Music Business UK Q4 2019

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Q4 2019

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EDITOR’S LETTER I’m not averse to a spot of well-deserved industry back-slapping.

There’s much celebration of executive achievements throughout these pages – not least that which took place at the A&R Awards (presented

by MBW in association with Abbey Road Studios) last month. I have, however, been thinking a lot about the handiwork of this business, how it’s measured, and how we ascertain a smash success from an also-ran.

The way I see it, the complication with that process today has three factors: (i) the difference between global and local successes; (ii) the lack of cohesive, wide-spectrum data reflecting the heaviest hitters of the period; (iii) deep confusion over what constitutes a ‘new’ artist in 2019.

For example, who are the biggest British breakthrough acts of this year? I’ll save you the obvious runners and riders – you know their names – except for the fact that one artist, Rex Orange County, barely gets a mention in most of the discussions I’ve heard on the subject.

I had the pleasure of watching Rex OC at the first of his three night sold-out run at Brixton Academy at the end of November, which led me to a bit of research: his first major label album, Pony, arrived on October 25 and went Top 5 in Canada (No.3), Australia (No.4), the UK (No.5) and the United States (No.3).

Major label heads: would you trade a fleeting UK No.1 album from a new British artist, with perhaps 30,000 equivalent sales, for this kind of global performance? Which are you and your team more commercially incentivised to achieve? Is that the right approach?

These are big questions at the heart of the UK industry’s quest to ‘break’ artists. (As for whether Rex OC, who independently released two albums prior to Pony, counts as a ‘new’ act, you’ll have to ask Lizzo – just nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammys despite my wife falling in love with her in 2014 via the

Š Music Business Worldwide Ltd 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AX ISSN 2632-5357

Tim Ingham

“In confusing times, we need an artist chart that UHĂąHFWV WRWDO revenue: streaming, VDOHV PHUFK tickets...â€?

BBC’s Glastonbury coverage, and an acoustic rendition of Batches & Cookies.)

There’s no doubting the global streaming pedigree of Rex Orange County; his five biggest tracks alone have over 600 million plays between them on Spotify, with his most recent single, Face To Face, on over 9 million.

Yet part of the reason why Rex OC did quite so well in the States with Pony leads into another big talking point: his album was bundled with a ticketing offer. Arguments over what constitutes ‘gaming’ the US album chart aside, here’s an artist who will play to over 130,000 people in the UK and US on this tour alone, including those Brixton dates, plus two nights apiece at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles (6k capacity) and Radio City in NYC (5.7k).

The British record industry isn’t, generally speaking, hugely interested in such ticketing statistics – unless it concerns your specific artist! – because they don’t directly correlate to record ‘sales’. But here’s my argument: if the music biz is basing its modern relevance on its ability to parse data for the betterment of artists, there should surely be a chart – ideally global, but local will do – that reflects total revenue generation by each act within a certain period: streaming, sales, merch, tickets... the lot. Finally, inarguable clarity would be attached to success.

I literally have no idea where Rex Orange County would land on that list against other 2019 Brit breakthroughs like Dermot Kennedy (read all about him on page 66), Mabel, Tom Walker, Sam Fender, D Block Europe, Aitch and Jade Bird – but I do know it would make for a fascinating and important yardstick.

It would, though, take so many factions to share information, not only across borders but also across industry verticals, I’m not holding my breath. That doesn’t mean, however, that the industry’s inability to create such a ranking is not tantamount to a failure.

Contact: Enquiries@musicbizworldwide.com Advertise: Rebecca@musicbizworldwide.com Subscribe: MusicBizStore.com

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WELCOME

In this issue...

8

Ed Howard

16

Azi Eftekhari

22

The A&R Awards

40

David Howells

46

Andy Macdonald

56

Colin Batsa

62

Isabel Garvey

66

Louis Bloom

70

Femi Adeyemi & Sean McAuliffe

76

Marc Robinson

80

James Pitt & Christian Nockall

86

Ralph Simon

104

Lilas Bourboulon / Tim Dellow / Toby L

Asylum

YouTube

Darah

Go! Discs / Independiente

EGA/Caroline

Abbey Road Studios

Island Records

NTS

Globe

Your Army

Mobilium

Transgressive

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LEAD FEATURE

HOWARD’S WAY Ed Howard’s roster of artists at Asylum have changed the face of global pop. But what’s his philosophy on A&R – and how has it led to such an extraordinary hit rate?

E

d Howard has been at Asylum for over a decade, rising through the ranks to Managing Director. His is a record company, he says, that prides itself on some of the guiding principles of Asylum’s original co-founder, David Geffen: (i) Not over-signing acts to the roster; (ii) Encouraging collaboration between the rare artists you do believe in; (iii) Sticking with your acts for the long-haul.

Geffen was obviously more Laurel Canyon than he was Boom Clap, but Howard’s claim does hold water. For example, in recent times, across Asylum’s roster, Rudimental have collaborated with Mahalia and Anne-Marie, while Mahalia has collaborated with Kojey Radical. Adding in parent company Atlantic Records, Asylum’s Charli XCX has collaborated with Icona Pop to charttopping effect, and, more recently, she’s teamed up with Lizzo.

And then, of course, there’s that other Ed. Howard met Sheeran back in 2010 at Notting Hill Arts Club, after which the world’s favourite ginger (sorry, Harry) stomped back to the flat shared by the music exec and his now wife, songwriter Miranda Cooper, to continue boozing.

There, Sheeran would “drink all our beer” according to Howard and, due to a broken iPod, also whip out his guitar and debut tracks that have since gone down in history as cornerstones of his debut LP, +. (On the David Geffen tip: Sheeran has, to date, collaborated with Asylum/Atlantic artists including Rudimental, Anne-Marie and Stormzy, while also writing for Rita Ora, Jess Glynne and others.)

It was Howard who signed Sheeran to Asylum in the first place, alongside Ben Cook, some nine years ago. The Asylum boss has remained an integral, trusted A&R voice in the homestyle superstar’s world ever since.

Sheeran manager Stuart Camp says: “Ed Howard has been with us since the beginning... actually possibly before the beginning of time, which I count as when I started managing Ed. “[Howard] has been the calm and knowledgeable big brother to Ed since then, and always will be. Atlantic has a strong future with him in place.”

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Asylum since Howard joined its ranks, as a Label Manager in 2007, is its hit rate. Pretty 09

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much everything the label has signed has been successful, to some degree, in recent years. That all started with Wiley’s summertime classic, Wearing My Rolex, back in 2008. And it can definitely be seen this year, with Ed Sheeran’s No.6 Collaborations Project (at time of going to press, the UK’s second biggest artist album of the past 12 months). Such consistency is a definite rarity in a major label world where, at best, typical A&R track records suggest that only somewhere around one in five signings will ultimately ‘work’.

Asylum’s commitment to its artists during this timespan has been self-evident: take, for example, Charli XCX, who Howard signed 10 years ago, and who continues to evolve as one of the world’s most iconic alt-pop artists, and most sought-after collaborators.

That spirit of commitment can also be seen with Mahalia, not to mention newer signing, and Instagram sensation, Lewis Blissett – who is managed by ex-Syco MD Sonny Takhar.

Here, Howard discusses his own life and career, his personal A&R philosophy, the Ed Sheeran story, and his experiences with Asylum and Warner Music Group...

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Hammersmith, West London, where I now live again. I’ve gone full circle, having spent years in East London.

I have two musician parents: my mum is a professional musician and a teacher, and at a time before I was born, she was an orchestral agent.

She used to move orchestras around the planet, during an era when you used to have to put them on boats and fax ahead [to the person expecting them]. They’re very different worlds, but I like to think there’s some parallels there to what I do now.

which could became more permanent.’ I then interned in the sync department in 2005/2006, which was just as [sync] was blowing up. I learned a bunch and put some good structure in place in terms of how they pitch songs, some of which still exists there today.

I also met Matt Chalk, who was consulting [both for Sony/ ATV and for Ministry Of Sound]. Matt did a very different thing to everyone else back then: rather than try and sign bands, he would identify unpublished hit song writers. He taught me some very important skills; we ended up signing a writer who wrote We Belong Together by Mariah Carey, amongst others.

Everyone was sort of chasing bands, but Matt showed me a little window into a different world, the pop world and the writer side of things.

This was 2005: not a great time in the commercial history of the business!

It’s funny, when I look back now, it felt like the industry was always heading in one, pretty bad direction. I knew nothing else for basically the first eight years I lived in this business. But I refused to pay too much attention to it – it didn’t put me off.

Matt introduced me to Ben [Cook], and, after about three years at Sony/ATV, that led to my move into records [at Asylum]. My publishing career wasn’t particularly distinguished, though I did sign some writers that I loved.

Asylum had a strong start with Wearing My Rolex and that gave everyone a lot of confidence in us.

“The levels of stress were high in the first five years here.”

How did you get into the business in the first place?

My journey into professional music began at university. Before that, I loved music, but had no real inclination that it was definitely something I wanted to do [for a career]. We built a studio in the college, a rehearsal room, so everyone could play. I ended up being in loads of bands as a drummer, as well as putting on nights and managing a couple of very talented singer/songwriters. For a little while after that I ran a recording studio, and then I got an internship – first at Universal Classics & Jazz, for a couple of weeks, and then Sony/ATV. That was 15 years ago and led to my first proper gig.

What were the early milestones for you at Sony/ATV? Rak Sanghvi was the MD at the time and he was amazing. He spotted me – I covered his phones for an afternoon – and we had a couple of good interactions. He noticed that I was maybe trying to impress him, and said: ‘Okay, I might have something for you,

When you look back on that period, what mistakes were you making as a new label exec?

The process. When I’d done 10 years here [in 2017], I looked back and [realised] that my second five years were much happier than the first five years. I don’t regret any of that early stuff, but as we were trying to prove ourselves, make a name for ourselves, and at a time when the industry itself was both challenged and challenging... the levels of stress were pretty high. We were much kinder to ourselves, probably, in that second five years.

But, you know, part of what laid the foundation for meeting Ed Sheeran and the reputation that maybe I had and we had [as a label], was about being decent to artists in those quite difficult times. Ed spoke to [Asylum artists] before he signed with us. He was like, ‘Actually, I’ve heard good things about you; you might not have had tonnes of success with certain artists, but the process was kind of fair and decent and understanding.’ People said good things about us in that period. So, no regrets about any of it, but it was tough on a stress level.

You arrived at a time that Max Lousada was running Atlantic.

With Asylum, he wanted to expand the sonic palette of the label group. What are your memories of Max at that time?

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LEAD FEATURE

I remember the first meeting we had very well – and clearly he impressed as I took the job. He has grown an insane amount as an executive and as a human being in the 12 years I’ve known him.

He was always creative and an exciting person, but his level of focus and his execution have gone through the roof – it’s been really impressive to see. I hope I’ve been able to follow that path, and might still do some more in the future, but that transformation and growth in Max has been inspiring.

I remember Max started a Monday morning label meeting after I joined and it was like, ‘Oh, everyone can get together and talk about everything going on across Atlantic.’ Suddenly I was plugged into a bit of knowledge on 35 projects, as opposed to just the three things that I was doing in my world. That was a brilliant thing that he started, and we still do it here today.

Anne Marie

Ben Cook was another mentor of yours – what did he teach you?

In the early days, Ben protected me in [A&R] terms of stopping me from doing anything dumb. As a publisher coming into records, he opened my eyes to the many layers of this business: artist positioning, routes to market etc. Things beyond songcraft.

I was pretty good at setting up sessions and understanding songs, that kind of thing. But [outside of those skills] it was a very steep learning curve. Ben’s attention to detail, his focus, I would say everyone here benefited from that.

Ben recently left Atlantic in controversial circumstances.

What’s your reaction to that?

Ben made a serious mistake, which I know he wholeheartedly regrets. He taught me a huge amount and supported me over the 12 years that we worked together, and he became a very close friend over that time. I wish him nothing but the best and I look forward to seeing what’s next for him.

He played these songs to Miranda and me at home and just kind of laid out the next kind of couple of years of his career. He had this magnetism, confidence and vision that was amazing.

You met Ed Sheeran in 2010. Is it true he came back to your flat, played songs and drunk your lager?

Yeah. He told the story again the other night, in front of me and my wife, and he tells it best! I'd known about him for about six months and we were sort of getting our thoughts together [as a label]: we loved A-Team, we loved Lego House, which was in a weird format at the time, and You Need Me had come out on YouTube as a live performance on SBTV. We had an impression of this multifaceted dude; someone whose [style] was slightly confused, to be fair, but also very, very talented.

Anyone who could put together that A-Team video and also do the SBTV thing, using looping like he did while also writing hooks like Lego House and singing them – that’s an incredible amount of talent.

I then met him, randomly, at Notting Hill Arts Club, and remember just feeling sort of magnetised by him. And, yes, he came back to our flat and drank a lot of beer. His iPod wasn't working, so he ended up playing the songs on his guitar. It wasn’t even his show we went to see that night – it was somebody else’s!

But he always had his guitar with him.

Other labels were famously perplexed by him – Island Records is rumoured to have signed him as a development act and then dropped him. Why did you commit?

Speaking personally, it was totally because of that meeting. But timing also came into it; I think those other [label] conversations happened previously, when [his style] was very much forming.

Ed will tell you, he's a great believer in nurture, not nature, of putting in your time. He says that when he started writing songs, it was like turning on a tap and the water running brown.

The more he wrote, the more the tap ran, and the clearer the water became. He [argues] that he started out as a terrible songwriter, but he wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, and became a good songwriter.

So to answer the question, it was partly an element of timing, and partly an element of that first meeting I had with him – feeling just so connected and trusting in this human being who had a path laid out in front of him. He also had a generosity of spirit and obviously he had likability. And then, with every interaction we had with Stuart [Camp] and Ed, it became clearer that they had a great thing going on between them, too.

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Charli XCX

Matt [Chalk] and I went to see Ed’s shows first, then Ben [Cook] came along with us later. Every single thing became more convincing. We ended up strategising together with them for the release of the No.5 Collaborations [EP, released in January 2011], even though we hadn't actually signed him.

We recommended releasing it in January rather than in December, because it would give him a clear lane. We also plugged him a little bit into the 1Xtra tips [for that year], and I think Twin B – who went on to work with us at Atlantic – was the first person to play Ed on the BBC, full stop.

There was a nice picture forming of support for Ed here. Max was very supportive, especially in closing the deal. So by the time it was done, Ed had this momentum and our relationship had already formed; we’d been following him and working with him [behind the scenes] for about four or five months prior to signing.

Did you have big expectations for him?

Well, his [No.5 Collaborations] EP was No.2 on iTunes the day we signed him, so we could see [the potential]. The signs were there: if you looked closely the amount of money he was [generating] on TuneCore [in 2010], I think he did £400,000 in iTunes sales on his own that year, just from his catalogue, before we even released an [Asylum] record.

That actually caused some US labels to pay attention, including Mike Caren and others, and you could also see the tickets he was selling. He did a sold out show at The Waterfront in Norwich, just before Christmas [2010] which we went to. He must have sold

Ed Sheeran

over 700 tickets. There were strong signs that something crazy was about to happen.

What has been the most stressful or challenging time of the Ed story from your perspective? My guess is that it was probably ahead of the release of Multiply, when the pressure was on to define him as a blockbuster artist ready for the US. That’s a good guess. I’ll actually give you a few different ones.

Early on, there was a particularly special 24 hour period around the release of the [re-recorded] A-Team. We all knew it was the right record at that time, but we wondered if [we could generate] the excitement around re-releasing it. Would we get a [Radio 1] Hottest Record? Things like that, which seem less important in [the Ed story] with hindsight, but at the time felt like everything.

We believed in him so much, we wanted to launch it perfectly and get it right. We all agreed to stick with [A-Team] and that whatever right or wrong we might suffer, at the end of the day it was 100% the right record with the right message, with the right video that portrays Ed’s artistry perfectly.

There was a big debate around the first single on Multiply: Sing was a great moment, but there was a big Sing/Don’t question mark at that time – they were both amazing records. Then Sing came out, and it felt like loads of people that hadn’t paid attention to Ed, people who might not have previously thought he was for them, kind of jumped in and really loved that record.

And another brilliant moment, obviously, was: What should we do with Shape Of You and Castle on the Hill? Shape

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LEAD FEATURE

of You, just like Thinking Out Loud, came in a week or so before we closed Multiply. It was a song we didn't particularly know we needed, but obviously we were very grateful for!

Ed’s got a habit of turning in his best homework late, hasn’t he?

Exactly! It’s when the pressure comes off. I feel like part of my role is, as best as I can, helping him stay in that mindset: ‘You are not under any particular pressure. Let’s just see what happens.’

If Ed stays in a creative, positive mindset, miracles occur pretty consistently.

So Shape of You also came super late, but then we had to work out how to handle those two records. I loved Castle on the Hill – I loved them both, really. The way that we – Callum Caulfield, Nick Long, Ben [Cook], Stu [Camp] – strategised that, it ended up making both records bigger and blew the album up. It was perfect.

Ed’s No.6 Collaborations album this year was full of UK and US stars. You weren't just dealing with one individual's famously modest ego... you were dealing with all of those other ones as well. Was it still fun?

It was fun, mainly because it meant working with FRED [Gibson] and Ed, who are really good mates, in some really fun places and with a few people that we maybe wouldn't otherwise – producers and writers.

There was an element of freedom that we built into the process, which FRED really, I think, helped Ed unlock; it gave Ed the confidence of having that wingman, making him feel good in situations that maybe weren't totally natural to him beforehand.

But obviously on a logistical perspective, Cannelle [Bencherqi, A&R Co-Ordinator] with Stu [Camp] and Jim Doyle, that was intense. We will all think very hard about doing a Collaborations No.7, that’s for sure! But, creatively, some of my favorite music of Ed’s career is on that record.

Interestingly, I think not having the whole promo cycle – not going out there and talking about the album, doing the radio stations and everything – was actually quite a strange experience for Ed. [He] missed it a bit, I suppose.

creativity. But then when that same artist starts writing those [hit] songs and they’re incredible, obviously you want to give light to those as well.

Fancy came out of a session I put her in with Iggy [Azalea] and, again, that’s a really cool record, but these things were just kind of happening around [her main career]. Because she knows her identity better than anyone, Charli originally didn’t want to release I Love It, but then she ended up being a feature on it instead, and that kind of worked.

We didn't want to stop her turning in these unbelievable songs; we want to give that confidence in that. But now, I would argue, her music and her creative are perfectly aligned, and she owns it. I’m looking forward to the moment she takes this amazing, creative, clubby kind of dynamic she’s got going on, and finds the right song that unlocks it perfectly, in a way that maybe Robyn has done a couple of times in her career. Charli and Robyn are actually quite close these days. I took Charli to her first Robyn show, and we both cried – I cried a bit, and she cried a lot!

I’m confident Charli will find that song, but she’s going to do it on her terms, rather than having [a label say], ‘Okay, we're going to do massive pop songs over here and then really cool stuff over here.’

It's about bringing those two things together; finding music that has the potential to have scale, but is also really, really cool, and which makes sense of the amazing shows she's been doing at Brixton Academy or Reading [Festival], and all over the world.

I think Charli’s so important as an artist that you can only really support her in whichever direction she goes.

“We’re never going to dictate to artists. But we will put our case forward – robustly!”

Charli XCX had two massive hits in I Love It (with Icona Pop) and Boom Clap, but has more recently evolved into a less hitdriven, overtly commercial artist. Why is Asylum comfortable with that kind of evolution when other labels would be impatient for more quick hits?

Charli started off making really cool records like Stay Away, Nuclear Seasons and [album] True Romance, which we spent a lot of time carefully helping her realise. She always had [hit] songs from the get go – there were great songs on True Romance. But the ‘package’ didn’t always make sense for a mainstream pop audience, and we were always completely cool with that. We just loved her

Is Asylum’s roster size a crucial factor in your hit rate, or should other factors be credited?

There are a few factors, I would say. We’ve had some level of success from the get go; we’ve also broadly had stability down the years through Ben [Cook], Max [Lousada], Damian [Christian], Mitch [Mark Mitchell], Kevin [Christian-Blair] and others. Plus Ed Sheeran obviously [creates] a bit more time for Mahalia, a bit more time for Charli and many others.

Ongoing success like that buys you stability within the corporation. Mahalia has definitely benefited, for example, over her four or five year development here, of having huge supporters in Ben and Max – people who have remained completely convinced that she could one day be one of the most important artists on the label, as she’s now proving to become.

You clearly have a very close relationship with your roster.

What brings you the level of trust and closeness with artists you need to suggest difficult things from an A&R standpoint – like a different single to the one they prefer, or a different producer etc.?

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Lewis Blissett

Rudimental

Time is definitely an important factor; the longevity of your relationship, going above and beyond, and being seen to be supportive. As with Charli, it’s about allowing artists freedom for their journey; not putting crazy pressure on, not making everything a life and death situation. Broadly speaking, it’s about giving them space to create, supporting that and seeing where they want to go.

I don’t find [those conversations] very difficult with the people I’m very lucky to work with today. But it certainly helps that I know Ed from the days when he was sleeping on our couch, and the same with Charli, when she was sat on the floor of this office, making sleeves for her cassette tapes. She was 17 when I met her, she’s been signed here 10 years; I'm incredibly proud of that. We have multiple relationships that stretch years back, across Ed, Rudimental, Charli and Anne Marie.

That in itself is really important.

Also, you have to be understanding of the multiple pressures artists are under; to be supportive and allow them, as much as possible, to find their own way. Sometimes you have to be more vocal at the beginning. I find myself very much more in the backseat now with a lot of these relationships; I'm watching Anne Marie flying, kind of dictating where she's going; Charli is completely doing her thing and being much better at it than we could ever be.

But that thing of being there at the beginning, of being supportive and helping artists, that creates a path which then gives

you credibility for when you have had those difficult conversations.

As we always say here, it’s ultimately advice we're giving. We're never going to dictate to artists what they should or shouldn’t do.

But we are going to put our case forwards – robustly!

When you see a new artist, raw and unrefined, bearing in mind how judicious you are with your signings, what makes you think: That’s a potential Asylum signing?

It’s about a strong personal connection, and an artist that's trying to be in their own lane. If I think across Charli, Skrillex, Ed, Rudimental, Lewis Blissett, Anne Marie, Kojey Radical – these are all people that aren't doing what everybody else is doing.

“You have to be understanding of the multiple pressures artists are under.”

If you could wave a magic wand right now, what one thing would you change about the industry and why?

If I could change anything, I’d want to make sure that all artists, and the teams that support them, have access to resilience training and psychological support if they need it. In today’s always-on culture, there's an expectation that artists should share everything and be constantly available. We need to remember that often they are very young people who are dealing with personal growth alongside what’s going on in their career, which can be daunting. I believe that getting this right at an early stage creates the foundations for a long and successful relationship with an artist.

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MY MANIFESTO Okay, so there are a few manifestos knocking around right now, but, honestly, this is the only one you need to read – YouTube’s Head Of Label Relations (EMEA), Azi Eftekhari’s five-point plan to improve the industry...

A

zi Eftekhari is the friendly face of YouTube. Not that the rest of the team are especially mean looking. Soon to be announced EMEA boss Dan Chalmers is one of the most popular execs around, and as we stroll through the company’s Kings Cross HQ there are nothing but smiles.

But Eftekhari is the company’s main touchpoint with the labels, the key contact for getting stuff done and making the most of a platform that serves videos to two billion viewers every month.

And she’s aware, of course, that the industry as a collective (especially as represented by trade bodies such as the BPI and IFPI) has issues with YouTube (and parent, Google), and that, at those lobbying levels, the angry face emoji puts in the odd appearance.

But, day-to-day, she concentrates on helping labels and artists grow fanbases and build careers. In the process she has experienced nothing but a willingness to work collaboratively – and entirely peacefully.

It probably helps that she spent some time in Label Land herself.

Having served a stint as VP of Envelope Stuffing at a small PR firm, one of her clients, Universal, asked her to come in-house.

They soon persuaded her to switch from PR to digital marketing and Eftekhari ended up as part of Jason Iley’s team at Mercury Records.

“It was where I wanted to be”, she says. “Being on the frontline is a whirlwind and I had a really great time there for three years, but then in 2012 the opportunity came to join Google.

“I actually started off in Google Play, when we were launching that service; I love being in on something right at the start. Then eventually Google Play and the YouTube teams got merged, and I’ve ended up working in YouTube specifically.

“I run the label relations team across EMEA. Our job is to work really closely with the labels across the region, to help them make the most of our platforms, help them break their artists.

“I think, the labels really, really understand the opportunity that YouTube gives them. They love the fact that it’s sort of in their hands to make it work. Artists love it for that reason as well, because there are no gatekeepers.”

Today, in YouTube’s predictably cool and extremely accommodating Kings Cross office, she explains not only how to build an audience, but how to build a better industry.

1. Flat Structured Organisations And More Openness The more you can do away with hierarchy and the more you can give people within your organisation a voice, the more you establish a culture that encourages creative thinking and risk taking.

We’re working in an industry which is all about creativity: we’re creating culture; we’re reflecting culture; and we’re trying to take that culture to the world – it’s impossible to do that successfully if you have too much hierarchy stifling different points of view.

Organisations need to be structured in a way that you can actually hear everyone’s voice, so that there’s proper representation and proper inclusion.

There are different levels of evolution along these lines at different companies. I believe that YouTube, being part of a tech company is very forward thinking in this respect; this type of flat, open structure is very natural for tech.

I’ve seen first-hand how much being in that environment benefits decision making. If you export this way of working across the board, it’s something that will have a really positive impact.

Diversity is such a hot topic, and rightly so, but it’s one side of a coin; you need to have diversity and inclusion.

You need to be able to hear what a diverse group of people have to say. It’s not enough just to have those people present – everyone needs to be part of the conversation.

“Organisations need to be structured so you can actually hear everyone’s voice.”

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given time in order to show your dedication and your willingness to fight for the cause is nonsense. It’s no good for anyone. This is something I strongly believe.

When you hire people, you need to trust them, and you need to believe that they’re going to do what they’re there to do. And if you can do that, then the idea of letting them work flexibly is one you should be comfortable with.

When you let people work flexibly, they’re happier and they’ll work better. It’s just so straightforward, but it still isn’t happening for everyone.

The flip side of that, the idea of sitting at your desk from nine to five and then also being creative, that’s just not possible. There’s so much research that shows you’ve got to change your environment to think creatively.

And then on top of that, returning to the theme of reflecting culture, you can’t really reflect culture from one stationary position.

I have this a lot within my team across Europe, someone might be interested in going to a different city to work with someone in a different team. We encourage all of that, because they come back with new ideas, different perceptions and fresh enthusiasm.

3. Put Audience Development At The Top Of The Agenda

platform with a really strong visual representation and narrative.

We have in-house experts that work with managers and labels to help them understand the audience development piece. And we can do deep dives over a period of time with specific artists.

But we’re seeing more and more that the labels and management companies and other parts of the industry understand that they also need to take the lead on this for themselves; I just think it’s a necessity.

4. Standardise The Charts We need charts across Europe that make sense to the industry and to consumers, that are simple to understand.

I think there’s a lot of people in the industry who agree, and who are working hard to get there. I would encourage all of us to stay focused on that and make sure that happens as soon as possible.

At the moment we’re in a situation where it’s quite hard for someone to understand the methodology of a chart in one country versus another. And that makes it very hard to actually measure and compare success across all of those different charts. You know, what does having the No. 1 really mean?

I think it’s essential to get on top of that if we want to keep the country charts relevant.

It’s about honing in on what makes sense across the board and how we can tell a very clear story about what it means to be in that top spot.

We went through this process ourselves for the YouTube charts that we launched in 44 countries last year.

You can now sit down and compare a chart in one country, to another, to another and see what’s trending, who the biggest artist is, what the biggest track is, and it’s very easy to digest and understand. That’s what the individual country charts should be heading towards – in terms of cross comparison and ease of use – because music is global and you want that sort of information to be easily accessible and easily understood.

The people in charge of the charts in different countries want to be really considered in terms of changes that are made and why they are made, and I think that’s sensible. But a side effect of that is that things move at a slower pace than they should do, especially as music consumption has changed – and continues to change – at a very rapid pace. The charts need to keep up, otherwise they’re in danger of becoming irrelevant.

“We need charts across Europe that make sense to the industry and to consumers.”

If you’re working with an artist in any capacity, you should make sure that you’ve got an audience development expert, and you should make sure that you’ve got someone that can either capture or commission content. To me, that’s essential.

Back in my label days, digital always used to be at the bottom of every agenda for a planning meeting. You’d go through everything then you’d get to the bottom of the list and say, ‘Okay, let’s talk about digital now.’

That was a long time ago and things have definitely changed.

You now see management companies and labels getting audience development people. There is an understanding that you need experts to really maximize the opportunity of the platforms.

I would even go as far as to say that everyone should have a specific YouTube expert in their team, because it’s this incredible open platform that’s purely democratic; the more you put in, the more you get out – and you have two billion logged in users every month that you can reach.

There are multiple tools you can use to analyse your performance and figure out your strategies. It makes perfect sense to maximize that by having experts.

Working at YouTube we see first-hand how the platform has been a huge part of breaking artists’ careers. There are no global boundaries anymore. People are discovering Rosalia across the world because she understands how to make the most of the

5. Give Back At Every Opportunity We’re all focused on our day-to-day, but we should all feel a

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Dirty Hit-signed Beabadoobee was recently named on YouTube’s UK & Ireland Artists To Watch list for 2020

responsibility to make sure that the future talent of the industry is looked after; I believe that should be a priority for everyone across the board.

And I think that’s happening in a lot of areas, but I would encourage everyone to make it part of their day, every day, and to see it as integral to the health and the future of our industry.

I’m talking specifically about taking every opportunity to work with charities and other organisations to give back to the community. For example, we recently announced that we’re continuing with the MMF Accelerator Program for the second year. This allows us to focus our efforts in helping new managers to break through, which in turn contributes to a healthy ecosystem.

It’s obviously very hard for a new manager to get things off the ground, which is why a bursary and some educational support, the sorts of things that the Accelerator program offers, really makes a difference between someone being able to take the leap and try a

career as a manager or not.

Earlier this year we created the YouTube Music Studios at the BRIT school. They are such an important partner to the industry and we wanted to find a way to collaborate.

They had a dilapidated old studio that wasn’t fit for purpose, so it was a real pleasure to be able to say, We’d love to help you, go ahead and bring in new equipment and tell us what you need us to do to give the right opportunities to the students.

We also have a relationship with ELAM, which is similar to the BRIT School. It’s state funded too but despite that, some pupils can’t afford to get there. So we subsidise their transport. We’ve also helped them buy equipment. These are very basic things that need doing – and we can help, so we do.

I think a genuine desire to help the future generations does exist in our industry, we simply need to remember to keep it top of the agenda, because if we don’t, unfortunately, no one else will.

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THE GREAT SECRET OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRY Is Peter Robinson mellowing? No, he says, he’s just figured out a powerful truth about artists and their output...

A little over a decade ago, when Twitter was still a place where it felt possible to hurl one’s thoughts into the ether without any sense that they might have Real World Ramifications, I tweeted my views on the latest single by US warbler Jordin Sparks — it was, shall we say, not quite up there with her 21st century cultural high water mark Battlefield.

Later that evening, from across the Atlantic, came a reply from the lady herself. “I can’t please everyone,” she wrote. She added: “:)” To which I thought: “Well, you can please everyone, because history has shown that you can release a song as good as Battlefield, and everyone was very pleased indeed with that.”

But there was something in her kind-hearted and magnanimous reply that’s stuck with me.

The smiley suggested she was happy that the song would find an audience with her fans, but there was perhaps a hint of sadness in what preceded it. What if she’d just given it her best shot, and she knew full well that the new song was no Battlefield? Was she resigned to this?

One thing we hear a lot from artists who receive bad reviews is that “opinions are like arseholes — everyone’s got one”.

It’s always struck me as strange that this dismissal of the critic’s role seems only applicable to negative coverage, whereas the worthlessness of music criticism is mysteriously forgotten when a positive review is quoted and slapped on billboards across the land. But in 2020 the role of the critic in breaking an artist is undoubtedly in decline.

The decision this year to rename the BRITs Critics’ Choice award to Rising Star is not insignificant: it’s a robust example of how the role of the critic has diminished for both artists and audiences. Critics are still important, but they’re not capital-i Important.

If tweets and Insta stories are anything to go by, for artists the cover of New Music Friday

“The decision to rename the BRITs Critics’ Choice is not LQVLJQLðFDQW ú

seems more exciting than the cover of most publications. To put it another way: if you were working on a new release, would you prefer the support of Britain’s five biggest music journalists, or the support of Britain’s one biggest streaming service editorial team?

As a sometime critic myself, I came to an unwelcome crossroads a few years ago when I arrived at one very simple four-word realisation.

I should preface its grand unveiling, which will take place at the end of this paragraph, by suggesting that any music journalist reading this may want to look away now, because when the phrase dawned on me a few years ago it made my job six times harder. But if I have to live with its burden perhaps you should too. Anyway, the secret truth at the heart of almost all music is: Everyone’s Doing Their Best.

It’s hard to say why this revelation impacted me so deeply. Had I previously been under the impression that musicians were deliberately making terrible music, or simply being terrible

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Pitbull (expense receipts not pictured)

at their jobs, just to annoy me? But the more I thought about it the more I came to realise that most things are simply bad by accident. What are the perpetrators supposed to do? Sack the whole thing off immediately and retrain as tree surgeons? Of course not. They’ll chuck it out and hope for a decent response. Everyone has been doing their best.

I don’t want you to think I’m oblivious to the fact that there’s some top-level egregiousness taking place every day in the music industry from people whose true passions lie elsewhere, and I don’t think I’m being overly harsh when I state that anyone who submits their chosen team for an annual music industry football fans list should instantly be fired. And, yes, there are plenty of people in our industry who are simply phoning it in.

To pick just one specific example, let’s consider Pitbull’s recent mauling of Toto’s Africa, which took the title Ocean To Ocean and was ludicrously shoehorned into DC’s cinematic salute to moistness, Aquaman.

In the song Mr 305 declares himself to be “the lyric Great Gatsby” and goes on to prove his point by rhyming “Gatsby” with “Banksy” then, later on, “see” with “sea”.

The cut-and-shut nature of the song means there’s no pre-chorus, there’s no post-chorus, and there’s no middle eight. The whole thing’s done in less than two and a half minutes thanks to an ending so abrupt that the listener must only conclude that the studio was unexpectedly evacuated following a tipoff that the FBI would

“Yes, there are plenty of people in our industry phoning LW LQ ú

soon be executing a bust relating to Pitbull’s involvement in old rope laundering. I don’t think anyone over the age of three could encounter this pop artefact and find themselves capable of arguing with a straight face that anyone involved offered the song anything beyond the absolute bare minimum. I’d even suggest that Pitbull would require printed evidence of the studio booking, full expense receipts and an hour in regression therapy to stand a chance of even remembering recording it.

I mean, I have to admit that the song’s absolutely fucking brilliant so I fear I may be losing sight of my original point, which is that a will-this-do release of this nature is the exception, rather than the rule. Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP is an album whose legacy is perhaps best summarised by the fact that Gaga recently went viral by tweeting that she didn’t even remember it, but she and the rest of us must remember that at the time she was doing her best, and everyone on her team was doing the same.

In more cases than we might care to admit, everyone along the line, from artist to producer to product manager to socials team, will have given something their best shot.

Stroll around any label, management company or recording studio today and you’ll find people who are doing their best. Often everyone involved will know that the resulting song will be creatively underwhelming and artistically unsatisfying. Sometimes, it’ll be both at once. And that’ll all be forgotten when it hits 200m streams.

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The A&R Awards 2019 IN ASSOCIATION WITH ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS The UK music industry’s most enjoyable night out returned in November – as the great and the good of the business’s artist management, songwriting, production and A&R communities came together in Central London for the A&R Awards...

Legends of the past, present and future of UK A&R attended, including Lincoln Elias, pictured (top left) with Jonathan Morrish

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Host Doc Brown kept things in order, as Polydor (below) won Major Label of the Year

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CONGRATULATIONS TO DIPESH PARMAR AND TO THE MINISTRY OF SOUND TEAM FOR AN INCREDIBLE YEAR!

GALLERY

The A&R Awards 2019: All the winners SONGWRITER OFTHE YEAR – SUPPORTED BY DOWNTOWN Jimmy Napes PRODUCER OF THE YEAR – SUPPORTED BY ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS Steve Mac SONG OF THE YEAR – SUPPORTED BY HIPGNOSIS SONGS FUND Someone You Loved (Lewis Capaldi, TMS, Sam Roman; BMG, Sony/ATV) A&R ADMINISTRATOR Grace Goddard, Warner Music A&R OF THE YEAR: ELECTRONIC/DANCE Dipesh Parmar, Ministry Of Sound A&R OF THE YEAR: HIP-HOP/GRIME – SUPPORTED BY SPOTIFY Alec Boateng, Atlantic Records A&R OF THE YEAR: ADULT CONTEMPORARY Tom Lewis, Decca A&R OF THE YEAR: POP/R&B Lisa Cullington, BMG A&R OF THE YEAR: ROCK/ALTERNATIVE Jamie Oborne, Dirty Hit PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR (1) Warner Chappell Music PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR (2) Reservoir MANAGEMENT COMPANY (THE DAVID ENTHOVEN AWARD) – SUPPORTED BY CENTTRIP Method Music INDEPENDENT LABEL OF THE YEAR – SUPPORTED BY THE BPI Partisan Records MAJOR LABEL OF THE YEAR – SUPPORTED BY THE BPI Polydor THE VEVO DSCVR ARTIST TO WATCH Celeste THE A&R LOYALTY AWARD Steve Mac & David Howells A&R ICON – SUPPORTED BY YOUTUBE MUSIC Andy Macdonald THE SIR GEORGE MARTIN AWARD Mike McCormack

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Partisan Records won Best Independent label, as top producers including Mark Ralph and William Orbit watched on from their tables

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Attendees included Black Butter’s Joe Gossa plus Sony Music’s Jason Iley and Semtex, as well as Caroline’s Jacqueline Saturn, Capitol’s Jo Charrington and Universal Music’s David Joseph

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CAPITOL UK CONGRATULATES ALL THE WINNERS AT THE 2019 A&R AWARDS

LONDON UK

CONGRATULATES

TMS LEWIS CAPALDI RØMANS & PAUL CENTELLAS

ON THE SONG OF THE YEAR 2019: SOMEONE YOU LOVED

GALLERY

Warner Chappell’s Mike Smith (top right) gave a speech on behalf of Music Support to kick Rσ WKH HYHQLQJ

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Jimmy Napes won Songwriter Of The Year, presented by Downtown’s Roberto Neri (top right)

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‘OVERNIGHT, I’D TURNED FROM A MEDIOCRE

A&R GUY INTO A VISIONARY GENIUS’

The UK boss of Universal Music Publishing Group, Mike McCormack, won the Sir George Martin Award, bringing the room to its feet with this speech...

I

’m very very flattered to be given an award with Sir George Martin’s name on it. I think my liver might also deserve an award, actually, if you look at some of the comments that came up in that [tribute] video! But hey, I like to have a good time; I like to enjoy my work.

It’s an amazing thing to look back over the 30-odd years that I’ve been doing this. There’s an old sporting metaphor that I always think of: if you live in the past, you die in the present. It’s something I always try to remember. I very rarely actually look back at what I’ve done; I don’t really think about it. I’m always thinking about what I’m going to be doing tomorrow, what I’m doing in the next hour.

Music is in my DNA, it’s so much my life force, that I just can’t really think about much else – well, obviously, except sport, of every genre. But music is the kind of life force that keeps me going – brilliant new artists like Murray [Matravers] and Easy Life that make each year that little bit brighter. Breaking a new artist is still the best buzz in the world, but I am also very proud of what I’ve done in the past – and anyone who can outdrink Shane MacGowan deserves a fucking award! Not that I did, by the way...

Anyway, I was trying to work out [ahead of this award] why I’ve actually been successful. Bizarrely, I think the key to it is not like a ‘special’ sauce or any ‘system’ or anything like that. It’s weird – I’m probably one of the few people who actually really loves A&R people. I love them, they’re my people. They’re fucking oddballs, they’re weirdos, they’re eccentrics; this is a very, very tough job to do, and anybody in this room who does it knows what a daily battle it is to do your job and do it well. To fight for your artist, and at the same time, fight for your label.

But you know what? The harder you work, the luckier you get. That’s what I keep on reminding myself. That you’ve just got to put in the legwork and that, in the end, that makes such a big difference.

I’d like to thank all the bosses I’ve had in the past. Because I think A&R people are only as good as the boss they report to.

And if you don’t get the support, if they don’t believe in you, then you’re nothing. As if this job isn’t tough as it is already, it gets a whole lot tougher.

I started at A&M; I actually started cleaning the toilets at Dingwalls. Then I was a barman, then I was a sound engineer, and then I got a job at A&M Records. And Derek Green, who ran A&M, was probably the first person to really sort of believe in me. Then I signed a couple of massive failures... and somehow he still believed in me! He was a great, great guy to work with.

Then I went to Virgin. Steve Lewis was, again, a brilliant boss; one of the smartest businessmen I’ve ever met, he’s a brilliant guy.

And it was a lot of fun working at Virgin, it was a real family there. Then I went to RCA, Jeremy Marsh, Hugh Goldsmith – just brilliant guys to work for, brilliant, brilliant people. I love them dearly.

Then I went to work for Simon Fuller, and we had a lot of fun, I tell you, for a couple of years. We did a lot of work in sport, and we did a lot of work, obviously, in music as well. Simon is a real mentor to me and remains one of the smartest and most wonderful people I’ve ever met.

He is a great, great guy, and a real visionary.

Then I went to work with Paul Connolly and obviously we were like the Gallagher brothers of the publishing world! He could be quite a mercurial character, Paul.

We were always joking that we were like the Gallagher brothers, as I said. And I was definitely Noel!

And then now, obviously, with Jody [Gerson], who is an incredible executive – a very, very formidable lady and super bright music person. She loves music. Again, we share the same DNA so we get on extremely well.

Without [these people’s] support, I would never have amounted to anything. So I really do thank them. I’d also like to thank Lady Luck, and I’d like to thank the gods of A&R for giving me a couple of crumbs every now and then. And I wanted to just tell a little anecdote, because it really is a story about how your life can change in a millisecond. And, actually, that when it’s happening, you probably don’t even realise.

I’ve brought along Lincoln Elias tonight, who’s my very dear friend. I met Lincoln when I was a talent scout at Virgin; I met him in a club in London. You know when you meet somebody and you’re sure they’ve taken an instant dislike to you? Anyone who knows Lincoln knows he’s quite a character, and when I met

“If you live in the past, you die in the present.

It’s something I always try to remember.”

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him, literally, I could tell, ‘This guy does not want to talk to me.

He just really doesn’t like me.’ I actually found out afterwards he didn’t like me because I had my jeans tucked into my boots.

That was the only reason. He must have just thought I was a total wanker. And I just thought, ‘You know what? I’m going to persist with this guy. Because he really doesn’t like me. I’m going to persist with him, and drive him fucking mad.’

And so I just kept on his case [that night], and you could see he was losing the will to live.

At the end of the evening the band had finished, and I went, ‘Do you want a lift home?’ And he was just like, Oh my God; I’m going to be stuck with this guy. Because it was obviously me or the night bus; Columbia wouldn’t pay for his cabs, he was a talent scout back in those days.

So Lincoln gets in the car with me and we’re chatting away.

He loosens up a little bit. And I said, ‘What have you signed since you’ve been with Columbia?’ ‘Oh, I’ve just signed this kid, Terence Trent D’Arby.’ And Lincoln had a cassette on him with some demos. And that trip from Camden to Ladbroke Grove completely changed my life.

He played me If You Let Me Stay, he played me Wishing Well, he played me Sign Your Name, all in that 15-minute journey.

I got up the next morning, we made a big offer, we closed the deal. [TTD] went on to sell 15 million albums. And I’d turned overnight from a mediocre A&R guy into a visionary genius, within six months. Do you know what? That gave me belief. It gave me belief in myself, and gave me the confidence to kind of go on and do even bigger and better things. And obviously that was a very long time ago now – but I’m still here.

Most importantly, I have to thank my family. This is such a chaotic and crazy job, it’s such a beautifully crazy world that we live in. Without my family behind me, without my beautiful wife Kristy, my daughter Esme and my son Connor, without their stability and without that rock at home, I wouldn’t be able to do this job properly.

My extended family is a lot of people in this room that I’ve known for a very long time. Congratulations to all the winners tonight. Congratulations to all the losers tonight, you’ll be winners next year. I love so many people in this room. I want to get off this stage before I get emotional. Thank you.

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Some of the most memorable moments on the night came during the individual A&R Of The Year categories. BMG’s Lisa Cullington won the A&R Of The Year: Pop/R&B award, commenting: “I want to say a huge thank you to the amazing songwriters I work with at BMG every day – some of them are here tonight, TMS and Camille [Purcell], with their brilliant managers – and the whole team at BMG; Alistair [Norbury], the amazing A&R team who I love. And to my mum and dad, both of whom are musicians and gave me great ears!” She also gave a shout out “to my kids and my husband, who put up with me when I have another phone call from L.A and it’s bath time”.

Ministry Of Sound’s Dipesh Parmar, who won in the Electronic/Dance category, said: “I’m humbled to be here for the second time. I’m a kid from the north east who grew up on a council estate; I’m privileged to do what I do.” He added: “Big up to Amy Wheatley, couldn’t do this without you, the rest of the Ministry of Sound crew, big up Dave Dollimore, Jason Iley for your continued support – and the A&R budget! And all the artists and the managers we work with.”

Jamie Oborne, winner in the Alternative/Rock category, paid tribute to the Dirty Hit team and namechecked the label’s A&R, Chris Fraser, while Decca’s Tom Lewis joked that he should thank now-Virgin EMI exec, Thomas Haimovici, for moving jobs (“really, this should have been yours”), before commenting: “Decca, you turned 90 this year; I’m very proud to be part of it, and very proud of the team that I work with.”

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RESERVOIR 2019 MUSIC BUSINESS WORLDWIDE’S THE A&R AWARDS’

PUBLISHER OF THE YEAR THANK YOU TO ALL OF OUR SONGWRITERS AND CONGRATULATIONS TO JAMIE HARTMAN ON HIS SONGWRITER & SONG OF THE YEAR NOMINATIONS

Alec Boateng won the coveted Hip-Hop/Grime Award – presented by Spotify’s Safiya Lambie-Knight – and his speech brought the room to a standstill. Said Boateng: “These awards are weird, because ultimately we’re all here because other people are really good at what they do.

“I’m humbled by this. I’d like to thank God first. On a work tip, I want to thank all of my Atlantic family, sat [on the table] in the middle. Big up Max [Lousada]. I want to big up Ben [Cook], who’s someone I’ve learned a lot from. I want to big up one person in particular from our team, Jackie, who has been amazing with a lot of acts in this area. She’s brilliant. And of course all the brilliant acts I work with.

“I used to feel really weird about the whole ‘just being Hip-Hop and Grime’ thing, because, if we’re honest, the industry left it in a bit of a corner. It existed [on] pirate radio, street culture and all of that, but now it’s... one of the main reasons we’re having a bit of a change in the industry. It’s enforcing and driving long-awaited diversity in rooms and in different situations, which is brilliant.

I’m super proud of everyone from the black music scene, what it’s become, and all the people that have existed in the passion of it.

“I want to dedicate this to two really, really special people I met this year – I met them in the canteen in Atlantic, both of them 18 years old. One was this beautiful girl from Ireland, the other this handsome dude from Southampton. They came in for the day, to meet someone who could help change their life.

“The girl was talking about her story. She’s a mixed race girl who’d only ever met one black person, who’s her dad, who to this day still walks past her and gives her dirty looks, and one time at the beginning of this year spat at her. Her mum is in a home.

She’s the most amazing, bright spirit. She said something that made me laugh, but it was a weird thing to hear too: she said [being at Atlantic HQ] was the most amount of black people she’d ever been around in her life. And she turned to Stormzy and said, ‘You know what, as a person of colour, you’re the first person that’s believed in me.’ And then we ended up talking to the other guy, a really quiet guy, and we found out his dad had murdered his mum when he was a kid, and he had been in a home since he was seven. He’s got four brothers, all scattered across the country, and they all speak whenever they can.

“They were both thanking Stormzy for providing a scholarship and the opportunity to study at Cambridge. They are brilliant, bright students, ready to take on the world – and they both had no hope at all of that opportunity being presented to them if Stormzy didn’t set up that scholarship.

“That experience energized me, especially given the area I come from and the area of music; it’s about perspective, it’s about passion, it’s about change and it’s about people who believe in themselves and don’t always have the opportunity to do the things they want to do. It’s always a bit deeper from this area of music.

Thank you, this means a lot.”

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MBUK - Nov 2019 - Jimmy Napes.pdf

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The man behind some of 2019’s biggest hits including “Dancing With A Stranger” and “Crown”

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Congrats Jimmy Napes on being named Songwriter of the Year at the 2019 A&R Awards From all of us at Downtown

Behind the hits For nearly 30 years, David Howells has managed super-producer/songwriter Steve Mac – a relationship which was recognised with the Loyalty Award at the A&R Awards 2019...

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INTERVIEW

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ou gotta learn how to fall / Before you learn to fly.”

David Howells knows well the power of this life lesson. He also just-so-happens to know its author, Paul Simon, who once premiered a live rendition of Homeward Bound in front of Howells and his then assistant, now wife of 52 years (and business partner), Irene, in Howells’ CBS London office in the mid-’60s.

Spend any time with Howells and you’ll get used to anecdotes like this. You’ll learn, for example, that he designed the sleeve of Donna Summer album Another Place & Time; that he produced jazz albums at CBS in the ‘60s; that he broke Leonard Cohen in the UK; that he hung out with Thelonious Monk; that he got into an argument with Miles Davis; that he created a best-selling series of album artwork compendiums with artist Roger Dean; and that he attended a secret studio session with Bob Dylan. And he pioneered the sampler album with The Rock Machine Turns You On LP in 1968 One thing he didn’t manage to do, however, was make it as a rock’n’roll singer. That was Howells’ initial ambition when performing in a band at school in London in the late 1950s. “One of my ruling philosophies in life is try everything, but the moment you realise you’re no good at it, give it to someone who is,” he comments, with typical humour, on his realisation that he was never quite going to be the next Bill Haley.

These and many other cherished memories took place in the ‘first act’ of David Howells’ astonishing career.

It’s the one that saw him work as a salesman for Oriole Records, UK home of Tamla Motown, before CBS bought out the company in 1964; the one where that deal gave him the opportunity to liaise with childhood hero John Hammond; the one where Howells transformed into an A&R at CBS, signing the likes of Robert Wyatt & Soft Machine, before leaving for MCA in 1970, where he signed Average White Band and Osibisa; and the one where he co-founded PWL in 1987, alongside Pete

Waterman, helping make huge stars of Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and Rick Astley, to name a few.

Howells describes the bookends of his PWL career thusly: “Pete and I both got together as A&R people, but we decided to divide our duties at PWL as we were both owners. He did A&R, because he was brilliant at it, and I did everything else, from business affairs to graphic design.”

And yet, by the end, in the mid-nineties: “Peter and I got divorced: he got the house, and I got the kids.”

And it’s here, the moment of Howells’ self-imposed ‘divorce’ from PWL, in 1994, that the second ‘act’ of his career really began. It’s also why we’re in his Chelsea Harbour home for this interview – because it’s when he officially began managing

[Aitken] had decided he’d had enough and walked away, but we had 52 employees across the label, publishing, studios, cutting rooms, management, promotions etc.

“Suddenly, from this massive success ratio, we were left with nothing, so we had to look elsewhere. We found 2Unlimited in Belgium – and then Steve came to us.”

Howells and PWL began working with Mac, whose covers band – Under Cover – was soon enjoying Top 5 UK chart success with Baker Street (No.2 in 1992) and Never Let Her Slip Away (No.5).

Howells saw in Mac a ready-made pathway to modernise PWL’s in-house hitmaking credentials. It was to prove a fateful viewpoint.

“We had some hit singles [with Under Cover] and a hit album, but the parting of the ways for Pete and I was when I tried to get Steve to become the replacement for Stock, Aitken Waterman,” says Howells. “Pete didn’t see it.”

In hindsight, says Howells, this was “a very lucky moment – because I decided to commit to this extraordinary young guy”. He adds: “Steve was only 19, but he had a wise head on young shoulders. Even then, when he talked about music, you thought, ‘This is interesting.’”

You probably know how the story goes from there.

Mac began his career as jobbing songwriter and producer, often working with Wayne Hector, for UK pop groups (mainly boybands) – the likes of Damage, Boyzone and Westlife. Since then, he has evolved his style numerous times, yet his hitmaking prowess has only grown.

In addition to co-writing the biggest track of all time on Spotify, Ed Sheeran’s Shape Of You, Mac has penned and/or produced records for everyone from Pink, Marshmello, Anne Marie and Mabel to Jess Glynne, Clean Bandit, Little Mix, Bastille and Tom Walker.

At the A&R Awards 2019 in November, Mac and Howells were jointly awarded the A&R Loyalty Award – celebrating their near-30-year professional acquaintance.

Here, Howells explains how their relationship has evolved in this time, and

“Steve’s massively talented, but a total gentleman. He sets the bar very high.”

Steve Mac. Then, Mac was a promising young pop-dance producer from Chertsey in Surrey... now, of course, he’s one of the world’s foremost architects of modern pop.

So: You gotta learn to fall / Before you learn to fly.

As Howells tells it, by the early nineties, hits by acts like 2Unlimited were keeping the lights on at once-untouchable pop factory PWL – but the day job had become a struggle. With a Warner deal agreed and mainstream pop production sailing off into the future, Howells felt PWL needed a fresh sonic direction – not least because of what he observed as inner tensions amongst PWL’s key creative trio.

“Stock, Aitken [and] Waterman were complex people,” recalls Howells. “It was an awkward meeting of three talents, and it worked largely because Pete was the catalyst for everything. But they’d reached a point [where they’d] fallen out. Matt

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why he believes the best is yet to come from his star client...

You’re having all this global success now with Steve. From the moment you met him to now, what has been the most impressive thing you’ve witnessed?

The fact that Steve can reinvent himself every three or four years. That’s an extraordinary thing; I’ve never seen it before. Through my career, I’ve worked with a lot of very good producers and songwriters, but I’ve never seen that level of focus.

Steve’s always had hits. He came out of the box with a No.3 record, Hear The Drummer (Get Wicked) [released in 1990 and co-produced by Mac]. Every moment we have worked together has been a source of pride to me; to see Steve grow and develop, but to always retain that basic humanity.

I admire his humility and modesty, and his desire to be part of a team. He does two things, as a producer, which fascinate me: he makes artists relax and feel comfortable, and yet challenges them at the same time.

I’ve been around producers that will challenge an artist and I’ve been around producers that make people relax. But to have both, that’s a blend you only ever see in a handful of people out there.

What makes you proudest of Steve?

I once wrote a bio for Steve opening with: ‘Steve Mac: songwriter, producer, musician, publisher, studio owner, and cyclist.’ What I should have added to that list was ‘father’.

Steve’s growth over the last 29 years has shown that you can have great accomplishment and career success while maintaining a balanced lifestyle. His ability to focus on making hits and bringing up his three daughters is what makes me most proud of Steve.

What is the key ingredient in your relationship with Steve?

I believe we have a mutual respect, and I think we’re complementary. Plus, we actually like each other.

He is a charming, lovely guy. And I

Howells at the A&R Awards on November 5

admire him professionally, enormously.

He’s just so skilled, but he never loses sight of who he is, what he’s trying to achieve and who he’s doing it for.

Someone once asked me, ‘How would you describe working with Stock, Aiken [and] Waterman?’ And I said, ‘It’s a little bit like in the old days, in circuses; you’d have a cage, and there’d be three lions and a lion tamer..... It’s highly entertaining but highly dangerous for the bloke with the chair!’ Those three were volatile and mercurial, but super-talented; they had very complex personalities.

Steve isn’t like that – he is massively talented, but a total gentleman, who knows what he wants. He sets the bar very high and people rise to it.

What gave you such belief in his talent even back in your PWL days?

When you meet someone, you get a first impression, and Steve was really impressive.

Here’s this young guy, just 19, playing us a track, and us saying, ‘We’ll take it – that’s a hit!’ I said: ‘Whatever you’ve done here is magic – you don’t need to interfere with it anymore.’

Being around him, talking about what the [Under Cover] album was going to be like, every conversation was really interesting, mature and searching. He was always asking questions.

Steve had none of the edgy temperament you often associate with an artist. The more I worked with Steve, the more impressed I was – enough to say to Pete, ‘This is the next guy. We have to have him as part of the [PWL] team because he’s going to take us into the future.’

Unfortunately, Pete didn’t share that sentiment and there were other things going on at the time as well.

And when [PWL] started turning down things that Steve was doing, I just thought, ‘This is pointless.’

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Your decision to manage Steve and leave PWL being vindicated over and over must be pleasing.

It is. There were a lot of doubters in the beginning, but that’s true for every new person, isn’t it? If you’re new on the scene, as a journalist, as a painter, as an artist, as a musician, as a producer, there’s always going to be people going: Can they make it? But in A&R, particularly my generation, we were always looking at: What’s their third album going to be like? Everything was about longevity, and that’s always been my approach.

Plus, you just know exceptional people when you meet them – whether it’s a secretary, an executive or an artist.

Hits aside, why do young artists want to work with Steve?

It’s interesting you say that because sometimes the artist comes to Steve [for the first time] almost unwillingly. The label or the manager or the publisher has maybe said: ‘It’d be a really good idea if you meet this guy because he makes hits.’

Steve deals with all of that brilliantly.

I have the benefit of being in a room with Steve when we’re talking with labels and managers and artists. I don’t go to the studio when he’s making records, there’s nothing I can contribute, but when we’re having meetings on a business level I will be there. And when Steve starts talking about music, it’s magic. His explanation of how he thinks, what he sees, what he believes the audience would expect from an artist – and reject from an artist – and why a song is structured in a certain way is unbelievable.

It’s a masterclass.

Once people meet him, whether they’re there under pressure or otherwise, it works.

My observation is that he reinvents every artist’s sound each time he goes in the studio. Look at all the boy bands he’s worked with, whether it’s Five, Boyzone, Westlife or whoever. None of them sound the same. He never repeats the same sound.

Isn’t that extraordinary?

I worked with [producer] Mike Smith at CBS in the sixties who did the Tremeloes, Georgie Fame, Marmalade, Love Affair – a phenomenal success story. But I could tell a Mike Smith record every time they came on. The same with SAW. But with Steve, if you listen to Mabel, it doesn’t sound anything like Ed Sheeran and on and on.

Also, you instinctively trust the guy because it’s obvious he is the man. There’s no bullshit – this is somebody telling the truth. And people recognise the truth when they hear it.

Where does Steve – and where do both of you – go from here?

I’ve never in my career seen this consistency of delivering different hits for different markets and for different times. I said in my speech at the A&R Awards, and I’m serious about this, I think the best is yet to come.

Steve’s continually growing.

It’s extraordinary to watch.

He has this incredible brain for what he’s doing, the artists he works with and their relationship to an audience.

I can’t over-stress that: our business is about audiences. And when a giant comes along. I mean, Bob Dylan, Ed Sheeran, Paul Simon, they are above and beyond. It doesn’t end until they choose to end it.

Like those other people, Steve can do this until he decides not to. He has a very balanced view of the world that allows him to be super creative.

I know creatively where Steve is right now because I have the privilege of knowing the next year coming up. I know the next 10 records he’s going to make, and I just marvel.

“I’ve never in my career seen this consistency of delivering hits.”

Why? Most people admire other people who have professional standards and are able to look at things differently.

How David Howells discovered A&R “When I did the Paul Simon solo album at CBS, Paul came here [to London] because he’d failed in America; Art went to Paris to do some studying to continue his education. And because Paul was with CBS, he came into our office to say hello.

Our President at that time was a fantastic man called Ken Glancy, a big jazz fan with a wicked sense of humour. He used to wind me up, talking with a cigar clenched in his mouth, and when Paul was around, he used to say: ‘Get that bum outta here!’ So I had to hide Paul whenever he came in, which meant he used to come in and play his new songs for Irene and I [in our office].

“One day he came in and said, I’ve got a couple of songs I’d like to play for you. He’d just played a date in Widnes, and said he’d written a tune on the platform and finished it on the train. He played a song called Richard Cory, about a millionaire who blows his brains out. It’s a lovely song, but then he said, ‘Oh, I also did this novelty thing.’ And he played Homeward Bound.

Irene and I were going: ‘Wow.’ “We had a heated debate about the merits of one song over another, with Paul feeling that Richard Cory was the potential single, not Homeward Bound.

“That was my lightbulb moment; when I realised that songwriters can’t always tell their babies apart and they need someone objective who can go: ‘Have you considered this, or maybe that?’ And that completely determined the rest of my life.”

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‘I PRETTY MUCH OWE MY WHOLE CAREER TO THIS MAN’ Steve Mac’s touching A&R Awards speech about his friend and mentor, David Howells...

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his award, out of all of them, is the one that makes me the happiest. David is such an extraordinary guy. I met him 27 years ago when he was running arguably one of the biggest independent pop labels with Pete Waterman, PWL. I was in a pretty crap band, which he signed, and we were dropped after an album, which was fair. Luckily for me, David left that company at the same time and approached me straight away. This guy had been in the business 30 years already; he was a bit of a legend, he was having hit after hit after hit.

He leaves [PWL] and I’m sure he could have had the pick of any major label that he wanted. But instead he decided to call this unknown producer with not much of a track record, and ask if it would be okay if he managed me. I was a bit shocked, to be honest with you – I thought he could do much better. But he seemed to think there was something there.

Tonight, I’m sat in a room with some great A&R people. You are a unique breed, you see talent where nobody else sees it. And David is an amazing, amazing A&R man.

He saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself. So I went into his office and I said, ‘I’m not even sure why you want to manage me.’ He said: ‘I predict one day that you’ll be one of the biggest songwriter/producers in the world.’ To which I sat there and went, ‘Yeah, alright old man!’

He’s taught me so much; he’s taught me to make the right career choices, the right song choices and to work with the right people. More importantly, he’s taught me how to be a gentleman in this business: return calls, return emails, be polite, and work with new people because that’s where you started from – I remember that, because it was such a big lesson for me. He sort of became a father figure to me.

For the first two or three years, nothing really happened.

We didn’t earn much money, and I thought, ‘This guy is going to ditch me at some point.’ But he didn’t; he said he still saw something and he wanted to carry on nurturing and helping me, which I’m so thankful for. Whenever I’d say, ‘I don’t think this is working,’ he’d say, ‘Steve, you’re at the end of the beginning. It’s all going to start happening for you. I can see it.’

Slowly but surely, the gigs started coming in. And year after year after year, with his expert guidance, we shared this incredible success together. I pretty much owe my whole career to this man. I feel so honoured and lucky that he chose to manage me. David, you are one of the most loyal and honest people I know. I can’t thank you enough.

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TRIBUTE

Steve Mac

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INTERVIEW

‘ESSENTIALLY, MUSIC IS AN EMOTIONAL LANGUAGE THAT CONNECTS PEOPLE’ Andy Macdonald, founder of Go! Discs and Independiente, won the A&R Icon Award in London last month. We sat down with him to hear his career story...

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hen Andy Macdonald launched Go! Discs in 1983, he couldn’t have possibly known the impact his signings would subsequently have on British culture and around the world.

One of the most successful UK independent music entrepreneurs of the modern era, Macdonald attracted a raft of big names to the Go! Discs stable including The Housemartins (and, later, The Beautiful South), Billy Bragg and The La’s, plus Paul Weller for his first three solo albums – including both Wild Wood (1993) and Stanley Road (1995).

A subsidiary of Go! Discs, Go! Beat, launched in 1992. To head up A&R at the sub-label, Macdonald hired a young Ferdy UngerHamilton (now President of Columbia Records UK), who signed the likes of Gabrielle and Portishead. Go! Beat also provided the home for Norman Cook’s first crack at becoming a ‘someone’ in electronic music with Beats International.

In 1995, Go! Discs became the label partner of a hugely ambitious charity project to raise funds for the then little-known War Child.

The Help Album, featuring the likes of Oasis, Radiohead, Paul McCartney, Blur, the Stone Roses and the Manic Street Preachers, was recorded, mixed and released all within the same week. It generated over £1 million for War Child.

Having sold Go! Discs to PolyGram in 1996, Macdonald resigned from the label to start another venture, Independiente, where he would enjoy the biggest successes of his career.

One of his first signings at Independiente, Travis, achieved global recognition and success with the 1999 release The Man Who, which reached No.1 on the UK Chart and sold over 3.5 million records worldwide. Additionally, it was named Best Album of 2000 at the BRIT Awards.

Travis’ 2001 follow-up, The Invisible Band, also reached No.1 on the UK Chart, with the radio hits Sing and Flowers in the Window.

Independiente enjoyed further No.1 chart success with Embrace via their two albums, Out Of Nothing (2004) and This New Day (2006).

Other signings to Independiente included Martina Topley-Bird, Howling Bells and So Solid Crew, with whom the label scored a

groundbreaking No.1 UK hit in 2001 with 21 Seconds.

Fran Healy, frontman and lead songwriter in Travis, recalls being signed by Macdonald: “I was standing at the bar in Water Rats at Kings Cross on July 22nd, 1996 when the guy beside me turned and said, ‘Are you Fran Healy?’ “‘Yes’, I said. ‘Well I really love your band and your songwriting and I would love for you to come and be on my record label.’ I was like, ‘Uhhh... okay?’

“We signed to a yet-to-be established record label – Independiente – a couple of months later. Andy threw everything behind our first record. It barely left the ground. But rather than drop it, he doubled down. He had balls. The biggest platinum plated balls I’ve ever known. They would clink together every time we sold a unit.

“The weeks around Christmas 1999, when we were selling 200,000 per week, were particularly uncomfortable for Andy as the clinking was constant, resembling an old-school alarm clock. I think the most important thing to me was that he listened to and trusted the band... even when his own instinct disagreed, he let us do our thing and I am forever grateful to him for this and for the confidence he instilled in us.”

Chris Wright, founder of Chrysalis and an early mentor of Macdonald, adds: “Andy was a very fresh faced 22-year-old when he walked into the Chrysalis office asking for a label deal for his new company, Go! Discs, and the first group he had signed, The Housemartins. We had a lot of success together, and he has had a lot of success without us, too.”

Here, over sausage sandwiches in Electric House, Macdonald tells Music Business UK about some of his career highlights – and his philosophy regarding the art of A&R...

You grew up in South Yorkshire, where you played in local orchestras when you were younger. How did you get from there to your first gig at Stiff Records?

At 18, I went to a college down on the south coast for four years, then went to Europe for a year, before moving back up to Sheffield and buying a house. The life plan was to be a barrister – I’d studied law and I was going to do the next stage. When I sold that house, 47

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xxxx

around 23, I made three grand. Once every fortnight [at that time] I would work on tracks at a basement studio near Wakefield.

We sent some tapes, made with my friend Neil Ferguson, to labels in London and, surprisingly, I got invitations down to see Virgin, CBS and Stiff. I was almost offered a record deal at Stiff, which was a proper independent, above a taxi rank in W9. With the music I’d sent, there was a press release I put together, a little oneact play, and they liked that. So I was given a job there as a press officer in 1982, which I did for 11 months.

[Towards the end of that tenure] I had some friends in a band in Sheffield called CLOCK DVA who’d split, and my good friend Paul Widger, the guitarist, asked if I could put a record out [by his new band, The Box]. From the £3,000 I made on the house, I had £1,500 to put a record together – everything from recording it to pressing it up – and £1,500 to live on. It was a big gamble, really. Stiff had just moved up to Camden and I nipped in there to use their franking machine to send out about 70 or 80 of these 12-inch vinyls. I was caught by the head of finance! Anyway, the record came out and sold a couple of thousand copies, but it made enough money to fund an album with the same group, which we then licensed to Germany and Benelux, and we did okay. And then I came across Billy Bragg and The Housemartins.

How did you find Billy?

My sister was a journalist, and she just did a photo session with Billy. She hadn't heard any music, but she just thought he was so switched on and convincing. Pete Jenner had just left Charisma and was starting to manage Billy. They’d put out 750 copies of

Ferdy Unger-Hamilton hands Andy Macdonald the A&R Icon Award on November 5

his [debut] record, nothing was in the shops really. My sister said to him, ‘My brother's got a record label, you should send him a copy.’ The following morning, the 12-inch of Life's A Riot dropped on the mat. I listened to it six times in a row: he’s such a brilliant lyricist. It was an insanely good record. Billy’s advance with us was £500 and a copy of Motown Chartbusters Volume 3, and I remember he bought a 60 watt Roland amp.

Billy did really well, we signed The Housemartins, and then we were talking to a few people about how we could get international distribution and a bit of funding. We got on with Chrysalis, and we did four years with them.

When did The La’s come into the picture?

They were next: Rough Trade used to put out a publication called The Catalogue, which was basically their fanzine. Every month it came out they’d ask someone to review a load of demos. I did it and had 17 tapes to listen to. I got about seven or eight into it and there was this demo from The La’s – it had There She Goes on it, Doledrum, Son Of A Gun. I was sitting there thinking, I can't advertise this to the rest of the industry, so I had to mark them down! After that, I went up to see them at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, which was unbelievably brilliant. Lee [Mavers] is a really exceptional songwriter.

What does A&R mean to you?

A&R is a funny thing. I’ve a huge amount of respect for people who can piece together a writing team with a particular artist, then bring in the producer who’s going to perfect it, pull those

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little [hit-making] conglomerates together. That’s not really what I do – I look for pure artists who are driven to express something that they feel deeply, and I try to create an environment where they can really do that. As a songwriter, the moment you get a commercial reward, you start writing to someone else’s pace; it gets a little bit out of shape. I think if you want your artists to make really lasting work, you've got to allow them to (a) empty all that emotion out into their work, and then (b) live life again, to gain more experience and [feel] the emotions that come from that.

Essentially, music is an emotional language that connects people, and we all do well to remember that.

How do you gain the trust of an artist?

You have to listen a lot. It’s a huge act of trust for any artist to say, ‘I'm going to let you be involved in this.’ You have to earn that respect. All of the artists I worked with in the early days [of Go! Discs], I really loved them and respected them. You can’t fake that if you’re going to do [A&R] properly; you've got to be as close as you can to 100%. The things that tell you that you're at that level are that you go to bed thinking about the songs, what the career moves will be, where the dangers lie.

They become obsessions, really. But you also mustn’t clutter the pathway – there are thousands of decisions in a career, and it’s about recognising where the important ones are.

I used to roll a joint occasionally and have a bit of a realisation. The traditional cliché about the music business was that the record labels are the kingmakers, they can try a bit of that, a bit of this, sprinkle some cash on things and there you go – there’s fame.

But I think it’s different: the elevated position is not the record companies, it’s the artist. Because what artists are involved in is a really specific and unique talent: a lot of songwriters experience things at a more acute level, the beauty of the world, or they feel pain at a deeper level.

I met my wife at the Wild Wood launch party down in Mayfair, and we listened to that record, separately, for another year, before we saw each other again. It bound us together. You’ve got to understand that power and respect it. You’ve got to work to understand the artist’s world, and then tread carefully.

How did Go! Beat happen?

It was a label identity that Norman Cook came up with when The Housemartins split. Some of them went and formed The Beautiful South, and Norman went off and did Beats International, for which he wanted a slightly different label identity. Go! Beat came from there. We had a big hit with Dub Be Good To Me [1990], but then [Cook] drifted away, and to be honest we probably didn't have our eye on the ball when he was building up his early stuff for Fatboy Slim.

Then we heard there was this really bright A&R kid – and I use the word ‘kid’ legitimately, because he was 18 at the time – in Ferdy [Unger-Hamilton]. He’s brilliant, very clever, and has such a strong empathy with music and musicians; he writes himself, so he gets it. He parted company with his previous employers [Chrysalis] and we really got on well with him.

Ferdy came across and spent about a year doing a lot of early UK garage, which got [Go! Beat] a lot of really good reviews and credibility. We suggested he go and scan the white label charts to find the track that was killing it [in that world] and had the potential to be a hit. He called me on a Sunday morning at home about three or four months later: ‘Mac, Mac – I've got it!’ So we came in on the Monday morning and he played me Dreams by Gabrielle, which went to No.1 and launched a great career.

Ferdy’s got a really wide appreciation now, but at that stage of his career he was particularly knowledgeable about dance music and hip-hop – the biggest authority in our little world. We’d be playing Public Enemy, Arrested Development, N.W.A... and one day we said, ‘90% of what we play here is hip-hop. Where’s the inspiration [from this] landing with UK producers and artists?’

Ferdy went off and spoke to a dozen or so people, one of whom was Cameron McVey, Neneh Cherry's husband, and he mentioned this kid from Bristol called Geoff Barrow.

Ferdy got in touch and there was a demo tape with seven songs – four with Beth [Rowland]’s voice on, and three with another singer. Ferdy used to go up and down the motorway to Bristol and keep [Geoff and Beth] in good shape and give them good advice. And almost nine months later, [Portishead's] Dummy came in. And we sat in the office going, ‘Fuck me. This is a landmark record.’

“The moment you get a commercial reward, you start writing to someone else’s pace. ”

Any other key A&R beliefs?

When you’re in a position where an artist believes you, where they trust you, don’t hold back. If there’s a robust, honest conversation that you think can make something better, then have it. But the artist should always get the final say.

As an A&R person, you’re the gatekeeper for allowing some beautiful stuff to come through that might still be there in 10, 50 or 100 years. And not everyone gets it right every time. But if you’re only doing it for something as perverse and humdrum as making a commercial success... who gives a fuck? Seriously.

How did Go! Discs end?

We had sold PolyGram/Universal 49%, so we still had 51% ownership. Everything in the Articles of Association gave us the decision-making power. They had to set a price to buy our 51%; we had a final right to buy their 49% at that [same] rate per share, plus an extra 15%. They played a blinder – we were a few million short [of being able to do a buyback]. But we had a load of cash, and set up Independiente a week later.

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Was it sad seeing the label go like that? Or did it make you more determined to succeed?

Both. It’s hard because you’ve got a lot of friends, work you're really proud of [tied up in Go! Discs]. But negotiations, if they take a good turn, they can really bond a relationship, and if they don’t, it goes the other way.

We got Universal’s financial backing and some really good advice, but I guess we were kind of dancing with the devil. Obie was quite a tough boss, but I came out of every meeting with him going, I've learned something. He made you a better exec, I suppose – Roger Ames was the same. Everyone respected Roger for his business knowledge as well as his music knowledge. He’s a proper leader of people. I learned a load from him.

So you start Independiente. What’s the first big moment?

I had Travis up my sleeve. They were in a band before they became Travis, with a different line-up. Fran is such a lovely, delicious, wide-eyed personality.

Travis’s first album [Good Feeling, 1997] got some good critical acclaim, but I still think some of those songs are under-valued. And then they came with The Man Who, and it just took off in a big way. It’s an amazing record. It went to No.1 three times, 52 weeks apart – you also have to tip your hat to the management, Ian [McAndrew] and Colin [Lester], who were brilliant, always playing to win.

When you’ve got an artist playing live, the best place to be is in the first two or three rows because you can get a sense of the level of passion people have. Travis really had that going on.

I remember saying to them, [your career] is like a dam: you’ve got to keep chipping away. Every time you do an interview, play a gig or put a song out, you’re chipping away. And eventually, you're going to find a keystone, the whole thing will go bang, and you’ll get swept away. And that's what happened!

were as good as it gets. You hear so many records around now and you think, ‘Without [So Solid] doing what they did...’

What lessons can we learn from the scaremongering that surrounded and restricted So Solid’s career at that time?

Some records in this business get a disproportionate amount of focus and attention, because record companies tend to underestimate the public taste, generally. This home counties, narrow idea that some – not all – record companies might have, that it’s got to be very safe, good looking kids, singing old hits. I mean, there's a place for that. And it’s... in the toilet [laughs].

It’s a bit better now than it was then, I suppose. Partly because artists can own their music and circumvent all of that. It’s why I think companies like Kobalt are fantastic.

Doesn’t the rise of independent artists endanger the art of the record label A&R? For every artist, no matter how self-sufficient, it’s really good to have a sounding board – it’s about tiny little observations. Fran would always say, ‘That's the grandfather song, and that's the grandmother song; after that comes the mum song and the dad song.’ Describing songs as little families, living entities, which of course they are; it’s an intellectual birth or emotional birth, rather than a flesh and blood birth.

It’s an incredibly precious thing they’re sharing with the rest of the world. And no-one ever knows 100% of anything, at all, so even if you’re a really self-sufficient artist, if you’re open to that process [of feedback] – be that from a band member, a partner, a publisher, a manager or a label A&R guy – you need a trusted person, a lieutenant. I hear quite a lot of tracks that come along now that are really good, but I think, ‘If only there was a little bit more funding there to build a string section or whatever...’ A lot of stuff is 95% realised to my ears. Some music needs that immediacy, needs to be thrown down like a Jackson Pollock painting. But other music needs to be crafted.

“There was so much talent in So Solid Crew. They were as good as it gets.”

How did So Solid Crew come about?

They were on Shabs’ label, Relentless, and they had They Don't Know out. I remember that track getting played and mentioned – Greg in our office was pushing it – but we were just winding up for Christmas. [During that break] I clicked on MTV Base at home and saw the video, and I just thought, fuck me, this looks amazing. We worked out a deal with Relentless in which we helped fund all the marketing, paid for the video, and acquired the rights to adopt that single [21 Seconds] for our album. My MD at the time, Mark Richardson – the best visual person working in music I’ve ever come across – chatted to So Solid and found the right people who could [include] all their ideas in a video.

There was so much talent in that group; producers, writers, lyricists, rappers. If it hadn’t been for councils not letting them play live and all the other stuff they faced, on pure talent, they

Why did you feel emotionally ready to sell Independiente to Concord earlier this year?

I really liked the people, the price was good, and it cleared the decks for me. Working catalog is really noble, but at heart I’m an A&R guy: the most exciting thing for me is walking into the Everyman Theatre and seeing The La’s playing with no stage and everyone smoking a doobie; or Paul [Weller] calling up and saying, ‘Come down to the studio, I’m ready for you to hear it now.’

I'm currently doing all the business strategy and marketing for my wife's fashion label, which is really good, another world. And I shouldn’t say too much, but if you’re going to come back to the [music business] after a while, you've got to be prepared to do it with every bit as much passion in your DNA as you had before.

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TRIBUTE

‘HE IS A FORCE OF NATURE’

I

Andy Macdonald's A&R Icon Award was handed out by now-Columbia UK President, Ferdy Unger-Hamilton, who honoured his one-time boss with the following speech...

t all began for me in 1991, long before the tawdry days of sharp elbows and murky market share.

I was aged 20 when I began to work for Go! Discs and I first met Andy Macdonald. Andy had already signed Billy Bragg, The Housemartins, who had morphed into The Beautiful South, Norman Cook’s Beats International, and The La’s – who had made a special debut album with the worldwide hit There She Goes on it. It’s really easy to tell from this that Andy has taste, great taste.

We would spend our days at Go! Discs mainly sat in Andy’s office, listening to music, and... well, let’s say that the smoking laws were much more relaxed back then.

When Andy heard a song or an artist that he liked, there would be an instant response. That artist would be in his office almost certainly within the next 24 hours – and a mystical, brain-washing process would occur.

I was often lucky enough to be in some of these meetings, and would monitor the stages. First, Andy’s big, blue Bambi-like eyes would light up and a maniacal look would come across his face. Cigarette papers would almost certainly then appear from the top pocket of his brightly coloured short-sleeved shirt.

Next, they would begin to listen – very loudly – to the band’s demos, Andy pointing out the bits of genius that the artist, even though he or she wrote it, may have missed.

The artist would, by this point, have realised that they were in fact even more talented than they had given themselves credit for.

Finally... and this one was the death-grip (and I would just like to point out that the success of this stage truly baffled me; it still does today) Andy would then bring out his acoustic guitar (!) and begin to jam with them. Even more astonishingly, they seemed to like it and would leave... converted!

You see, Andy is a charming guy – in the same way Lionel Messi is quite a good footballer. He is also a little crazy – in the best way possible.

One July, Andy invited me and Lee Mavers – the lead singer and songwriter from The La’s – to go on holiday on a yacht with him. We spent what I have to say was still the best week of my life, sailing around Sardinia on this beautiful boat while Lee played his guitar and sang his half-finished songs.

I couldn’t believe when Lee suddenly declared, while gazing out

across the beautiful Mediterranean Sea (in full scouse), ‘This boat would be the perfect place to finish the album’ – by the way, this boat would be the perfect place to finish anything – and much to my surprise, Andy agreed! One month later, Lee, his mate ‘Garnie’ a 16-year-old ‘engineer’ with no discernible recording experience, and myself were heading back for another week on the yacht. Did it work? Did it fuck! Sadly, we came back with very little in the way of releasable music.

But, you see, that is Andy: he loved The La’s, and would do anything he could to get that elusive second record. To reduce Andy to being ‘a good A&R man’ is to wildly miss the point. He would stop at nothing to get things done. He is a force of nature, someone who believes in something so much that he leaves you no choice. Go! Discs was a testament to that; if I wanted to sign something, he would encourage me to do so, no matter what it was. In 1995, Tony Crean, our head of marketing, approached Andy saying he wanted to do an album in support of the charity Warchild. This involved around 20 acts (including Oasis, Radiohead, Stone Roses, Portishead) all recording a track in the same 24 hour period. Now, I thought this was a terrible idea, but they did it, it worked and what eventually became the Help album was undoubtedly one of the defining records of that era. Andy empowered us all, and this small company punched well above its weight throughout the nineties. I still think of it as my role model for wherever I’m working.

It is almost impossible to know what you might have been were it not for the impact that certain people have had on you. Would you have seen things differently? Would you have even been in the job or industry that you are currently in?

I can tell you that I was incredibly lucky to have had a first boss who listened to, and trusted in, the artist. Someone who always paid attention to opinions of the people that he employed, no matter their rank. And, critically, someone who always remembered to have a good time with it – because it is, after all, music.

I am really pleased that they are giving you this award Andy, you truly deserve it and I feel very lucky to have been around for what was a magical time in my life.

I can honestly say that the music business is a much duller place without you.

“Andy is a charming guy, in the same way Lionel Messi is quite a good footballer.”

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WHERE ARE ALL THE LAWSUITS LEADING? As songwriters face a climate of plagiarism fears, Rhian Jones has concerns for the future...

“It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to,” says a quote widely attributed to film director, Jean Luc-Godard. “Good artists copy, great artists steal,” said Picasso.

And discussing the creation of Macintosh, Steve Jobs said: “It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done, and then trying to bring those things in to what you’re doing. We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”

Taking inspiration from the work of others in order to create something new happens in all creative fields. In the music industry, it’s a similar story. Artists will happily list whose work they’ve been inspired by, musical genres are heavily influenced by what’s gone before, and samples, remixes and references are also, of course, regular features of new work.

But over the last few years, you might have noticed a growing trend of a different kind of attribution creeping in. One that, well, in my opinion, doesn’t really make much sense. A trend that’s based on a song possibly/maybe/ifyou-squint-a-bit perhaps sounding like another song. One of the most recent examples of this is Juice Wrld getting sued for his Lucid Dreams which, according to the lawsuit, rips off Holly Wood Died by emo band Yellowcard. Lana Del Rey has been accused of copying Radiohead’s Creep for her own Get Free, The Script sued James Arthur for his hit Say You Won’t Let Go, and Lizzo is currently embroiled in a lawsuit over her own Truth Hurts which writers Justin and Jeremiah Raisen claim they are owed a credit on for a line that Lizzo says was actually lifted from a meme.

This flurry of recent lawsuits arrive following the Blurred Line case which resulted in a victory for the Marvin Gaye Estate, who were awarded $5.3m in damages for owning the copyright for a song that inspired ‘the vibe’ of another.

At the time, the verdict was warned to have set a worrying precedent that risks limiting the creativity of musicians and composers. History

“It’s not uncommon for songwriting sessions to start with a chat about LQñ XHQFHV ú

has proven that warning to be correct, and it’s a precedent that, as pointed out in a recent MBW article, one lawyer in particular is exploiting to the max — Richard Busch, who represented the Marvin Gaye Estate, also repped The Script and Yellowcard. Speak to any music industry exec of yore, and they’ll probably tell you that the fun left the music business when the lawyers got involved. It’s starting to feel like that statement is truer today as it ever was.

It’s not uncommon for songwriting sessions to start with a chat about influences and inspirations, perhaps even listening to other songs. This process has clearly resulted in some pretty good tunes; to name a few: The Stroke’s Last Nite, which mirrors the intro to Tom Petty’s American Girl, the Prince-esque Make Me Feel

by Janelle Monae, and it’s clear to hear the similarities between Locked Out of Heaven by Bruno Mars and Roxanne by The Police.

If a song obviously samples another, it is of course fair to attribute it as such. If a song was loosely inspired by another, does the writer of that original song really deserve a share of the

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XXXXXXXX COMMENT

Katy Perry, alongside Capitol and others, were ordered to pay P DV D UHVXOW of a plagiarism case involving her hit Dark Horse earlier this year

revenue? Just because something is possible legally, doesn’t mean it’s right.

Times aren’t great for songwriters at the moment, who have a small slice of the streaming revenue pie. Cutting into that even further by attributing credits to people who weren’t even in the room when the song was written, and have likely already enjoyed a successful career (especially if they were around during the CD boom), only has the potential to make times even harder. And it’s not difficult to see how many creative restraints could be imposed on songwriting in future, over fear of being sued for something being used as a reference point.

Which leads nicely (or not so nicely), into the future of AI-generated music. Anyone who’s

“It’s not hard to see how this leads to creative UHVWUDLQWV Ăş

seen the 4 Chord Song by Axis of Awesome will understand how much homogeneity there is in pop music and why, with a limited number of notes to choose from, it was only a matter of time until things started repeating themselves.

Yet as explained in an MBW interview early last year, Director of Spotify’s Creator Technology Research Lab, François Pachet, has hopes that AI will “change music, bringing fresh material, new ideas, new melodies, new chord harmonies, new chord progressions, and also new sounds and new ways to combine sounds.â€?

The way he sees it, AI will be “assisting the Lennon that needs a McCartney�. Sounds like pretty bad news for McCartney. Is that the kind of future we want?

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INTERVIEW

‘YOUNG PEOPLE HAD A VOICE AND IT NEEDED TO BE HEARD’ Colin Batsa is setting the UK scene on fire after striking a partnership between his EGA Music Group and Universal’s Caroline International. Here, MBUK catches up with Batsa, now Caroline International’s Head Of Urban UK, to discuss his career, signing stories and the challenges that come with success...

C

olin Batsa remembers the exact day he figured out what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

The EGA music co-founder (and Caroline International’s Head of Urban UK) confirms that he was once a handshake away from a deal with RZA-founded label, Wu-Tang International, when he was part of a hip-hop group as a teenager in Tottenham. “Those were my younger days,” he tells us. “I’ve buried all the music though! Me and my friends probably thought we were the Wu-Tang Clan of the UK. There were about eight of us, and we just used to rap. We’d do shows at universities.”

Batsa explains that a Wu-Tang International employee heard the group freestyling during a radio interview and invited them in for a meeting.

He laughs: “We thought we were going to meet them, and obviously they weren’t there. It was a manager and the label boss.”

And yet, as they say, always take the meeting – because it might change your life.

“There was this guy sitting there and he was on his phone and all the photographers at the photo shoot were asking him questions,” remembers Batsa. “They were asking him to approve the pictures. He had two phones, so I was really excited. I asked him, ‘What do you do?’ He goes, ‘I'm a manager, and an A&R.’ That was me. I was like, Forget rapping. I want to be that guy.”

Batsa went to study law at university in London, but switched to a music business course, and ended up landing an internship at the MOBOs. After his internship ended, he joined a digital music company called UK Street Sounds as an A&R scout, tasked with finding new UK-based urban artists.

“I was signing mobile licences,” he says. “They would license their record to us for mobile [use]. We’d make about £2, but we were getting into the habit of signing. Then I met my current 57

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D Block Europe

business partner, Victor [Omos]. He was my boss then, and he runs EGA with me now.”

By 2008, Batsa was working as the label president for 360 Records, a subsidiary of the legendary urban music TV station Channel AKA, formerly Channel U. Three years prior to his 360 presidency he started managing Grime legend Ghetts who was also one of his favourite artists.

Through Ghetts, Batsa met a rapper from Dagenham called Devlin, who he subsequently started to manage. He then left 360 to focus on management full-time.

In 2010, Devlin, managed by Batsa, put out two career-defining singles: the first was London City, which was a hit on Channel AKA. The second was Community Outcast, offering razor sharp social commentary covering themes of unemployment, austerity and depression. Batsa says that it was this track that made the major labels start taking notice and by 2010, Devlin got so big that Batsa needed to start a company to manage it all.

“I did not think I would ever experience a bidding war like that in my life. It was mad,” says Batsa. “There were labels coming in, so we had to manage it properly and myself and Victor [Omos] started EGA.” Devlin eventually signed a deal with Island Records and his 2010-debut album Bud, Sweat and Beers sold in excess of 100,000 copies, was certified Gold and featured guest appearances from Emeli Sande, Labrinth and Ghetts. The follow up, 2013’s A Moving Picture produced two UK Top 10 singles, Watchtower, featuring Ed Sheeran, and Rewind.

In 2014, EGA’s Batsa, Omos and new partner Charley Snook formed a talent development label under the EGA Records banner. Success swiftly followed with the PMR Records/Virgin EMI-signed, eternally catchy Meridian Dan single German Whip, featuring JME and Big H, which has sold over 130,000 copies and was a Top 20 hit in April 2014.

Batsa’s next biggest discovery proved that EGA’s ambitions were not to be restricted by genre. He found pop duo Oh Wonder by chance after hearing one of their tracks on an episode of Made in Chelsea. He subsequently signed the act to Island with their first album going through Caroline International.

Oh Wonder’s self–titled 2015 debut has since generated over half a billion streams, with Batsa joking that “they invented streaming”. He adds: “When I signed them they were putting out a song a month for 12 months on SoundCloud and it was getting crazy numbers. They then migrated to Spotify and it just went wild. They’re a phenomenal act.”

After Oh Wonder, EGA signed singer/songwriter Sharna Bass, who Batsa says he signed on the spot when he first met her and heard her music. “She's just a musical sponge,” he says. “She absorbs everything and feels everything, writes a song a day. She's phenomenal. I have no doubt that she will be one of the biggest artists in the world.”

Last year, things moved up a gear: EGA signed a deal with Caroline International, which initially saw Batsa take on a consultancy role, but he was soon promoted to his current position of Head of Urban, UK. “It's a dream come true,” says Batsa of signing the deal with Caroline. “I had met Michael [Roe] and Jim [Chancellor] through Oh Wonder, because Oh Wonder wanted to be independent, so Island put their first album through Caroline.

“They're my two mentors,” Batsa says of Roe and Chancellor.

“Great guys. Probably the best I’ve ever known, if I'm honest. I really wanted to work with them.”

Caroline International’s urban division in the UK is quickly becoming one of the leaders in its field, with a current roster featuring the likes of fast-rising Nigerian rapper Rema and South London hip-hop stars D Block Europe, who have scored two Top 10 entries on the Official Albums Chart this year, with mixtapes Home Alone (No.6) and 28-track PTSD (No.4).

The hip-hop duo have also just played two sold-out nights at Alexandra Palace. (They joke with Dave in the video for Playing for Keeps that Ally Pally is “four times Brixton” – in reference to the size of the Mercury Prize winning artist’s sold-out show at Brixton Academy at the start of the year.)

Looking to the future, Batsa jokes that he’d like to say that his idea of success is making “20 billion pounds”, but stops himself.

“That's so shallow, isn’t it?”

“My mum being very proud of me is probably my number one thing,” he continues. “That’s like winning the lottery. But personally, I have an ambition to make EGA and Caroline International [amongst] the biggest music companies in the world. If I could achieve half of that goal, I’d be very happy.”

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What were you listening to when you were younger? What kind of music was being played in your house when you were a kid?

My mum was a big Bob Marley fan. Anita Baker, all the Motown stuff and then a mixture of African music that I grew up on that was [being played] in the house when I was young. And then obviously I thought I was Michael Jackson at a certain age. I saw a video of him dancing to James Brown. Amazing.

What were the first artists that you got into yourself?

My dad passed away when I was 10 years old. I started listening to rap then, because I felt like it [taught] me things in life – knowledge. Then I heard Biggie Smalls and I thought, ‘Wow.’ I heard Notorious B.I.G and then a fair amount of hip-hop and Snoop Doggy Dogg. Those two were the first two that I was really inspired by.

You got an internship at MOBOs. How did you go from having that meeting with Wu-Tang International to getting an internship there?

I was at uni. I’d been [studying] law, but I ended up doing music business.

Then one day I just wanted to find a job in music, so I rang every single music company in the Music Week directory. I rang everyone in there and then I got an interview at the MOBOs. I was like, ‘I'm in.’ I was the first one in and the last to leave every day, because I just wanted to prove myself.

like yesterday. I was so upset and then I went in the car with two of my friends and they said to me, ‘Don't worry man, this is like when Puff Daddy got sacked from Uptown.’ That did make me feel much better – and I proved them right, so that was good.

You then worked for UK Street Sounds…

Yeah. I met one of the owners at the MOBOs and he offered me an interview. I went down there and met a woman by the name of Karlene Palmer. She was really helpful, because she really liked me, and she gave me my first job. I was a scout for a digital platform. We were supplying digital companies with UK urban music. I would just go and find [artists] and I used to make friends with them.

Who were some of the artists you were working then?

Sway, Swiss – those were my first two licences, actually. Also Big Narstie and I – we’re close. Skepta, JME and Bossman Birdie, they were my childhood friends. Some of the other artists [there’s] no point me mentioning as most of them don’t rap anymore. There were also legends like Mike GLC and Terror Danja. I could literally go on forever.

“Leaving the MOBOs after six months; that was the biggest turning point in my career.”

What year was that?

Maybe 2003-2004.

What was the UK music scene like in 2003, 2004 from your perspective?

Well, there were commercial successes in So Solid [Crew] and Ms Dynamite, so there were people that were in the charts. But the underground was so far away from the charts. I could see an underground movement emerging, which was great. There was no middle ground.

In 2004 Dizzee Rascal won the Mercury Prize – that must have been a hell of a big moment?

That was one of the turning points. Another turning point was So Solid [Crew] going No.1 [with 21 Seconds]. You saw people that looked like me, that were never, ever on TV, on Top of the Pops.

That's how long ago it was, it was No.1 and on Top of the Pops, and I was like, ‘Wow, maybe I can do this in the UK.’ How long did you work at MOBOs for?

I left after six months. They said they didn't have enough budget.

That was the biggest turning point in my career; I remember it

When did you set up EGA and what was the turning point?

I was at Street Sounds for about three, four years, then we changed the model. Then I went to Channel AKA, which was Channel U. I was the President of their label. The turning point in my life was when I started managing an artist by the name of Ghetto, who's now called Ghetts. I managed Ghetts in 2005/2006. And he introduced me to a brilliant rapper by the name of Devlin.

I was at UK Street Sounds and it just wasn’t working out. On the day I was leaving, I was about to be a teacher; I was going to teach music business at a training school. I was walking down with my ex-boss Darren Platt, may he rest in peace, and he said to me, ‘Do you know what works on my channel?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘White rappers.’ I was like, ‘Well I think I've got the best rapper.’ I didn't say white rapper, but I said, ‘I think I've got the best.’ He was like, ‘Oh, let's test it out and see.’ Then the rest was history.

How did you meet Ghetts before that?

When I was at UK Street Sounds, he was my favorite artist, from Typical Me. I just remember seeing him on TV. ‘It’s always Kano getting in the madness/Me, I’m in the corner sipping on champers/ But for some reason, I gotta face they all wanna ramp with.’

I was like, ‘Who the hell is this?’ I didn't know a UK rapper could be that lyrical. This is 2005, and then I met Wretch [32] and Mercston, and then Mercston introduced me to [Ghetts]. I just remember hunting him down, because I just wanted to manage him, because I was a big fan of his.

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were taking me to a Jay-Z concert, so I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m going to meet him.’ I got my hair cut and got my right outfit on. Then the phone rang and it was Darcus [Beese, then Island UK boss]. I couldn't believe it. I was like, ‘This ain’t Darcus. This is one of my friends trying to wind me up.’ He was like, ‘No, it's me. I want a deal with [Devlin], and I’m going to get him, no matter what.’

Just before that I was very close with Ben Scarrs. He was at Jump Off back in the day, but then he was an A&R at Island and he had signed Tinchy Stryder and had some success. He was my good friend. Ben came to see me about Devlin, so I think Ben told Darcus [about that meeting]. I obviously ended up not going to the Jay-Z concert, because I was completely head-gone that Darcus had rang me. Then Ben was just so relentless. It was like, ‘I want Devlin. I want Devlin, Col.’ We met Darcus and Ted Cockle, the dynamic duo, and we said, ‘We want to be here.’ We ended up signing with Island in 2009.

What was it like working with Darcus Beese and Ted Cockle?

It was great. It was two different types of leadership, it was good.

We were mostly working with Ben [Scarrs], because obviously Ben was the A&R. Ben taught me a lot. He taught us a lot about making a record and being musical. Yeah, so it was a good process on the first album, Bud, Sweat and Beers.

Then he introduced you to Devlin. How did that happen?

I'd done a song called One Blood, and I put 25 rappers on one song. I don't know why I did that. I was at Ghetts’ house once, and he played me a freestyle and the kid was like, ‘I got biscuits at the bottom like a cheese cake.’ I was like, ‘Who the hell is that?’

He's like, ‘My boy, Devlin.’ I was just under the assumption Devlin was black, that was just what I assumed.

Then I said to Ghetts ‘Oh, I'm doing this song. Let's get Devlin on the song.’ He said, ‘Yeah, of course.’ Then he turned up, but the guy looked like he just came off the lunch shift. I was like, ‘Where's Devlin?’ and he said, ‘That’s him’. I was like, ‘Oh shit.

Wow.’ I didn’t expect it. Back then, I loved Big Pun, Devlin completely reminded me of him; I was like, ‘Wow, amazing!’ I just fell in love with the kid.

Tell us about that journey, from starting to work with Devlin to signing with Island.

We did the deal with Channel U and we released a song called London City. It was getting so many views and people loved it.

Then we put out a song called Community Outcast and then the labels started to go crazy.

I’m a big fan of Jay-Z. That's my favourite rapper. Atlantic

What are some of the unique challenges and pressures working management and A&R? A&R is mostly about the results. You can be a great A&R, but if you're not delivering success it's difficult. It's difficult to have people's confidence and get respect. That's the main stress or pressure in A&R; getting the result, or getting a big signing through the door. It's more results-based. Whereas in management, you're dealing with a human being that's put their life in your hands. It's a different sort of pressure – doing right by the person.

What was your vision for EGA when you first set it up?

We just wanted to be a management company, really, but then we started to expand. Charley Snook joined us and gave us a new energy. She was an intern then became a manager and then became a PA and now she owns the business with us, all over the last eight years.

Devlin released two albums through Island. What was the second album cycle like?

His second album was probably the toughest time of my career. It was very difficult. We were on the outside looking in on the first album; the second album was inside looking out.

Before, you've got no expectations, but with the second album you've already sold 100,000 on your first album. So you want to sell more and you want bigger singles, because at that point other artists, like Tinie Tempah, like Professor Green, they were having hits and we weren't.

We were more like cult. Looking back now, maybe we should

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INTERVIEW

have stayed that way, but we were trying to get caught up. The label went from no expectations to a lot of expectations. They were still supportive, but it just wasn't working out for us. We had a Top 10 with Ed Sheeran, with Watchtower. It went to No.7, so people were expecting us to do well.

I said, ‘We're taking him away from his core fan base’. The second album didn't do well and then we parted ways, but it was all respectful and graceful. Island Records were really good to us, so I can't say anything bad about them.

How did you meet Oh Wonder?

Darcus gave me a consultancy [at Island], but I was with PMR [Records] a lot and I was seeing they had a lot of success with Disclosure. I was like, ‘I want an artist like that.’

This is a funny story. I lost a deal to Virgin for Lethal Bizzle and Darcus was like, ‘You need to be faster, you need to be quicker.’

On Christmas Eve, I was sitting in my house and my niece was like, ‘Can I watch Made in Chelsea?’ I was like, ‘Oh hell no!’ I gave in eventually. She watched it and I heard a song on there, which was later on to be called All We Do, from Oh Wonder.

I Shazamed the song and I saw that it was number 61 in the Shazam charts, so I was like, ‘Who is this?’ Then I went online, found them and I thought, ‘They must be signed,’ I thought, ‘Why not?’

I sent them eight emails a day for about 10 days. Josephine [Vander Gucht] told me she counted them. Eventually they responded and they were like, ‘Can you come for a meeting?’

street. We never had that since Ms Dynamite. I was in Island and was walking out to have some water. An A&R person said to me, ‘I want you to meet this girl.’ I was like, ‘I'm not actually in the mood.’ Then in the end I thought, why not?

I walked in and I saw this young girl sitting there. I thought she was a rapper, the way she was talking, and I was thinking, ‘I don't want no rapper here, telling me that she killed 20 people and whatever. I haven't got time for this.’ Then she played me a song and I was like, ‘That's not you!’

I've always wanted a Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys and she's the only thing I’ve heard that comes near to that. I signed her on the spot, and now we're joined at the hip, three years later.

Last year EGA signed a partnership with Caroline. How did that come about?

I met Michael and Jim and I just fell in love with them. I mean, Jim Chancellor, he’s like a character in a movie. His hair, his name.

I thought his name was so gangster: Jim Chancellor.

And then Michael, well he’s been like a father figure to me. He really cares about me. I always liked them and then I brought Skepta’s manager in for a meeting, but it didn’t work out; I was always working with them. I remember Darcus saying, ‘You don't work for Caroline, you work for me! What are you doing?’

When my Island thing came to an end, I really wanted to get into label services, and they were the only people I wanted to work with. When they offered a partnership as well as me being an A&R consultant, I was like, ‘Yes please!’

“I literally believe D Block can be the biggest urban group in the world.”

How did you find out about D Block Europe, and what does their success say about the current UK music scene?

I obviously knew who they were from the underground scene, they were creating a wave. A good friend of mine, Bouncer, introduced me to LB [one half of D Block] and, simultaneously, my friend Zeon Richards introduced me to their manager, Wes. Myself and Wes completely connected, had the same vision, and I definitely believe he is one of the best managers out there.

In terms of how big they can get, I literally believe they can be the biggest urban group in the world. Considering their mixtape was streaming-only with no physical, to reach No.4 in the album charts is absolutely phenomenal. This exemplifies the growth of the UK music market and shows that these kids that are coming up are here to stay.

How did you meet and start working with Sharna Bass?

After Oh Wonder, urban started to grow. Some industry friends were like, ‘You moved out the hood, you're in Chelsea.’ I was like, ‘You're funny.’ And they were like, ‘You need to come back to urban.’ I was a bit uninspired by it at that time if I’m honest, but I just wanted to sign an artist; a girl that was singing from the

How do you feel about the growth in popularity of UK rap and hip-hop and its cultural influence in the country in recent years?

I'm very happy. I was there when there was no influence. I think it was only a matter of time: young people had a voice and it needed to be heard.

The cultural impact is that [without music] some of these kids would either be dead or in jail. The fact that they're performing at Alexandra Palace or the O2 Arena for me is phenomenal. I already knew that it would come to this one day. I didn't think it would come this far, because of how hard it was back then, but it was only a matter of time.

People like Skepta, Kano, Giggs, Devlin, Chipmunk, these people have opened up the door for the young lot. It's been great to see. I think about it every day. Just to see that there is actually a scene and a culture and people are in the charts, and people are winning awards, it’s just great.

Most of my peers and my friends that I came up with in the industry all have big corporate jobs in labels as top executives.

Phenomenal.

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GALLERY

Pausing only to annoy cabbies by dawdling on the famous crossing, it’s off to Abbey Road to see which five items the studio’s managing director, Isabel Garvey, picks to represent her work and life…

T

he basic (and completely original, honest) premise of MBUK’s My Favourite Things slot is for execs to show us iconic objects from around their office that represent their love of music and/or high points in their career.

Isabel Garvey’s office is Abbey Road. She could quite easily just point at the walls. In fact, at one point, she sort of does.

It’s certainly a long way, culturally and geographically (in London Bubble terms) from her first office. “Canary Wharf ”, she whispers, starting her apology almost before she’s finished her answer. “I have a dark history in finance [specifically, Morgan Stanley, the evil empire’s evil empire] that I try to keep hidden.”

The dark arts came in useful, however, when, after a spell at EMI, she joined the Warner Music international team under John Reid and “did 11 M&A deals within a year, because Warner wanted to actually acquire capabilities, and not just rights grabs, so live businesses, management businesses, merchandising businesses, etc. They were basically re-imagining what a record company needed to look like.”

She left to set up her own digital consulting business, but almost immediately “discovered I was really shit at working on my own”.

Thankfully, in 2014, Universal called and asked if she’d like to run Abbey Road Studios. “I think it was 85 years old at the time, and they wanted to ensure it was still the most famous recording studio in the world for the next 85 years. So I got a fabulous remit, which was, ‘We want to invest in Abbey Road. How do you think we should do that?’ And that’s what I’ve been doing.” [The biggest investment being the creation of two new studios, opened in 2017.]

This year, the studio has probably been more famous than ever, and certainly garnered as much press as ever, at the centre of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ best album (don’t @ me), and the one that gave the studios their ‘modern’ name (previously they were simply the EMI Recording Studios] Garvey says: “It’s been a really lovely, proud year, because I always say that we’re on this tightrope between celebrating our heritage and planning for the future. And this year gave us a real excuse to celebrate the heritage.”

Some of that heritage, and some of the future, is represented in Garvey’s five Favourite Things…

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1

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COTADAMA LYRIC SPEAKER We have a music tech incubator called Abbey Road Red. We take three to four businesses a year. We’re on our 15th business right now and it’s brilliant, we see such diversity HUK Z\JO H YHUNL VM Z[\Ɉ HSS NVPUN [OYV\NO H ILZWVRL ZP_ TVU[O WYVNYHTTL )LPUN H Z[HY[ \W PZ PUOLYLU[S` YPZR` HUK KPɉJ\S[ (UK ILPUN PU H T\ZPJ Z[HY[ \W PZ L]LU TVYL JOHSSLUNPUN ^P[O [OL YPNO[Z HUK SPJLUZPUN LU]PYVUTLU[ :[HY[ \WZ VM[LU OVYYPÄJHSS` \UKLYLZ[PTH[L [OL JVTWSL_P[` VM [OPZ I\ZPULZZ :V ^L [OV\NO[ ^L TPNO[ OH]L H YVSL [V WSH` PU ÄUKPUN YLHSS` LHYS` Z[HNL I\ZPULZZLZ HUK VɈLYPUN [OLT H ZP_ TVU[O WYVNYHT IHZLK HYV\UK [OLPY Z[YH[LNPJ VIQLJ[P]LZ ^OH[ ÄUHUJL [OL` ^HU[ [V YHPZL ^OH[ WYVK\J[ [OL` ^HU[ [V SH\UJO L[J ;OL VIQLJ[P]L PZ [OH[ H[ [OL LUK VM [OVZL ZP_ TVU[OZ [OL` OH]L H RPSSLY WP[JO ¶ HUK [OL` OVWLM\SS` HSZV NL[ [OLPY ÄYZ[ ZLYPV\Z YV\UK VM ÄUHUJL ;OPZ PZ H *V[HKHTH 3`YPJ :WLHRLY 0[»Z H 1HWHULZL I\ZPULZZ ¶ ^L [HRL I\ZPULZZLZ MYVT HSS V]LY [OL ^VYSK ¶ and they have very clever software in the back-end that takes the lyric timing from songs and matches it to the H\KPV ZV P[»Z H ]PZ\HS YLWYLZLU[H[PVU VM S`YPJZ 0[»Z H YLHSS` ILH\[PM\S WPLJL ZOV^PUN [OL WV^LY VM T\ZPJ I\[ HSZV Q\Z[ YLHSS` JSL]LY [LJOUVSVN`

NOT JUST ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL Something that was lacking in Studio Two [the ‘Beatles room’] was some isolation booths to make the room work MVY OV^ WLVWSL YLJVYK [VKH` :V ^L KLJPKLK [V I\PSK some, and to create the windows, so that that you could see into the main studio, we had to take some bricks out, some of the sacred bricks! )\[ ^L ^LYLU»[ NVPUN [V Q\Z[ [OYV^ [OLT H^H` ^L ^HU[LK [V JYLH[L ZVTL[OPUN X\P[L ZWLJPHS :V ^L»]L RPUK VM LU]LSVWLK [OLT PU 7LYZWL_ ^L»]L TV\U[LK [OLT VU[V H ILH\[PM\S ZL[[PUN HUK ^L»]L WYLZLU[LK [OLT [V ZVTL VM V\Y MH]V\YP[L WLVWSL HUK ZVTL WLVWSL ^OV OH]L ILLU WHY[ VM :[\KPV »Z OPZ[VY` ¶ 0»T Z\YL `V\ JHU N\LZZ H ML^ (SS VM [OL Z[\Ɉ ^L KPK ^OLU ^L TVKLYUPZLK [OL Z[\KPVZ we went through Heritage England to make sure it was all okay, but this was such a minor change to the room it obviously wasn’t an issue.

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GALLERY

3 HIS MASTER’S VOICE PAINTING 0 N\LZZ [OPZ KVLZU»[ ULLK T\JO KLZJYPW[PVU VY L_WSHUH[PVU 0[ YLWYLZLU[Z [OL JVYWVYH[L OLYP[HNL VM [OL Z[\KPVZ PU [OL ZLUZL [OH[ WLVWSL ZLL [OH[ HUK [OPUR ,40 ¶ HZ ^LSS HZ /4= ;OL LUKLHYPUN Z[VY` PZ [OH[ 5PWWLY PZ OLHYPUN OPZ KLHK THZ[LY»Z ]VPJL VU ]PU`S HUK ZV P[»Z H ]PZ\HS YLWYLZLU[H[PVU UV[ Q\Z[ VM [OL OPZ[VY` VM YLJVYKLK T\ZPJ I\[ VM [OL WV^LY of music. ;OL VYPNPUHS 0 [OPUR PZ PU :PY 3\JPHU B.YHPUNLD»Z VɉJL PU 3( I\[ [OLYL HYL LPNO[ JVWPLZ [OL HY[PZ[ KPK HUK S\JRPS` LUV\NO VUL OHZ MV\UK P[Z OVTL OLYL 7LVWSL JVTL PU HUK check it’s still on the wall on a regular basis.

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FAMILY PHOTO This is my family: myself, my husband, and the three kids.

0 N\LZZ [OL`»YL H YLTPUKLY VM ^O` 0 KV [OPZ ;OL JOPSKYLU HYL LPNO[ ZP_ HUK [^V HUK [OL LSKLY [^V HYL Q\Z[ Z[HY[PUN [V \UKLYZ[HUK ^OH[ 0 KV <UP]LYZHS HYL YLHSS` WYVNYLZZP]L PU [LYTZ VM MHTPS` HUK [OH[»Z ZVTL[OPUN [OH[»Z Z\WLY PTWVY[HU[ [V +H]PK B1VZLWOD" OL OHZ H YLHSS` OLHS[O` H[[P[\KL >L B<UP]LYZHSD SVVRLK PU[V ^VYR SPML IHSHUJL PU JYLH[P]P[` WHY[PJ\SHYS` H JV\WSL VM `LHYZ HNV HUK UV^ ^L HJ[\HSS` OH]L H JVTWHU` WVSPJ` [OH[ `V\ KVU»[ ZLUK LTHPSZ SH[L H[ UPNO[ @V\ THRL L]LY` ZJOVVS WSH` L]LY` WHYLU[Z L]LUPUN (UK PM `V\ KVU»[ OH]L JOPSKYLU PM [OLYL HYL V[OLY PTWVY[HU[ [OPUNZ NVPUN VU PU `V\Y SPML [OL JVTWHU` YLJVNUPZLZ [OH[ Q\Z[ HZ T\JO <UP]LYZHS PZ [OL TVZ[ WYVNYLZZP]L WSHJL 0»]L worked at in terms of family.

4 WATER BOTTLE :V [OPZ PZ H ^LPYK VUL >L HYL UV[ [LYYPIS` LULYN` LɉJPLU[ PU [OPZ I\PSKPUN HZ `V\ JHU PTHNPUL" P[ [HRLZ H SV[ [V RLLW \Z Z^P[JOLK VU HUK ^L JVUZ\TL H SV[ VM LSLJ[YPJP[` ¶ HS[OV\NO ^L OH]L Z^P[JOLK [V H NYLLU WV^LY WYV]PKLY 6UL [OPUN ^L ^HU[LK [V KV PZ NL[ WSHZ[PJ V\[ VM [OL I\PSKPUN ZV ^L HYL UV^ [V[HSS` WSHZ[PJ MYLL HUK OH]L ILLU for a year. And what that means is that we now all have our own work water bottles.

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‘You come to work every day and ask yourself, How do we make a difference?’

Island Records’ UK president Louis Bloom reflects on the recent success of singersongwriter Dermot Kennedy, how it represents a new spirit of confidence and optimism at the label – and promises there are more new names to come…

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FEATURE

T

he year began with George Ezra being held off the album chart top spot only by The Greatest Showman.

It continued with debut No.1 LPs for Sam Fender, Tom Walker, Lewis Capaldi and, most recently, Dermot Kennedy. It seems that, in 2019, when it comes to British (and Irish) singer/songwriters, there really must be something in the water.

Kennedy was signed to Island, by Louis Bloom, who was then Head of A&R. But Bloom, who now runs the label in the UK, doesn’t see the above sequence as a mini-battle within a wider war. Instead, he welcomes it as success after success, to be celebrated wherever it lands.

The exec is generally – whilst wanting and striving for nothing less than Island to be a label that changes culture, has huge hits and makes history – not a big believer in the culture of cut-throat competition; his focus is on building success rather than knocking down rivals.

Says Bloom: “If you work like that, it’ll consume you and you won’t concentrate on your real job, the genuinely important stuff. I’ve never signed an artist because someone else wants it, I sign something because I believe in it, or the team believe in it, and we believe that together we can deliver.

“I’m willing success for anything that comes from here, from Sam Fender to Lewis Capaldi; it’s great news that artists like that are given a chance and are supported. I consider all those artists, including Dermot, as outsiders.”

Dermot do a gig at Notting Hill Arts Club and it was really great but as soon as I heard A Closeness, as soon as that beat kicked in…

I was like, ‘Wow, where the hell did that come from?’ Here was a singer-songwriter with a hip-hop influence. I thought, ‘This is different; if this guy’s serious, he can redefine the singer-songwriter genre’.

Were Tap Management in at this point?

They’d just taken him on. I hadn’t worked with them before, so that was really appealing. Their reputation preceded them and rightly so, they are an unstoppable force. Then I flew to Brooklyn where Dermot played [280 cap venue] Baby’s All Right. I spent a lot of time with him on

was doing, I think he felt that. We talked about how we were going to deliver for him, and we have.

What was the initial strategy?

It goes back to what I said before about getting the poetry and his love of hip-hop across. How do we tell that story? How do we mark him out as just not another singer-songwriter? So he worked with legendary hip-hop producer, Mike Dean, who did Kanye, Jay-Z, Travis Scott to name a few, and we released a mixed tape, Mike D Presents. So that kind of set the stall out: this guy’s coming from somewhere else. There was an A&R job to do. It was really important to get him from mood and singer-songwriter playlists, onto pop playlists, and ultimately onto radio, which is something that he just didn’t consider at the start. It was a process alongside Tap management and Interscope to find the right collaborators. The last thing that we would want to do was to compromise his remarkable song writing talent or unique sound. That would be a disaster. Besides, he wouldn’t have allowed us to. And of course the lyrics, no one can fuck with his lyrics.

But how do we frame those songs? How do we get the best out of a chorus? He teamed up with Scott Harris and Koz and one of the first songs they wrote was Power Over Me, which ultimately became a number one airplay record in France, Germany and Belgium and also gave him his first big TV look in the US with the Ellen show.

I’ve experienced this before with artists.

They’re not 100% sure; even though he loved the song, he was nervous about how his fans would take it. And then suddenly he saw the crowds singing along and loving it, and the room’s doubling in size and he realised… Let’s do more of this!

The other thing we did, and I just want to namecheck Guillermo Ramos and Sam Flynn, is present a 360 degree campaign.

There’s a synergy throughout the music, the artwork and the videos. Everything points back to Dermot and beneath every song there’s a compelling narrative that the increasingly fervent fanbase can relate to.

“I thought, If this guy’s serious, he could redefine the singersongwriter genre.”

How did Dermot first come to your attention?

I heard a song called After Rain. I was struck immediately with the voice. It’s a voice you can’t ignore. It’s a voice that stopped time for me.

How did you come to hear that track?

Someone tipped me off. Probably because I’ve got a history with singer-songwriters.

Not that I was particularly looking for another singer-songwriter, but I’ve been fortunate in that world, so I always get sent singer-songwriters. I then went to see

that trip and really began to understand what he was all about.

And what were your first impressions of him in that regard?

He was profoundly intense. Still waters run deep with this guy. He had a huge heart and great ambition, and it was an intoxicating combination. He’s an utterly authentic artist. You can feel it when you’re around those artists, that they are true.

What also struck me is that he’s a poet.

He doesn’t look like a poet, he looks like a rugby player, but he’s a poet. Then I went to the gig and people are singing along.

We’re in the States and people know words to songs I’ve never heard before, that have never been on radio. Something is going on.

Were other labels already circling?

Yeah, it was pretty competitive. Everyone was looking.

How did you win?

I spent time with him. He felt my passion, felt my intent. I genuinely loved what he

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Louis Bloom

When did things start to click in terms of that shift towards the mainstream?

There were a few things: we needed to get on the Sound Poll 2019, we did that; we needed to get a radio record, we did that – massive shout out to Phil Witts and Steve Pitron. Radio support was incredible, with multiple stations continuing to champion Dermot and Outnumbered all the way. Of course streaming was massively important, and thankfully, through terrific partner support, Dermot’s numbers grew very significantly. Take a bow Al Smith!

Did he always see himself as an album artist, and you always saw him as an album artist?

Always, always, always. From day one he

constructed the narrative and the running order, they’re his lyrics, it’s him. We’re in a world of multiple writers on every song, and it’s not the case on this record.

So it’s a personal story, a personal message. People can say the album’s dead, well, look at the streams across all the songs. It’s consistently in the millions; it’s being consumed as an album which is really encouraging.

What were the expectations on release week [for debut album, Without Fear]?

And how important is it still to get that No. 1?

I think No. 1 was really important to make a statement, and we absolutely went all out for that.

And you were in a battle with The Beatles?

Yeah, which is weird, because Abbey Road is my favourite album of all time. It was a slight conflict, but I’m sure they’re robust enough to deal with that [laughs].

It’s interesting, with Dermot, we never really had a lever. We never won the BRITs Critics’ Choice, there’s no ongoing sync.

What’s happened with Dermot is based on a good old-fashioned record company job, because each department had to fire on all cylinders.

If one department hadn’t delivered so amazingly, I don’t think it would have happened the way it has. So I am fiercely proud of the team at Island for pushing this through.

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FEATURE

Was US success always part of the plan [Without Fear went Top 20 in the States]?

Yeah, and Interscope have been brilliant, in all respects. We’re just about to do 100,000 tickets in the US. Tap Management are all about international; that’s their thing, and we share that ambition. I don’t want to be a week one record in the UK and then nothing overseas. Dermot’s touring constantly and playing Brixton Academy sized venues in almost all cities in the US and Europe. He never has a day off. If you look at Outnumbered, out of the 130 million+ streams, 100 million+ of them are international. So, again, it’s happening everywhere.

When you have a hit album like this, is there less time than ever to take a breath and regroup?

Exactly. There’s no such thing as a traditional album cycle anymore.

The No. 1 album and the hit single are Dermot’s first significant footprints.

But, like I say, it’s only the beginning, it’s a fantastic discovery tool but this is where the really hard work begins. We’ll definitely work a few more songs off this record, and next year we’ll come with new material. There’ll be a lot more live work. It won’t stop for him. Thankfully, Dermot’s not one for sitting back, his work ethic is astonishing. You have to be ever-present in culture, and streaming allows you to do that.

It’s about signing proper artists with personalities and telling their stories in interesting ways and also making great artistic statements along the way. It’s our job as the record company and management company, to work closely together to help the artist achieve that. You come to work every day and ask yourself, ‘How do we make a difference?’ You need energy, vision and a belief and the team here at Island Records have those qualities in abundance.

That’s why you have to love and believe in the artist, because it’s not always plain sailing. The Dermot campaign has had its peaks and troughs, and when there have been troughs I haven’t been concerned because I know the truth will come. The truth will out!

Signs of life It’s safe to say that beyond the big names, Island’s UK-signed roster has been radically re-shaped under the stewardship of Louis Bloom.

Dermot Kennedy is one of the first of the new wave to break through, and that is what MBUK is at HQ to talk about. But just as he finishestalkingaboutthatcampaign,hedecides the opportunity’s too good to miss and that the time is just too right to tell us – and the world – about one more artist he believes are about to make a lot of noise: Easy Life.

“I’ve always been attracted to artists with intense personalities, and with Easy Life I believe I’ve found a defining act for Island records. To me they’re almost like a UK version of Brockhampton.

“James Talbut and Jack Greengrass [A&R Managers at Island] came to me at the start of last year and said, ‘You need to come up to Leicester!

“This was January, freezing cold, and I’m like, Do I? Do I really need to go to Leicester? [laughs]. Then I heard one song and the next day I’m on the train.

“I was picked up at the train station by Murray, the singer, who drove me to a disused Dunlop factory in an old industrial estate. It was all a bit fucking mad. Then he took me to their rehearsal room, and everything was there, everything was in place. The artwork, they showed me videos they had made and played loads more music.

“They had pretty much created their own world. It became clear that they are as much

a collective as they are a band and were keen to collaborate; whether it be with filmmakers, creatives or artists from other musical worlds, as seen by their recent track with Arlo Parks.

Their only criteria is; is it interesting and does it take them somewhere new?

“The music was a cross between alternative hip-hop, indie and traditional song-writing; here was a band who were five proper mates, fronted by this completely original, incredibly charismatic front man. I was sold immediately; wanted to sign them on the spot. In the end, it actually became very competitive, but I knew Island had to have them.

“In terms of an audience, nothing much was going on, but I believed we could break this act, because Island Records has always been good at breaking artists from a standing start.

“One of the things I love about these guys is that they’re distinctively regional, but there’s an international appeal to them.

We’re already seeing it; they’re on American playlists, selling out shows in the US and Europe’s feeling great too. So, while in many ways they’re quintessentially English, they’re already proving they can travel.

“I always feel a good gauge for these things is the live ticket and we’ve done over 17,000 tickets this year in the UK alone; you go to a show and it’s like a Billie Eilish gig, the audience is going crazy and singing along to every song.

“The kids have been crying out for an act like this –and now they’ve got one.”

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‘WE ARE NOT JUST A DIGITAL UTENSIL FOR LISTENING TO MUSIC’ NTS was founded in 2011 by Femi Adeyemi and joined in 2013 by coCEO Sean McAuliffe. Here, the pioneering online radio execs tell MBUK about how they built one of the world’s most culturally influential music platforms from a shop space in Dalston...

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INTERVIEW

C

ompany slogans are usually just a bit of advertising copy under a logo. But the NTS tagline of ‘built by music lovers, for music lovers’ describes the firm perfectly.

Launched in 2011, with a £5,000 budget and a pair of CDJs from a Littlewoods catalog, the online radio platform now attracts over 1.5 million monthly unique listeners and is currently growing between 3-10% a month.

Tune in to any NTS show at any time of the day via its two live channels – broadcast from its permanent studios in London, Manchester and Los Angeles, or regular pop-up space in Shanghai – and you’ll hear an appreciation of music that you’re unlikely to hear elsewhere.

“From a curatorial point of view, the global community of artists and record collectors involved in NTS is nuts,” says NTS co-CEO Sean McAuliffe. “They make NTS what it is. We don’t chase numbers. We’re just passionate about the music and artists we love and let the music do the talking.”

There are currently over 500 resident artists, music producers, DJs and record collectors from 50 cities globally making regular shows on the platform, most of whom own share options in the company. NTS also has between 50-100 guest shows per month.

Not to mention a vast back catalog of specialist, on demand radio shows, all for free and with no advertising. In total, music by 85,000 artists and 280,000 unique tracks have been played on NTS since it began in 2011. No shows are playlisted at all and NTS hosts and guests have complete control over what gets played. “[NTS] is a place for people to fully express themselves, to be completely, creatively freeform,” says McAuliffe. “Not like traditional radio where they may be told what to play. All of that is out the window.

NTS is all about total freedom of expression. That lies at the core of it. And we feel like that’s why people enjoy listening to it.”

Artists that play live on NTS include the likes of Blood Orange, Eryka Badu, Flying Lotus, Aphex Twin, Brian Eno, Bjork, Slowthai, Skepta, The XX, Andrew Weatherall, Kamasi Washington, The Black Madonna, Sampha, Kelela, Floating Points, Mac Demarco and many others.

Some of NTS’s DJ stars include the DO!! YOU!!! breakfast show host Charlie Bones, who McAuliffe says “is the greatest radio DJ of all time,” and Moxie, who started on NTS in 2011 and now DJs around the world and is also a Radio 1 resident.

The music platform was founded by Femi Adeyemi in 2011, having spent time DJing, working in record stores, American Apparel and even running a cleaning business called Sweetboy Cleaning. He also had a mixtape music blog called Nuts To Soup, which he says was the beginning of NTS. Adeyemi explains that he was inspired to launch his own radio station because his circle of friends lacked an outlet that aligned with their diverse music tastes. “We needed a place online that

could embrace weird, interesting and diverse music, without the boundaries of traditional radio and the non-human touch of DSPs,” he says.

His friends included artists and DJs, most of whom he met at the highly influential Ade Fakile-founded Shoreditch club, Plastic People, which McAuliffe and Adeyemi unequivocally agree “changed the music landscape of London”. It was also where the pair met.

“Plastic People was a big part of my history,” says McAuliffe.

“I worked in record stores in Soho and for music magazines and eventually had a couple of small businesses, including a restaurant, nightclub and a clothing label,” he recalls of his time before joining Adeyemi at NTS. “Most failed, a couple worked. I also DJ’d a lot, mostly at Plastic People.”

Adeyemi soon realised he needed help after NTS started taking off and was joined by McAuliffe in 2013. “[He] had very similar music taste and a similar vision to me for what NTS could become,” says Adeyemi. “He also had the business skills, so I asked him to come on board as my partner.”

NTS was originally envisioned to be a local community-minded radio station but quickly grew in popularity globally, with Adeyemi explaining that it’s now “global community radio”.

“I don’t want to say there was nothing really like it at the time, but there really wasn’t for people who really wanted to go deep into music,” he adds. “And then we look at the stats and you’re like, ‘Oh shit.

Someone is randomly listening from Mongolia’.”

They realised they were doing well when they started getting 1,000 concurrent listeners, which the broadcast software they were using at the time was unable to handle. “1,000 concurrent listeners was a lot back in 2013, especially when you think our average listening session time was verging on 60 minutes and new listeners were tuning in just from word of mouth,” says McAuliffe.

“Because the off the shelf streaming software packages that most online radio stations use couldn’t handle our traffic, we built our own servers and streaming infrastructure. We got it to the point where we could have up to 40,000 people streaming concurrently, we’d just increase the capacity when we need it. Our small but powerful tech team make global access to NTS incredibly simple with great tech and (almost) global licensing deals in place.”

NTS’s bosses are keen to note that the company is more than just an online global radio platform, with its diverse activities ranging from merchandise, events around the world, a brand partnership and music supervision agency and an artist development programme called Work In Progress (WIP).

Run in partnership with Arts Council England, WIP attracted 9,000 applications in its first year. “We’ve always tried to meaningfully support and develop talented artists ,” says McAuliffe.

“We are not just a digital utensil for listening to music.”

“NTS is a place for people to fully express themselves; to be creatively freeform.”

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Yuka Mizuhara

2019 also marks another pivotal year for the company as it launches (an initially limited version of ) an NTS membership club, ‘NTS Friends’ which costs £49.50 a year.

“We want to work with NTS listeners to make their experience better and give them cool stuff for helping us improve it,” says McAuliffe. “First and foremost our live radio won’t be changing, it isn’t going behind a paywall and we certainly aren’t putting ads on it. The thought of that makes us feel dead inside.

“But we are looking at ways of massivly improving the live radio experience, like live tracklist information linking directly to artist and release information, variable bitrate streaming, more channels and adding personalisation and recommendation features that help listeners discover music that blows their fucking minds.”

Adeyemi adds: “We’ve been talking about doing it for a long time. Now we feel we’re in the right place. We’re super excited about some of the features we’re going to be adding and some for the people we are going to team up with.”

Here, NTS’s co-CEOs tell MBUK about how the company began, how they built it into what it is today, and what differentiates it from other music platforms...

Why did you start NTS as the radio station, Femi? What was your vision?

Femi Adeyemi: The main reason was I was around all these talented people that I had met who didn’t really have the platform to put themselves out there. At the same time, I was trying to look into taking DJing seriously as my main thing.

Kelsey Lu

I was trying to get into the radio stations, the pirates, the BBC. None of that worked out. And I was like, ‘Actually, you know what? I know enough people like me who have got interesting taste in music, who just want to put their stuff out there’.

I thought, ‘I’m going to teach myself how to stream and luckily managed to get a space in Gillett Square. I felt like there needed to be something different from what we had. Pirate radio stations were laser focused on specific sounds and the mainstream radio stations the same. I was like, ‘Actually, there are so many different tastes in London, why don’t we just set up this thing that plays everything’. Let’s keep it as diverse as possible.

Was freedom from restrictions one of the reasons behind not going the FM route or operating on a community radio license?

FA: We did [operate on a community license] for a little bit.

We were nervous that we going to get kicked off and we didn’t really want to change our programming for that. The truth is that most young people around the world just don’t listen to traditional FM/AM/DAB radio, so why deal with the expense and regulation.

What was the setup like in the beginning technically?

FA: It cost five grand to set up NTS. It was very DIY. The table was built from pieces of wood picked up from a skip. It was a pretty decent table actually.

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A lot of that cost went on getting the right microphones, the CDJs. For the initial CDJs, I had to use my mum’s Littlewoods catalog. They had CDJs in there and she ordered it for me because you could pay it off monthly and I paid her monthly.

In the beginning, technically, it was really like pulling things out of thin air. We were using BT Internet, which barely ever lasted longer than three hours without the stream dying. We were using this broadcast software where you have to pay a monthly fee, but then you are also beholden to them, because they would just drop out and not give you any reason for why they dropped out.

But we kept pushing. Every time the internet dropped out in the studio, we would somehow make it work, we’d get an ethernet cable from somewhere with internet and run it to the studio. We always found ways to keep the stream going.

Sean McAuliffe: We broadcast live for two days from a stage at Notting Hill Carnival in 2013. During Carnival almost no one has good 4G and as Red Stripe were paying for the event, we couldn’t let the broadcast drop out.

We had some big names [playing], like Jamie XX, Theo Parish, Gilles Peterson, Sampha, Hype Williams and Mark Ronson, so we really couldn’t let the live broadcast fuck up. So to get what we needed, we knocked on every front door to every flat in the high rise building opposite our Carnival stage asking if we could use their internet for 50 quid.

We finally found this guy in one of the top floor flats that let us run a 100 metre ethernet cable out his window onto a tree across to our stage. And it worked. Our 50 quid external broadcasting ventures were a go. Soon we found ourselves broadcasting from the top of a volcano in Italy, the middle of the Adriatic Sea and festivals all over the world.

Manchester now has over 60 resident hosts.

Tokyo, New York, Jakarta, Detroit, Lagos, Dublin, Moscow, Kingston and Melbourne would be great places to start NTS satellites. Basically anywhere where there is enough good music being made.

How did guest/resident host selection work in the beginning and how does it work now?

FA: Not much has changed since day one, except for the scale of things. We have a very open minded programming team that thrives on digging out good hosts. What we generally look for in a host is someone who’s clearly passionate and deeply knowledgeable about the music they play. You can really hear their passion when listening to the shows.

SM: We also work directly with labels and managers. Generally managers, labels and PR approach us about their artists doing guest or resident shows to help promote their new material or a tour.

We even go so far as doing full label takeovers like the recent 30 years of Warp Records takeover weekend that featured over 100 hours of performances and exclusive unheard material from Flying Lotus, Kendrick Lamar, Boards Of Canada, Autechre, Brian Eno, Aphex Twin, Danny Brown, etc. We see NTS as a new type of radio platform for artists and labels to promote their music and express themselves in ways they can’t do on DSPs. Ultimately though, the programming is all about the taste of the hosts, and NTS not getting steered by commercialism and content insecurity that seems so prevalent on the internet.

“It cost five grand to set up NTS. The table was built from pieces of wood from a skip.”

Could you tell us about the permanent studios you have outside of London and why those locations were selected? Do you plan to set up any other permanent locations in the near future?

SM: When NTS first started there was one live channel. When we realised we had people listening in almost every country in the world and looked at the times of day that people were listening, we realised we needed to build an additional channel so that people waking up in LA had a different experience to someone getting ready for bed on the other side of the world.

Once we had two channels we could cater for morning and evening listeners simultaneously. The LA studio was also picked as a permanent location because so much amazing music is being made there. A group of amazing young DJs and artists in Manchester approached us in 2015 to start an NTS studio. We believed in them and gave them the resources to build it. NTS

You have a show submission tool on the website. How many submissions do you get every month and how many make it to become an actual show?

FA: We sometimes have thousands of show submissions in one month. We generally have about 30 - 60 guest shows a month and we only add one to three new resident shows a month.

What are you listening for?

FA: It’s the approach. The sound yes, what they are playing is important, but it’s also the approach. You can be playing some good stuff. Most people who [submit shows] are playing good stuff, but it’s the approach that they take with it.

SM: One thing we have realised over the years is that when we do specials on particular scenes, or we do specials on particular artists, they generally get a lot more engagement than somebody just doing a straight up eclectic DJ mix. So it’s having the ability to really understand a particular scene really passionately and deeply and be able to turn that into something original.

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difference between randomly throwing a bunch of good tunes together that sounds like a DSP playlist and taking the time and headspace to turn it into a proper mixtape FA: We’re looking for people who are trying to broadcast stuff that you wouldn’t necessarily hear anywhere else. So if someone is coming on just doing a regular mix that you can hear somewhere else then [it won’t work for us]. It’s not to say we don’t do that stuff, too. But what really makes our programming stand out is its diversity and our shows that have an original approach and are original ideas.

Do artists ever come directly to you with ideas for shows?

SM: Artists hit us up directly with ideas for shows everyday. The amazingly talented and clever young people that work at NTS aren’t really the ‘networky’ types, far from it, but between them they know a large number of NTS relevant artists on a personal level, so ideas for shows come fairly organically a lot of the time.

The programming team are always thinking of innovative radio ideas too, that they suggest to relevant artists.

You run an artist development program. Why did you decide to launch that and how does it work?

FA: Over the last eight years, we had been informally developing artists.

We’ve had some really talented people come through the door and have tried to help them with their music wherever we can. The reason for the program is basically to help formalise what we have been doing for years and to genuinely make a difference to artist careers.

SM: We worked with the Arts Council for a long time, doing small projects with them, and they could see how much we were helping emerging artists to develop. They suggested that we apply for a four year long funding program and that we should do it specifically around how much we try to nurture young artists.

We created this development program called Work In Progress and it’s match funded by Carhartt, a long-term partner of ours.

We also work with equipment and studio partners. We’re really excited this year to be working with Real World Studios, Peter Gabriel’s studios.

The artists that get picked on the program get free equipment, they’ll get an opportunity to go to places like Real World to record and we link them up with different mentors. Like, if one of these young artists wants to chat to Floating Points about how to make tunes or to Octavian about life, we can try to hook that up for them.

FA: We had about 9,000 applications in the first year.

SM: We kind of set out to be like Red Bull Music Academy, but longer term and hopefully more meaningful, like a whole year of very bespoke [services] for each artist. Not like a two week firecracker course. It’s working really well. Of all the eight artists

that we signed up in the first year, almost all of them now have booking agents or managers or have signed record deals.

What is Infinite Mixtapes?

SM: NTS programming has always been for people with very eclectic music tastes, that listen to everything from classical, to techno, to yacht rock to hip hop and every other genre imaginable.

Our radio schedules across our two main channels have always reflected this; one hour you could be listening to a psychedelic folk show live from Texas and the next hour it could change to a French Hip Hop show live from Paris. As our audience grew, lots of listeners asked us to provide more linear broadcast channels as the genre jumping was too much to get their heads around.

We also wanted a way of live broadcasting timeless archive NTS radio episodes. There are over 30,000 of them so we wanted a way to re-shine a light on them live.

So we built Infinite Mixtapes. They are essentially specialist live radio broadcast channels. These channels now account for over 20% of our streaming. We will always promote the main live channels 1 and 2 more than any other channels, as this is best practice for the artists making the shows, but Infinite Mixtapes is a great feature for a lean-back mood based experience.

“Radio is still the best form of music discovery.”

What do you think about the state of radio in the UK? FA: I definitely feel like things have changed and not to sound big headed or anything but we’ve definitely been a part of the new approach that a lot of radio stations are taking to their programming.

SM: There’s a huge amount of DJs that have come through NTS that started off as very emerging [talent] that have gone on to do regular shows on the BBC and on big commercial Bauer stations.

FA: It’s also good to see that there are so many more online radio stations popping up all over the world.

SM: Every month or so somebody sends us an email saying, ‘Hey I’m starting up an online radio station, we would love to hear how you guys did it’. It’s really encouraging. There are some amazing online radio stations out there that are clearly changing the game for traditional radio stations. Bar a handful of specialist shows, traditional UK radio today is about as exciting as sitting in a waiting room, waiting to die.

What distinguishes NTS from other music platforms?

SM: Our tech team decided to run a test on a hack day to compare the music that gets played on NTS versus the music available on Spotify. Using the Spotify API, they were able to cross reference what was available on Spotify against what tracks have been played on NTS.

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Blockparty

Notting Hill Carnival

A staggering 55% of music played on NTS wasn’t available on Spotify. Spotify is incredible tech and great for most music, but what we always knew was that a large amount of the new exciting music wasn’t on Spotify or any DSPs, it was and still is always getting played on radio first. A lot of the artists that make shows on NTS play their demos and promos on NTS months and sometimes even years before they upload them to DSPs. There is also a huge amount of incredible old music that simply hasn’t been digitised yet; DJs on NTS play these old obscure records and it’s quite possible that they will never be available on DSPs, simply because no one can track down the rightsholders and/ or there aren’t enough people at the DSPs digging hard enough.

space we are in is actually a model that works for everyone. Just look at Sirius XM. Yes, it’s predominantly targeted at an older audience and cars play a big part in their success, but ultimately they pay out healthy royalties at the same time as promoting music via radio for listeners to hopefully then stream or purchase via DSPs and record stores.

For us, radio is still the best form of music discovery, as unlike DSP algorithms it’s human curated - would you rather listen to a ‘Bjork Radio’ playlist on a DSP that ends up playing the same tunes on rotation in a fairly uninteresting way, or would you rather listen to Bjork herself live broadcasting her current favourite tunes to you.

What are NTS’s advantages over digital streaming services?

SM: Until there is a major intervention, the DSP landscape has to be fuelled by never-ending investment. The rough 70% of revenue royalty rates means it’s near impossible to maintain or even get to sustainable profitability. Just look at how Spotify are diversifying with podcasts, talk and radio right now to get out of the red. We, however, have no intention of playing in the DSP, on-demand music space, until the model gets fixed, where the distribution system works fairly for artists, labels, publishers, DSPs and the listeners. We currently work with Mixcloud and SoundCloud to host our on-demand shows and we are always looking at ways to improve this for NTS listeners. The live radio

Could you expand on that notion of human versus algorithmic curation?

FA: It’s [about] the experience and the journey that you get.

When a human is doing it they are connected to what they are doing. There’s a flow to it. Whereas with an algorithm, it kind of feels like you’re jumping around a little bit. It gets it right a lot of the time. But it also gets it wrong a lot of the time. Some people love that, but with human-curated playlists, the listener is way more considered than if an algorithm were doing it.

SM: DSPs are dope in many ways, but at NTS we are yet to hear a DSP playlist that has as much marvel, nuance and excitement as an NTS radio show.

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KEY SONGS IN THE LIFE OF…

Marc Robinson Five tracks that mean the most to the President of Globe – Universal UK’s creative and commercial partnerships division…

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hat MBUK doesn’t know, chatting to Marc Robinson at Universal’s Kings Cross office, is that as well as the Key Songs in his life, his mind is also on a Key Song of the day.

He is waiting for the Yes or No call on this year’s John Lewis Christmas ad.

A few hours later, that call comes, it’s a Yes, and the Key Song of the day turns out to be REO Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight This Feeling, as interpreted by Bastille’s Dan Smith – although most people will think it’s by a chap called Excitable Edgar

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2.

1. (who does, to be fair, sound a little like a reject from the Larry Parnes stable (one for the teenagers, there)).

It’s another huge sync win in the career of the most successful exec in the sector, and a cork-popping, high profile end to a big 2019. “Across the board, we’ve had a fantastic year,” he says. “There have been loads of great brand partnerships – we just did a really brilliant campaign with Lewis Capaldi and Tinder, which was as much fun as you’d think it’s going to be. We did some great stuff with Mabel this year.

“We’ve worked on some fantastic films. We worked on Wild Rose, which is probably the biggest indie film in the UK this year, and probably one of the best soundtracks we’ve worked on.

“I think what’s been brilliant for us is our world is becoming more and more interesting. There’s more and more content being made; putting music to picture, working with brands on content – the production team have had a great year doing documentaries on Max Richter and Mumford & Sons. There’s a real need and hunger for content, and that’s great for us. Creatively, I’d say it’s been one of the most important years we’ve had.

“And actually, what’s interesting is I think everyone’s learning. This has been the year where we’ve all learnt how to better work with partners.

“People are understanding that the music industry is very different now. And actually, for us, that’s exciting – because it’s not just about shifting the CD anymore.”

There are still challenges, of course, and one of the toughest is distilling a life time of loving and working with music into five songs for this feature.

That said, Robinson relished it: “I loved it, because my entire ambition in life was to be culturally relevant enough to go on Desert Island Discs. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but this is close enough.

“I had a whole week of memory-hunting in my head, then discussing with other people. I’ve ended up contacting old Uni mates – ‘Hey! What have you been doing

3. used to play it a lot as a kid. It’s become one of those songs that has just been part of my life in different forms ever since, to the point where I actually called my [now three-year-old] daughter Sunny, because we kept on singing it when my wife was pregnant. It’s just one of those songs that, I don’t know, it’s just always been there.

And even my sister, when I had my 30th birthday, she did a video for me and this was the song she referenced. It’s always been this sort of undercurrent, and it hasn’t even been particularly on purpose, it’s just become part of my life – it attached itself to me.

“The music industry is very different now.

And, for us, it’s better.” for 20 years?’ – Just because memories have come back.”

In fact the memories start way before Uni, stretching all the way back to a first (crappy) record player, and finding some sunshine in a jumble sale.

1. Bobby Hebb, Sunny (1966) I was never the sporty kid. I was always much more into music. I had a record player aged seven, one of those cheap Sanyo ones. And I used to collect records from a young age. One time I went to a jumble sale and got a little bundle of singles – pot luck, really.

I found this record in amongst it and

2. Blur, Tender, 1999 I joined the music industry in 1998, at Chrysalis Music Publishing, and that was an immensely exciting time. I grew up Kidderminster, close to the Stourbridge scene. We used to stalk Pop Will Eat Itself, The Wonderstuff, Neds, go to the Hummingbird in Birmingham etc.

So, a few years later, in London, to be going out every night, going to gigs, getting free CDs, to be part of this business, it was incredible to me.

But I also realised it was instrumental to the work, purely because of the adrenaline you get from the access to music. During that time, Blur’s Tender became a kind of anthem for a little group of us that all hung out together.

It represents to me the time when I first joined the music industry and the excitement of just being allowed into this 77

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world and having access to all this music and talent.

I’m a huge Blur fan. I’ve never met Damon Albarn, and I actually don’t think I ever should – that’s how much of a fan I am.

One of the highlights of my life was Glastonbury 2009, when they reformed and played this song. Glastonbury itself has always been one of the main reasons why I wanted to work in the music industry, because I just think it’s the greatest place on earth.

And then later on I had Tender played at my wedding after [Blur manager] Niamh Byrne very kindly put me in touch with some of the choir from the original recording. That was pretty special.

And actually, it was also being played while my wife was in labour with our son. It only struck me too late that maybe a song featuring a man saying, ‘C’mon, C’mon, C’mon...’ over and over again might not have been entirely appropriate.

were top five on the iTunes chart. And then there was Ellie [Goulding] and Slow Moving Millie and Lily [Allen] and all the others that had come post that.

I’ve gone with Fyfe because I’m a big fan of the original by Billy Joel, and also, I mean this sounds like my wedding was Glastonbury in its own right, but I bumped into Fyfe a month before my wedding day on High Street Ken, and my wife had challenged me that day, saying, ‘What are you doing for our wedding that’s different?’

I mentioned it to Fyfe and he, incredibly kindly, said, ‘Well, why don’t I come and sing She’s Always a Woman, but you can rewrite the lyrics?’”

So I did this really bad re-working of

“Fyfe said, Why don’t I do She’s Always A Woman, but you rewrite the lyrics?”

3. Fyfe Dangerfield, Always A Woman (2010) I came to Universal in 2003, started doing a lot more of the film and TV sync stuff and took over sync [officially] in 2007.

That was a really exciting time, because all of sudden we became quite an interesting part of the business. So, I did the first two John Lewis ads – well, actually, the first five John Lewis ads – and then Boots’ Here Come the Girls ads.

And what was especially interesting was that iTunes had come along, so songs had started charting off the back of syncs like that, and the cover version became sort of interesting again, in a commercial sense, and that was quite a defining part of my career. And I felt that if I’m talking about songs that have been important, I can’t really ignore that aspect.

There was Here Come The Girls by The Sugababes, which I did with Darcus [Beese, then UK head of Island Records] and Fyfe, when he did Always A Woman, that made a huge impact.

Within days [of the sync launching] we

She’s Always a Woman, specifically about my wife. And on the day, Fyfe came out and played it, his beautiful version, at the piano, but with my stupid words.

Afterwards he left me a little note, saying, ‘This is my little thank you back to you.’ He was thanking me, can you believe, for getting him that sync.

4. Underworld, Caliban’s Dream (2012) This is from the London 2012 Olympic Games. Lucian [Grainge] and David [Joseph] won the deal to be the first music partner of the Olympic Games, the licensing partner, I think, is the official term, and I sort of got to run it on behalf of Universal.

It was quite daunting at first because, people don’t really remember this, but no one was really that positive about the Olympics at the beginning.

It was quite a tough journey we went on, but it was also probably the most I’ve ever learned professionally.

In my head I was going to be there sort of watching sport for two weeks, but that didn’t quite pan out, because as soon as

the torch landed, everything changed and everyone started to get excited.

And we did so much, from re-recording all the anthems, clearing thousands of songs, getting songs for the torch, the [five Olympic] rings, the mascot, Team GB… Plus we were sort of this conduit for the ceremony, which all was very hush-hush and cloak and dagger.

It was odd, because you’re working with the IOC, which is the most bureaucratic business in the world, but also with the most creative people in London.

And you’re sort of caught in between these two worlds.

Danny Boyle is my hero and it was an honour to just be in his presence.

It was very much his show, he’d ask you to do stuff and you were there to support his vision.

I’ll always remember, three weeks before the games, I got a phone call at home from the Head of Ceremonies, Martin Green, saying, Have you seen the Mail on Sunday?

The entire music for the opening ceremony had been leaked in the papers. And only four of us had access to this cue sheet.

So myself and Richard Hinkley, who was doing the album with me, were called into this meeting with Danny Boyle and just before we went in, Martin whispered, ‘He thinks it’s you…’

Now, rewind a week, and the manager of a certain artist who was performing at the opening ceremony was worried about them going on stage in front of a billion people and everyone going, ‘Who’s he?’

So I’d had to contact Danny and say, ‘Can you believe it, he’s a bit nervous, so we’d like to pre-announce some of the acts, so people know.’ Danny was adamant, he didn’t want anyone being announced, it had to be a surprise.

And then, under the pressure of everything, they were convinced that we’d obviously leaked this to sort of announce our act.

It was ridiculous, of course, because we were more protective than anybody else, there was no way it would have come from us. It later transpired it was actually

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4.

5.

someone at the production office – this kid was selling stuff to the Mail.

Anyway, the storm blew over, and on the night of the opening ceremony the song that stood out for me was Caliban’s Dream.

Everything came on paper first, as opposed to hearing anything. And this was like Underworld doing a track with [percussionist] Evelyn Glennie, [male voice choir] Only Men Aloud, the lead singer of Two Door Cinema Club…I was like, ‘What the fuck is this?’

And it ended up being this beautiful piece in the ceremony, the one that actually reacted the most on iTunes, and to this day I still think is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve ever heard.

time. This is the Olympics of film scoring.

And with Tarantino projects, when you pitch for a soundtrack it’s not a financial bidding war. He just goes with the best idea. It’s all about how you’re going get the thing to come to life.

Now, if you remember, The Hateful Eight came out first on 70mm, and then came out digitally, and part of the brief was to acknowledge that.

We, of course, have got Abbey Road in

We had had to bring in 70 of the Prague Czech National Orchestra so there were people to do the score, Morricone needs three days’ rehearsal, for which he needs the Landmark Hotel ballroom – obviously.

Tarantino’s notoriously late sometimes.

Morricone, he’s 87, he doesn’t take any shit. So all of that was in the mix.

But it was fine, Tarantino turned up early – he’d never been to Abbey Road, so he took a tour – and pretty much the whole cast of the film came as well.

It was just the most incredible day Ultimately, we created this event at Abbey Road, and we filmed the whole thing, made a bit of documentary around it and we recorded the score of The Hateful Eight straight to vinyl.

The piece from it I’m going to choose for this [Key Songs In The Life Of feature] is La Lettera Di Lincoln, just an incredibly beautiful piece of music that reminds me of Ennio Morricone, Quentin Tarantino and that incredible day at Abbey Road.

We actually all went out for dinner afterwards and I got to sit in between Tarantino, who kindly asked me to sit next to him, and Morricone. I just about managed to stutter my way through!

“Morricone is 87 and doesn’t take any shit.

So that was in the mix.”

5. Ennio Morricone, La Lettera Di Lincoln (2015) We worked on [Quentin Tarantinodirected film] The Hateful Eight soundtrack, with Ennio Morricone who I, of course, was a massive fan of.

He’s the don of film scores; no one touches him. So, to a film geek this was very exciting: Tarantino, who’s never had a film scored before, is using a composer for the first time, and the composer he’s having is his number one favourite composer of all

the portfolio, where you can record straight to vinyl, so we said, ‘Why don’t we record the first ever straight-to-vinyl film score?

We can get an orchestra in, then we can release a limited edition run of the vinyl, and then release it digitally when the film comes out digitally.’

Tarantino loved it so much he insisted on coming, Morricone insisted on conducting, and our lives turned into a circus for three weeks.

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‘WE GET A KICK OUT OF TAKING CREDIBLE MUSIC TO THE MAINSTREAM’ Your Army is one of the most popular and successful independent promotions companies in the UK. Founder James Pitt and Director Christian Nockall discuss the five main changes to affect the sector in the company’s 12 year history...

James Pitt and Christian Nockall

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ould it be, as a wise woman once pondered, that it was all so simple then? In the case of plugging and promotions… possibly?

Certainly, a couple of decades ago there were fewer radio stations, fewer forms of media generally, fewer releases – and one goal: have a hit.

That’s still the main aim, of course, but where the road to that promised land used to be quite clearly sign-posted, now there is no map – and no single destination; a hit means different things to different artists at different stages of their career and in different territories. And lunch with Jo Whiley’s producer just won’t cut it anymore.

Your Army came into existence, in 2007, just as a period of sustained decline was settling in, and with Spotify a year away

from sparking the streaming revolution.

In fact, the company’s very existence owes something to one of the bellwethers of those turbulent times. Founder James Pitt explains: “I was at Virgin EMI, and I felt there were other agendas at work other than what was best for the artists and the songs; we were getting away from that. I should point out that this was during the lovely and hugely enjoyable Guy Hands period and bears absolutely no relevance to Virgin EMI today.

“I just wanted the artist to be at the heart of everything we do and build a company based entirely on good music, which luckily we’ve been able to do.”

Within a few months of going solo, he asked no less a sage than Annie Mac if there was anyone she knew, not from

London, who had a real passion for dance music and had a bit of personality about them. Funnily enough, she replied, there’s this lad from Sheffield…

Christian Nockall was employee number one and right-hand man ever since. As Pitt describes him, “my first and still best decision”.

Between them they created a company that is now hugely respected, incredibly successful and increasingly global, working with pioneering artists including Disclosure, Christine & the Queens, Sam Smith, The Chemical Brothers & Dave.

Your Army have adapted to change but also embraced it, from the rise and fall of various genres to the increased complexity of distribution and consumption.

At the same time, they’ve done it by

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not changing at all. Pitt says: “If you love music, then you’ve probably loved turning people onto really great songs and your favourite artists etc. from when you’re a kid – and what we do is really an extension of that. That’s what all this is borne out of and why we both got into this business.”

Her are the five changes that have impacted their business – and the business – in their first dozen years: 1. The UK Music Landscape – A Shifting Mainstream James Pitt: When Your Army started, dance music was omnipresent and that suited us, because we were bringing a lot of curated electronic music to Radio 1. They learned to trust us and actually asked us to start presenting tracks to the playlist team, as previously we’d just been sending music direct to people like Zane Lowe, Annie Mac and Pete Tong.

In recent years, the biggest cultural shift has been towards the consumption of urban music. As that happened, we basically empowered our team to influence us as a business by going out there and finding music they love and music they want to represent. That’s how we came to work with artists such as Dave, Wretch 32, AJ Tracey, slowthai and Ms Banks.

If you trust your team then you can make them part of the strategy, not just the execution. And in our case, that’s certainly helped keep us really relevant at radio.

Christian Nockall: We get a kick out of taking credible music to the mainstream, that’s what Your Army’s all about; moving something from the margins to the masses, it’s been great to be part of that, something that’s actually affected culture.

But, of course, these things work in cycles and dance music feels like it’s in a good place again. We’re seeing hits and 2020 could be the year it comes back with crossover acts – CamelPhat are flying, I think they’ll have a big year next year, alongside developing talent such as Prospa.

Christine & The Queens

JP: This has been a massive change since we first started. The fragmentation of the audience, fuelled by streaming and other media platforms, has changed music marketing and promotion forever. But, equally, it hasn’t really changed the essence of what we do.

We’ve just had to adapt, and one of the ways we’ve done that is use the data from all those sources to help tell an artist’s story,

back then, but we closed that because it wasn’t having enough of an impact or providing value for money for our clients.

What we still do is fight for every piece of media support on radio and TV, and now DSP editorial support and, of course, for third party playlists.

But what we’ve done subsequently is double down on a digital marketing department, which is run out of our LA office. If we can get as many fans as possible to our artists through traditional promotion, then communicate to those fans through digital marketing, that’s a powerful combination.

The more targeted we are, the more engagement increases and the more revenue the artist makes.

“The more targeted we are, the more revenue the artist makes.”

2. Media Diversification and Audience Fragmentation

which is something we’ve always tried to do alongside promoting their music.

CN: I also think it’s important, though, in such a data-driven landscape, that passion and taste still come first. If you can back that up with data, it becomes more powerful, but passion and taste, for us, come first.

JP: When we started you could have a huge hit just with Radio 1 support, and blogs were also becoming very influential.

We had a traditional press PR department

3. A Radio Revolution CN: Radio stations have evolved into fully-fledged content platforms. There’s no doubt radio had to find its feet a little bit as streaming emerged, and a lot of the networks lost people to DSPs, which didn’t help, but they’ve adapted.

It’s certainly not all about audio anymore.

It’s about visual content, it’s about social media, it’s about huge events with big stars and bespoke events with emerging artists.

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Dave

Our radio and TV/visual departments certainly work a lot more closely together now, which obviously reflects that.

As with everything else, data plays a bigger part than ever, with things like geographical Shazam or streaming numbers being part of the conversation with radio when it comes to the confidence to go national or international. But, again, that data works best aligned with passionate curation, experience and strong relationships, and all of those things still exist at radio.

Tracks can still get through based purely on passion. Roberto Surace’s Joys, which was the biggest track of the summer in Ibiza, ended up on the A-list at Radio 1, totally driven by passion and enthusiasm.

For us, they all work together – radio, streaming, TV, digital – and they all actually feed each other. They might be rivals to a certain extent, to each other, but for us, good social numbers can be taken to radio, good streaming data is an argument for mainstream TV etc.

audience can listen to the music on YouTube wherever they are, they’ve got access to lyric translations online; they can connect with the music no matter where they are. Any two points on the globe can be connected by music, and that’s amazing.

For us, working Christine & The Queens who was mainly singing in French when we first started working with her, and helping her become one of the biggest artists in the UK was such a joy.

Christine is also a very visual artist which

Slowthai

before, which is equally great to see.

5. Work Multiple Territories Simultaneously CN: You can’t work one territory at a time, in isolation. A record can break on Radio 1 or break on Triple-J in Australia. Every release can build differently these days, so as a company we have to be ready to respond to that, to work more flexibly.

You have to work a record simultaneously in different markets to get the best results and maximum impact on streaming.

When an artist or a label comes to us, we can talk to them about a global plan, we can highlight territories where they might break first.

With Lean On by Major Lazer, we saw it happening in Denmark first, then across Scandinavia, across Europe, down to Australia, back to the UK, where we got it on radio, then LATAM, then the US last.

That was exciting for us, being involved in an independent release that was worked effectively in multiple territories.

“Any two points on the globe can be connected by music, and that’s amazing.”

4. Globalisation JP: This is something that’s massively exciting and hugely positive, not just for music, or the business of music, but for culture generally. On the pop side, I guess BTS is maybe the biggest example. The

helped tell the story to a wide audience via the TV appearances we got early on, things like Later... with Jools Holland, quickly followed by Graham Norton and then the Glastonbury performances.

We’ve also responded by opening offices in other territories [LA and Australia], which are great A&R sources, and also help artists to break other territories. On the other side there’s lots of localisation, with more home grown top 10 records in countries around the world than ever

Q Your Army is based at Tileyard London, located in Kings Cross, Europe’s largest community of artists, studios and businesses, all revolving around music, ideas, collaboration and creativity.

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COMMUNITY

CULTURE tileyard.co.uk

@tileyardlondon

London N7 9AH

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VEVO’S ARTISTS TO WATCH 2020 Vevo is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. But, whilst there’s been the odd moment of reflection, the platform is mainly looking forward – and it sees big things for the 20 artists chosen for its 2020 Artists To Watch programme…

Vevo’s 20 Artists To Watch are the most high profile beneficiaries of the company’s ‘always on’ DSCVR strategy – a suite of content opportunities designed specifically to help break new artists. Carl Young, Head of Music & Talent, EU and David McTiernan, Senior Director, Artist & Label Relations introduce the latest cohort and discuss Vevo’s ongoing commitment to championing new talent.

Can you remind us when the Artists To Watch programme started and who it has showcased in previous years?

DM: Vevo UK launched the first iteration of our Artist to Watch series at the end of 2013 – but this year’s list of 2020 Artists to Watch marks the fifth year since this became a truly global program, with artists represented across territories from the US, UK, France, Italy, Brazil, and beyond. We now have over 100 alumni to date including Billie Eilish, Lewis Capaldi, Sam Smith, James Bay, Sigrid, J.I.D, Maggie Rogers, Alessia Cara, and Jorja Smith.

the debut of our dedicated DSCVR set (an aesthetic which we kept for this year as well).

And lastly, as our team’s global footprint has grown, that’s also been reflected in the annual list, with the 2020 class being our most globally diverse yet.

How many ‘nominations’ did you receive this year? And can you talk us through the process of whittling that down to 20?

DM: Every year, the Vevo editorial/music & talent team receives around 400 submissions from the artist, labels, and manager community for this program. There are a lot of criteria we consider when narrowing that list down to our top contenders – we like to step out early on artists we truly believe in, while still looking for substantial momentum behind each artist. Essentially, we’re answering the question of ‘Why now? Why is this moment when this artist is going to break out and be someone everyone needs to know?’ It’s also important to us that the final list of twenty is diverse and representative of what’s happening in music right now.

Aitch

Label: Caroline Management: Michael Adex and Bilal Haris Loane, Northern Quaterz

Cautious Clay

Label: The Orchard/Sony Management: Jeremy Maciak

“We like to step out early on artists we truly believe in.”

How has ATW evolved over the years (either in terms of how the artists are chosen or how you work with them), and is there anything specifically new or different for this year?

DM: Over the years, I’d like to think that we have a better and better track record of who we’re selecting for this program. Many in the wider music industry look to us as leaders in the emerging artist space, and we want to make sure that we’re showcasing not just artists that we love, but those that have what it takes to make it to the next level. Last year’s series marked a significant creative shift with

What is the prize pack/toolkit that every Artist To Watch gets from Vevo?

CY: Vevo DSCVR Artists To Watch 2020 is so much more than just a list of artists; we make a huge commitment and take pride in how we help artists create beautiful live performance content to showcase their music to the highest standard. Alongside performance pieces, we create bespoke assets that bring their performances and campaign to life when we launch. DSCVR ATW is also a commitment from Vevo that we will support each artist in the following year.

Layton Greene

Label: Quality Control/UMG Management: Coach K, P Thomas and Simone Mitchell, Quality Control

NSG

Label: RCA/Sony Management: Sheun Abiola

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FEATURE

Arlo Parks

Label: Transgressive Management: Ali Raymond, Beatnik Creative

AWA

Label: Columbia/Sony

Management: Mr Radar Management (Sweden) and Pia Ashcroft (UK)

BabyJake

Beba

Label: Republic/UMG Management: Karly Wilhelm, SB Projects

Label: UMG Italy Management: Me Next

Celeste

Conan Gray

Guaynaa

Joy Crookes

Liily

Lunay

Matt Stell

No Rome

Pop Smoke

RilĂŠs

Sports Team

Vitao

Label: Polydor/UMG Management: Duncan Ellis and Ben Smallwood, Atlas Artists

Label: The Orchard/Sony Management: Peter Bauer, Present Artist Management

Label: Republic/UMG Management: Victor Victor

Label: Republic/UMG Management: Expand Management

Label: INgrooves/UMG Management: TBD

Label: UMG France Self-managed

Label: UMLE/UMG Management: Jose Torres and Jose Jimnez

Label: Sony/Nashville Management: Ash Bowers, Wide Open Music

Label: Island/UMG Management: Stuart Clarke, Good Life Music

Label: Insanity/Sony Management: Charlie aka Charlotte Owen

Label: Dirty Hit Management: All On Red

Label: UMG Brazil Management: Pedro Dash, Head Media

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Simon says Ralph Simon is the industry legend you’ve never heard of. Well, you’ve heard of him, of course, but you don’t really know his role in the rise of Zomba and Jive, the story and messy end of his partnership with Clive Calder, and how he feels about missing out on the biggest deal in the history of the music business. You’re about to find out…

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INTERVIEW

W

hen Ralph Simon was a child in Johannesburg in the 1950s, his mother gave him some advice. She said, ‘Don’t be a human being. Be a human doing.’

Young Ralph listened. He really listened. Over the course of a 50 year career in music, he committed himself to doing. What did he do? It’s hard to know where to start. How about...

Q Publishing YMCA Q Running a 360 degree music agency 40 years before anyone else Q Pioneering crossover hip-hop in the US Q Discovering Will Smith Q Helping Radiohead conquer the US Q Inventing’ the ringtone Yes, Simon is the Zelig of the music business. And not just because he’s on the short side and wears big glasses. Look back over every big music industry trend of the last half century, and you’ll find Simon close by. He’s seen it all.

No, he’s done it all.

And – more extraordinarily – he’s still doing it.

Most former music execs, when they reach retirement age, step away from the industry. They choose a quieter life. Many lacerate today’s scene: the musicians are rubbish; the kids have no attention span. Not Simon. He’s too busy officiating e-sports tournaments in Indonesia, or checking out running shoe trends at Sneakercon.

He’s working on a platform for staging virtual reality concerts.

He has boundless reserves of energy and curiosity. Indeed, it was these same qualities that re-located the young Simon out of South Africa – his mother’s words ringing in his ears – to the UK in 1975.

In Johannesburg, Simon and his business partner, Clive Calder, had been music industry pioneers. They ran a record label, Bullet Records. But they were also talent spotters, publishers and concert promoters.

On arriving in the UK, they simply did the same. They formed the Zomba Group of companies. It was a 360 business four

decades before the term was invented.

“This was a time when everyone stayed in their lane,” says Simon. “We weren’t like that. We felt we knew how to do everything. We were musicians as well as executives. And we worked harder than everyone else.”

Zomba grew and grew. Simon and Calder soon launched their own record label, Jive. In the early 1980s, they took Zomba and Jive to the US. There followed an extraordinary period of success. Jive’s roster included pioneering hip-hop artists such as DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Whodini and Tribe Called Quest, and, later, teen pop acts including Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and Britney Spears.

In June 2002, BMG Entertainment bought Zomba and its assets for $2.74 billion. It was – still is – the biggest deal in the history of the music business.

But by then, Simon was out. He had clashed with Calder too many times. “We

I was playing piano in a band called the The Bassmen. We were a human jukebox band. People hired us for weddings and bar mitzvahs and so on. They’d say, Can you play Whole Lotta Love? Yes! Can you play Hello Dolly? No problem! We’d do anything. I did the bookings and the promotion for the band. I was always business-minded like that.

Clive played bass in a rival band.

Johannesburg was small. There wasn’t much of a live music scene, so we all knew each other. Eventually, Clive got an A&R job at EMI and later I started working with him.

What was the South African music industry like then?

It was very conservative. The scene revolved around clubs and residencies. It was all about getting acts like Liberace and Val Doonican to do three month stints.

The market was controlled by the Grade family, which was pretty much doing the same thing at seaside towns in the UK at the time. I did some work as an agent for them.

The dream was to get Tom Jones to come over.

In 1968, I won a scholarship to study in New York. Once I got there, I spent all my time at the Blue Note and the Filmore East. I saw Blood Sweat & Tears and Joe Tex and Sam & Dave and the Jackson Five. It was heaven.

The music scene was so exciting. It was just after Woodstock, so when I came back to Johannesburg I contacted Clive and told him we should put on festivals in South Africa. We did events in what was then Rhodesia and also Mozambique. Obviously, we didn’t have big international artists. But no one else was doing it.

“Simon is the Zelig of the music business. And not just because he’s on the short side and wears glasses.” had profound ethical differences about how business should be done,” he says.

“We’d been like brothers. But I felt he wasn’t playing the game any more. I wasn’t happy, and I needed to be happy to do my best work. I got out. We haven’t spoken for 29 years.”

So, Simon didn’t get any of that $2.74 billion (he had sold his share to Calder more than a decade earlier for an undisclosed sum). But he did get, he says, the ability to sleep at night. And leaving Zomba left him free to seek out new creative ideas. This led to ringtones, e-sports, VR and more...

It all started for you and Clive Calder in Johannesburg in the 1970s. How did you meet?

How did this lead to starting a label?

We were very entrepreneurial. But what changed everything was meeting Mutt Lange. He was making jingles at a radio station. He had a lot of ability, so we hired him to be the house producer for our label, Bullet.

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Photo credit NBC Productions

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INTERVIEW

Most of our artists were black. They were more talented and interesting than the white acts of the time. We signed a guy called Richard Jon Smith, and got Mutt to write and produce for him. He was like the Stevie Wonder of South Africa. He was a superstar.

Why did you decide to leave for the UK? The politics were getting worse – Mandela was in jail; it was pretty bleak. We had got Richard Jon Smith signed to Polydor in the UK and we released a couple of singles. That was the link. We left in 1975.

And that was the start of Zomba...

Yes. We brought Mutt over to work as a producer. No one else was really doing that at the time: managing producers.

We were given a shot by two fantastic execs, Nigel Grainge at Mercury and Simon Draper at Virgin. Nigel gave us City Boy to manage, which helped us to form a management company. Soon after we set up studios and writing rooms and so on. We didn’t borrow any money.

We just got the biggest advances we could from the labels. The advances funded everything. But the big break came when we started the publishing company, thanks to YMCA. What was the origin of that deal?

We bumped into this guy Henry Belolo on the street when we were at Midem in Cannes. He had this idea for a band that included the five archetypes of US life: the cop, the construction worker and so on.

He wanted to target the gay community because he reckoned there were 25 million gay people in America alone. We listened to a demo of YMCA on a Walkman on the promenade. We did a deal right there to be the UK publisher of Village People.

It was the start of our publishing business. Soon after, we signed Def Leppard and Iron Maiden and others. It was an interesting time. Punk was just starting to happen, and there were lots of artists around who didn’t understand

publishing at all. The established publishers were mostly ignoring these new bands. So we went to people like Dave Robinson at Stiff and promised to work harder than everyone else. We set up a joint venture with Dave and published Elvis Costello, Wreckless Eric, Lene Lovich and other Stiff acts.

Two years later we started Jive. It was logical for us to start a label. We’d already done it in South Africa.

So you were really doing everything at that point...

We had immense self-confidence. We were executives and musicians so we knew how the different parts worked: how to find the talent, develop the talent, work on the material, promote it. We wanted to own all aspects of the chain. It was the 360 model before it existed.

“We were tight. We were famous for it.

It worked for us, but not always. We just missed out on U2...”

What prompted the move into the US? We found a lawyer called Alan Grubin, who represented Village People and Madonna. He knew everyone and really opened a lot of doors for us. Eventually, Clive Davis gave us a break by agreeing to distribute Jive through Arista. That led to a deal with BMG. I think Clive liked the fact we were creative executives. We revered people like Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, who understood music and could play a constructive role in nurturing the talent.

We wanted to be like that.

Did you meet any resistance from artists?

No, quite the opposite. They loved it.

They weren’t getting that kind of active support from anyone else. Most executives didn’t do that in those days.

Were you fair to your acts?

In retrospect we should have been a lot fairer. We had a reputation for being very good at what we did, but we always made sure we got a favourable deal for us.

We were following the model of Herb Albert and Jerry Moss at A&M. Their artists loved them, but all the deals were on 90% [royalties to the label] with all the packaging reductions and so on. Herb and Jerry made sure they got an incredibly good deal for themselves.

When we heard about Daniel Miller at Mute sharing royalties with artists, we couldn’t believe it. Also, we were tight.

We were famous for it. It worked for us, though not always. We just missed out on U2. We wouldn’t pay them enough.

What was your breakthrough US success?

We got Mutt a producing gig with Foreigner; that started things off.

But the hit that really established Jive was Caribbean Queen by Billy Ocean. The song started out as American Queen, and we just couldn’t get it on radio. But then Laurie Jay – who was Billy’s manager, and the father of the Universal UK boss David Joseph – said lots of Americans go on holidays to the Caribbean, so why don’t we change it to Caribbean Queen? It worked. All the stations started playing it.

It’s interesting that, if you listen to the song, it was totally based on Billie Jean.

The structure, the rhythm. That was something else we had learned from great labels like Atlantic: when there’s a massive hit, you tell your writers, Do something like that!

Billy Ocean then became a global star...

Huge. Shortly after Caribbean Queen I managed to meet Michael Douglas.

We got on really well. He was looking for a song for The Jewel of the Nile, and I suggested When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going. Mutt had seen someone wearing a T-shirt that said: When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Go Shopping. We changed the words, and the 89

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writers came up with this incredible pop song. Michael took it, and obviously that song became another huge hit.

What prompted Jive’s move into hip-hop?

We had a woman making videos at Jive called Ann Carli. She had great visual sensibility and she really connected with emerging hip-hop artists. She said, You’ve got to sign these people. That led to us signing Whodini, Tribe Called Quest, KRS-One and, later, Will Smith, who was recording as DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. We released Parents Just Don’t Understand and it became the first real rap/pop crossover hit.

When did things start to unravel in your partnership with Clive Calder?

By the end of the eighties it was becoming increasingly difficult to work with him.

In my opinion, he had abrogated the spirit of a partnership that had been very successful. We had some profound ethical differences about how things should be done with the people in the company.

There were a number of incidents that were just not right. No matter how great the gravy train was, the spirit of the business was the thing for me. I decided, as Winston Churchill said: Up with this I shall not put.

It was incredibly difficult. But that profound event – that breakdown of two decades of partnership – led me to move to San Francisco. And that proved to be the most incredible thing.

Years later, Calder sold Zomba to BMG for $2.74 billion. It’s still the biggest sale in the history of the business. How did you process that?

Well, I expected it. I knew a sale was on the horizon because Clive was always a ‘bread head’. It took a long time to get over. But I couldn’t be imprisoned by analysing why. I’d seen too many people get bitter.

In the end, you have to sleep at night.

Being in San Francisco helped. You learn that there’s always something new on the horizon. That was my life saver.

What was so compelling about San Francisco at that time?

I remember talking to the great Mo Oberstein, and he told me to always do what you love – something that’s going to be a pathway to the future. But when I told him I was moving to San Francisco, he didn’t get it. He said nothing’s happened in San Francisco since the sixties.

But I had a feeling about it. I set up a publishing business and signed Carole King. I had a studio in Sausalito – the one that Metallica had recorded in. But more importantly, I met the Silicon Valley creative community.

I was amazed by the can-do spirit. It was very early. This was before Google, when it was all about Intel and Cisco and Hewlett Packard. But there was so much creativity in the air.

How did you turn that vision into a business?

In 1993 I got a call from Gary Gersch, who was president of Capitol, asking me to be executive vice president. I said I would do it if I could develop a global new media division for the parent company EMI. I travelled a lot. I noticed how young people were using phones – especially in Japan and Korea. And I started to started to see how there could be a new amalgam of music and tech.

It was quite a short stint at Capitol...

I was there just over two years. It was eventful. I helped to resolve a 12 year dispute with the Beatles. We had invited George Martin to come to Capitol Tower to release The Beatles Live At The BBC. He said, ‘Over my dead body!’

It turned out he had never forgiven Capitol for refusing to release Please Please Me. But I managed to get him to come over. He wouldn’t enter the building, but he did leave his hand prints in the concrete outside the Guitar Center on Sunset Boulevard.

In the end, I couldn’t deal with the corporate world. It just drove me insane.

We had great success at Capitol. We broke

Radiohead and The Beastie Boys. We actually delivered the greatest profits the label had ever had. But they still wanted 10 per cent more the next year. I couldn’t take it. I started looking for the start-up spirit again.

So this was when you became the ‘father of the ringtone’...

That was not really fair. The title stuck, but I wasn’t responsible. I found a team of four people in LA that I was really taken with. They were called Your Mobile (later Moviso), and they had a ringtone technology.

They really understood the transport mechanism for putting content into mobile devices. I had blind belief in them, so I invested. We then had to go to all the telcos and convince them they needed creative content, and that music could be a big revenue driver for them.

With nine days of money left, we got a contract to be the sole provider of ringtones to Cingular, which later became AT&T. That deal saved us.

Was the music industry supportive during that period?

No! The music publishers were completely resistant. They couldn’t see it. This was the time of Napster, and they thought we were pirates. We were sued for $25m

by EMI over the James Bond and Pink Panther themes. My mother was furious.

Fortunately, we had insurance and a good lawyer. He convinced EMI we weren’t pirates, and they agreed to settle for $150,000, which was what we were insured for. After that we actually got the EMI licence.

There was an in-house lawyer there called Jody Graham. She loved the idea, and she gave us the rights for The Beatles and Norah Jones and everyone. She was the first.

What happened to Moviso?

It was bought by Vivendi – by the same guy who had also bought MP3.com. The team who started the company wanted to cash in. They had been working for 10 years by that point.

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Photo credit Pictorial Press

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Since then you have thrown yourself into technology…

I’m just fascinated by what drives culture.

That’s why I am so interested in video games: Clash of Clans, League of Legends, Supercell. I am involved in a number of games-related businesses. I was recently officiating at the first ever e-sports tournament in Indonesia. The energy!

It was like being in the Rainbow Theatre in 1977 with The Jam and Siouxsie and the Banshees! I kept having flashbacks.

What do you think of the state of the music industry today?

Well, production is open to everybody now, so there’s a lot more creativity but also a lot more mediocrity.

That’s why the industry needs more people like the late Nigel Grainge. That was such a loss. Great A&R really is an art, and there’s not much of it around.

It’s needed because artists have more opportunity to take control of their own material and have a global audience.

The world is so accessible now. For 10 years, I’ve been trying to get managers to

persuade their artists to do a chorus in Bahasa or Tagalog or Hindi. Audiences want great hooks wherever they are in the world. There’s this amazing artist in India called Arijit Singh. He should write something with Ed Sheeran. That would be something.

year old piano prodigy from Chennai, a young Bulgarian girl who plays the guitar like Mark Knopfler. We’re developing their careers, and developing a TV series for them. It’s really online discovery, combined with old fashioned artist development.

We’re also involved in hologramatic concert performances. We’re working closely with the people who did the Roy Orbison project.

“Clive and I had profound ethical differences about how things should be done.”

Which music ideas are you currently working on?

I’m developing a wonderful project called The Virtuosos with the great A&R man Rick Blaskey. We’ve been working on it for two years. We’ve found the most incredible young musicians from around the world – many of them from YouTube.

These are the best of the best: a nine

Many industry veterans would scorn such new ideas. Not you.

Why are you so open-minded?

Two reasons? First, my mother told me: ‘Don’t be a human being.

Be a human doing.’ I believe in that.

Second, I just have this creative curiosity.

This business is about what’s coming next. It always has been. In 1979, we kept seeing people in AC/DC T-shirts.

We followed it up. And that led to Mutt producing the Back in Black album.

Today is no different. You have to ask: can I spot the next thing? And if I can, do I have the nous to make a couple of bob?

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INTERVIEW

Remembering...

T

ROB PARTRIDGE

om Waits doesn’t do bullshit.

He hasn’t got the voice for it. Can you imagine talking about key learnings and valuable synergies in those gravelly tones?

It is a voice made for and by truth; made for and by emotion. So, when he decides he would like to say something about Rob Partridge for MBUK’s ‘Remembering…’ slot on the former Island press man you immediately know two things: it will be well worth hearing – and Partridge is a man well worth remembering.

(You probably wouldn’t have predicted that the substance of his contribution would consist largely of a toddler nearly getting squished in London traffic – but predictable’s another thing Waits doesn’t do).

Like a lot of great PRs, Partridge started out as a journalist, writing for many of the UK’s top music weeklies, including Record Mirror, Meloday Maker and trade title, Music Week.

It was Island Records that persuaded him to turn gamekeeper, and became the label with with which he was most associated, thanks to key relationships with artists including Bob Marley, U2, Marianne Faithful and, of course, Waits.

When he died, in 2008, from cancer, Island Records founder Chris Blackwell said: “He was one of the most honourable men I have met in my life.”

Here is what some of his colleagues and peers say today…

Tim Clark Co-founder, ie:music; former UK MD, Island Records

I’m sure our paths crossed during his illustrious career at Music Week and Melody Maker, but I first met Rob properly after he joined Island, in June 1977.

He had been recommended to Chris Blackwell by Brian Blevins,

our departing head of press. Brian handed over to Rob at Bob Marley & The Wailers’ Exodus concert at the Rainbow.

Rob had written about Bob previously and he soon developed an easy relationship with him.

Once installed in his office at St Peters Square, Rob quickly became an essential member of Island’s executive team. He was way more than a Head of PR. Artists loved him for his understanding and care.

He always put their interests first and no request seemed too much for him.

Rob could come across as a rather serious individual, but that hid a wicked sense of humour. And he certainly knew how to let his hair down. His appearance dressed as Carmen Miranda at one of Island’s legendary Christmas parties is fondly remembered by many to this day.

Between 1977 and January 1980 I was fortunate to work with him on some great Island record campaigns: Bob Marley & The Wailers’ Kaya; Marianne Faithfull’s Broken English; Robert Palmer’s Double Fun; John Martyn’s One World; Grace Jones’ Fame; Ultravox’s Systems of Romance; The Slits’ Cut: Burning Spears’ Harder than the Best; The B52s; Steel Pulse’s Tribute to the Martyrs; and many more.

His vast knowledge and appreciation of music also meant he was a great judge of musical talent. His assessment of the potential of artists and their output arguably saved Island records a great deal of money at times. I know I relied heavily on his advice when it came to marketing budgets.

And though it happened after I left, Rob was solely responsible for persuading Chris Blackwell to sign U2 to Island Records.

I like to think I had a great working relationship with Rob and I know that he was a strong support during my time as Managing Director of Island Records.

He should be remembered for his flair, his drive, his contribution to the success of

some brilliant albums and, perhaps most notably, his discovery of U2.

I’m sure others will also mention the Mariachi band in full Mexican dress playing My Way at Rob’s funeral (having been booked for the event by Rob himself ).

I have never shed such tears of sadness and laughter as I did then.

Tom Waits Artist, legend & former Island Records signing

Rob had an abundance of wisdom, diplomacy, humour and resourcefulness when it came to guiding the careers and quelling the storms of his flock.

I can only recall once instance where Rob was brought to his knees.

Kathleen and I were on tour playing London with our kids in tow. Rob volunteered to take our three-year-old boy, Casey, to see the Fairy Tree in Hyde Park, which is an intricately carved dead stump showing a variety of characters in a large detailed tableau.

Casey was riding in the back, while Rob was in the front seat of a London cab.

Big mistake. They were going around a roundabout, and Casey (who has problems with impulse control), opened his back door and, as far as Rob was concerned, was planning on exiting the vehicle while it was doing 30 mph, easily. The normally mumbling, composed Breton Rob was now experiencing a full-blown panic attack.

He thought taking care of artists (by sneaking Bob Marley out of Uganda past the violent and watchful eye of Idi Amin, wrangling Marianne Faithfull, or getting me out of jail in Amsterdam) was stressful, but he had yet to fully experience the high drama of babysitting the feral Casey Waits.

None of Rob’s tools or techniques had been really tested until a three-year-old 93

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Casey was clinging to the door handle and swinging out wide amidst rush hour traffic, in swinging London Town.

Rob kept his cool English demeanour intact though, despite very nearly losing the toddler to a double decker bus. It rattled poor Rob to his core and he was no doubt stunned to realise that until you spend a day with a wild toddler, you ain’t seen nutin’. Needless to say, drinks were on us that night.

We miss you, Rob, daily, deeply and dearly.

Neil Storey Co-founder, Partridge + Storey/Coalition

I knew Rob before I knew him, from his byline reviewing albums and gigs in Record Mirror in the early 1970s.

The first time I really sat up and read one of his pieces over and over again was May 1974. I was in the midst of leaving my safe EMI job, with its equally safe EMI pension, for the high wire act and no safety net of the fledgling Island Records sales force.

The feature Rob had written was for the Melody and headlined Island Of Dreams.

My parents were aghast at my leaving EMI and hadn’t a clue who or what Island was. I gave them Rob’s feature to read, in the hope it would explain why I was so excited about going to work for a real record company.

Five years later, Rob had switched horses and was running the Island Press Office while I was out on the road criss-crossing Britain and parts of Europe, quite often sleeping in my car.

The sales force had been disbanded and I’d been given the job of working every gig for every act we had out on the road – liaising with local radio, TV and press people, making sure records by the touring act were in record stores.

It was a year jumping from Inner Circle in Brussels to The Jags in Retford via Steel Pulse in Edinburgh; from Third World to Bob Marley by way of enduring the brattishness of Eddie and The Hot Rods before the first-ever British and European

dates with The B52s.

The B52s were loveable, though slightly strange. There were some European dates including The Paradiso in Amsterdam.

Rob came over to that with ZigZag’s Kris Needs in tow.

The lunchtime after the gig, Needs and The Bs’ Cindy Wilson got absolutely wasted during their canal journey interview thanks to colossal consumption of Jenever, a first cousin to gin, before Kris and Rob had to travel back to the airport by cab.

Running late, their South Moluccan driver decided to take a few short cuts and the constant weaving in and out of cobbled streets had the undesired effect, leading to the inevitable when Needs and his stomach parted company in the back seat of the cab.

Rob then had to negotiate a ransom as he suddenly found their cab surrounded

by South Moluccans, all brandishing sub-machine guns. The cabbie had called his chums.

A few days later, The Bs and I headed off round the British Isles. Our final stop was back in London at The Electric Ballroom.

They headed back to America and I went into the office. Who’s next I wondered? As it happened – no one. The powers that be had decided I was surplus to requirements.

I’m fired. A week later, I got a letter requesting I come into St Peter’s Square.

Damn, this can only mean one thing: they want the car back.

I turn up at the appointed hour, to be told to go to the Press Office; Rob wants to see me. Really? We make fairly uncomfortable small-talk for a few minutes until, completely out of the blue, he asks if I’d like to come back to Island and work with him.

He doesn’t seem too bothered when I explain I can’t type, don’t think I can write, know nothing about the papers, and the whole job seems completely foreign to me.

‘It’s OK,’ he says, ‘you’ll learn.’

It would have been harder not to. From Rob I learned strategy and planning, which had nothing to do with the lifespan of a record and everything to do with the artist and their career. We both had the best of mentors in that respect – Chris Blackwell.

I learned from Rob how to write and

what not to say in a press release and a biog. He was my guide through the maze of national newspapers, the red-tops and inkies, the monthly magazines and weekly music papers. Rob didn’t suffer fools and I rapidly learned not to be (too) foolish.

Our office became the place in the building to hang out. Journalists and photographers went away happy and always with as much vinyl as they could carry. It was first port of call for all the bands – where Bono met Steve Winwood for the first time and exclaimed, ‘We met your brother Muff, he looks just like a Wing Commander in the Air Force with that moustache of his.’

A few years later, Island and I parted company, there was no role for NS at St Peter’s Square now.

Rob and I reunited on the day Margaret Thatcher resigned (November 22 1990) to form Partridge & Storey. We forged an opportunity to work with only the people we wanted to work with and for. We started with three clients, none of whom did interviews. Bob Marley couldn’t, Chris Blackwell wouldn’t and Tom Waits didn’t.

We figured that was a pretty good way to open shop as a new PR Agency in London.

Over time, we mutated into Coalition and outgrew our first two offices by way of clients who did do interviews, global touring exhibitions (Marley, Hendrix and we almost put Elvis to bed too), Manga, Warchild, The MMP, a TV division, a games division, management and more.

After a while, though, it became glaringly apparent the whole thing had become too unwieldy and, perhaps just as importantly, no longer reflected our shared ideals as the decade opened. Time to leave.

A few things not well known about Rob: Football. Those who were mystified that he (quite often) had client meetings in far flung cities on a wet February afternoon underestimated Rob’s love of QPR – Sunderland away may have looked like a long journey on paper, for Rob it was all part of the pilgrimage.

Sleeve design. Burning Spear’s Living Dub album – five minutes with a felt tip pen and a white card LP cover when the art department got stuck for ideas. Bruno Tilley reversed it red out of black and

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PRELP 3 had a cover.

Hand claps. What would Eddie And The Hot Rods anthemic Do Anything You Wanna Do have sounded like without hand claps? Less muscular for sure. Maybe less of a hit? Take a bow, Rob Partridge.

Tim Vigon Co-founder, Coalition Management

Rob interviewed me for a job at Coalition in a pizza restaurant in Chiswick. Iestyn George, then at the NME, had interviewed me for a job and suggested that I should be a PR. Rob, and Iestyn’s wife, Pandora, met me for an evening and, unbelievably, took a chance on me Rob came across like a guru, incredibly relaxed and assured, but with an incredible record collection and some amazing stories. I couldn’t really believe it all to be honest; it turned out to be a dream job.

He told me to make of the job what I wanted to and he was as good as his word.

If you had an idea or an opportunity, you were given the room to go for it – unusual and highly motivating.

We formed a really strong PR team together. I learned everything there was to learn from Rob and Pandora, at times by going in at the deep end, but Rob’s guidance was also parental. He supported me on my way from doing fringe artists’ PR, to allowing me to go and pitch to Jazz Summers to work The Verve’s Urban Hymns.

He backed my hunger and belief when I was new to the whole thing, and that led to a new era for Coalition PR. Rob and I used to go into pitches feeling utterly invincible. I was the hungry young enthusiast with a couple of big bands and Rob was literally a legend who just had to say a few words and the room would listen.

We had an incredible chemistry and a great team of people came to Coalition; it was a magical time. The office was insanely hardworking but also like a

family, we supported each other, fought for and against each other, but the family atmosphere Rob and [his wife] Tina created was like nothing I’ve seen before or since.

We were kind of spoiled in a way because we thought it would never end and that all jobs were like that.

We got to work the media for Oasis at Knebworth, which was in my first few months with Rob. I remember him coming up with the idea of holding a press call the day before – and that has become a legendary moment in music biz history; the footage made News at Ten the night before the gig, which was amazing.

Rob was calm and principled, extremely principled. He wasn’t driven by money or validation; he was driven by quality. He always wanted to work with interesting and great people.

He was incredible at letting his staff grow and giving them the tools they needed to thrive. So many great careers were built at Coalition and that was a direct result of the culture that Rob built and encouraged.

Everything was meticulously thought through and approached with quiet confidence. But if someone attacked his team, Rob defended like a guard dog.

He was a terrific boss and mentor, and made sure we all had a laugh too, such a funny man.

When I played him Dry Your Eyes

by The Streets, he was the only person who said, ‘That’s a No. 1 record’.

He was utterly convinced. And he said the same about The Drugs Don’t Work by The Verve. He understood the British public to quite an incredible extent.

He was a mentor both in work and in life. At one point we were having a rocky time at work, arguing about something silly. I was feeling unwell, so I called Rob to let him know I wouldn’t be at work the next day, and was going to hospital.

Rob was literally outside my door two minutes later. When they let me out of ER after a battery of tests, six hours later (at 5am in the morning), Rob was sitting there waiting for me.

He was there for all of us, whenever we needed him. That’s why so many of us Coalition alumni are still in touch and still celebrate him When he knew he was ill, he planned his funeral for ages in advance, and there was one thing he insisted on 100%.

So many people turned out, there were heartfelt speeches, Billy Bragg sang Jerusalem – and just at the moment when it was all feeling a bit heavy, out jumped the Mariachi band that Rob had ordered, singing My Way. It was perfect, It gave the room the relief and release that we needed; a final, brilliant piece of public relations. It was perfect, strangely magical – and very Rob.

“He was just insanely smart, always the smartest person in the room.”

That was an incredible time – the whole company went and worked there. We all used to go and support each other, it was amazing.

He was just insanely smart, always the smartest person in the room. He connected U2 with Island Records – and that in itself is a historic moment. He was one of the architects of crossing Bob Marley over to the mainstream. He was incredible in a PR crisis and also a passionate and caring advocate who was trusted closely by some of the greatest artists we’ve ever seen.

When I felt like I needed to move on from publicity, Rob and I decided to start a management company. At the time, I was probably his key member of staff in terms of PR and he had the belief in us that we could go into a new sector of the business and be successful.

We grew Coalition Management together and, with Tony Perrin – and later Simon White – we became one of the most successful multi-artist management companies, at least in the alternative sector.

Rob’s belief and trust was the absolute key to that company.

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Gennaro Castaldo Director, Communications, BPI; formerly Head of Press & PR, HMV In 1993 HMV decided to appoint a specialist PR agency. We invited a number of companies to pitch, including Partridge + Storey who, as forerunners of Coalition PR, had a great reputation as music artist PRs. It was apparent from the first moment that Rob absolutely ‘got’ HMV – its brand heritage and values and the potential for media the relationship offered.

Rob was passionate about HMV and presented a brilliant strategy outline that not only won him the account, but pretty much created the HMV template for media engagements for years to come – and which I shamelessly drew inspiration from as HMV’s longstanding Head of Press & PR. Rob played a key role in making HMV part of the ‘national conversation’ around music and popular culture. He loved polls and surveys, putting comments and stories out off the back of news moments, alongside other tricks of the trade of the classic PR. He had a great eye for a PR angle (as well as an instinct for lurking dangers) and I learned a great deal from him. Not least the vital importance of making yourself available to media whenever and wherever they require, on their terms. That way you become one of their ‘go-to’ commentators for music quotes, info and stories.

Just common sense, hard work and application really, but that’s what Rob was like. He had an incredible work ethic and amazed all his friends that he continued working until the very end.

He was also the most kind, warm hearted and inspiring person to work with, always generously sharing his wisdom, advice and contacts. He was hugely connected and respected, indeed, loved by his media comrades in arms, which meant that when he reached out to them there was a good chance we’d land some coverage.

He had legendary music knowledge (and a record collection to match) allied to a great perspective on work and life, but

Then Melody Maker journalist Rob Partridge with The Who

despite his many accomplishments and celebrated friendships and connections, he remained modest and down to earth, defined ultimately by the love he shared with his beloved Tina.

I have many fond memories, including the time he brought the great Tony Wilson to our Wardour Street head office to discuss how HMV could rebrand and create a new kind of experience for its customers. If only we had listened earlier! I basically just sat there pinching myself that the meeting was happening at all and that I was in the same room as one of the titans of modern British pop culture.

There was also the moment when, during the 1996 BRITs, Rob had to rescue Jarvis Cocker from going to jail and deal with

the media furore after he famously ‘stagebombed’ Michael Jackson’s performance of Earth Song.

He was an outstanding PR, a real music man who musicians trusted as a friend, and a great record company guy who made a huge contribution to our industry – not least in helping to shape the early careers of a number of artists that would go on to become icons. The Strat Award that he posthumously received in 2009 [from UK trade magazine, Music Week] – the only time it’s gone to a publicist – was truly deserved.

He was considered an unsung hero by many, but those who worked closely with him already knew just how much of a hero he really was.

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PROFILE

‘MANAGERS WHO GET IT ARE CRUCIAL, THEY HOLD THE KEYS’ Townsend Music is celebrating 20 years in the D2C business – dating back to a time when D2C was barely a business at all. Sales director Bruce McKenzie looks back...

Q

uite a lot of great bands have started in record shops. As have a few pretty decent businesses.

They attract a certain type. At least the best of them do, the independent ones owned and staffed by people who view High Fidelity as more handbook than novel.

They are passionate about music: they want to make it, promote it, champion it, manage it, live it. But, straight out of school, or as a first step away from the hellish constricts of a proper job, selling it over a counter whilst being paid to listen to it all day is an excellent start.

The band, the business, the success, the fame and fortune, that will come. For now there is pleasure to be had in racking out Neu albums and politely ‘suggesting’ to a customer that whilst, yes, they could buy that Tame Impala record, might they consider some Todd Rundgren?

Bruce McKenzie found his spiritual home in an record store in Chorley, part of a small independent music retail chain called Townsend.

There are still two shops in that chain, but McKenzie is no longer behind the counter. Instead, for 20 years, he has been at the forefront of the team that has made Townsend one of the best-known names in D2C around the world…

Can you tell us a bit about your life and career before Townsend?

I’ve been into music for as long as I can remember. Watching my granddad sing and play the fiddle pushed some kind of button, I guess. Then my ears were glued to the radio during the late seventies.

It was all ELO, Elton John, Thin Lizzy, Saturday Night Fever, AC/DC… During school I played trumpet and travelled through Europe in a youth

Bruce McKenzie

orchestra. Then, through college, I played drums in bands – gigging, recording demos and hustling for a break in the industry.

That took me to HMV Manchester in the mid-eighties as a sales assistant, just before Madchester kicked off. Working within that retail whirlwind, I guess, was the start of things to come.

Then I lived in France for a while, playing in a covers band, before returning back to HMV, managing bands and promoting gigs. I joined Townsend in 1995.

What was Townsend then – because of course we’re celebrating a 20th anniversary, and we’re only up to 1995…

Townsend was a successful independent

record store chain - founded by our MD Steve Bamber in 1978. He’s been steering the ship right up to today.

I joined after my HMV stint, keen for a fresh start as part of an indie.

Setting up a website seemed like a logical step to me, as everyone was talking about the internet. I first heard about it around ‘98. I went online and found fan sites for some of my favourite artists at the time: Love And Money, Martin Stephenson, David Sylvian, Ezio…

I contacted the sites to add ‘buy’ links to our very basic website at the time, in exchange for free CDs. The orders started to come in and our new journey had begun. I just felt, if we could translate 97

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our passionate in-store energy to online, it would connect with true music fans all around the world.

We still have record shops in Great Harwood and Clitheroe, which is a beautiful country market town. I used to take a bunch of my favourite CDs to play in the shop, as I felt certain songs would resonate with our customers on a busy Saturday afternoon at decent volume. My High Fidelity moment happened daily as they’d come over to the counter to ask what was playing and I’d sell them a copy or order it for them.

Was your plan always to develop it into something else, to spin out a largely separate business?

I feel one of our strengths as a business has always been that we’ve been able to adapt quickly to change. Around the time we were running the shops, record stores on the High Street were hit by supermarkets selling CDs and then Play.com and Amazon’s aggressive pricing. So we knew we had a fight on our hands.

We enjoyed the creative process of working with artists and management, so we focused our time on developing the website primarily, alongside the running of the record shops.

By 2002, we were dealing with artists directly – David Sylvian, Ian McNabb, The Chameleons and Thunder, to name a few – who were selling a serious amount of albums online for us.

The natural step was to make them available digitally through the early aggregators, as well as in-store through HMV and other record stores.

We thought if we could sell 5,000 copies of an album exclusively on our website, then retail should sell at least 10,000, which fortunately they did.

We then commissioned promo videos and PR teams and worked alongside agents and promoters for the first time.

Eventually, retail demand dictated we needed the major sales and distribution muscle of Universal, so we found ourselves taking on an early label services model, I guess, looking back.

Circa Waves

When did you realise D2C and digital was the future of the company?

It all grew very quickly. Employing more staff allowed us to assess where we were, what we were good at and where we wanted to be – we decided to focus on D2C and, particularly, re-building our own platform and logistics so we could sell anything artist-related ourselves, rather than being reliant on third parties for fulfilment, customer service, accounting

“Having great staff with decades of retail experience is invaluable.” and chart reporting. We could offer a full 360 degree solution covering all aspects of D2C in one place.

Alban Horrocks, our technical director, was key to this as he built our D2C platform from the ground up. It’s been in constant development for the last 15 years and he now has a team of developers in-house.

Did the shop close?

We had four record shops and it’s only

been in the last three years that we closed two of them. But everyone who worked in these shops now works within our D2C business, so it’s been a natural transition for them.

Having great staff with decades of retail experience and knowledge is invaluable to our business.

Our two remaining shops are still busy selling vinyl, ordering rare records for our regular customers and are very much part of the local community.

How did you launch the D2C division in the first place? And how did you convince artists and managers to work with you?

Initially it was plenty of London-based, backstage hustling.

Meeting managers, artists and labels, persuading them to supply us directly so that they could see the results and returns we could deliver.

We paid advances along the way, worked on quick payment terms for client approval, and didn’t bolt anyone down contractually for crazy long terms. It was all very transparent with plenty of open and honest straight talking, with passionate energy from day one.

We’re very privileged and proud to work alongside great clients who we have 99

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a really good working relationship with.

Obviously, without them we don’t have a business.

What did you offer initially – and which artists were your first partners?

We started selling exclusive CDs for Andy Taylor from Duran Duran, and Thunder’s Luke Morley had a great one called Spanish Sessions, which we literally couldn’t get enough of.

The Chameleons reformed so we added album-themed merch alongside the CD and vinyl albums for them. We proudly sold Damien Rice’s O album online before many people. By then our reputation of selling albums you couldn’t get anywhere else was developing. In fact, during my first trip to New York, I met a guy with a record shop who bought our albums online to sell in his shop, which was really cool.

We bought the stock upfront from the artist and always encouraged them to pay

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for the stock so they owned it, earning the lion’s share, which is fair. That meant anything they sold on tour was 100% theirs and had nothing to do with us. We were totally artist- and online-focused, because we wanted long-lasting relationships with our clients.

Was D2C quite new then?

Totally. I think it was during a Midem trip when I first heard the term D2C, around 10 years ago, but, in reality, people had been selling music online for artists for years, independently, in the background.

Who else was around and what made you stand out?

Trinity Street and Topspin were big at the time, but have since folded. I think the fact that we have our own platform, fulfilment centre, finance, customer service and technical department made us stand out.

When you outsource any important piece of the jigsaw, that’s when problems occur,

so we always avoided that.

It’s our 20th year in D2C and we have a lot of experience delivering successful campaigns properly – alongside agents, managers, labels and promoters.

Our clients also have the benefits from our own in-house platform giving them live, 24/7 access to all their sales, revenues and detailed campaign data.

I also think that the fact that we can sell everything in one checkout – music, merch, tickets, VIPs – and account directly to each party, has made us stand out. Coupled with that, we can explain the process and set-up easily to clients, which has always made us stand out from the rest.

What have been the key landmarks since then, either in terms of key artist partnerships, big campaigns or adding new elements to your portfolio of services?

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album and related merch is a great offer to the fans and has been a big step forward We launched Dido’s global D2C album pre-order this year with exclusive UK and pan-European tour access in affiliation with Ticketmaster. That worked really well and is certainly an insight into future opportunities. It was a great example of management, label, promoters and the agent all working together and focused on the same goal.

We launched our first Making Music campaigns earlier this year, which celebrate the album and how it can be experienced as a journey throughout the recording and promo process as part of the album purchase. Basically, it allows artists to give the fans who pre-order an album updates along the way with exclusive content, the idea being more interaction from the artist with the fan community. We launched with Gary Numan’s new album campaign, which has proved to be hugely successful.

Then our print-on-demand merch is proving to be really popular as there’s no financial outlay for artists, we simply manufacture in-house the merch we require based on sales and pay an artist royalty on 100% of the sales.

“We’ve averaged a 38% revenue growth year-on-year for the past five years.”

How do you think different areas of the industry, especially labels and managers, view D2C? I feel the managers who get it are crucial, as they hold the keys. Labels, initially, were reticent, as they wanted to protect their retailer relationships. But now, generally, I feel labels see D2C as a great retail partner that simply appeals to a different

type of consumer they need to target, alongside fans who stream or buy music in the supermarket or High Street.

How important do you think the sector is and will become as we move into an era where fans almost expect direct relationships with artists, be that through socials or transactional?

You only need to see the huge levels of engagement and traffic on wellrun social media campaigns, where exclusive content is championed, to see the scale and potential. D2C is perfect for that kind of environment because not only do we specialise in premium product, we have a direct global reach to fanbases and we collect marketing data along the way. Future items can then be up sold to our expanding online community. The next important stage, I feel, is integration through our affiliate programme, which we continue to enhance and develop.

“xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xxtoxx Happy 20th ourxx” friends at

“

Townsend Music.

Here’s to your success. Keep up the good work.

”

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Deaf Havana

In your experience, what are the types of product and promotion that work best in D2C? Selling exclusive content involving gigs, music, experiences and merchandise in a streamlined manner where the customer feels special is key.

Where are you up to in terms of chart eligibility around the world?

Currently, our D2C sales are chart eligible in the UK, Eire, USA, Canada, Germany, France, Austria, Australia and New Zealand with additional European territories currently under negotiation.

Resistance has come from some territories, as they are naturally protective of their local retailers. But, since the digital age and our D2C products have been embraced globally, it does now feel like territories have accepted the change. If thousands of customers are buying our products legitimately online, then their country’s album charts should reflect these sales, as they are genuine.

Bringing things up to date, who have you worked with most recently and what successes have you had?

We launched our music retail website townsendmusic.store in May as an addi-

tional sales portal for our D2C products and we’re seeing great crossover sales.

We’re rolling out plenty of affiliate campaigns to market our products on popular portals and our D2C On Tour mechanic is working well. This gives fans the opportunity to pre-order the album at the gig and have it delivered on the release date.

It’s great that song-based guitar music is still out there working hard. We’ve really enjoyed our recent album campaigns with Courteeners, Circa Waves, Sherlocks, Noel Gallagher and Deaf Havana.

Helping to deliver a Top 10 album for Russell Watson and Aled Jones through our pop-up stores and D2C On Tour mechanic was also a real buzz.

Can you give us any numbers that show the growth of the company over 20 years and the size of the company now?

We’ve averaged a 38% revenue growth year-on-year for the last five years, alongside an album in the Top 10 every week for the last two years.

Our initial business was run out of a record store stock room where we were packaging orders as we served customers.

The business has now grown to employ over 50 staff.

Noel Gallagher

What are your proudest memories across the last 20 years?

Hiring the Manchester Apollo for a Townsend-promoted Puressence gig then taking them to the States for the first time on the back of an iTunes Album of the Week was a very special moment. We regularly work with labels as a releasing partner now. Being involved in No.1 album campaigns for Stormzy, The Prodigy, Noel Gallagher, Kylie and Rick Astley has been amazing, especially as the campaigns have all been independent and music focused.

And what are your headline goals now?

We’ve just employed Ben James (ex-Pledge and major labels) as our London-based D2C New Business Manager. Coming from a major label A&R and management background, his focus with me is to expand our London presence whilst continuing to scale up the current business in Europe and the States, driving our online community into over one million users.

For me, this industry is all about good people delivering results whilst having a great time. We’ve met loads of great people along the way, some of these are now personal friends and I’m looking forward to choosing the right ones to come onboard with Townsend so we can grow.

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TRIBUTE

NIK POWELL, 1950- 2019 was a 16-year-old schoolboy looking for work in the summer holidays when I met Nik Powell in 1969. I’d applied for a job advertised by a ‘record company/ magazine offering ‘good money and easy work’.

He was wearing jeans held together by safety pins, a style adopted out of necessity long before Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s vision of punk fashion. Nik’s hair was long, lank and greasy and he was generally unkempt, but beneath the casual, disorganised exterior was a keen intelligence, a disciplined mind and a ferocious work ethic.

Nik tried to persuade me to sell copies of a magazine called Student, stacks of which lay all over the floor, in Hyde Park.

I pleaded that I was there for the record company job, which he told me was being dealt with by his absent partner. Eventually his partner – Richard Branson – turned up.

I discovered there was no record company; it was a mail order record retailer. These two guys, both three years older than me, published Student, advertised discounted albums in it and primarily targeted the student market. I was offered the job and so began a 50 year friendship.

A postal strike in 1970, forced Nik and Richard to demonstrate their characteristic resourcefulness – they rented a space above a shoe shop in London’s Oxford Street. It led to a chain of retail stores around the world that revolutionised record retailing, offering discounts (no-one else in the UK did at the time), populating the floor space with bean bags placed around poles holding headphones where our contemporaries could recline and listen to their choice of music. It wasn’t simply a transactional space, it was a cultural shift. As a customer myself, I’d been to feel like an unwelcome, long haired intruder by the tweed jacketed

Photo credit: My Virgin Records Story

I

Steve Lewis, a key figure in Virgin’s story and success himself, pays tribute to his friend, and one of the founding fathers of the Virgin empire, Nik Powell, who sadly passed away in November…

Nik Powell with Virgin Records co-founder, Richard Branson

owner of my local shop. Virgin was warm, welcoming and staffed by people who looked like the customers.

The Virgin Records label was launched in 1973 with the release of four albums, one of which was Tubular Bells by Mike

hindsight, I believe he was equally driven by the desire to have his own empire and be sole emperor.

And so, after co-founding the Virgin Group, Nik set up Palace Pictures and became a leading light in the UK film industry, producing a slate of highly regarded, award winning, box office hits such as Company of Wolves, Mona Lisa and The Crying Game. He later established Scala with Stephen Woolley and produced still more award winning movies.

Founding music and film empires was not enough for Nik and in 2003 he became Director of the National Film and Television School transforming it from a struggling institution to a world leader in its class. NFTS received the BAFTA award for Outstanding Contribution in 2018, the same year Nik was awarded the OBE. Nik always generously nurtured creative and executive talent. He was as kind and compassionate as he was tough and organised. He will be missed by his many friends and colleagues in the film and music industries.

“Nik always generously nurtured creative and executive talent.”

Oldfield (V2001). It became one of the biggest sellers in the world within months.

Now they had a proper label, an associated publishing company, a state of the art recording studio (the Manor), soon to be followed by a booking agency, management company and concert promotion company.

Until 1981, by which time I was Deputy MD of the Virgin label, I and everyone else at Virgin considered Nik to be our boss as much as Richard. Nik then left. At the time, I thought he and Richard had simply grown apart, but with benefit of

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‘WE WANT TO SIGN ADVENTUROUS ARTISTS THAT TAKE RISKS. WE’RE NOT LOOKING AT STATISTICS’ Toby L and Tim Dellow started London-based Transgressive Records 15 years ago, with Lilas Bourboulon joining shortly after. Here, they reflect on the company’s evolution and tell Music Business UK about their ambitions and advice on how to thrive as an indie label in 2019...

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ommitting to artistry as a life choice is a really brave path,” says Transgressive Records co-founder Toby L, speaking to MBUK on the top floor of the company’s Islington HQ. “But being an artist can also be a very lonely path. If even just one person says, ‘You're great,’ when no one else turns up to a gig, that support can stop someone from quitting.”

He adds: “A&R is powerful for that reason. Good A&R is the difference between someone asking, ‘Is this good enough?’ and saying, ‘I want to be the best.’

If any indie music company in the UK is qualified to define the power of good A&R, it’s Transgressive. The company’s diverse, influential discography and roster of long-term career artists – across records, publishing and management – have set a high benchmark for its peers to match.

In 2019, one of Transgressive’s highest-profile collaborators, Foals, topped the UK Album chart for the first time with their sixth LP, Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Pt 2. The band, signed to Warner Bros Records, are a longtime artist development story for Transgressive, and remain with the company for publishing.

This year also marks Transgressive’s 15th anniversary, and Toby L, alongside the firm’s co-bosses Tim Dellow and Lilas Bourboulon, are sat around their poster-clad meeting room, reflecting on a decade-and-a-half of releasing music.

“We started as a singles imprint,“ explains Toby L. “Tim and I basically borrowed some money from his student loan. We used that to fund 500 pressings of any 7 inch single we wanted to make and that became the start of Transgressive.”

Transgressive was born during the UK’s indie rock explosion

of the early noughties, with the label co-founded by Toby L and Dellow after meeting at a Bloc Party concert in 2004. They were joined two years later by the company’s third partner, Bourboulon. The first official Transgressive release was a threesong 7-inch by Hertfordshire-born rockers The Subways in late 2004. A string of indie rock bangers swiftly followed, including releases by Liz Neumayr-fronted Ladyfuzz (of which Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke was a former member), London’s the Mystery Jets and Leicestershire indie band, Young Knives.

In the wake of those early single releases, some of the bands started getting courted by major labels, with Transgressive eventually going into business with Korda Marshall-led Warner Bros Records after being “wined and dined” by a number of interested parties.

“It was great,” says Toby L. “Lilas joined us in that period as well as a couple of other members of staff.

We were like kids in a candy store.

We were given the means and the options to do whatever we wanted.”

It was also around this time that Transgressive’s roster diversified beyond UK-based indie rock bands. January 2006 saw the UK release of a compilation album from New York’s Regina Spektor, Mary Ann Meets the Grave Diggers and Other Short Stories.

In addition to Regina Spektor, the label’s early US licensed signings included the Shins and Iron & Wine, with all of these acts signed in a concentrated three-year period.

“The more we went on, the more we were able to sign artists from all over the world. If you look at our roster [today], maybe 30% is UK based,” says Bourboulon.

“When we started, there was a very profound early noughties

“We were like kids in a candy store. We had the means and options to do what we wanted.”

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Lilas Bourboulon, Toby L and Tim Dellow

scene,” explains Toby L. “It was exciting, and it was awesome.

We definitely used that as a springboard in the early days. But fundamentally, our sights are set on reflecting every genre.”

By late 2006 Transgressive had signed Foals. Dellow commented in the press release announcing their signing that they were “essentially making a completely new style of music”.

The label released Foals’ debut album, Antidotes, in March 2008 and the band’s mashup of dance pop, lyrical melancholy and melodic math rock resonated with audiences. It was a critical and commercial hit, climbing to No.3 in the UK Album chart with one of the singles, Cassius, listed as one of Rolling Stone’s 100 Best Songs of 2008.

This year saw Foals release their two-part, fifth and sixth albums, the Mercury Prize nominated-Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost – Part 1 and Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 2, which hit No.2 and No.1 in the UK Album Chart respectively.

“The Foals' double header album is incredible,” says Dellow.

“There's always new targets to hit here, but in terms of personal bests, some of the records we put out recently are our [most

critically acclaimed]. It's the old Disney mantra of, ‘We don't make films to make money, we make money to make more films’.

And that’s the same thing with us.

“We want to keep improving and spreading exciting messages around what music can do, and its power to as many people as possible. We're small, still, but we're good. In terms of where our ambition is, we’re not small or indie-minded.”

This year has also seen Transgressive release Foals’ Toby L-directed Amazon Prime doc Rip Up The Road, which documents their 2019 world tour. “It’s been a huge project to deliver in a very short period of time and knowing that it’s out in 200 countries on Amazon is such a proud feeling,” says Toby L. Other highlights from Transgressive’s output over the last 15 years have included an album by Graham Coxon, reissues by At The Drive In and the debut record from Damon Albarn-founded multi-national collective Africa Express, to name a few.

Transgressive’s associated companies include development label Paradyse and a live events company, Rock Feedback, which evolved from an online music publication (Rockfeedback.com) 105

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Photo credit Erica Snyder

Julien Chang

and TV series started by Toby L 20 years ago. It puts on 200 gigs a year. Transgressive’s multi-genre roster across records, publishing and management features the likes of SOPHIE, Marika Hackman, Let’s Eat Grandma, Songhoy Blues, Blaenavon, Two Door Cinema Club, Arlo Parks, Flume, Alvvays, Julien Chang, KOKOKO! and Boniface. And, as Dellow explains, the company’s just getting started: “This year we're 15 years young,” he says.

“We're recalibrating who we are, and what we want to achieve...”

Tell us about the significance of Foals – and Transgressive – scoring a No.1 album in your 15th year?

Toby L: They were one of the key breakout Transgressive artists.

To then finally get a No.1, our first No.1 as a company, and for us to be associated with that in some capacity was humbling and an honour. The team at Warner Records and the management Q Prime have also worked tirelessly for the last few years. They have really helped create some amazing results.

Everyone from Jen Ivory to Jane Arthy and Morad [Khokar] and a lot of the crew who have been there for years now. To see them get the result that they also all deserve was really heartening for us all at Transgressive.

You mentioned the importance of staying independent but at the same time having that help and guidance. Has anyone ever

offered to buy Transgressive?

TL: Yes. Originally the reason we didn’t sign to Virgin Records as it was then – when it was run by EMI and not the current administration of Universal – was that they wanted to buy Transgressive from the very beginning, as part of the deal they were [offering]. That was why we backed off, because although we were young and dumb to an extent, and excited to be taken out to these very swanky dinners, we were always very long-term minded; we wanted to have careers in music, not just for ourselves but for the artists we work with.

Everything we had learned about the major industry had taught us that if you are young and are yet to prove yourself, and you’re giving away ownership at the beginning, there’s a chance you might get lost in that machine. Korda was astute and wise and he gave us the pitch no one else could.

He had his own indie label that he had either kept on the side or had sold once or twice – or, indeed, now three times with Infectious. It was abundantly clear to us that he was ambitious, but he was very true to his word with that Warner arrangement, because it allowed us to do what we wanted to do and collaborate with all of those amazing people at Warner Records.

When Korda left and a lot of the team changed, it became clear that it was time for us to move on as well. In the meantime we wanted to try and sign other artists. For example Two Door

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Cinema Club; we were going to sign them to Transgressive/ Warner Bros. Records, but in the end that just didn’t make sense.

We made them a flagship publishing signing, which in retrospect was the best thing for them and the best thing for us at the time.

Tell us about how your teams are structured and some of the other companies you work with?

Tim Dellow: We really believe in out-of-housing stuff, so we build a new PR team around every project specifically. For most of our records we go through [PIAS] on the marketing and distribution front, which has been a really good relationship for years. We've got the JV with Warner Chappell for our publishing company.

Management is just us.

We love working with other labels. We've got us, Virgin, Sub-Pop, Atlantic in the States, Kobalt. There's loads of great teams, we just did a deal with Believe for a new artist. We like working and collaborating, and it’s about finding people that are as passionate about whichever artist it is as we are, and working together to create something bespoke.

TL: Our development label, Paradyse, is distributed by The Orchard. It keeps us and everyone else on their toes, because you're learning from each other, and you’re collaborating.

Lilas Bourboulon: And you're making sure that everyone that’s a part of the project really wants to be there, as opposed to being caught in their system. For each act we have a bespoke team, which makes it fresh, and keeps these guys pumped.

like Transgressive in 2019, rather than sign with a major label or even try to do everything by themselves?

TD: There’s a negative PR story developing in the artistic community at large, for new artists, which is two-fold.

Number one, it’s that your hobby band can be a professional entity. I've played in hobby bands before, and it’s been fun, and I loved it. I got loads of experience, and amazing gratification.

If I was constantly chasing streams on a service where I just uploaded stuff, if I had that frustration, it would have taken a lot of enjoyment out of that fun, community activity. It is everybody’s right and prerogative to express themselves through music.

Number two is the idea that if you decide to try and professionalise your career, you don’t need a team. I don't believe in the concept of a ‘record label’, none of us define ourselves as a ‘record label’. We’re a music company. But, whatever you want to call it, there are tonnes of people out there with great experience, great expertise that can help professionalize your music.

The idea that you can plug into [an aggregator] and just start seeing some kind of income and having stuff done is absolute bullshit. You need people working hard and delivering things for you.

LB: It's the same thing in any kind of discipline. If you're a cyclist, of course you can do it on your own, but you’ll do better if you’ve got a manager, if you’ve got a coach, and everything else. That applies to musicians too. If you surround yourself with good people, who can amplify your vision, you're much more likely to reach success than you are if you do everything yourself.

TD: All of the unsigned artists that make it to any degree, I mean releasing something [independently]... they all have some people around them. This narrative is counterproductive.

TL: Every artist should learn every facet of what they’re doing – from making the music to making videos, because it just helps. It means that your universe and your aesthetic is as tight as possible.

But doing it all yourself, and doing it all without support; that’s too much of a burden.

TD: Spending your time pressing business cards, when you could be writing great music, making something valuable, you know what I mean? If you’re going to be a musician, focus on that and work with good people.

TL: Obviously there are some savvy musicians that can do it all, and potentially also self-manage with a friend or whatever, and that’s cool. But whether that's viable long-term, I don’t know.

If you want to keep escalating and make a proper career out of music, at some point you're going to have to depend on and rely on other people, as we all do in life.

“I don’t believe in the concept of a record label; we’re a music company.”

How do you find a lot of your new signings?

TL: It's a complete Rubik’s Cube. The thing that's exciting is that, the longer you go, the more diverse you get as a company.

It creates roots in each area or context of a scene or genre. We’ve been reflecting a lot in terms of the anniversary recently and where we're at as a company now musically. Transgressive reflects all of our personal tastes, all of our creative tastes.

It’s a lot more natural now going to [sign] a hip-hop or rap artist, or an artist from a far flung part of the world that maybe wasn’t getting much attention previously, or in North America where we’ve ramped up our roster. It has become more natural to say, ‘We want to sign adventurous artists that take risks. Do you want to join our weird family?’

TD: [A&R Manager] Mike [Harounoff] is a great A&R who's found a load of stuff early. We have stuff incoming from all different directions. Our reputation means that good artists attract other good artists. We’ve got a reputation now of being hard workers and a safe pair of hands. That's a horrible expression, but it says a lot. We keep our promises.

Why would an artist want to sign with an independent label

How do you manage the expectations that artists have around success and of their label?

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Photo credit Charlotte Patmore - press

Let’s Eat Grandma

TL: Honestly, if you want to be doing this for a long time, you've got to be patient. If you want to do this in a fulfilling manner, don’t take shortcuts. Do this properly, hone your craft and make sure you're in it for the right reasons. If you're only doing this for the financial gain or overnight notoriety, then you're already losing the race, because those things are fleeting.

LB: We never overpromise, and we never try to sign artists on the promise that, ‘Oh it will be this crazy future, and here’s a tonne of money.’ We’re real in our conversation with who we're signing.

That’s why we end up seeing eye-to-eye with people. When things go great, we’re all celebrating together. When unexpected events happen en route, we’ll say, ‘We can deal with this in these three ways. Which route are we taking?’ We all decide the path together.

That's why it’s so essential to work with people you trust.

TL: We're realistic, but we’re ambitious. We’re not one or the other. You can meet some companies that are too real and too sort of like, ‘Oh, well don’t expect anything.’ We're not like that, we’re

like, ‘Cool, what’s the plan, team?’ Let’s Eat Grandma were like, ‘We want to be on Later... With Jools Holland and then go on tour in Japan,’ which we did in the first couple of years of working with them,’ which we did in the first two or three years working with them. It’s like, cool, let’s set some goals. It is about dreaming big, but also being up front and honest about the reality of things. We’re not going to lose our confidence. Other people might say, ‘We're going to do this, we’re going to do that,’ and when it doesn’t manifest as quickly as they want, they get cold feet. We’ve seen that happen. But we're not those people. We’re invested, and we’re willing to wait.

How do you compete globally with the majors when it comes to signing bands?

TL: We travel a lot. We are based in our HQ here, but we do global deals, and we’ve got great experience in that. We’ve made many albums overseas, we’ve signed many overseas artists, we’ve just got knowledge of a lot of different markets.

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That’s the biggest benefit, I’d say, massively, to being 15 years in: you can’t fast-track those relationships. You build them over the years, in car parks at festivals, in radio stations in Australia, in all these different places. You arrive at the same time as a few people [at an event], you get chatting. It is that incidental, and it’s that organic. You just form friendships and relationships as you’re doing what you're supposed to be doing. And then those relationships on an international level manifest and spread like gremlins! Before you know it, you know a lot of people.

TD: Internationally releasing artists is difficult. Lots of companies approach it very differently. We try, ahead of signing, to talk to the artist about what we’re going to do as a minimum, and how we're going to get that to work, and we’re honest about it.

Because of the set-up of a lot of major label systems, it is actually hard to get released outside of your home territory. So if you want to have an international career, that’s an immediate challenge.

Whereas, if you’re doing a different kind of deal with someone like us, we can be like, ‘You know what? We don’t have [major label] spending power on the ground in those territories, but it is going to be out on vinyl in these record shops, and it’s going to be plugged to this person here. And this is the festival we already have a good relationship with here.’ The right artists for us look at that balance, and they’re like, ‘Oh yeah. That makes sense. I can believe in that plan, and I've seen they've done that plan with all of these other artists. And these other artists have touring careers internationally.

It might work for me.’ It’s not a guarantee, but it’s a route. It's about constantly refreshing that route, thinking about it, about who your partners are, and trying to improve that.

TL: We’re also very keen on execution. We as a label are very practical. We’ve been [hosting] a stage for 13 years at Reading and Leeds where we have 2,000 to 3,000 people every single night. We can book artists on that stage. We threw a party at Glastonbury this year. We’re always talking about the Great Escape, and Sound City. It’s like, having access to an audience, and doing it in a really meaningful way. Rather than just going, ‘Cool, we’ll try and book you a gig. We’ll try and book you a tour.’ Over the years we've developed these levers to deliver it directly, without interruption.

That’s partly cultural. We love throwing events, we love throwing parties. We have a live company. But it’s also because we just don't want to be in a situation where we’re dependent on calling upon others for our success, or for our artist’s success.

a load of music before [those breakthroughs] which was super culturally important, to my mind anyway. I still think the best album on Creation is [My Bloody Valentine’s] Loveless, which didn't really sell in its time, but had a massive impact, kind of like Iggy and The Stooges. And you had, all the Felt records, these are brilliant, important musical things, but nothing that super connected.

And then Domino as well. I guess when it started, it was kind of a licensing label, but for me, as a kid in the UK, it’s the first place that I heard Trail of Dead, Four Tet, Bonnie Prince Billy, Pavement, all of these bands that influenced a ton of UK musicians; music that travels and is important.

It was only when they had those culturally iconic, singular artists that it pulled everything together, that [those labels] opened up and expanded. The shift in the ambition in terms of the [Transgressive] label has probably [expanded] into [our] different music companies, and that ambition itself is growing. Obviously we’re nowhere near hit the commercial heights of Oasis – yet. Few people have. It is a matter of time until we do.

TL: With that [kind of success] comes massive cultural moments that go beyond just being a big band; they become part of daily conversation. Obviously they’re few and far between, and they’re magical when they happen. But if [an artist like Oasis is] attached to an independent company, they shine a light on the entire ethos and character of that company.

“We don’t want to be dependent on others for our success, or our artists’ success.”

Tim, in an interview three years ago on [PIAS]’s blog, you said that Transgressive is like, “Domino before Franz Ferdinand, and Creation before Oasis.”

TL: Do you still agree with that quote? Out of interest.

TD: We're getting there. This is about ambition. I love Creation and Domino, those archetypal, great, British indies. They released

What do you wish that you knew when you started out that you know now?

LB: To be frank, when I started out I always wished I knew more. Now I look back, I’m happy I didn't, because you have to learn things for yourself. You can’t start in an industry knowing everything, and knowing your route to market, knowing how to do things.

We all come from a non-music industry background, and that’s why Transgressive is the way it is. We built it ourselves. We didn’t copy anyone, and we're not looking to be anyone else. We just put all of our personalities into it, and that created such a core nucleus.

TL: I agree. Experience can be helpful, but it can be stifling. It can give you a shortcut, but it can make you premeditate certain movements. This industry is constantly churning and moving. If you’re cynical, and you’re jaded, and you’re premeditative about your moves, then you might not be as malleable as you need to be to adjust to what’s going on.

This is why I love talking to friends in the music industry about what they're doing and what we’re doing. As much as we’re all doing similar things, you realize people’s [individual] approach is very different. Long may that be the case. Effectively, the music industry is all these weird UFOs, all independently navigating the universe in their own way.

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‘MODERN MUSIC PUBLISHING IS ABOUT DEVELOPING ROBUST, CAREER WRITERS, RATHER THAN A QUICK BUCK’ London-based independent music publishing company BDi Music turns 15 this year. Here, Founder Sarah Liversedge recounts some of the biggest changes witnessed in the wider music industry during this time, and explains how the role of the publisher has evolved to play a bigger part in talent discovery and A&R… The music business was a very different place when I founded BDi Music, 15 years ago. I came to it as a partial outsider, having worked for the BBC for 13 years prior, garnering my commercial expertise at Auntie’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide.

Using that experience as a platform, BDi was set-up specifically as an independent media music publisher.

I built a client base of new, indie television companies and published their commissioned music before diversifying my roster and moving into the world of songwriters.

As a very bald indication of how different the landscape was back then, my main competition in media music publishing included a preTerra Firma EMI. I found myself regularly battling against incredibly large publishing advances from my rivals – often ones that left me scratching my head as to how the company would ever make its money back.

Eventually, I was able to begin working with songwriters in a sustainable way by reinvesting the profits I’d made with the TV production companies – but I always put hard work and creative partnership in my shop window rather than giant cheques.

That’s a philosophy that has become more commonplace today. Not just because the business has been through a tough time as it has adjusted to a new, digital eco-system, but because more and more artists demand partners that bring something to the table, and contracts that reward them long-term.

This is perhaps as much a contrast between major and independent as it is between then and now but, certainly for publishers of BDi’s

“Publishers have become more recognised as valuable partners.”

stature, success in 2019 comes from spotting talent early, working hard, nurturing them across many fronts and hoping they reach their potential. There may not be much on the bottom line for publisher or artist to begin with – modern music publishing is about developing robust, career writers, rather than a quick buck.

I’ve no better example of that than Amy Wadge, known as a solo folk artist but not as an industry writer for the stars, of course. I partnered her with another songwriter and producer, Jake Gosling (another early name on the BDi books, and still a client today), and a kid called Ed Sheeran who was knocking on

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Amy Wadge

industry doors with his guitar at the time.

Amy and Ed made the Songs I Wrote With Amy EP together, as well as co-writing the Grammywinning Thinking Out Loud and four songs on Ed’s ÷ album. Jake, meanwhile, co-wrote and produced Sheeran’s debut album – including singles Lego House and Give Me Love – as well as tracks on the follow-up, Divide. Both have gone on to have sparkling careers, working with numerous big names – and Jake and I now have our own business, The Movement London, aimed at nurturing and developing unbeatable, innovative and creative urban forces of young and talented songwriters and producers.

Much more is expected from modern music publishers in that sense. We now play a far greater role in talent discovery and A&R – a remit that was traditionally associated with record labels. In the early noughties, the label and publishing worlds were still seen as two parallel worlds. Today, label bosses (savvy ones, at least) are recognising how powerful a good publishing partner can be.

Independent labels in particular have realised that publishing can be a valuable support to their recorded business. BDi and Bucks Music Group have helped many set up and manage their own publishing operations.

Publishers have become more recognised as valuable partners to the wider music business,

but perhaps the biggest development over the past 15 years has been the increasing importance of the song itself. Of course, after all the executive strategy and industry wizardry, it has always been the music that has determined success – but now an artist can be propelled into the stratosphere on the back of a single smash hit. What this has meant for the album is a whole debate in itself, but what is certainly true is that the influence of the mild-mannered songwriter and their publisher has grown as a result.

Despite this, our side of the industry has not yet seen the same uptick in revenue that the recording community has enjoyed from streaming. Royalty income is still down massively compared to the good old days of the compact disc and it seems that publishers are having to fight doubly hard for their songwriters to see improved rates from DSPs. Banging on doors as a champion for the songwriter has always been part of the job, but now it seems more vital than ever. It’s why some of us have set up IMPEL, to ensure we have a collective voice and effective clout in the digital market.

The period of change that has characterised the music publishing world is still ongoing – we haven’t yet reached our new dawn – but this is an exciting time for songwriters in many ways. One thing that hasn’t changed is the foundations of my own business – a good ear and a lot of graft.

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‘A&R GURUS LIKE IN THE OLD DAYS? THAT’S NOT THE WAY THE WORLD IS GOING NOW’ Independent music company Marathon Artists was launched in 2012 with a roster that now features stars like Courtney Barnett, Max Jury, Baaba Maal, Jen Cloher, as well as sub labels like House Anxiety and Moves Recordings, and music tech accelerator Marathon Artists LABs...

P

aul-René Albertini’s summer job as a 12-year-old was a dream come true.

Born in the South of France in the mid sixties, the Marathon Artists co-founder tells MBUK that he was obsessed with music from a young age.

Albertini knew someone who worked in the arts, with dancers and actors, in theatres. One summer, Albertini told said person that he desperately wanted to work in music.

“The guy tells me, ‘Look, you don't know what you're talking about,” the exec remembers. “You’re 12 years old, so you have no clue, but if you want a summer job, maybe I can find something for you.’”

That ‘something’ was carrying equipment and cases for The Who at a festival in Paris. “I was over the moon,” says Albertini.

“That person said, ‘Hey, you want to see what it’s like? Music is not as glamorous as you think. Just go and do some heavy work.’

“It had completely the opposite effect. There was a guy who [had] long hair and long facial hair next to me backstage and it was Eric Clapton, checking [out] The Who. This is how I got the [music industry] virus.”

Albertini later attended business school in Paris where, along with a few friends, he started promoting independent multi-arts events for the alternative music and counterculture magazine, Actuel. He also started a record label called Ooh La La Productions, which was later sold off.

In 1984, Albertini joined PolyGram France as the company’s International Label Manager and two years later was made Marketing Director for the PolyGram-owned, Eddie Barclayfounded, Barclay label. It was here that Albertini met Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti for the first time. “My boss there was a great A&R and he knew amazing artists from all over the world,” says Albertini.

Over the next 10 years, Albertini served in various senior major label positions in France, rising through the ranks from Managing Director of PolyGram-owned Phonogram (Mercury) France in 1989, to Chief Executive Officer of PolyGram Disques in 1991 and President and CEO of Sony Music France in 1995.

In 2000, he defected from Sony and was appointed President of Warner Music Europe; over the subsequent seven years he held the positions of President of Warner Music International, Chairman and CEO, Warner Music International and joined Warner Music Group’s Board of Directors.

Albertini successfully steered WMG through the CD boom of

Paul-Réne Albertini

the nineties to the piracy-fuelled decline of the early 2000s.

When asked for his thoughts about working in the music industry then as compared to now, he says he has no “real judgment [about the past].”

“The one thing I would like to reiterate is Darth Vader is not necessarily sitting where you think he is sitting,” says Albertini, [obviously not referring to the Star Wars villain, but the notion that major labels are perceived to be the bad guys].

“In those days, the arrangement with artists was closer to employment contracts, you know? And that is not necessarily a good thing; on the contrary. But who took advantage of that? Not necessarily the employers. I met amazing people during my years

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INTERVIEW

in some of the majors. They genuinely loved artists.”

By 2008, Albertini had left the major label world to spend time with his family and work as a consultant between the UK, Japan and Germany. He also set up an advisory and investment firm called Sushi Venture Partners, dedicated to working with startups in the media and technology sector.

“I was fascinated by start-ups at that time,” says Albertini, passionately comparing entrepreneurs in their nascent company development stages with emerging artists, who he says both need help to develop and thrive.

In 2012 Albertini, along with his co-founders Philippe Ascoli and Jimmy Mikaoui, set up Marathon Artists, which has since evolved into a multi-disciplinary independent music group covering management, publishing and recordings with imprints such as indie development label House Anxiety and afrobeats specialist MOVES. Three years later, in 2015, Marathon and Sushi Venture Partners combined Albertini’s obsession with technology and music to launch the London-based music technology startup accelerator Marathon Artists LABs. “We are about to start the third [edition],” says Albertini of the initiative.

“The second cohort was about figuring out how people [who are] not creating music themselves, but are important to music in one way or another, could monetize their [ideas] and add value.”

“In some cases, we invested some money, in some other cases we said, ‘Do you want to start something which is not a label, but frontline activity along the same lines of what we do here, joint ventures, etc.? If yes, you’re more than welcome.’”

Included in the previous accelerator cohort were the likes of new music website Dummy and Marathon imprint Mahogany Recordings, whose YouTube series, Mahogany Sessions, has featured live performances by everyone from James Bay to Jack Savoretti and George Ezra.

In terms of music, Marathon specialises in discovering artists operating in sub-genre scenes globally, and providing support and guidance to bring those artists to a wider audience without changing what they sound like.

The company has released everything from UK afrobeats to New York hip-hop, the genre bending sounds of Senegal’s Baaba Maal to Australian psychedelic rock. The company’s roster across management, publishing and recordings featuring the likes of Mike, Afro B, Jagwar Ma, Courtney Barnett, Pond, Hazel English and Vagabon.

“We deal in [genres] with innovative, exciting fields of research or expression and try to move that into a larger audience,” explains Albertini “We love artistic integrity and we try to support artists, so that they are never in a place where they're going to feel they have to do something they don't want to do.

“We are lucky enough to be able to do that, but having said that,

it does not mean we don’t have the sharpest marketing support you could dream of. To me, that’s the USP of the company. We have got a marketing team which is highly skilled, but which is also built in the way that we can service all the sub genres in a scalable way.”

Here, Albertini tells MBUK about some of the highlights from his career and shares his vision for how he thinks a record label should look and how it should treat its artists in 2019 and beyond...

You went to business school in Paris and worked as a concert promoter and a record producer. Tell us about that time...

When I got to the business school in Paris I had a couple of friends there who were very much into music like me. We started to think about what we could do to reinvent the way live music was introduced to people. At that stage, we started to create events in Paris that everybody was fond of.

We created multi-art events, with music at the centre, of course.

We had visual art, fashion, video arts. I was in the second year of business school and I stopped going to class because [the events were] so happening and so big.

Then we started a small label, Ooh La La Productions, and we were sponsored by an amazing magazine that used to exist in France, called Actuel. We became the promoter of Actuel. That's how I started in this industry.

“Artists were employees. That is not necessarily a good thing; on the contrary.”

Who were some of the artists you were working with?

There was a mixture of US artists. We had Alan Vega from Suicide, as well as artists coming from Africa. In those years they used to stop in Paris because in London they didn't get too much access, apart from a bit of Fela Kuti and King Sunny Ade. So we had the chance to work with amazing artists coming out of Africa as well as some [American artists] like The Residents.

In 1984 you started working in the major label system, joining PolyGram as International Label Manager. How did that happen?

A company acquired our little label and one of my partners had to go to join the Army. They had no choice. I ended up working for a major label, which was the absolute opposite of what I had done in the previous years.

I enjoyed those years, working with amazing artists that were in my dreams like Robert Smith and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

All these people were really exciting to me and so I said, ‘Okay, why not? Major, so what?’ and I spent time there.

Long story short, I found myself at age 26, as head of Mercury [a division of PolyGram] in France under Alan Levy working with Johnny Hallyday, Serge Gainsbourg, INXS, and people like that.

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Boj x Tiwa Savage

Tell us about how your career progressed from there and what was it like working in that world at that time?

I moved into different positions, but it gets less special because it's a common journey for many other people. I moved into some of the corporate jobs. I had a very exciting experience as a CEO of Sony Music France for five years, six years.

I was really lucky there, because I had a lot of room to progress. And the company took 10% market share in a stable way.

I moved to London in 1998 to potentially be the head of Sony Music Europe, but I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do that, because I moved to Warner [International] under Roger Ames as President of Warner Music Europe. I was then [President] of International and then Chairman and CEO. At that stage you deal with other issues [rather] than interface with the artists themselves. Occasionally you meet or you deal with artists, but you meet with infrastructure around the artists.

You don't work with the artists daily, so it's a different thing.

The corporate thing was a good thing for me to experience because I never did it before.

It was a very high level and I learned a lot. And, to be honest, there were also exciting things about it, but that was not working with art and artists anymore, which was the theme of my life previously.

You left the major label world in 2007, why?

I was lucky enough to do what I wanted to do for myself, including starting a family and starting a little investment group.

The entrepreneurial spirit was starting to spread all over the world and I found in a lot of the entrepreneurs the same energy, the same juice I could find in some artists earlier on.

Sometimes in the old days [expression] was exclusively through art, but nowadays it's also through ideas. Those ideas can be politics, but it could also be about something that needs to exist in orderly life.

Someone seeing a gap in something they could invent to help.

I enjoyed a lot working with the start-ups and doing acceleration for these guys. I did that with Startupbootcamp, I was one of the early founders in partnership with Startupbootcamp.

Why did you decide to get back into recorded music with the launch of an indie company?

In 2012 we had the sense, myself and a friend, that the turmoil of music was coming to an end and something else was emerging. That was definitely an interesting moment to start something again in the music world. It was an appropriate moment.

I don't like the approach whereby majors are [perceived as] the naughty guys and independents are the nice guys, or do it yourself is the right way, or the only way. I would expect people to have more discernment about these things.

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Courtney Barnett

For instance, when I was running majors myself, yes the relationship with artists was what it was, but I can tell you, we were nothing compared to some of the other big actors [playing a role] in those industry changes. [They] started to move along to create their own added value and were figuring out that music was an interesting free support to do that.

They didn't care [about] the artist, or majors, or whoever got paid or not. And I'm not going to mention what and who, but there was a moment in time where some of the big telcos, for instance, were extremely happy that people were stealing music and not paying for it, because that was creating a lot of traffic at the time, and creating their added valuation.

If you didn’t have the majors to face the landscape; to counterbalance things, you probably wouldn’t have the situation you have today.

I’m not suggesting the majors are snowy white. What I’m saying is, the majors are [not] the nasty guys and the others are the good guys. I’d like to have more discernment about these things, not only because I’ve [worked for] majors, but because this is a judgment that helps to better understand the full picture.

What was your vision for Marathon when you set it up?

When we started the business at the end of 2012, we thought that we should really position the business with no strings attached to operate within the landscape. The landscape being, the entry barriers for artists are not where they used to be.

You can record, you can start sharing with the first circle of friends and fans, you can start your first ticketing business yourself. You can do a lot and that is pretty exciting, because you have no [barriers] for people to express their creativity.

Now, when it comes to getting to the next level, to make that voice heard, it is like X thousand times more complex than it used to be, which means this is where the entry barrier is now for the artist.

And therefore, [those] working in the music business need to figure out how to support the artist who goes for that second circle. Some like to call it artist services, some like to say it's management, that an artist with a good manager can do all that.

“The majors are not snowy white.

But they are not the nasty guys.”

Don’t you think some managers can do it all by themselves though?

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Psychedelic Porn Crumpets

the marketing context in different territories, [deal with] different DSPs, different distribution, different models. By the time the manager [does] that, using all the sort of third parties which are required, what the manager just did is to create a 2.0 record label.

The approach we're trying to have is to be adaptable and first of all to figure out how to help the artist according to the personal view of the artist themself. This is different from one artist to the other. But also the genre, the music genre, the scene, the landscape they want to work with or within because this is so different from one to the other. So you need to have that flexibility to understand what sub genre, what context, what creative mind you're dealing with. You also need to give artists the sensation that they have got ownership of what they do and they can make money out of it.

The monetization is a very complex issue as well.

Between the person who creates, wants to communicate their art with contemporary people, and the monetization of their work, there is a value chain. Whoever is working in the music industry today needs to understand the value chain and how to help according to different cases.

Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what we're trying to do here. We keep it flexible, adaptable to the genres and profiles, and that's why when we started this, we started to offer joint ventures to artists. We started joint ventures from day one. A lot of the law firms were not comfortable with that. A lot of people were not comfortable with that. They didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get it.

Why was that?

It was something which was not really the way it was done before.

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So now, today, it’s a common thing, so forget about it. But not too long ago, in 2012, 2013 it [wasn’t common]. So this is just as a for instance as how we try to be innovative in the way we organize our relationship with the creative world.

But surely it makes more sense to the artist to go into business with each other as opposed to using that artist as a commodity for your company to make money?

Absolutely. Correct. That was the idea, but a couple of lawyers didn't want to do that. They preferred to have much bigger advances and much bigger things. It’s not as black and white as people think. But, long story short, it’s exactly what you said.

[Artists] should have ownership of their work, and be seen as being in business with the partners, not being owned by the partners during the relationship.

What does Marathon look for in artists and how does an artist end up working with Marathon?

The common DNA about all the music sub genres we're dealing with is the integrity, the passion. I would say we are looking for innovative talent, people doing things which have not necessarily been done before. That would be the common denominator of all the sub imprints and people we have working here.

Has Marathon's vision changed a lot from when you started in 2012 to now?

Yeah, it had to evolve. The organisation, the strategy, and everything, that hasn't changed too much. When it comes to the A&R approach, yes, it has diversified. The A&R gurus like in the old days, and I'm not taking anything away from some of the super talented big icons, but still, the A&R gurus are not the way the world's going now. You need to have people generally passionate, fascinated, and knowledgeable with their own sensitivity to sub genres. You have to give them the tools to make sure that what they want to do has the best chances of going where they think they can take it. You need to have a specialist for each of the sub music genres you're dealing with.

You cannot have one person for all, because by nature it's too hard.

Artist services on paper [are] a good thing. To get from the first level where you create the music yourself and then share it with the first circle of people, if you have a chance to get to the second circle, some of these distributor services are interesting.

My take, for what it's worth, is that if you want to go beyond that second circle it's not scalable that much. It's not powerful enough. There is a stage where you're going to need something more. A lot of people call artist services different things and I don't want to get it more confused.

I do understand the concept of Do It Yourself as well, because it works with everything you said before. The thing is, if you don't have at least a manager, and the manager has artist services in one way or another, you won't be able to go there.

Even if someone makes it attractive by giving you a cheque up front, it's not going to be enough. That's why we try to do something which is more a performance kind of a service.

Something that goes beyond the second circle much faster. It’s much bigger and powerful. When it comes to [matching major label] advances we don’t have the funding capacity, so we try to do whatever we can to help the artist.

A lot of noise [is being made] about Do It Yourself and artist services, but one needs to scratch the surface a bit. This would work beautifully for a lot of people, but there are other cases where it wouldn't work. It's not enough [for all artists] and that’s what we try to bring.

“Artists should have ownership of their work, and not be owned by their partners.”

Has A&R become more difficult or more complex because of the diversification of genres in music?

Nowadays everybody can express themselves by creating some music and posting it. The diversity in such a massive, massive volume makes the function of A&R, or discovering talent, more complex than ever simply because you've got 100 times the material that you had to analyze before.

How do you meet the challenge of being an attractive proposition for an artist compared to service companies like AWAL, or Amuse?

What about meeting the challenge of being an attractive proposition in comparison to the major record companies, then?

The major imprints have a lot of communicative advantages, including the international set-up, the fundings, including very good teams, etc.

The one thing they don't have, because they can't, and it's not a criticism, they cannot be like a music group like this one, with no strings attached.

If you want to make a deal, which is one EP and no option and still work and spend because you believe that the artist is going to make it, and [think that] you're going to keep that artist whatever happens, you're maybe naïve, but you want to be able to be naïve and you want to trust people.

If you have the rules of working for a big company, you have to make sure that everything’s done by the book, otherwise you become careless. The majors have to run the business with some basic rules, otherwise there would be no business.

They have other competitive advantages, but the one we have is no strings attached. We can do the deal the way we want, how we want, as fast as we want, at the rate we want. Everything we believe is going to be tailor-made for the artist and the creative person we’re dealing with to be able to work with it. That's the beauty of it.

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Every Picture Tells A Story

Date: 29 September, 2003 Location: Heathrow Airport I’m head of press at BMG. It is launch day for Dido’s second album, Life For Rent. Two gigs on the same day, one in London, one in New York, with 250 competition winners and media from around the world on a chartered BA jet.

An amazing launch for the biggest artist in the world. Well, that was the plan. But, during the two hours before this picture was taken…

We’ve arrived at Terminal 5; the person organising the charter (and tickets) for us, however, is not there and no-one else knows about us. So, we have 250 people trying to check in with no tickets. Chaos.

We’re meant to do interviews in the First Class Lounge, they don’t know about us either. Dido’s UK publicist, Barbara Charone, steps forward: ‘You think there’s a problem now’, she says to Lounge

staff as she flourishes behind her, ‘this is Her Majesty’s press and they’ll be writing about this!’ We go in, but the chaos continues.

Richard Branson somehow hears about it and we get a late offer of a Virgin 747; we’re nearly there now, back on track.

Or are we? As we finally board, a very frazzled member of Dido’s management team walks past me and says, quietly but firmly, ‘She won’t be doing any interviews.’

I’m just having a think about that lovely little newsflash as this picture is being taken.

But she did, she did them all, and the launch was a triumph. Life For Rent sold over 400,000 copies in the UK alone that week. I file this one under, ‘Keep smiling, it will be all right’.

Paul Bursche is the Director of Eagle Owl Communications, whose clients have included Three Six Zero, The state51 Conspiracy and James Grant Group. He was previously Director, Communications at Sony Music UK and, prior to that, worked at BMG for six years.

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