem we have to solve.’

Where do you see opportunities developing for songwriters?

If you look at our overall revenues, the performing right has been growing steadily over the years.

Broadcast and public performance are large areas, but the real growth has been in the live market.

Anyone who can get out there and make a career out of performing live will generally find themselves in a part of the business which is growing. Those reliant on selling sound recordings are in a part of the business that’s declining. We are putting a huge amount of effort into trying to solve this problem, because it’s not as if music is less popular than it used to be. More people are listening to more music than ever before and in the end that is what gives me hope that we can fix what is currently a broken market.

£61.2m

Amount of online revenues collected by PRS for Music in 2013

345 million

Number of takedown notices received by Google in 2014 requesting the removal of links to alleged copyright infringing content

your next paydays Robert Ashcroft joined PRS for Music as Chief Executive in 2010. Previously, he worked for a number of international companies including spending eight years on the management boards of Sony Electronics US and Sony Europe. While in the US he ran the iconic Walkman business before launching a number of pan-European internet services, including the world’s first subscription music service to stream over both mobile and fixed line networks.

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news

industry insight

sailing down stream I love it. I’m very happy to sign up for a £120 a year DJ /ad-blocking service (except for when I’m driving and the DJ is my bezzie). Come on streaming, up your game.

Hi-definition audio, sleeve notes and images would do for starters.

Legal agenda The world’s decrees can’t agree what a stream is. To some it’s a transmission, to others a CD. In the US, when a song’s ‘made available’ (ie. chosen by the user), the lawyers and labels consider it saleable. Yet the very same song, when chosen by radio, is deemed to be more like a ‘communication’ (to the public or akin to a broadcast).

In the EU both are ‘communications to the public’, but that definition is split into either ‘broadcast’ or ‘making available’. Confused yet? I am. None of these definitions sound like the stream feels.

Renowned songwriter and active PRS Board member Crispin Hunt imagines a brave new digital music world.

Swooping? Sailing? Krusing? Whatever we end up calling it, doesn’t life need a new word that separates the music we choose from the music they choose for us? Maybe we’ll call it ‘gliding’ - and maybe ‘gliding’ will become the future of streaming.

Streaming is a musical wet-dream: all you can eat for two quid a week and no more over-priced CDs that scratch and snap and crack and flap. But, even as a rabid music fan, it’s damn hard to choose what the hell to play when you’ve got 30 million albums and a disappointing two-dimensional interface in front of you.

So. The Nice People at Spotify have started to help by choosing our music for us, opening their app not with artists’ albums but with ‘Deep Focus on a Monday Afternoon’ and ‘Your Morning Coffee’ playlists: off the peg soundtracks to our lives.

Now, when I say The Nice People at Spotify, what I really mean is The Nice Computers at Spotify. Are there real human beings employed to sift catalogues for the consummate ‘Have a Great Day’ songs? I doubt it.

Rather, there are algorithms that automatically select ‘like for like’ tracks from current releases.

Don’t get me wrong, playlists are incredible. Hang the DJ and spin your pad. I am more than happy to ‘glide’ all day. Swapping when appropriate to the ‘Rainy Afternoon’ selection or ‘Walking like a Badass’ depending on my ‘Mood’. Furthermore, thanks to playlists, I’ve discovered countless amazing new songs and bands that have changed my life for the better. But I can’t help feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. Just like a new Bruno Mars song, it feels like I’ve known it forever… Wait a minute! It can’t be… I know… it’s made-to -measure radio! But without the DJs. Now That’s What I Call Innovation Volume 1,000.

Indeed, the stream currently feels like the current is against us, and although the technological tide is obviously turning, the shoreline is still littered with King C’nuts who would deny that streaming is in any way different to selling pieces of plastic containing music. ‘If it ain’t broke,why fix it?’ they ask.

Fix it because, as a songwriter, I feel like I’m up a proverbial creek without a law. Or, as Eric Schmidt of Google put it, ‘While you can have a long tail strategy, you better have a head, because that’s where all the revenue is!’

Streaming and its immaculate progeny ‘gliding’ both need clear, global, legal demarcation from past forms of music consumption, alongside safeguarded, transparent, and proportional returns for songwriters and performers.

The law will always follow progress and governments mustn’t start entrusting digital soothsayers to prophesise on our future. Seeing as Spotify founder Daniel Ek could have barely reached puberty when most of the laws currently applied to digital music consumption were implemented, is it outrageous to suggest that, had current music technologies existed when those laws were written, streaming might have been defined differently?

‘Dream, dream, dream, dream, dream’: The Everly Brothers magically start singing on the ‘Just Cry Sad Songs’ playlist, as if the web knows me better than I know myself.

The recent publication by the US Copyright Office, entitled Copyright and the Music Market Place, seeks admirably to address some of the inconsistencies found in current US regulation by setting out proposals for how to make copyright fit for digital use. The creator community has warmly welcomed many of its recommendations. But, presumably because lawmakers are way too busy to be habitual ‘gliders’, the critical difference between choosing (streaming) and ‘gliding’ was not clarified in their review.

This may prove to be a painful oversight. Certainly all the tech savvy types advise that ‘sailing’ is the rapid into which all streams will flow. Meanwhile Beats, Apple’s promised streaming service, is by all accounts going to take ‘gliding’ to new heights. You’ll be able to walk into M&S and your iWatch will automatically play you the ‘Woollen Socks or Cotton-Mix?’ mix. Delivered directly to the ‘glider’ according to your GPS position.

Fantasy or reality, who knows? But that’s certainly the word on the s’tweet.

‘All our streams can come true, if we have the courage to persue them.’

Another oft-cited argument refuting streaming as an improved form of radio is that the music is not broadcast to multiple people at the same time. But this positively analogue interpretation begins to look conspicuously like nitpicking for commercial benefit, and surely could not rationally be argued for, when multiple customers in M&S are receiving the exact same tunes, albeit at fractionally different moments. Like a Silent Disco for lingerie fetishists, M&S will never be the same. I can’t wait.

However we end up describing it, surely lessons must be learned from some of the protections and rights built into traditional radio that ensure a proportionate share of music’s value goes to those who make it?

Songwriters and composers need a solution to the dismal cut of streaming revenue we currently receive, as do artists and performers. But, perhaps paradoxically, we also need a healthy music industry to invest in our works. An industry that will soon only sell sound, with no shape or form, and it’s probably best left to us, as the creators of that sound, to explain it to the lawmakers.

It’s dangerous intellectual property ground to tread, but to paraphrase the Walt Disney Company motto: ‘All our streams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them’.

Songwriter Crispin Hunt is a member of the PRS Board and has represented creators in many UK and European forums on streaming, copyright, internet regulation, education and future models of music distribution. He joined PRS for Music in the nineties as the lead singer and guitarist in Britpop band Longpigs.

He’s now a multi-platinum-selling songwriter and producer working with the likes of Jake Bugg, Florence + the Machine, Ellie Goulding, Newton Faulkner, Rihanna, Bat for Lashes and Luke Sital-Singh. m55_march 2015_9

money & business

sync review

rather than through a music supervisor. The advertising slot was handled by Record-Play. It just goes to show what can happen when a band are a great fit for the brand.

What are the benefits for the artist and publisher of multi-brand syncs?

As with any sync, the media is an important factor - but more so is the brand. So, we were really excited to be working on a collaboration with one of the top sportswear companies and a leading fashion designer.

Who? Bucks Music Publishing / Mensch Music What? Sick Beat by Kero Kero Bonito. Written by Douglas Lobban and Sarah Perry.

Where? StellaSport Action for Girls online campaign, autumn/winter 2014-15

Kero Kero Bonito’s Sick Beat is an infectiously kitsch slice of J-pop/hip-hop, which fits seamlessly into Adidas and Stella McCartney’s campaign for their latest StellaSport range.

Publisher Bucks Music and music agency Record-Play worked with both brands to build on the natural fit, inking sync deals for a catwalk show, fashion video and an online advertising campaign. We chat to Ollie Cartwright, Creative Sync at Bucks Music, to get the inside track.

How did the placement come about?

As our relationship with Record-Play has developed we’ve become aware of the music that works best for them and their clients. As soon as we started publishing Kero Kero Bonito, we knew the band would appeal to them, so made sure they heard them as soon as possible. They got in touch and told us of the potential Stella McCartney and Adidas pitch.

Who was involved in this particular sync?

Record-Play are Adidas’ sole music agency and have been working on the music for Adidas and Stella McCartney collaborations for several years. Once we received interest from RecordPlay, we spoke to Mensch Music, with whom we have a joint venture publishing company for the rights to Kero Kero Bonito. They ran the deal past the songwriters for approval. We also contacted the band’s label to make them aware and to ensure all parties were happy and could meet the client’s deadline.

Stella McCartney used Sick Beat in a number of ways – was this all part of one deal?

No, the music for the catwalk show and the track for the online advertising campaign were handled separately. Initially, Stella McCartney used the track for the catwalk, then later for a video on social media. We worked with their marketing department directly for those spots,

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What are the benefits to online-only campaigns?

It really fitted with the band: Kero Kero Bonito are regularly featured on blogs, so it makes sense for them to be involved in a campaign that lives in that space. The internet definitely allows for more dynamic sync campaigns, while social media allows for instant sharing, interaction and involvement - which can really benefit the artist.

Why do you think Kero Kero Bonito are such a good fit?

Their music has a very current sound. It’s an unusual mixture of hip-hop, dancehall and J-pop. They have international appeal, which is important when pitching for a global placement.

There are also plenty of videogame references in the track, which lend themselves well to the visuals in this video. Lyrically, there is a great tie-in with the ‘For Action Girls’ advertising strapline - it’s a song for the independently minded ‘action girl’.

How has the deal helped raise the profile of the band?

Everyone who watched this sync is potentially someone who has never heard their music before. They are engaging with these new fans directly. The band are releasing a new album and touring this year - and we would definitely expect this kind of sync to have a positive impact on both activities.

How important are good music placements when launching a band these days?

Sync placements are something that artists look for at all stages of their career. But it’s such a competitive marketplace that we never recommend any band relies on a sync either for exposure or funding. With any sync, the key component is incredible music and, depending on the genre, certain brands will be more responsive than others. At Bucks we always task our songwriters with producing amazing tracks and task ourselves with having the industry contacts and relationships to create opportunities.

warring couple Rightsholders must support tech start-ups who are finding innovative ways to communicate their music to new audiences, a leading music lawyer has warned.

Alex Damon, a Solicitor with London firm Russells, told delegates at a Music 4.5 seminar in London that collecting societies, publishers and songwriters should encourage new services to exploit music, urging them to provide ‘moratoria to give them time to prove themselves’.

‘There has to be a fair way of licensing these platforms revenues must find their way back to rightsholders. It’s hard, there is no one solution, and rightsholders have had their fingers burnt in the past,’ he said. ‘But when you have someone who’s just launched something innovative and creative, we must let them have a runway to build up some steam.’

His comments formed part of a wider debate on generating value for rightsholders from User Generated Content (UGC) platforms including start-ups and established services such as YouTube or SoundCloud.

Panel moderator Cliff Fluet, Partner at Silkin Lewis, said there were historical issues clouding current practices, adding that technology and copyright were like a ‘warring couple’. He pointed to the turn of the millennium, when rightsholders issued licensing moratoria to new digital music businesses. ‘Those moratoria allowed many of them to flourish,’ he said. ‘Then those start-ups grew and were sold for a great deal of money.’

Sophie Goossons (above), Senior Attorney-at-Law, August & Debouzy, added: ‘I believe solutions do exist that try to reconcile technology and copyright, in terms of simplified licensing models and other initiatives. But the Chief Executive of Getty Images once said that you should never stand in the way of technology or consumer behaviour. Users are going to use, and they will find the content wherever they need to. We can’t stand in the way of consumers and technology, because they can stand together and become stronger.’

UGC is one of the biggest growth areas in the digital space, and is a key outlet for music. Each minute, 300 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube alone and the platform boasts over one billion users. PRS for Music has licensed YouTube since 2005.

news

tabs on touts

deciphering digital

The UK Government has agreed to greater regulation of the secondary ticket market, in a bid to make it more transparent and safer to use. The current model, which allows fans to resell unwanted gig tickets, has come under fire for enabling touts to purchase tickets in bulk, then resell them at inflated prices. The House of Lords has now passed an amendment to the Consumer Rights Bill insisting secondary ticket websites request resellers to provide more information.

Global performing royalties have grown 2.4 percent to top €6bn (£4.3bn) for the first time, according to the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC). They now make up 77 percent of the total revenue pot, while global online royalties represent just five percent. We catch up with Gadi Oron, CISAC’s Director General, to learn why online royalties have been slow to grow…

creators can really trust the societies to continue working on their behalf to ensure they get adequate remuneration. They should also take note that there’s still a lot of work to be done to ensure creators get fairly paid in the digital market. We need to work with government, legislators and the general public to put forward their case. Services must be made to pay – but it’s not always easy to do this.

Your latest report found that performing royalties broke the €6bn barrier in 2013 – what supported this growth?

Overall, we think it’s a reflection of the efforts collecting societies are making to improve their operations and do a better job on behalf of their members. It’s a combination of better coverage of the market, more efficiency and healthier negotiations in licensing deals.

Are you seeing any encouraging signs?

An increasing number of creators are getting involved.

We’re seeing many initiatives coming from within the creative community. Songwriters and composers are becoming more vocal and we are on their side. It’s great to see them reminding decision-makers of the importance of ensuring fair remuneration. BASCA’s latest The Day the Music Died campaign and CIAM’s Fair Trade Music project are good examples of the types of initiatives we’re seeing spring up across the world.

The likes of Viagogo and StubHub will be required to know precise details of the tickets they are offering for sale through their platforms, including face value, seat number and any restrictions. Those services that don’t adhere to the new legislation could face fines.

Digital royalties grew by 25 percent during that period but still only make five percent of the total revenue pot. Why is that?

As the market develops, more digital music services are emerging and societies are getting better at licensing them. It’s an encouraging sign, but the overall picture is telling us that digital revenues are still not high enough for creators. Remuneration rates must be improved and more licences must be issued. We hope in the next report we will be able to show even greater improvements in this area.

Mike Weatherley, Conservative MP for Hove and Portslade, and co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Secondary Ticketing, said: ‘This has been a long standing campaign by the APPG to get some overdue changes in place. The free market system has broken down due to the introduction of “bots” and other factors, enabling, on occasions, obscene profiteering for intermediaries against the interest of fans and the wishes of those putting on the event.

‘I am pleased that the government has recognised the importance of regulation with regard to secondary ticketing, which will be to the benefit of us all,’ he added. ‘While the new amendment does not cover every change that we had hoped for, it is an important step in the right direction. I believe that the statutory review on this issue is important and I look forward to seeing if further changes need to be made in the future.’

The new legislation is likely to be passed before June 2015 and will require ticket reselling companies to report criminal activity. It also puts a duty on the Culture Secretary to review the entire secondary ticketing market in 12 months and report back to Parliament.

What can collecting societies do to maximise digital royalties?

Firstly, they must reach out to more services to ensure they are licensed. Secondly, they must answer market needs and adapt to market demands – and be more efficient in their licensing and data processing functions. Many societies, including PRS for Music, are working hard to increase their capacity in this area, and we should soon start seeing the benefits.

Does the responsibility of increasing online royalties fall solely with collecting societies?

Obviously, collecting societies must be responsible for this. But I think other areas are equally important in supporting digital royalty growth. Legislation is key here. CISAC is working with legislators and decision makers at local and international levels on improving current laws, which we believe are unsatisfactory in some countries. In some countries legislation is not respected while in others, legislation which favours Internet Service Providers must be refined and clarified to ensure our societies can collect equitable remuneration on behalf of creators. Of course, there’s a big public awareness issue too. Digital music service providers must be made aware that they need a licence and the general public must also learn to respect music rights online.

What would your message be to creators who feel they are not getting fair remuneration from online music services?

The message is two-fold: looking at our latest figures,

What opportunities for creators does the digital music market offer?

As the market grows we’re seeing increasingly innovative ways to access music online. Eventually, creators will benefit. The key is to ensure they get fairly paid. The potential is certainly there, across Europe and in digital markets still in their infancy, for example China and India. There are lots of positive signs.

Do you think it will ever be able to compensate for the decline in physical sales?

I think the diversity of services on offer will eventually benefit creators. I think the more new ways to enjoy music are available, the more creators will be able to obtain fair remuneration. We’re still in the very early stages and are still fighting to establish the rules of engagement for creators. There is a lot to be done.

Gadi Oron is a specialist in international copyright law, working extensively across the creative industries and, in particular, the music industry. His skills and experience cover legal, public affairs and lobbying work, and he has represented rightsholders before governments, legislators and international bodies on a range of intellectual property, trade matters and national/international copyright laws. Oron joined CISAC in 2012 as General Counsel and took over the position of Director General in September 2014. m55_march 2015_11

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Do you need residential care?

Through our collaboration with the Entertainment Artistes’ Benevolent Fund, songwriters and composers who require residential or nursing care can apply for accommodation at Brinsworth House in Twickenham, Middlesex.

In Brinsworth House the entertainment profession has established a place of safety, peace, happiness, and tranquility for those who have ongoing care needs. A devoted staff of highly trained nurses and carers make sure the quality of care available is second to none.

The thought of going into a residential home can be quite a worrying one for the individual concerned, their family and close friends. It’s a decision that needs careful consideration. If you have any questions regarding admissions policy, room availability, funding help, or would like to arrange a visit to view what’s on offer please contact the Matron Tatree Preece 020 8894 1351 or email matron@eabf.org.uk

A Registered Charity No. 208671. PRS for Music Members Benevolent Fund, 2 Pancras Square, London N1C 4AG Call us on 020 3741 4067 or email fund@prsformusic.com

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strength in numbers Issie Barratt, award-winning composer, producer and educator, chats about her role as the Chair of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors’ (BASCA) new Jazz Executive Committee, and gives us the lowdown on the current state of play within Britain’s jazz community.

I’ve been a member of BASCA for a decade but for the first six years wasn’t very proactive.

As I gradually got to know BASCA, I realised there was a home for me and there were a lot of skills I could develop through my membership that would really help me as a jazz musician and composer – more so than any other organisation for professional musicians.

With so few publishers, agents, promoters and commissioners supporting the jazz scene - and more musicians representing themselves in all areas of the business - things are changing across the generations. I’m keen for BASCA to support and help upskill jazz composers and I’m proud to head up the Jazz Executive Committee (JEC). I know that, with tailored training on the business, legal, funding and commissioning side of the profession, they can become as confident and autonomous in the business management of their music as they are in its creation and delivery.

For most jazz musicians, composition is part of the whole performing/recording package, with many of us also teaching in conservatoire. It’s not just about being a composer creating works.

More often than not it’s tied into the groups we play with and the specific people we work with rather than who we’ve been commissioned to write for. Those works are then heard by other jazz musicians and ensembles - and then the independent journey of the composition, outside our ensembles, begins!

There are many brilliant creative forces on the

The BASCA Jazz Executive Committee (l-r) Laura Jurd, Steve Melling, Mark Lockheart, Ed Puddick, Issie Barratt (Chair), Tom Hewson and Alex Webb (Jason Yarde not pictured).

British jazz scene at the moment – including some excellent small band jazz-writing coming from award-wining groups like Empirical, Polar Bear, Troyka, Tree House, MIQ with the Juice Vocal Ensemble, Mark Lockheart’s Ellington In Anticipation, the Elliot Galvin Trio, as well as the individual projects of brothers Alex and Simon Roth and JEC composer Laura Jurd. At the songwriting end - sometimes overlooked - look out for Theo Jackson, Ayanna WitterJohnson, Tammy Weis, Alice Zawadski and BACSA’s very own JEC member Emily Saunders.

Challenges While small jazz groups and individuals are enjoying a resurgence, the practicality of writing for larger ensembles is one of the biggest challenges that faces the jazz community. There have been some very exciting large ensembles on the UK scene over the last few years but none of them are able to continue as working bands. It would be fantastic to have a working large jazz ensemble that commissioned new music from the jazz scene. It’s a very different area to the small band scene but could certainly be an important complementary element.

Many feel the recent funding cuts to Jazz Services is having an impact on the gigging scene, which in turn does impact on composition and new music creation. Without the touring support that Jazz Services provide, it’s harder to get out of London and play around the country. Tours are becoming much shorter and only visit the larger towns and cities. We used to have a much stronger rural touring network thanks to Arts Council England’s funding of Jazz Services.

That said, I think the recent cuts have made people think about other well-equipped funding bodies that are able to provide musicians with

support for larger scale projects. Jazz Services will hopefully be able to rethink its approach and become a refreshed, 21st century funding body. I had a great meeting with Heulwen Phillips, Jazz Services’ new Project Director, and know she’s going to do great things over the next few years. It’s down to us to help her!

Future prospects What’s certain is that things have changed drastically over the last 15 years. I was commissioned regularly from 1997 to 2007 and then things started to dry up. This means fewer of the younger generation really experienced the ‘classical’ model of commission-writing and a small number of performances, and none of my generation or older are getting anywhere like the number of standalone commissions we used to.

Fortunately for us all, the great strength of jazz is that you can get together with a group of musicians as a bandleader and write specifically for them - for their improvisational styles, their rhythmic ideas, their musical personalities.

Then you can (hopefully) gig regularly, develop the music together and hone a dynamic, original band sound. The biggest opportunities for composers - festival gigs, radio broadcasts, concert hall gigs, playing abroad - now come as part of being a composer/performer/bandleader rather than as a standalone composer. Is why we all run our own ensembles!

The JEC will be hosting an open seminar on 15 June 2015 for BASCA members (and PRS for Music members interested in joining BASCA).

The evening will cover the committee’s plans to help embed jazz within BASCA’s core activities and will explore how the JEC can best serve and represent members. For more information, please visit basca.org.uk or email wesley@basca.org.uk

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bring e s i o n the CREDIT

Neil Young once sang ‘rock and roll will never die’.

Nearly 40 years on, Rhian Jones checks its pulse to discover that rock is still in rude health…

ROCK

Every few years, British rock music raises serious concerns about its health. Is it dead? Or is it alive? ask confused music industry commentators. From Black Sabbath and Motörhead to Gallows and Enter Shikari, the UK has long enjoyed an on/off love affair with the riff. But late last year all signs pointed to British rock music enjoying a triumphant return, trussed up in fresh leathers with new amps turned to 11.

Don has good reason to feel optimistic. Last year, Raw Power act Bring Me The Horizon sold out Wembley Arena. They are currently writing the follow-up to their fourth, half a million selling album, Sempiternal. ‘It’s a massive achievement for a band who grew out of the Myspace explosion,’ he explains. ‘They’re at the forefront of a wave of new British rock acts that have been working hard under the radar and are now getting the attention they deserve.’

Royal Blood Sussex duo Royal Blood, aka Mike Kerr (vocals, bass) and Ben Thatcher (drums), spearheaded 2014’s rekindling of this age old rock romance. They picked up Best British Band at the 2015 Brit Awards, and their self-titled debut hit number one in the album charts and earned the duo a Mercury Prize nod.

Slaves Slaves are an act who have similarly toiled unnoticed for years but now the hard work is paying off. Laurie Vincent (guitar/vocals) and Isaac Holman (drums/vocals) bonded over a shared passion to create a sound somewhere between hardcore and indie. ‘Our actual reference was the song In the Belly of a Shark by Gallows. I wanted to make a band that sounded like that with janglier guitars and heavy vocals,’ explains Laurie.

Speaking to M at the Music Producers Guild Awards, Ben was enthusiastic about the future of rock. ‘It’s great. The more bands the better as there are a lot of great writers and performers out there. It’s also definitely a good thing for rock to come into play commercially.’

Their LP, released via Warner, ended pop music’s stronghold over the top spot. It sold just under 66,000 copies in the UK and gave the pair the biggest week-one sales of any new act’s debut rock album since 2011 (when Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’ took the title).

Going overground At the same time, the airwaves were alive with the sound of guitars after BBC Radio 1 launched a three-hour rock show with Daniel P Carter on Sunday nights. Broadcast after the Official Chart Show, it’s a prime-time slot for Carter’s favourite rock, metal and hardcore music.

Since then, the station has strongly supported both Royal Blood and garage/punk duo Slaves, the latter via its Introducing initiative. Slaves are another rock success story, signing to Virgin/EMI last year and appearing on Jools Holland and the BBC’s Sound of 2015 longlist.

Don Jenkins, Commercial Director at Raw Power Management (which looks after a huge roster of rock acts including Gallows and Funeral for a Friend), is confident about the prospect of a rock resurgence. ‘I think we are at the front end of the curve and more mainstream media will come in time,’ he says. ‘Alongside Radio 1, we’re seeing regular broadsheet coverage and I feel very positive about where heavy music now is. We’ll look back on 2015 as the year that rock went overground once again and there will be a number of huge, long- term headline acts that break through.’

After playing gigs across the UK, Slaves uploaded demos to BBC Introducing’s online portal in late 2012. Their local station showcased their unofficial debut album as its record of the week. It led to the band performing at Reading and Leeds Festival in 2013, which, after airing on TV, was the moment ‘it all blew up for us,’ says Laurie.

Retaining their independence enabled the pair to develop a clear identity before signing their deal. Avoiding the temptation of asking for a big advance from Virgin EMI has also allowed them more creative control. Laurie explains: ‘You don’t see bands like us signed to major labels so everyone [at Virgin EMI] is just backing us and excited about what we can do.’

Fan loyalty Royal Blood, Slaves and Bring Me The Horizon aside, the number of heavy rock acts signing to majors are few and far between. Since the explosion of indie back in the mid-2000s when Arctic Monkeys and Snow Patrol ruled the end of year charts, pop and EDM have been enjoying a seemingly never-ending purple patch. What is it about heavy music that enables it to survive outside the mainstream?

According to Raw Power’s Don Jenkins, rock fans are more likely to buy tickets to live shows, merchandise and full albums, rather than singles - which is where mainstream media outlets traditionally look to determine whether acts are coverage worthy. ‘There is certainly an issue getting rock acts onto TV outside of summer festival coverage,’ he explains.

‘I feel rock music fans stay true and loyal to the band more than any other music out there.’ m55_march 2015_15

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ROCK

‘We are lucky that a great deal of the fans who follow our bands are utterly maniacal for anything they put out.’

Above: Enter Shikari Right: PINS Below: Royal Blood

Gallows’ singer Laurent Barnard reckons it has more do to with rock being ‘a personal form of music’ that’s created for passion rather than cash. ‘If I wanted to start a band that would make money I wouldn’t sound like Gallows,’ he says. ‘I love rock music and that’s why I do it. It’s not about the money or the fame, it’s about being able to play music and have an audience that are always going to be there.’

‘Other genres are more fashion-based so when the musical style changes that becomes the new thing and everyone gets left behind.

I feel rock music fans stay true and loyal to the band more than any other music out there.’

Faith Holgate, front woman of alternative all-female foursome, PINS, is inclined to agree. ‘Charts aren’t something I’ve been in tune with since the Dr Fox days when I was a child! I definitely don’t make music with any intention of being in the charts.’

Julie Weir, Chief Executive of independent rock/metal label Visible Noise, knows all about the realities of working to further a niche genre. ‘Merchandise and live is still a massive part of the cash flow of developing acts and the support of fans is what has kept these bands up there without the luxury of financial support. We are lucky that a great deal of the fans are utterly maniacal for anything our bands release.’

Funding also helps. Slaves signed to Virgin/EMI after playing a show at South by South West, a trip that was funded by PRS for Music Foundation’s International Showcase Fund. Of the 19 artists they supported last year, rock bands ‘are the ones that did the best’ says the Foundation’s Industry Fund Manager Joe Frankland. The Foundation has also given PINS a ‘big contribution’ towards their upcoming second album, set to be released in June.

Despite their success, Enter Shikari are still pretty hands-on. The Mindsweep’s album campaign saw them man a pop-up shop in Camden and visit record stores doing signings. Building a fanbase has taken ‘good old fashioned hard work’, says the band’s bassist Chris Batten. They toured for years before releasing their 2007 debut album, Take to the Skies.

‘In the early days, we used to get in our van, go play shows, announce on stage our Myspace address and just try and build it up,’ he explains.

‘We were really big on Myspace - that was where we used to post all of our new music and demos.’ Ahead of the release of their debut LP, they played Download Festival and the hard work paid off. Despite an early slot, around 5,000 people turned up and later that month, Take to the Skies reached number four in the UK album chart.

The future Whether upcoming albums from Slaves or Bring Me The Horizon will knock the current EDM types off the charts remains to be seen.

But in true rock and roll fashion, the musicians remain unfazed. Says Gallows vocalist Laurent: ‘For me, it’s always been about making the music. If I was to do Gallows 24/7 I’d probably be in a ditch by now because it’s so intense and exhausting. It’s just nice to be able to have a core fan base that enable me to do it. I’m not spending any of my own money and I’m having the best time ever.’

Adds Faith: ‘It’s not really important if rock music gets big, it’s cool that it’s a small special thing for people to share. I’ve always been part of the outcasts and I think that’s the best place to be.’

Jacksonxjoshua

Do it yourself But there are anomalies. Enter Shikari managed to dent the top 10 of the UK album charts in January with their fourth album, The Mindsweep. Released via their own label, the band are one of the rare heavier acts to have complete control over how they operate, while still

being able to make a living. ‘The money adds up, there’s some profit at the end, and all four members have bought a house’, says manager Ian Johnsen.

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‘As a songwriter, there’s no point in shying away from any

ALL WE ARE David Edwards

Anita Awbi hangs out with rising ‘psychedelic boogie’ trio All We Are to discover how old fashioned graft and songwriting craft can still take you far in the music biz…

PROFILE

Main image: All We Are

‘We always wanted to make tunes that people could move to and we wanted to add a bit of positivity to the world.’

‘We’re like a big, psychedelic whale’, says All We Are’s Rich O’Flynn.

‘If you listen to our album, there’s definitely some mournful songs in among the happy vibes. I think everything sounds a bit Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.’ Obscure marine references aside, Rich might be right. There’s certainly something aquatic about the trio’s eponymous debut record. Maybe it’s the glimmering reverb that laps gently around the guitars, or the half-submerged vocal harmonies. Eleven songs of fluid, smooth groove send you on an immersive trip through outlier indie, R&B and disco.

Their sound is hypnotic ear candy in the same sublime flavour as Foals, Glass Animals or London Grammar, but with elastic arrangements that hang so loose they threaten to disintegrate on the dance floor.

‘We always wanted to make tunes that people could move to, and add a bit of positivity to the world too,’ Rich explains. ‘But there’s also a gloomy undercurrent to the album. We want to speak to as many people as possible and hope they get what we’re doing.’

Together, Rich (drums) and bandmates Guro Gikling (bass) and Luis Santos (guitar) have hit on a sound that fizzes effortlessly through the bits and bytes of the digital landscape. Unhindered by geographical restraints, it seems the cult of All We Are is spreading fast, as proven by a quick glance on blog aggregator Hype Machine. Their contagious pop has resonated with an unblinkered generation of blogged-up, switched-on music fans earning them a place on a glut of music industry tip lists, from The Guardian’s influential 2015 inventory and the BBC’s Sound of 2015 poll to the Get Into This (GIT) Newcomer Award shortlist.

Amazing Radio, BBC Radio 6 Music and the PRS for Music Foundation also pledged early support, with the latter funding the trio for a UK tour and single release last year. But probably the biggest feather in the band’s cap so far has been their recent signing to Domino Records imprint Double Six. So, how exactly did this Liverpool-based trio catapult from bedroom band to fully-signed going concern in 18 months?

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‘Everyone was blown away by All We Are and if I hadn’t signed them that night someone else would’ve.’

Above: All We Are perform at a recent PRS for Music Foundation event Right: All We Are Below: Dan Carey

Talent spotting All We Are have the musical chops, of that there’s no doubt. From their first meeting at Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts to their first album wrap, Guru, Luis and Rich have grafted hard and honed their skills. Focusing less on their brand and more on their band has obviously paid off. But it was a chance encounter with Double Six label boss Ryan McCann that sealed their fate and scored them a record deal with one of the UK’s most prestigious indies.

‘We had a support slot in London to launch our self-released single Utmost Good and Domino just happened to be at the gig. There was a connection right away, which was great because they’re pretty much our dream label!’ Rich explains.

All We Are’s serendipitous story brings to mind the heady days of Britpop, when A&Rs gathered at the back of tiny venues waiting to chuck cash at new talent as they came off stage. Since then, heavily restricted label budgets have cramped the risk-taking record men while the internet has killed off musical karma. Now everyone can hear anything they want immediately, gigs are never a surprise.

Ryan, who stumbled upon the band at the Sebright Arms that night, says: ‘Obviously it’s a lot easier to hear people’s music now, so we all make judgements before we go to the show. Usually, I know what I’m going to see. I never usually go in blind. But with these guys, I literally had no idea what their name was or what they really sounded like.’

He recalls how he was ‘instantly blown away’ by the number of great songs All We Are had and how well written they were. ‘I’d never seen a support band of such a high standard just out of nowhere. I wasn’t the only industry person there, but they’d come to see the headline act.

Everyone was blown away by All We Are and if I hadn’t signed them that night someone else would.’

What was it about their performance that wowed all the industry bods?

Dan Carey, who produced their album and has also worked with MIA, Hot Chip, Bat for Lashes and Kate Tempest, believes it’s all about the band’s on-stage chemistry. ‘I think what they’ve got going for them aside from their brilliant playing - is that they are so definitely a band.

profile

They’re not just three people working on a project, they live for All We Are,’ he says.

everyone in the studio wear sunglasses, even the engineer. ‘He couldn’t really see, but he wasn’t allowed to take the shades off,’ she laughs.

‘You can see that when you go to the pub with them. They respect each other so much and they’re all pushing in exactly the same direction. All they want to do is get into the studio and practice. That level of devotion is what makes someone like Ryan at Double Six so excited. It’s not just what he’s hearing at the gig, he can sense there’s something incredible that’s going on between them.’

Dan’s set-up isn’t like a normal studio with a live room and a control room. He’s keen to ensure everyone feels comfy and at home, aping the vibe of a live rehearsal space rather than a hi-tech recording den. For the entire process, no one wore headphones so everyone could hear exactly the same thing.

For Guro, Luis and Rich, it’s their strong sense of togetherness which keeps them going. Hailing from Norway, Brazil and Ireland respectively, they’ve found a new home in the band. It’s an infectious dynamic that’s as visible on stage as it is audible on record.

Psychedelic boogie ‘We really like to go off in isolation - just the three of us,’ says Rich. ‘We did it as much as we could when we were trying to define our sound.

I think it’s not so much the places we go to but the isolation we put ourselves in: no internet, no phones.’

It’s an approach that has worked well for the band. They’ve delivered an album that sounds coherent; post-rock excursions emerging at the end of tracks to carry you almost seamlessly into the next.

‘Sometimes we’d just record in the dark,’ remembers Dan. ‘Recording in normal light is one thing. But if you shut the blinds and turn off the lights you get a different feel and it’s easier to be transported by the music.’

The end result is a warm and woozy album, which feels ‘live and raw’ says Rich. ‘We never really set out to make a particular sound - what we do has come about very organically. It’s the same when we write - we’re very democratic and jam for ages to see what ideas come out.

‘A melody might emerge, so we’ll develop that together, and then a word might pop up,’ he continues. ‘By the time we even come to write lyrics we find most of them are already there. So I think there’s definitely that organic vibe but we do like a good solid groove to get people going.’

Songs were written in a disused school in Liverpool, a remote cabin in Norwegian mountains and a countryside getaway in Wales: their unique sound born out of a lust for life and a love of long, late nights. But when they hooked up with Dan for production duties, they relocated to his South London studio to record the album proper.

With diverse influences pulling the album in different directions - from Kendrick Lamarr to Metronomy and OutKast - theirs is a groovy disco sound with bags of sex appeal. Job done for a new band on the up.

Mates, late nights and grooves - All We Are’s ‘psychedelic boogie’ certainly makes for a special proposition. ‘We wanted to be together and that’s just all we are,’ Guro says.

‘Dan made the whole room sound so lush and gorgeous,’ remembers Guro. For the recording of falsetto harmony-driven I Wear You, he made

All We Are are published by Domino Publishing Company and their debut album is out now.

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02/03/2015 11:21

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rules of engagement

With music industry cash increasingly hard to come by, brand collaborations can offer a vital source of income. Jim Ottewill explores how artists can enter into these partnerships and the pitfalls to avoid…

Artists who willingly clamber into the arms of corporate companies and big brands were once accused of selling their souls to the devil. Legend has it that Robert Johnson gave his away in a Faustian exchange for musical ability at a crossroads. But shaking hands over a cheque from a global conglomerate was considered a far more heinous crime. As the late, great comedian Bill Hicks said: ‘If you do an advert, then you’re off the artistic register forever.’

These days the creative industries have moved on, with artists and songwriters no longer criticised for partnering with companies.

With the budgetary waistlines of music businesses tighter than ever, collaborating with a brand is now a standard, if not arguably essential, part of an act’s strategy.

Value exchange Research from marketing agency FRUKT and PRS for Music revealed just how important these relationships have become. Their Brands and Bands: the Value Exchange study showed that the UK music industry attracted more than £100m of investment from brands in 2012. The report also revealed that almost three quarters of artist managers see brand partnerships as an increasingly important way of in adding value to an artist’s career.

‘The idea that you’re doing things for “the man” has fallen by the wayside.’

Giles Fitzgerald, FRUKT’s Trends and Insight Editor, says: ‘Brand activity has risen to become a mainstay of the music business, with labels and artists actively looking to offset their depleted music sales. Brands are starting to truly understand the inherent value of forging a deeper relationship with music beyond the occasional ad sync.’

While further research has yet to be undertaken, Giles believes the number of such collaborations is increasing. ‘Partnership activity is definitely on the rise year-on-year,’ he adds. ‘It now provides a crucial new source of revenue, both for emerging and established acts alike.’

2014 highlights The early days of brands and bands go back to Michael Jackson and Madonna soundtracking Pepsi ads in the eighties, but such relationships are becoming increasingly sophisticated in line with technological innovation. 2014’s high profile collaborations included

FOCUS

Irish rock band U2’s pairing with Apple on the release of their new album Songs of Innocence and Google Play linking with Sam Smith on a live performance broadcast on Channel 4. Sam’s performance of his single Stay With Me at the Roundhouse was broadcast in an ad break during Alan Carr’s Chatty Man. Google Play branding was visible on screen throughout in what was the first collaboration of its kind. More recently, the pair teamed up with the 2015 BRIT Awards to showcase exclusive performances from the event.

Main image: FKA Twigs and Google Glass

Henry Jones, Product Marketing Manager at Google Play, explains the brand wants to be ‘a proactive and innovative partner’ for the music industry. He says: ‘We have a close relationship with Universal and one idea that we all got excited about was a live ad. We loved it and set about adding extras layers that we felt only Google could. The collaboration just grew from there.’

Red Bull gives music wings While Sam’s one-off partnership worked brilliantly in helping promote his debut album In the Lonely Hour, many of the best collaborations are more long-term. Giles believes that brands like Red Bull and Converse have used sustained investment to convincingly align themselves with music.

‘The most credible brands operating in music today have achieved this position by investing in the “experience” of music and building an authentic relationship with fans to build respect for their brands,’ he says.

Red Bull has only been active in the musical sphere for a relatively short time but its musical portfolio now includes a label, a publishing company, Red Bull Studios and the much talked of Red Bull Music Academy. The studios has hosted many of the UK’s cooler stars including Katy B and Disclosure while the academy has supported an estimated 1,000 artists since its inception. Mumdance, a new London producer and DJ, describes the latter as a ‘dream ticket for any electronic musician’.

Mumdance, aka Jack Adams, draws on jungle and grime to inform his sounds. He’s behind the latest instalment in the FABRICLIVE mix series while’s he also released music via XL Recordings with London’s latest grime star Novelist. For Jack, there aren’t any negative aspects to these relationships.

‘The academy lands in a city and builds a studio – they think about it very carefully,’ he explains. ‘They’re leaving behind a trail of great music and building up a heritage. If it takes a drinks brand to do this, then that’s cool with me.’

Converse Rubber Tracks Ellie Rowsell, vocalist with emerging grungy rockers Wolf Alice is in agreement with Jack. The band, who were named in the BBC’s Sound of 2015 list, have been featured in Channel 4 show, Launched at Red Bull Studios and Converse Rubber Tracks. Originating in the US, this latter initiative is an ongoing music programme offering free recording time to musicians in various boroughs across London.

Wolf Alice helped promote the project with a performance at the first ever Converse Rubber Tracks live show and Ellie believes the passion of these brands for supporting grassroots music is increasingly important.

‘Red Bull provide access to new music by offering their studios and competitions for young bands. That’s really important for acts starting out. If they’re going to provide a platform for us to do our thing, then why would I not take that?

‘Rubber Tracks offers recording time to new bands who don’t have a record label to help them,’ she continues. ‘It’s really hard for bands to make money from their music in this day and age. If I was to turn that down, that’s turning down money I could invest in our next album.’ m55_march 2015_23

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Generating income 2012 figures from the Musicians’ Union (MU) show how hard it can be for artists to earn money from their art. An MU report reveals that more than half of professional musicians still get paid less than £20,000 per year while 60 percent have worked for free over the past year.

With big money deals from record labels increasingly rare, Eammon Forde, a digital music expert from Music Ally, says it makes sense for new acts to go to brands when looking for financial support.

‘The idea that you’re doing things for “the man” has fallen by the wayside,’ he says. ‘It’s there to bring in some money and act as a marketing platform. Although bands need to make sure it acts as a marketing spring board and not a marketing guillotine. The danger is you’ll only be remembered for your association with that brand.’

The future With increasingly forward thinking media and technologies available, these partnerships are only limited by the imaginations of the parties involved. The 2014 Google Glass advert featuring FKA Twigs perhaps points to where the future lies. #throughglass was a two-minute ad which she directed and appeared in, showing off how the new technology worked.

Clockwise from top left: Wolf Alice, FRUKT’s Giles Fitzgerald, Music Ally’s Eammon Forde, Sam Smith and MumDance.

‘Brand partnerships now provide a crucial new source of revenue, both for emerging and established acts.’

Emotional connections For brands, the positives are clear. Using music as a marketing tool is a way of purchasing cool, tapping into a new audience and the emotional connection this offers.

As Giles from FRUKT says: ‘No matter how hard you try, it’s hard to get emotionally attached to a can of soft drink, a new laptop or dog food. However, add in a layer of music and this creates a heightened level of emotional resonance, enhancing our subconscious perception of the product.’

At the same time, these collaborations can eternally damage a brand or band if the pairing doesn’t work out. U2’s record release with Apple backfired when the story focused more on how to remove the band’s 2014 songs from iTunes accounts rather than the music itself.

Eamonn also warns of the ‘Babylon Zoo effect’, a situation where the partnership ruins a new act’s career. The infamous nineties group of the same name enjoyed a massive number one with Spaceman, their debut single and soundtrack to a Levi’s ad. But then they promptly sank without a trace.

Eamonn says: ‘If they’d had a couple of hits before then they might have been okay. But that Levi’s ad completely overshadowed their career.

There’s a real risk of going in early with an artist. If no one knows who they are, then it can become a millstone around their neck. It also looks bad for the brand if they back an artist who doesn’t go anywhere.’

Nick Griffiths works as Director of Communications at the Kingdom Collective agency and Land of Kings, Dalston’s multi-venue festival.

He says that collaborations work best when both parties are fully aware of what the other hopes to achieve: ‘the sweet spot is when the brand helps the artist realise something that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible,’ he explains.

While radical innovation is taking place, Giles sees the branded revenue streams as an increasingly sought after area. ‘I envisage more of a swing towards the Eastern model, currently utilised in Korea and Japan, where artists are built from the ground up as brands first and music artists second,’ he explains.

‘K-pop artists are trained – often for many years before being released to the public – to be endorsement-friendly from the get-go, with brand partnerships an integral part of the artist’s career trajectory.’

Despite the success, bands and brands need to exercise some caution. Overexposure is a huge danger for both artists and brands, and ultimately both need to understand the other. This way art and commerce can co-exist and help the other thrive.

As Nick says: ‘As long as bands see it as a way to help them create something more interesting and compelling, then it can be a great thing.’ m55_march 2015_25

‘I had no grand statements to make. Still haven’t, as a matter of fact.’ Wry, drily self-deprecating and ferociously bright, Herbert Kretzmer has never dealt in the grand or grandiose. He has spent a career making small, telling statements, sharpened like pencilpoints to pierce truths, emotions, hypocrisies. Now 90, his speech may have slowed, but his words are still as precise, his instinct as contrarian as ever.

Herbert Kretzmer is the most successful lyricist you’ve never heard of. His might not be a household name, but if you’ve ever heard Peter Sellars’ comedy classic Goodness Gracious Me or Honor Blackman’s Kinky Boots, whistled along to Charles Aznavour’s She or Yesterday When I Was Young, or are one of over 60 million people who have seen Les Misérables, then you’ll know his work. Not bad for a ‘kitchen-table’ lyricist whose songwriting was only ever a side line of his day-job as a journalist.

‘No one is more surprised than me’, he observes, as we sit in his Kensington home, ‘that I am ending my life as a songwriter and not as a journalist. Which isn’t to say I took it lightly; when I sat down to write I was always serious, and I felt rejection as deeply and keenly as everyone else.’ He pauses for a moment, smiling

slightly. ‘Well, perhaps a little less keenly; I knew that I didn’t have to depend on it to survive.’

Herbert didn’t know any songwriters growing up. He didn’t even know songwriting was a profession – there weren’t many in the tiny South African town of Kroonstad where he spent his childhood.

Yet there was no doubt in his mind what he wanted from his life. ‘I was young, maybe 12 years old, and I had a vision. I saw myself on a hilltop with a microphone in my hand. I knew at that moment that I was going to be a communicator of some kind.’

Ambition drew Herbert to London, where communication initially took the form of jobs at the Daily Express and the Daily Mail. But alongside a successful career as a critic and profile writer, interviewing the likes of Frank Sinatra, John Steinbeck and Cary Grant, Herbert’s songwriting began to flourish, first in small projects (‘I did one song for George Martin from The Beatles; it wasn’t very good, but it wasn’t too bad’), before an interview with Peter Sellars led to an unexpected break.

‘Goodness Gracious Me took about 90 minutes to write. No, it actually took me a week and 90 minutes to write – that’s more

PROFILE

THE PERFECT RHYME Alexandra Coghlan meets Herbert Kretzmer, the most influential lyricist you’ve never heard of.

accurate. For the first week I couldn’t write anything, the brief was so complicated. The song had to be delivered on Sunday, and that morning not a word was written, not a note committed to paper.

The composer came round, and at about 10am I found the “boomboody-boom” riff. Once I had that it unlocked a dozen windows and doors, and so the song was written within 90 minutes and was heard within a couple more hours by Peter Sellars.’

Although the song would go on to win an Ivor Novello Award, perhaps more significantly it also caught the attention of Ned Sherrin, producer and director of the BBC’s satirical series That Was the Week that Was. Ned invited Herbert to write for the show – the start of a regular relationship that generated some memorable and provocative musical satire. Songs would be written each Thursday (‘I could normally get an afternoon off work’), handed to the composer on Friday, rehearsed on Saturday morning before going out live on air that night. The pace was fast, and when John F Kennedy was assassinated, Herbert produced now-iconic ballad In the Summer of his Years in less than 24 hours.

Political protest is a continuous thread through Herbert’s career, whether in the barricade songs of Les Misérables, the class-criticism

of musical Our Man Crichton or his satirical lyrics – surprising, perhaps, for a man who describes himself as not politicallymotivated.

‘It sounds too flag-waving to I say that I am angered by unfairness, by false accusations against the innocent, but I am.

Normally people who feel as I do get more involved, take more risks. But I was never quite angry enough to become a rebel in South Africa. Some of my friends did and spent time behind bars as a result. I never had that sort of courage. I made my statement in other ways.’

Chief among those ways was satire. Speaking to Herbert in the week following the Charlie Hedbo attack, it’s a subject of disquietingly topicality. ‘Satire feeds the great debate that any nation has’, he says, ‘the conversation every nation has with itself: questioning the headlines, changing views. A song I wrote was once quoted in the House of Commons – it wasn’t all that important, but somebody was outraged. I was pleased.’

But outrage hasn’t always been such a pleasure for Herbert. His work as English-language lyricist for Les Misérables saw him inherit m55_march 2015_27

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a minor, two-hour French musical and transform it in just five months to the three-hour hit we all know, adding half-a-dozen songs (including Bring Him Home and Stars) and reimagining many more along the way. Yet despite this, his role has often been reduced to that of a mere translator; when the BBC and ITV made documentaries about the 2012 film adaptation, Herbert’s name was omitted altogether.

‘I take the theme of songs, rather than doing a line by line translation’, he explains. ‘It’s not translating, it’s recreating.’

Herbert is proud of his work on Les Misérables, but one song – Eponine’s On My Own still niggles this meticulous perfectionist.

‘I’ll get it right one day’, he says, not entirely joking. ‘The words “danger” and “stranger” are a perfect rhyme, the perfect answer to the question I was asking, but it’s been done before. There’s an element of pride in not succumbing to the easy option.’

That’s the sign of a man who won’t give up until he has found exactly the right word.’

With over 50 years of lyric-writing to his credit, Herbert knows the business well. And when it comes to giving advice he is characteristically specific. ‘It’s very practical and simple: don’t accept any evident sign of weakness and laxity in your work. Don’t ever, for instance, submit a false rhyme. The word “time” doesn’t rhyme with “mind”. They have same vowel sound, but that’s not enough. It has to be a perfect rhyme.’

It’s the mantra of a great lyricist, who even at 90 won’t give up until he too has found ‘exactly the right word’.

Stacked centrally in Herbert’s drawing room, close to hand, are songbooks – Rogers & Hart, Gershwin, Cole Porter, all the greats. Herbert himself is full of admiration for these writers who soundtracked his childhood, whose songs are ‘part of fabric of modern living’. But his fascination with the craft of lyric-writing, the words and rhythms that are the nuts and bolts of the job, pushes Stephen Sondheim to the front of his mind.

‘Sondheim is a master rhymester. He’s one who doesn’t settle for the easy way, who doesn’t give up. In A Little Night Music a wife sings about her husband, and she rhymes “moustache” with the idea that he smokes his cigar until it is “just ash”. Another miraculous example is Some People. It’s not just that the words are self-rhyming and come at the right place, but they are unexpected.

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Above: In 2011 Herbert Kretzmer OBE (centre) received the PRS for Music Award for Extraordinary Achievement. With (l-r) Claude-Michel Schönberg, Don Black OBE, Guy Fletcher OBE and Sir Tim Rice.

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BASCA is a single, powerful voice for all songwriters and composers, across all genres.

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song writing

i wrote that Rewind to 1989 and the defining sound of youth culture was acid house. Producer and DJ Adamski was a key figure in this mind altering explosion, surfing a wave of neon rave before taking the sound out of the warehouses and into the charts with his huge number one hit, Killer.

Co-written with the then unknown vocalist Seal, the song made them both household names. Seal went on to win an Ivor Novello Award for his hit Crazy while Adamski established himself as a DJ and top producer of leftfield beats. Here he recalls how the pair wrote the song and transformed British pop music for good…

'Seal walked into the rave and had an epiphany about his musical style while I was DJing.'

Back in 1989 I had an MC/flatmate called Daddy Chester. He went to an after-party one Sunday morning and returned to the flat with this cassette.

He was like, ‘You’ve got to listen to this guy’. It was Seal’s demo and featured Crazy plus a few other songs. I recognised an amazing voice, then went on to meet him around the scene.

We first came across each other at Sunrise 5,000, a massive rave at Santa Pod race track that summer. He’d just returned from doing a tour of Thailand and his mate brought him to this rave with thousands of people.

That was the biggest one to date, particularly for me to play at. Weeks before I’d been playing to around 50 people, then I was suddenly playing to 8,000.

Seal walked into the rave and had an epiphany about his musical style while I was DJing. He apparently pointed at me and said, ‘That’s the guy I want to work with’, as soon as he walked in.

We started hanging out, having a lot of fun at clubs like Solaris, which happened on Sunday evenings. I met a lot of interesting people back then, all totally psyched by this new style of music. It sounded like it was coming from outer space. Before acid house most music, apart from hip-hop, was really boring.

Me and my mates were into psychedelic drugs and bands like Shriekback and dance music that was a bit mental like the Severed Heads. Acid house started coming over at the same time as Detroit techno, and it was the scene I’d been waiting for. The fun and shenanigans of it all revolved around great music and the sense of unity. It was a great leveller of society, culture and people’s backgrounds.

After meeting, I asked Seal to come to the studio where I was working on demos at MCA Publishing.

He turned up on his moped. It was really funny. He used to ride one with his dreadlocks with bits of silver in hanging out of his crash helmet.

He just said he’d got some lyrics which would fit over one of my tunes called Killer. I’d already been performing it as an instrumental, apart from when my MC turned up. In those days we’d go out every night and didn’t always perform together. If I was playing in Ibiza, which I often was back then, my MC didn’t have a passport sorted out so he missed those gigs. But Killer was the tune which jumped out at Seal. Coincidentally, the tune Seal had in mind for the track was called The Killer. It was really weird, especially as the word isn’t in the lyrics and my tune was called Killer. It was named because I thought it sounded like the soundtrack to an assassination scene in a film.

I knew it was a great tune but had no idea it was going to be so massive and reach number one. It was the record company who told me it should be my next single. I had an album out at the time and it wasn’t on there. The success of the song kind of tripped me up really as I had to rush to get another album ready.

I wasn’t ready. I was too busy performing the other music and partying, doing all this PR and promo. It was all new to me. They said, ‘Let’s put this song out, then come up with a load of new music really quickly’.

I do work fast but that was too much. I burnt myself out pretty quickly. If I hadn’t gone out every night I could have probably done a better job of it. But who wouldn’t want to be going out every night during that time with that musical revolution going on?

And knowing all the best parties and being invited to them? It would have taken a very disciplined young man to have said, ‘No I’m going to stay in and work on the sound of my hi-hats’.

Adamksi’s new album, Revolt is out now.

Killer Written by: Adam Paul Tinley and Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel Originally published by: Tinnitus Trax and Universal/MCA Music. m55_march 2015_31

sound effect

Listen to Pete Fowler’s selection

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We’ve changed Visit the new-look M online now You’ll discover revamped Watch and Listen sections bringing you more exclusive video interviews and sessions than ever.

You’ll also find curated playlists brought to you by leading tastemakers, industry figures and songwriters.

New specialist genre areas get under the skin of even your most niche musical pursuits, while tailored career advice and publisher news will help keep you at the top of your game.

All of these new features rub shoulders with our popular regulars including industry insights, the best new music, giveaways, essential tips, profiles and more.

So if you’re interested in the craft of composition, get yourself over to M online now.

Discover a world of content created that’s tailored to you and your career.

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Pete Fowler is a Welsh artist best known for his work with psychedelic space rockers, Super Furry Animals. When he’s not busy designing record sleeves for his fellow countrymen, Pete can be found creating skateboard graphics, wall sized murals and his own range of Monsterism toys.

Outside the art world, he’s also one half of cosmic ‘deckshoegaze’ Seahawks, a duo with a penchant for ambient disco and yacht rock. Pete can also be found regularly DJing his musical wares everywhere from Glastonbury tents to East End boozers.

the first music i remember hearing was…

The first song I remember hearing and knew the name of was Baker Street

by Gerry Rafferty. It was on the radio constantly in the car when I was a kid. It must have come out the same time as Star Wars as I always associate it with that film.

given that kind of meaning and depth, you then realise how powerful and important it is. I see music as a vitamin really, and I would be ill without it.

The first record i ever bought was…

A seven inch single by The Specials although I can’t remember which one.

I do remember liking the artwork as much as the music. That started me off on collecting.

The song that makes me cry is…

The Power of Your Love by Spirit of Love. An amazing gospel disco single that provokes tears of joy.

The last great record i listened to was…

Street Player by Chicago. I’m mildly obsessed with it at the moment. I’ve listened to that in the past and enjoyed it but I heard it at a night in Walthamstow Village where I’ve just moved to and it made total sense. I always need to hear my new favourite songs as soon as I wake up in the morning.

The song i wish i’d written is…

Probably Feel Flows by the Beach Boys or Peg by Steely Dan. You get a bit older and certain records become like signifiers in your personal history and time on this planet. When music gets

The song that makes me want to dance is…

Hooked on You by Cerrone.

The song that i know all the words to is…

There are so many but I’ll pick one out of the hat: Haven’t You Heard by Patrice Rushen.

The song i want played at my funeral is…

Coming Up by Wings. I played it at one of my favourite gigs of last year at a stage called the Crow’s Nest at Glastonbury.

But I do love the idea of it being a funeral song. Everyone’s been to their fair share of them but if someone has the idea of remembering me, I’d like it to be a party. The bar’s open and free drinks to the first person to dance on my coffin. I’m deadly serious! monsterism.net

making music

sixty seconds to leave. I still felt very enthused about writing new music and wanted to continue.

Something I thought about for a while was collaborating with other people. I didn’t know who would sing live but I knew I didn’t want it to be like, ‘There goes the old singer, here’s the new one’.

I was writing and demoing songs, using piano lines to try and nail the melodies. I was talking to my manager and we found John Storey. He initially worked as a session musician but I loved his voice and asked him to play a gig. So we did a semi-secret show at The Lexington in London.

It was great and we’ve been all over the place ever since. It was quite, bizarrely, natural.

Where did you make the record?

I did it all in my central London studio where I work as a producer for other bands. I’ve got a big old desk, couple of live rooms and made the Futureheads and Killing Joke albums here. The only downside of working in your own studio is you think you’ve got all the time in the world. You end up mulling over things too much but I think there are benefits to doing things quicker.

GANG OF FOUR Gang of Four are one of rock music’s most outspoken and influential groups. The band broke out of Leeds back in 1978 with iconic debut LP Entertainment!, a powerful statement that blended political wordplay with highly charged punk and funk. Cited as a key influence by Franz Ferdinand and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, the album still sounds as vital more than 30 years later. The group are now returning in 2015 with new LP What Happens Next, their first without original vocalist Jon King. Guitarist and founding member Andy Gill tell us how the band have still got the creative bit between their teeth…

Go online for the full interiew with Gang of Four

m-magazine.co.uk

How did Gang of Four get together?

Me and Jon were arts students at Leeds University.

We’d hang out in my bedsit and try to write songs.

In the summer of ’76 we went to New York and stayed with Mary Harron. She became a famous film director, making I Shot Andy Warhol and American Psycho. Back then she used to write for New York punk magazines. Ostensibly we were there to look at art and write about our experiences. But we spent a lot of our time at CBGB’s with Joey Ramone propping up the bar on one side and Jon Cale on the other. It all seemed so straightforward, we just thought we’d have a band too.

How was the creative process in the early days?

I’d have an idea, play it on guitar, then try to explain what I was hearing for drums and the bass.

That was how we put together music while we were making Entertainment! My role was musical director. I came up against some resistance but I had strong ideas. I was always interested in the song and its performance being a bit like a play with characters in it.

What Happens Next is your new LP - what was the thinking behind it?

Our last album Context came out in 2011. I enjoyed it and was very much thinking about recording new material. We did a few gigs, then Jon decided

How has your political vision changed since the early days?

People have many different interpretations of what political means. With Gang of Four we liked to talk about politics but there’s not one song telling people what to think. The idea of putting yourself on a moral high ground and wagging your finger at those you deem to be less correct than you appals me. We always steered away from that.

When you look at early songs, even a song like Ether, which is about Northern Ireland back in the seventies, it’s as much about how we receive information and news through television as it is anything else. The world isn’t black and white, and we don’t see it like that. We see it as this complex thing and that outlook hasn’t changed in the slightest. It remains as true with What Happens Next as any Gang of Four record.

You’re cited as a hugely influential band - which acts do you look to for inspiration?

I’ve found recent tracks by Nine Inch Nails and Kanye West exciting. With a band like alt-j, there’s something amazing about their production. As a producer it’s hard to listen to things transparently.

You’re listening to the way it’s made which isn’t how you should necessarily listen to music. But I get ideas from all over the place.

Have you got any top tips you can pass on?

Be disciplined and work hard. It sounds a bit like a teacher doesn’t it? But there’s no other way round it. It is 95 percent perspiration as the saying goes.

It really is. Andy Warhol told Lou Reed; ‘Write a song every day’. That’s good advice from the master. gangoffour.co.uk m55_march 2015_33

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Rolling Stones live at Hyde Park, 5 July 1969

Mute Song’s Andrew King recalls the moment he unleashed thousands of white butterflies on-stage to commemorate the death of ex-Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones.

Myself and Peter Jenner started a management company in 1967 and we had the idea to do some free concerts in Hyde Park. It was very much in the spirit of the time. The first one was in 1968 for about 200 or 300 people, but things took off really quickly from there.

It was very amusing getting The Stones to do it – we knew it would be a big one. Funnily enough, they came to us so it was pretty straightforward – they left most of the arrangements to us.

I remember Granada Television had six film crews following us round that day. They caught just about every angle, and even filmed Mick Jagger’s then girlfriend Marianne Faithfull coming down the steps of their house before the gig, shoving a block of hash into her cleavage!

It was the week Brian Jones had drowned. They’d already sacked him a month before and were rehearsing guitarist Mick Taylor, who replaced him.

Mick and Keith thought someone might have a pop at them that day, so there were guns around. It was the first time I’d ever seen guns in the music biz.

They were very worried.

During the course of that day a million people came and went. Hyde Park was packed all the way back to Marble Arch. It was the last one we did there.

People climbed the elm trees for a better view but they shed their branches and the gardeners said it wasn’t safe anymore.

For me, the day kicked off at three in the morning and went on very late indeed. The butterflies were such a bloody hassle! Mick announced that he

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was going to read a poem by Shelley on the death of Keates, which he did quite extraordinarily badly, as if he’d never heard of a comma or full stop in his life. It was obviously Marianne’s idea – she was the literary one. When he finished, all these butterflies were supposed to fly out, representing the soul of Brian Jones. It was my job to unleash them.

The butterflies were bred at a farm in the West Country. They came up by overnight train in cardboard boxes to Paddington Station. I remember the breed had been a thing of considerable consternation with the gardeners, because they didn’t want them to affect the park’s ecosystem. We were chuffed we’d managed to find the right species of butterfly – but it wasn’t plain sailing from there. I remember being down at Paddington Station at 4.30am to collect them, peeped into one of the boxes… and they all appeared to be dead!

I panicked and called the butterfly farm, who told me they were just cold and asleep, and I had to warm them up to get them to fly. So I took them backstage, but the only heating we had were two tiny electric fires students use to heat cans of baked beans. We started stacking up these butterfly boxes on the heaters and one of them caught fire. It was a real palaver. In the end, we managed to perk them up a bit and by the time of the gig a few butterflies did fly out as they were supposed to, but an awful lot just went plonk onto the stage. I’ll always remember Mick in that tutu, looking on somewhat aghast…

Andrew King founded Blackhill Enterprises with Peter Jenner in 1967, managing bands including Marc Bolan, Kevin Ayres, The Clash, Pink Floyd and Ian Dury. In 1976 he started a publishing subsidiary and prospered with The Clash and Dury catalogues. He continued as Dury’s manager until his death.

In 1992, King became General Manager of Mute Song, presiding over a diverse roster of innovative rock, pop, techno, jazz and folk songwriters. He still consults for Mute Song and is a Director of the Music Publishers Association.

“I’m on a CD with Amy Winehouse Because I Joined TAXI.” Anj Granieri – TAXI Member www.anjmusiconline.com

My name is Anj and I’m 26

years old. Thanks to TAXI, I’ve recently signed a 5-year contract to compose for a publisher that supplies music for the #1 highestrated daytime talk show in American television history.

Myth: Living in N.Y. or L.A. is a Must

I moved to NYC when I was 23 to “make it big” in the music business. I ended up living in a shoebox-sized apartment with broken windows and cockroaches all over the place. Not quite as glamorous as the movies make it out to be. I was frustrated and deflated.

That’s when a friend told me about TAXI. She said it would provide me with the ability to make valuable connections that would advance my career. I was so intrigued that I called and signed up that day.

the song a trusted source sent, or one from the pile of unsolicited stuff from people you don’t know?

I used to spend countless hours trying to make connections, let alone the right connections! With TAXI, when my music is on-target and great, it’s placed in the hands of people who need exactly what I have to offer. The results have been nothing short of amazing.

My music has been sent to more than 15 major record labels by TAXI, and my single, Former Stranger was released on a Universal Records compilation with Amy Winehouse and Duffy in Europe and Asia. It’s also been placed in a prominent publishing

catalog that features music on the CW network. All because I joined TAXI.

Myth: All Music Executives Are Cutthroat

My biggest success yet came from TAXI’s annual free, membersonly convention, the Road Rally. I met the decision-maker from a prominent publishing company that provides music for the #1 highest rated, day-time talk show on the air.

I performed for him at TAXI’s openmic and he signed me on the spot.

The Road Rally is loaded with insightful seminars and the nicest executives you could ever meet. It’s the only convention I’ve ever been to with a true “family feel.”

Reality: Dreams Can Come True!

There are two types of people in the world: those who dream of what could be, and those who make what could be into their reality! So which are you? Call TAXI and do something with your music!

Myth: Cold Calls Work

Imagine that you’re a busy music executive. Are you going to listen to

The Worldʼs Leading Independent A&R Company

800-917-0406 www.taxi.com

Angel Recording Studios

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www.angelstudios.co.uk bookings@angelstudios.co.uk

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