Inside the business of music.
£6.00 | 02.04.2018 www.musicweek.com
“I DON’T FEEL THE NEED TO BE UNDERSTOOD...”
THIRTY INSIDE SECONDSJARED LETO’S AMERICAN TO MARSDREAM
PLUS: FULL STOP MANAGEMENT & POLYDOR ON BUILDING A COMEBACK LIKE NO OTHER
COVER STORY
FAKE NEWS, DONALD, CIA, OPRAH, GOOGLE, ELVIS, FBI, KANYE, PICKUP TRUCKS, KIM, WALMART, LEBRON, IBM, DEA, SPRING BREAK, JUSTIN, BASKETBALL, APPLE, MICROSOFT, ATF, ABE LINCOLN’S BEARD, THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS… BY GEORGE GARNER PORTRAIT PHOTOS: PICZO LIVE PHOTOS: MATTY VOGEL
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Leto the right one in: Jared Leto
MADE IN AMERICA
In between re-conquering Hollywood, Jared Leto has been working on a masterplan: his band Thirty Seconds To Mars’ adventurous new album, America. Here, Music Week meets the frontman, Full Stop Management’s Evan Winiker and Polydor’s Tom March to talk about a comeback campaign like no other…
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ou join Music Week as we interrupt Jared Leto at a moment of upheaval. Even if he wasn’t scrambling to pack his bags in order to make a flight, the perennially in-demand star probably has a little less time at his disposal than normal right now. Currently, his band, Thirty Seconds To Mars – completed by his brother/drummer Shannon Leto and guitarist Tomo Miličević – are in the middle of their European arena tour. Three nights ago he was performing in Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome, the night before last he was in Antwerp’s Lotto Arena. When we catch up with him, he’s back in Amsterdam about to cross the Channel to kick-start the Monolith Tour’s UK leg at Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena. This constant zigzagging is his life right now. Yet for all the passport stamps he is accruing, there is only one nation on his mind right now: America. This is not because he is homesick, but rather
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it is the name of Thirty Seconds To Mars’ impending fifth studio album, due April 6 via Interscope/Polydor. It’s been a long time coming. “I had always wanted to make an album about America,” Leto tells Music Week. “It’s a place that’s had a tremendous impact on my life - a place that’s sort of a contradiction. And I realised halfway through making this album that I was actually working on that now. It wasn’t something that I would visit at another time.” Leto’s calm demeanour and quiet voice – almost like he’s conserving energy - don’t necessarily betray his excitement, but the sentiment of his words is all the proof you would need. He feels 2018 is the perfect moment to unveil his dissection of American life. “Because of the time that we’re living in - a time of uncertainty, a time of change, a tumultuous time - people are asking big questions about what kind of people do we want to be, what kind of country do we want to live in?” he says. “It’s not just a political upheaval now, it’s a social upheaval. It’s
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Mars attack: Jared Leto onstage with Thirty Seconds To Mars and (to the right) Shannon Leto
a fascinating time to be an artist, and it’s an inspiring time, a provocative time.” Artistically speaking, for a couple of years now, Leto has most frequently been in the spotlight because of his other job: acting. Suffice to say, it was already a remarkable feat that he, a Hollywood actor, made the manoeuvre from appearing in films like David Fincher’s Fight Club and Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line to recreate himself as the frontman of an arena rock act. Few – read: none – would fondly recall Keanu Reeves’ defunct alt.rock band Dogstar. In contrast, the first four 30STM albums have not only produced sell-out tours, but performed incredibly well. Their 2002 self-titled debut has sold 75,863 copies to date according to Official Charts Company data, and was followed by 2005’s A Beautiful Lie (297,030), 2009’s This Is War (380,313) and 2013’s Love, Lust, Faith And Dreams (89,778). If things have been relatively quiet on the 30STM front until recently it is, of course, because Leto’s acting career has had something of a triumphant second wind. In March 2014, the actor accepted the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the drug-addicted, HIV-positive trans woman Rayon in Dallas Buyers Club. From there he would star as The Joker in Suicide Squad and Niander Wallace in Blade Runner 2049. All the while, however, he’s been masterminding 30STM’s return. He has played many roles over the years, now it’s time to get back to being himself. All he needed to make it happen was to tether himself to a terrifying deadline, which notably went against some good advice he was once given. “Bono told me once, ‘Never book a tour until your album is finished,’” he grins. “Of course, I always book a tour before my album is finished, and it becomes the deadline. I don’t know how I would have finished if I didn’t book the tour.” The Monolith tour was, then, the means by which Leto – a man whose diary probably needs its own diary - was able to produce 12 brand new songs while cementing his place in the Hollywood firmament. “I’m dependent on deadlines,” he continues. “They force you to finish, and that was certainly the case here. It’s really
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not easy to finish an album. Songs, you can work on them forever. You change, your choices change, your ideas for how songs should sound like will change as you grow and change. It’s ad infinitum. But we worked on this album for five years and we’re super excited about it being finished.” The result is not just a concept album, but also one that will find expression in a lot of different mediums in the coming months. The scope of the unfolding America campaign has led Tom March, co-president at Polydor, to unequivocally brand Leto “a genius”. Likewise, Evan Winiker, part of the Full Stop Management team alongside Irving and Jeffrey Azoff, stresses the uniqueness of this return. “Jared has vision, and that is rare,” observes Winiker. “Most artists are looking at what other artists are doing, he’s not doing that. He has a clear vision for everything he approaches and that really sets the tone for everything we do.” Time, then, to get to grips with Thirty Seconds To Mars’ epic return, and the vaulting ambition of Leto’s American dream…
T “Fear, failure, anxiety or depression. None of those things are scared of success” JARED LETO, THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS
he word America has come to mean many different things to Jared Leto while making his latest album. But two key takeaways in particular standout. “I suppose I learned how fucked up we are,” he reflects. “And also what an inspiring idea [America] still is, that dreams are possible, and that hard work and determination and passion can result in the accomplishment of those dreams. That society’s equality is paramount or possible, and the road to that equality is obviously less than perfect. I learned a lot.” These reflections are not just the by-product of 12 new songs, but also a documentary Leto started making concurrently with the album, christened A Day In The Life Of America. And that really testifies to the scope of this band’s comeback as a dovetailing of both sides of his career. Thirty Seconds To Mars have long dabbled in cinematic visuals – reaching its apex with Leto, directing under his pseudonym Bartholomew Cubbins, turning their song Hurricane into a 13-minute, BDSM-tinged mini-movie. But the idea of A Day In The Life Of America can be traced all the way back to Leto’s childhood when he became fascinated by a National Geographic book in which a group of photographers shot life in America across the country on a single day. “I thought, ‘Wow, what an amazing film this would be and what a great companion piece to the album it would be,’” he tells Music Week, before laying out the sheer scale of the 24-hour endeavour that was pulled off on July 4, 2017. “We had camera crews in every single state in the country, all 50 states, plus Puerto Rico and DC. We really captured a portrait of our country that is pretty unique. We also had 10,000 submissions that people went out and filmed on their own, so we have thousands of hours of footage. We’re editing right now and hopefully it will be out in July.”
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Anyone who saw the official video of America’s debut single Walk On Water will have already glimpsed the undertaking, but somewhat impressively, this is only one strand of 30STM’s broader comeback campaign. Leto has also developed another way the project can live and breathe outside of the music world: its cover. Or rather covers. America is being launched with not one, but 10 main covers – all bearing words Leto feels provide a “time capsule” of where American culture is right now. And so covers sporting words like ‘Donald’, ‘Apple’, ‘Fake News’, ‘FBI and ‘Walmart’ have already started sprouting on LA’s Sunset Boulevard, NYC’s Times Square and outside London tube stations. But the twist is that fans can make their own cover using an official album cover generator. “It’s really fun,” explains Leto. “It’s different, it’s not just an album cover, it’s not just an image that represents an album, it’s a concept. I look at it like it’s an art show. It’s something that you could walk into a gallery and see hanging on the walls.” Leto is a thoughtful interviewee; he leaves a lot of space between his quietly uttered statements. Perhaps sensing his words could be construed as big-headed, he immediately clarifies himself. “I’m not saying it’s because I think it’s so great,” he says. “I think it’s because it’s less in tune with tradition. It works in two ways, it uses advertising techniques, and also fine art techniques, to communicate a concept. It’s provocative, it’s funny, it’s weird. It’s surprising. To look at the lists individually, they can pique your curiosity, they can probably make you laugh, or confuse you, but if you look at them as a whole, they really give you a context of the time you’re living in.” An album. A film. A cover multi-tasking as an expanding communal art project. It is little surprise to hear that the team behind 30STM feel that America is not your typical album release. “When I met him and I saw how much he cared, how passionate he was, I was blown away by his ideas and enthusiasm,” says Tom March. “Every single move Jared makes, he makes it count. He really thinks about the best way to get his message and music out to grab attention.” It’s a sentiment that is very much echoed by
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Second to none: The 10 distinct covers of 30STM’s America
Thirty Seconds To Mars’ management team. “Outside of just the songs, he’s created this world where they can do documentaries, they can do incredible videos, they can do really cool performances and it all feels like one thing,” says Winiker. “It’s all one tapestry he’s sewing. “This is a campaign that keeps going and evolving and I think that’s rare,” he adds. When asked what five words he would put on a cover to describe the making of the album, Leto methodically peels off: “Challenging, rewarding, fun, exciting, long.” From speaking to him, you sense ‘emotional’ could also be added to the pile. Juggling the duelling words of cinema and music has, Leto says, often found him searching for a sense of balance. He may have learned a lot about America in the process of making the record, but he learned a lot about himself, too. He reveals both he and his brother Shannon endured some “brutal personal and private challenges” over the past five years that informed the record. One song in particular, Rescue Me, seems to drive to the heart of this, capturing Leto lamenting how he spent ‘too many years being the king of pain’. “I’m a very private person and so is my brother,” he offers, by way of explanation. “I don’t care how much success you have, with your work or art or life, it doesn’t mean you have a hall pass or an ability to skip through life’s more challenging moments, fear, or failure or anxiety or depression. None of those things are scared of success. Those things are often attracted to success.”
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THIS IS TOUR Over the years, Thirty Seconds To Mars have staged numerous world tours, but the Monolith Tour may be their most ambitious yet. Music Week investigates...
O brother, here art thou: Shannon and Jared Leto
Love, lights, faith and dreams: Thirty Seconds To Mars’ stage setup on the Monolith tour
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ouring has always been a key part of the evolving 30STM story. Indeed, back in 2011, they were awarded the Guinness World Record for the most shows performed during a single album cycle when they played their 300th show in support of This Is War. If you ask Jared Leto if their current Monolith tour is taking Thirty Seconds To Mars’ live show to the next level, he is somewhat unequivocal on the subject. “We just started the most ambitious world tour of our lives,” Jared Leto informs Music Week. “We’re playing the biggest venues and selling the most tickets we’ve ever sold in our entire lives. The production is something I’ve been working on for 10 years and seeing it come to life is absolutely incredible.” As Leto intimates, it’s not just the size of the touring, but the innovations witnessed onstage that will define America’s live campaign. And at the heart of this is technology.
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“You see the set design, the stage design, and it’s like nothing you’ve seen before,” beams Polydor co-president Tom March. While it would be tempting to see the Monolith tour as the start of America’s live campaign, it actually started in earnest last year. “Jared approaches everything in a really unique way in that he wants every moment, whether it’s a TV show, live performance, or artwork, to be truly unique and special,” says Full Stop Management’s Evan Winiker. “On the [2017] VMAs, he worked with this infrared technology, and did a really special performance that kick-started the album cycle with Travis Scott. “What we were able to do with the Stephen Colbert show was fascinating,” he adds. “Jared took robot arm technology called BOLT [which filmed the performance] – it had never been done before.” Unsurprisingly, then, spirits on tour are high. “Things are going really well,” reflects Leto of the current tour. “We don’t take it for granted for a second.”
As conversation turns to the losses of rock icons Chris Cornell and Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, Leto becomes solemn. “Two guys that had beautiful careers, beautiful families; two amazingly gifted, talented vocalists,” he offers. “Depression, pain, fear, anxiety are not exclusive to anyone.” Leto says he is glad he had the outlet of a record to address some of these battles. In doing so, America may at times reveal as much about Leto as it does the country in question. At least there is one battle Thirty Seconds To Mars fought and decisively won in their career: one that happened in the full gaze of the music industry itself.
“Most artists are looking at what other artists are doing, Jared’s not” EVAN WINIKER, FULL STOP MANAGEMENT
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t is a matter of public record. In 2008, as the band were recording This Is War, Thirty Seconds To Mars’ then label, Virgin EMI, sued the band for an eye-watering $30 million over their disputed liberty to leave their recording contract. The protracted lawsuit eventually swung in the band’s favour and was intimately captured in all its stress and triumph in Leto’s 2012 documentary Artifact. With America being released on their new home of Interscope/Polydor, you have to wonder how the experience has coloured his relationships with labels. “It was not easy,” sighs Leto, reflecting on his past experiences. “I mean, we didn’t have a record company for a number of years. But we’re happy now, we have a group of people that are working really hard and helping us to achieve our goals. They’ve been a pleasure. I think Tom March is a really special person and he’s a believer, he works really hard and has great ideas.” The feeling is very much mutual. “Everything Jared does is incredibly hands-on,” says Polydor’s co-president. “I’ve never worked with an artist before that’s this hands-on. Almost every day you hear from him with ideas, thoughts, questions. He’s super on it.” Does that make the exec’s job harder? “No, I love that,” says March. “With any artist I’ll have a really honest, frank conversation and give them thoughts. And he listens and he trusts. Obviously, with any artist you have to engage with them and earn their trust, and we’ve spent a good bit of time together over the last year. You have to earn someone’s trust so they believe you know what you’re talking about.” Of course, playing a colossal UK arena tour before releasing the album is a perfect primer, but a lot of Polydor’s UK-specific plans are under wraps until closer to the time. March does, however, say there’s a huge BT sync in the pipeline, not to mention the band performing just below Taylor Swift at Radio 1’s Biggest Weekend in Swansea later in the year. But while 30STM now have a happy home, you have to wonder how Leto has observed the changes in the industry since Artifact so candidly exposed what can happen
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when the needs of art and commerce reach an impasse. After all, some people would now say that in 2018 the real power lies with the artist… “I’m not sure particularly what happened, record companies probably have less of the same kinds of power that they had before, and that’s not just true of record companies, it’s true of the gatekeepers of media companies, it’s true of record stores, it’s true of radio stations,” says Leto. “There’s been a change of how we do things. Of course, all of the gatekeepers that I just mentioned are still incredibly powerful, but what’s happening happened because of social media, because of streaming, because of distribution abilities, because the cost of making music has gotten cheaper. People don’t need a million dollar advance from the record company or a $200,000 advance from a record company to go off and hire the best engineers and producers so they can have an album that sounds good.” Leto draws a parallel to the technology sector, which he stresses is a big part of his life, both as an advisor and investor in companies for over a decade. “We keep seeing the barrier for entry drop lower and lower,” he continues. “Which is beautiful because what wins now is the idea, the song, the results. It’s not an incredibly capital-intensive business any longer, so you don’t need that big loan from the record company. That’s a great thing. Because that loan starts to get you, like any loan, in debt. While that is still happening out there, I think you see more and more people on SoundCloud or Spotify or Apple Music putting their music out directly, building an audience first. You also don’t have to tour for years to build an audience now, which is an incredibly labour-intensive and cost-intensive thing to do. Times have changed in a lot of ways.” Interestingly, however, for all his progressive tendencies, Leto is still something of a traditionalist in other regards. 30STM still believe in the importance of having a label and working closely with a team. Leto, too, is in love with radio as a format – he considers it a privilege to be played on the radio and is in love with the notion that a song can come into your life in a communal, often serendipitous way. Likewise, he is hopeful that Thirty Seconds To Mars will continue to grow on the new frontiers of the industry, too. “Everybody needs to send a note of thanks to the streaming companies because they have single-handedly killed piracy,” says Leto. “Remember when people were talking about pirates all the time? That’s an incredible gift. I think the problems with streaming that we have to fix are you have these silos, these pyramids [where] the biggest and the loudest are getting all of the attention. Most of the time deservedly so, because the music is so fucking good.” Leto does, however, wonder what that means for, say, small upcoming rock bands… “There’s a bit of a shadow being cast,” says Leto. “It’s very hard to find new artists, that’s a problem not just with music or streaming but with content in general. It’s difficult to discover, whether it’s Netflix or Apple Music. It’s a challenge that all of these companies, from Spotify to YouTube, are looking at and trying to solve. How do we better serve the customer to give them an experience that they’re surprised and enthralled with? When you have this big pyramid, this silo effect that’s happening now in all areas of content, a lot gets lost in between. I do think, in a different era, the gatekeepers really could help shine a light on certain things and it did seem like there were more of a certain size of band that probably could make a living and find an audience.” “That will fix itself,” he predicts. “I think people are working really hard at these companies to try to fix that.” At least Thirty Seconds To Mars are having no such troubles. Especially for a band in a day and age where bands are not commanding major streaming numbers, 30STM are ranked 434th in the world on Spotify, with 5,594,391 monthly listeners and 1,652,845 followers.
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“And the award for best rock star pose goes to...”: Jared Leto
“I’ve never worked with an artist before that’s this hands-on” TOM MARCH, POLYDOR
And everyone on team Mars are hopeful that this figure will grow, especially with some of the features on the album: second single Dangerous Night was produced by Zedd [Ariana Grande, Liam Payne], Love Is Madness pairs the group with Halsey and A$AP Rocky joins them on One Track Mind – the latter making Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist upon release. This is not, both Leto and his team stress, a calculated move from a rock band to grab other artists’ audiences. For one, that wouldn’t necessarily chime with how Leto views his own band. When asked what genre America conforms to, he says he sees it “just as an album.” Moreover, he has his own idea on what rock is in 2018. “I think rock’n’roll is the spirit,” he says. “It’s not about cymbals or distortion, it’s an attitude, it’s an idea.” The preliminary signs are that Leto’s idea of rock’n’roll is paying dividends. March stresses the “very healthy” pre-order numbers, while Winiker points to some other gauges of success. “Walk On Water was No.1 for four weeks at Alternative Radio – the band had never had a song that stayed up top like that for that long, so that was a huge victory,” says Winiker. “All the shows are waaaaay bigger, every market they’re going to they’re doing better than the previous time. I would honestly say that everything they’re doing right now is on a bigger scale.” We are a long way on from the questions that dogged Thirty Seconds To Mars early on, namely that this was a vanity project. Still, as an actor, Leto has been bestowed with Hollywood’s highest honour. Before he catches his flight to Cardiff, we put one final question to him. How well understood do you feel as a recording artist? “I don’t feel the need to be understood,” he says. “But I do think we’ve probably gotten our point across by now. Because of our incessant touring and the absolute refusal to back down and stop fighting.” He turns to an old saying to make his point. “‘Those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter,’” concludes Leto. “That’s a good one.”
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"PASSION IS A POWERFUL THING..."
£6.00 | 22.01.2018 www.musicweek.com
Inside the business of music. Established 1959
N O R E K A M E T S A T BRITAIN’S TOP E R I P M E P M A E BUILDING TH
Inside the business of music. Established 1959
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Inside the business of music. Established 1959
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“THE SKY’S THE LIMIT...”
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“THERE’S SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL ABOUT VINYL”
£6.00 | 16.04.2018 www.musicweek.com
RECORD STORE DAY SPECIAL
RUN THE JEWELS
MEET THE CRATE-DIGGING RAP SUPERSTARS SHAKING UP THE INDUSTRY STAT ATTACK: THE VINYL COUNTDOWN INSIDE THE SECRET RECORD SOCIETIES THE FUTURE FOR PHYSICAL MUSIC
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2018 +
All the new acts, albums, tours & biz trends you need to know about
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A N O E R ’ E W “ AT E R G Y L L A E R RUN…”
MANIC STREET PREACHERS INSIDE THE ICONIC ROCK HEROES’ PIÈCE DE RÉSISTANCE
£6.00 | 19.03.2018 www.musicweek.com
VIVE LA RÉ BY JAMES HANLEY PHOTOS: ALEX LAKE
The Manic Street Preachers have always aimed for the moon - and they usually land among the stars. Here, Nicky Wire, manager Martin Hall, Sony boss Rob Stringer and others take Music Week inside the world of the Manics and their upcoming 13th album, Resistance Is Futile…
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here is an incredible, tell-all book to be written on the Manic Street Preachers’ near 30-year career. Just don’t expect Nicky Wire to be the one that writes it. “I signed a contract with Faber & Faber and tried to write it myself, but I just found it really boring,” admits the endearingly acid-tongued bass player. “I didn’t think I was very good at it and I don’t really want to do it with a ghostwriter, so I’m not sure if I ever will to be honest. I prefer writing lyrics or poetry.” It seems oddly fitting that the day Music Week catches up with Nicky Wire in his native Wales is the same day the death knell sounds for NME magazine. Manic Street Preachers graced the legendary paper’s front page well over a dozen times, a 1992 issue featuring missing Manics lyricist and guitarist Richey Edwards coming out on top of a 2015 poll to find the greatest NME cover ever. “It’s hardly fucking surprising,” sneers the inimitable Wire of the institution’s demise. “Growing up, getting on Radio 1, Top Of The Pops and the cover of NME was our masterplan. If we could get that, we thought we’d get everywhere we wanted - and it kind of worked out like that to be honest.
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ÉSISTANCE
Shore things: (L-R) Nicky Wire, Sean Moore and James Dean Bradfield
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PHOTOS: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images for Sony, Jordan Curtis Hughes, Andy Willsher
Everlasting: The Manics at last year’s MITS Awards, where they honoured Sony boss Rob Stringer
“[NME] was a lifeline and we devoured it. We loved the writers as much as we did the bands in it, it was like an education. It’s incredibly sad really, but you give away something for free and it always ends up going fucking bust. All those people who laughed when Metallica sued Napster should be choking on their fucking laughter.”
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he Manics - Wire, singer/guitarist James Dean Bradfield and drummer Sean Moore - became a trio in the wake of Edwards’ disappearance 23 years ago, and retain many of the same backroom team to this day. “They’re like family because I’ve known them for so long,” says Martin Hall, of Hall Or Nothing Management, who originally represented the band with his late brother Philip. “They’re cultured, clever, intelligent people and are a joy to work with.” “Bands will sack managers and think there’s some magic thing they can do to help you, but the most important thing is that you get on as friends,” suggests Wire. “As a personality Martin just makes us feel better, which is half the magic. “[Hall Or Nothing’s] Chris Dempsey is also a big help, because he used to be the product manager at Sony. We have an innate understanding of marketing, which is important because I’ve always enjoyed that side of it.” New LP Resistance Is Futile drops via Sony’s Columbia on April 13, preceded by the singles International Blue,
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“This album has a sheen and vividness, unlike previous albums, so it sounds completely contemporary” ROB STRINGER, SONY MUSIC
Distant Colours and Dylan & Caitlin. International Blue, which owes a debt to Generation Terrorists’ classic Motorcycle Emptiness, has proved a surprise radio hit, cracking the upper echelons of the airplay chart. “No rock band has had a Top 20 airplay hit in a long time and it was bizarre when you saw who they were up there with,” grins Hall. “[BBC Radio 2’s] Jeff Smith is a big supporter, he has been for a long time, as have Radio X, Absolute and Virgin. It’s been really good. I think we’re going to get that again with Distant Colours and I feel confident that we’ll get that with the next two singles as well.” The album also sees the Manics reunite with their former Columbia boss Mike Smith, now MD at Warner/Chappell UK, after signing a deal with the publisher earlier this year. Their back catalogue remains with Sony/ATV. “[Resistance Is Futile] is a very strong collection of songs,” says Smith. “I genuinely believe it’s some of the best songs the band have written in terms of their melody, power and lyrical depths. There is a tremendous feeling of storytelling going on. “I’m a great lover of people who push themselves lyrically and do not follow clichéd paths,” he adds. “That’s something that has always drawn people to the Manic Street Preachers and I think they’ll really appreciate it with this record. It’s absolutely amazing to have the Manics back and the world is a much better place with them making music in it.”
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The four-year gap since the last Manics record is the longest of their career. Wire explains the band struggled for direction following 2013’s Rewind The Film (59,557 sales - OCC) and 2014’s Futurology (50,034) - released less than 10 months apart - and the upheaval caused by having to vacate their longtime HQ, Cardiff’s Faster Studios, due to a residential development. “We weren’t quite sure where we were going for a while,” notes Wire, both figuratively and literally. “Futurology was such a high concept, dense album, and it was so well received. It went to No.2 and is in a lot of people’s Top 3 Manics records. We didn’t want to repeat that because we didn’t think it would be as good stylistically, so it did take a while before we sat in a room together and started to realise the way to go. “It turned into something very natural, where everything was just drenched in melody: a widescreen sadness, but uplifting. It just felt pointless to do something contrary and try and make it harder, or odder, because it just wasn’t coming out that way.”
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n the interim, the band kept themselves busy with 20th anniversary tours of their back-to-back masterpieces The Holy Bible and Everything Must Go. They also penned Wales’ Euro 2016 anthem Together Stronger (C’mon Wales), which soundtracked the Welsh football team’s best ever run in a major tournament. “I wanted to give a little tragic history of being a Welsh football supporter over the last 40 years,” chuckles Wire. “We had a blast doing the video with the team. You have a moment like that and put everything to one side and just enjoy yourself - which is not something we do very often as a band! With the team getting to the semis and the feelgood factor, it was an amazing summer.” The Manics boast a high-profile supporter in longtime cohort, Sony Music CEO Rob Stringer, who signed the band in the early ’90s. They played the 2014 Music Week Awards in recognition of Stringer’s Strat Award and presented him with the MITS Award last year. “He’s always been there,” says Wire. “Right from the start, he was desperate to sign us and I still speak to him all the time. He loves [Resistance Is Futile], he was probably the first person to come down to our new studio and hear most of it. He will tell us if he thinks it’s rubbish as well, but he didn’t - he said there are so many hooks on this record he couldn’t believe it. “Whether it’s him coming to my house at Christmas for a bit of cake and tea or just meeting up in London, he’s as much a friend as he is as a music business person.” “Rob was the only person that offered them a deal and he stuck by them through their leaner, less commercial years,” acknowledges Hall. “He always believed in them and that’s why they came through with Everything Must Go and This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours. He’s been like the fifth member of the team in lots of ways and they’re still friendly, they still speak to him all the time.” Stringer, for his part, declares himself “overwhelmed” at their “fresh”, “uplifting” and “hook-laden” new material. “Their recording career is characterised by specific sonic chapters, as is the case with most bands with great longevity,” he tells Music Week. “I think this album has a sheen and vividness, unlike previous albums, so it sounds completely contemporary. This view is clearly shared by the UK company, because they feel very passionate about the album, even though the band have been signed for 27 years now.” “This is the Manics’ 13th album for Columbia and it’s a testament to the consistency of the band’s songwriting,”
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Havana nights: When the Manics rocked Cuba Always a band to push the live envelope, Team Manics look back to the time they became the first major Western rock band to play the Communist state... So many of the Manic Street Preachers’ most defining moments have come on the live stage. Whether it’s headlining the world’s biggest indoor event in their native Cardiff on Millennium Eve, playing The Holy Bible in full to 10,000 fans at Cardiff Castle in 2015, Nicky Wire imploring someone to “build a bypass over this shithole” at Glastonbury in 1994 or Richey Edwards’ scintillating last gig at London Astoria later that year (which climaxed with the band destroying thousands of pounds worth of equipment), the Manics have never short-changed their public. One gig, though, stands out from the crowd. In February 2001, the band performed at the Karl Marx Theatre in Havana, Cuba, a month ahead of the release of their sixth album Know Your Enemy. In contrast to today’s globalised business, where no territory is off limits, the trio became the first major Western rock band to play the Communist state and met Cuban president Fidel Castro before the show (he famously asked: “It cannot be louder than war, can it?”). So whose idea was it to launch the album in Cuba? “It was mine, as per usual,” laughs Wire ruefully. “We were recording in Spain and I realised that quite a few of the lyrics were infused with that idea of Cuba standing up to the United States. It wasn’t a Communist utopia or anything like that, but the idea of that last Socialist bastion. “The album itself had a lot of political elements and there is a track specifically about Cuba, Baby Elián, so I remember saying to James, ’We should try and launch this in Havana’.” “You would never get away with something like that nowadays,” smiles manager Martin Hall. “It cost the label an absolute fortune to fly everybody there and, to be fair to Rob Stringer, he backed it. We hadn’t planned to meet Castro backstage, that was something we hadn’t expected, so it was amazing.” Their booking agent, X-ray Touring’s Scott Thomas, was another key component in bringing the plans to fruition. “It will remain for the band,
High Wire: Nicky in full live flow
for myself, and for everyone involved, one of the highlights of our career,” Thomas tells Music Week. “It was six months of intense work putting it together. It probably nearly broke us, but it was an inspiring idea. There was going to be no money at the end but it would be to be a massive statement and something we’d all remember. “I was very glad to see that, when the Rolling Stones went to Cuba recently, a lot of the media pointed out that they were some years behind Manic Street Preachers, who were trailblazers in that regard. I keep most of my memorabilia from my career in the office but there are a few things around the house from that Cuba trip.” “Fair play to Scott Thomas, he did an amazing job putting it all together,” beams Wire. “I feel a sense of bewilderment that we actually pulled it off and that Rob Stringer, again, allowed us to do it - because it was an incredibly expensive exercise. There are much easier and more cost-effective ways to launch an album. “It was such a dramatic week out there, almost like an out of body experience. Most things I can remember vividly, but I can’t remember as much of that week as I can of a shitty gig in Wolverhampton in 1991. It was like being in a film, it was an amazing experience. There were about 100 journalists at this one press conference we did and it was the most bewildering experience. I don’t think we realised how big it would be.” No regrets then? “No, I don’t think so. I’ve got plenty of regrets I’ve talked so much shit over the years - but it was so self-defeating. All we did really was lose absolutely tons of money.” So one last question: Does Wire still hope that bypass is built over Glastonbury? “As I said, I do regret a lot of things,” he chortles. “To be honest, I’m just glad it’s fucking around now because everything else has disappeared. So anything that’s older than we are, I’m glad still exists.”
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asserts Columbia UK president Ferdy Unger-Hamilton. “In my opinion the album contains some of their best work yet. The response at radio has proved consistent with that and I am expecting Resistance Is Futile to be one of the band’s best received albums.”
PHOTO: Martyn Goodacre
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microcosm of how the music business has changed, pre-streaming, the Manics achieved 34 UK Top 40 hits, but last bothered the singles chart in 2010 with (It’s Not War) Just The End Of Love. They previously scored two No.1s: If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next (1998) and Masses Against The Classes (2000), a feat Wire now considers “as distant as me flying to the sun”. “Those dreams you would have as a young kid have been totally dispersed,” he laments. “Obviously you want people to buy it and you want all those things you wanted when you were younger, but you just don’t know how that figures in the real world. “We still get a massive buzz out of hearing International Blue on radio A-lists everywhere and stuff like that. It’s still a massive part of our lives, so we’ve kind of settled for that.” After the multi-platinum success of 1996 mainstream breakthrough Everything Must Go (1,083,005 sales) and 1998 follow-up, This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours (1,051,123), the band continued on the crest of a wave, headlining the 1999 Glastonbury Festival and then Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium (now the Principality Stadium) to mark the turn of the century. What happened next is frankly inconceivable by modern music industry standards. Ditching the sweeping, orchestral sound that propelled them to rock’s top table, the Manics went lo-fi with 2001’s Know Your Enemy, a sprawling, sporadically brilliant but ultimately incoherent Motown punks: The early Manics (L-R) Richey Edwards, James Dean Bradfield, Sean Moore and Nicky Wire
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“It’s great to have a grand folly in your record canon” NICKY WIRE, MANIC STREET PREACHERS
mess of an LP, awash with anti-American sentiment. In an equally divisive move, they opted to launch the record in Cuba (see previous page). Despite charging out of the gates with two Top 10 singles released on the same day (pre-dating Ed Sheeran by 16 years), Know Your Enemy was a commercial failure, shifting a relatively disappointing 219,985 units. “The whole thing was a reaction to This Is My Truth being so big,” smiles Wire ruefully. “A lot of bands get to that point where they react against what made them huge and I guess This Is My Truth was our most arena and stadium-sounding album. “[Know Your Enemy] is such a sketchy record. There are moments on it that I truly love, but we weren’t at our most disciplined, we were quite lazy on it. And then to spend all the money going to Cuba and launching it there, I do wonder how we got away with it. But they were different times when a record company believed in you. Whether there was more money around, or people were just happier to just take a punt and run with the consequences, it’s hard to know really.” On whether he expected the record’s uncompromising themes and raw production to take such a big chunk out of the Manics’ casual fanbase, Wire confesses: “I think we were deluded at that point to think that we could still convert people, which was mad because it’s such a difficult record to comprehend what we’re on about anyway. We made it in a studio out in Spain and it was boiling hot - it wasn’t a great studio to be honest - and we were just lying around the swimming pool for days. “But it’s great to have a grand folly in your record canon. When I look back at it, I’m glad that it’s truly messed up like [The Clash’s] Sandinista! and [The Rolling Stones’] Their Satanic Majesties Request. It’s not as good as those, but it’s something we can always laugh about.” Hall admits to viewing the whole period with a distinct tinge of regret. “It took them a while to come back from that,” he concedes. “In hindsight, if we’d gone with a [acclaimed 2007 comeback album] Send Away The Tigers-type record then we could have solidified. But bands have to find their journey and that was their vision, so we backed it.” The Manics floundered further with 2004’s Lifeblood, at No.13, their lowest-charting album. But Send Away The Tigers revitalised the band, kicking off arguably the most consistent stretch of their career, encompassing 2009’s Journal For Plague Lovers (featuring leftover lyrics by Edwards), 2010’s Postcards From A Young Man and the aforementioned Rewind The Film and Futurology. “There were a few odd ones in the first 10 or 15 years but since Send Away The Tigers we’ve been on a really great run of songwriting, different concepts and different styles,” reflects Wire. “I think that’s due to a realisation of dedication and effort. “When we got to Know Your Enemy and Lifeblood, we were perhaps still basking in the huge success of This Is My Truth and Everything Must Go. There are moments of greatness on those records, but we weren’t quite as committed as we should’ve been. Even when an album doesn’t sell quite as much now as maybe we’d like it to, we know that we’ve committed to a concept, 100%.” Wire’s 2006 solo album, I Killed The Zeitgeist, and Bradfeld’s The Great Western are also credited with giving the band a new impetus. “It helped us relearn one, how much we love being in a band and two, different ways [of working],” says Wire. “I certainly relearned how to play the guitar and I’ve written a lot more tunes since that point. It gave us a good gap to look at the band and think, ‘When we actually pull it off, the three of us together, it’s a really special feeling’. So it helped, definitely.”
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EVERYTHING MUST SELL
Manics’ albums, in order of sales (Source: Official Charts Company)
1,200,00
1,083,005 Everything Must Go (1996)
1,051,123 This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours (1998)
693,524 Forever Delayed (2002)
282,014 Generation Terrorists (1992)
246,150 The Holy Bible (1994)
219,985 Know Your Enemy (2001)
172,482 Gold Against The Soul (1993)
164,090 Send Away The Tigers (2007)
124,329 Postcards From A Young Man (2010)
122,577 National Treasures (2011)
84,365 Lifeblood (2004)
200,00
55,339 Lipstick Traces (2003)
400,00
50,034 Futurology (2014)
600,00
59,557 Rewind The Film (2013)
800,00
81,427 Journal For Plague Lovers (2009)
1,000,00
0
“They have managed to stay relevant when some of their contemporaries have not because they work so diligently at their craft,” muses Stringer. “This is not a hobby or a distraction, even after all these years, and their attention to the recording process today is equal to when they were a young, upcoming band. “Some of the working class values that they have focused on in their lyrics over the years also apply to their own work ethic. Most bands fall out because of either creative or personal or business pressures or all three and, remarkably, the Manics are joined at the hip still, despite a journey that has certainly had its share of turmoil.” “They’re in a really good place,” affirms Hall. “They just wanted to go back to classic Manics songwriting. On Futurology and Rewind The Film, the decision was made to do something a bit more leftfield. They’re both great records, but not particularly commercial. Futurology probably should’ve come first because it was an easier record with potential singles on it as opposed to Rewind The Film, which was a much more introspective, acoustic album. But they’ve made a big rock record this time.” As with many seasoned rockers, the digital revolution remains something of a quandary for the Manics, especially while their physical sales continue to hold up so well. Their most popular track on Spotify is If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next, with 15.3 million streams. A Design For Life and Motorcycle Emptiness have also topped 10m. International Blue currently stands at just over 650,000. “They want to embrace and engage with streaming,” stresses Hall. “At the moment, if you look at most rock bands’ numbers, it’s hard - certainly for older bands. But we know people at Spotify, we’ve got some supporters there and obviously Apple and Amazon have come to the business as well. “Nick subscribes to Music Week, they understand the
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“This is the Manics’ 13th album for Columbia and it’s a testament to the consistency of the band’s songwriting” FERDY UNGERHAMILTON, COLUMBIA UK
business and are clever enough to know that this is the future. But their fanbase still wants the deluxe version with all the extras and the handwritten notes, so it will take a moment for that long tail of the catalogue and new records to start making impressions.” A UK arena tour, promoted by SJM Concerts, is booked for April/May, with select festival dates to follow in the summer, alongside a show at Robert Smith’s Meltdown and a handful of European support slots with boyhood heroes Guns N’Roses. “They always make bold statements and decisions, and they wanted to do [arenas] again,” explains X-ray Touring’s Scott Thomas, the band’s longtime agent. “Crucially, they knew they had the record to back it up - it is a record that demands those arena stages.” Thinking big has been a Manic Street Preachers mantra since day one, when they famously vowed to sell 16 million copies of their debut LP and then split up, and ambitions for Resistance Is Futile remain high. “Columbia seem really engaged, Jason Iley called me and said it’s his favourite new record,” states Hall. “They’re thinking about trying to get to Japan next year for the Rugby World Cup and do some gigs around that, and there might be a reissue of This Is My Truth down the line as well, so they’ll be keeping busy - they want to work all the time.” Surprisingly, for such an enduring act, the Manics have attained just one chart-topping album - This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours - two decades ago. A second would be more than welcome. “We’d like to get a No.1 album,” says Hall. “That’s achievable, but it depends on a few other things around us. “The pre-orders are really strong, the record’s really strong and we’ve got a great campaign lined up, so it feels good.” “We feel really great about the record,” concludes Wire. “We feel we’ve made, for a band approaching their 50s, a vital, uplifting album, full of love and dedication.” Looks like that book will have to wait a while longer then.
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Inside the business of music.
£6.00 | 21.05.2018 www.musicweek.com
8 1 0 2 S R E K A M HIT L E H C A R & Y E L I R Z B I R C S N MEET O I T A R E N E G T X E N E H T : R S FURNE R E T I R W G N O S R A T S R E P U OF S
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E LE RIS B E A P V RE NSTOP U REN:RVIEW ING’S T R I R A CO-W DIANE W EK INTE C WE CK: I S U M BL A THE DON IN SONG : E A LIF IZ PICKS EVER! S B THE GWRITER N O EST S B E H T
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l l ca . l u a p Paul the other one: Paul PaciďŹ co, photgraphed in London for Music Week
22 | Music Week 19.03.18
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“AIM is the punk that grew up, it has grown enormously” PAUL PACIFICO AIM
Since taking over at the Association Of Independent Music, Paul Pacifico has set about making the indie world a better place, with equality, innovation and entrepreneurship the cornerstones of his leadership. Music Week meets him to take AIM’s pulse… BY BEN HOMEWOOD PHOTOS: LOUISE HAYWOOD SCHEIFER
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ur interview with Paul Pacifico is on hold. Cake has momentarily rendered both AIM’s CEO and Music Week unable to speak. Fortunately, there’s tea on hand, too, so we’re quickly back to the business of Pacifico’s first big Music Week interview since replacing Alison Wenham at AIM in September 2016. Pacifico describes his initial 12 months as “a learning, planning year,” and touts 2018 as his “action year”. AIM is now 19 years old, and Pacifico describes it is “a punk that grew up,” and cites expansion into multiple genres and the multi-generational make-up of AIM’s current membership as the two biggest changes during that time. “It started as a movement away from the dominance of the major labels,” he says. “But as more and more young people have come into the industry and joined AIM, it has diversified and grown enormously.” All of which leads Pacifico to his mission statement: “AIM should be the beating heart of business building in music.” “To think of AIM’s membership as being just record labels feels a little bit anachronistic. These are multi-faceted music companies, they’re all about entrepreneurship and music,” he continues. “‘How do I build a business in the 21st century in music?’ That’s a really interesting question, and I think that’s what we’re trying to restructure AIM around answering. We have a crucial role to play.” Pacifico’s background in the finance industry and previous posts as CEO of the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) and president of the International Artist Organisation suggest he’s well-positioned to take AIM forward. Not to mention a founding role at session players’ body AllStars Collective and his own harmonica-puffing status as a musician. Indeed, he confides that he loves nothing more than meeting AIM members to help solve their problems. Reflecting on his time in charge – which has seen self-releasing artists
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ready, there are people in the industry who are ready, but it is a systemic problem. And it is a problem that the industry does not even see properly, because it’s too close to it. The BRITs was a very good example, the white rose was very well intentioned. The BPI should be applauded for wanting to respond to the criticism of the Grammys, to do something positive, but it wasn’t good enough. It was a nice gesture, but a gesture that was fundamentally undermined by the contents of the show. The double standard is very deeply entrenched and we need to think about that.” Is this issue a priority for you at AIM? “Absolutely. The team at AIM before me were absolutely at the leading edge of this, and I was very proud that at the FAC, we managed to actually get a female majority board. Unless we come up with ways to find pathways into our industry for a much more diverse workforce, we are in danger of hurting ourselves by fishing in an increasingly shallow pool. It’s not reflective of the talent we could have access to.” What are AIM’s other main priorities? “It’s about [answering questions like] ‘How do you raise finance?’, ‘How do you stabilise a business?’, ‘How do you protect your cashflow whilst also coming to grips with the complexity of the digital supply chain?’ You have to know a lot more about a lot more things nowadays, and AIM is there to be that sounding board.”
emerge as AIM’s fastest-growing sector – he gushes about the successes of Sampha, The xx, Because Music [see p6], Passenger and Ignition. Then, he happily reminds Music Week that last October’s Wintel report stated that independent labels represent 38.4% of the global market (“The independent community on aggregate is bigger than any individual major, that’s quite interesting”). Pacifico is an affable subject – particularly when posing for our camera in the freezing cold – and is eager to outline his masterplan. So, with refreshments in place, we roll the tape, with diversity in music the first item on the agenda… Where does AIM stand on diversity in music? “AIM is very well known for having led the diversity agenda for some years, and I think it’s great to see that debate spilling further into the mainstream and becoming currency in the industry. I think it’s important. Obviously, we partner with Music Week on the Women In Music Awards, and we’ve got our Women In Music conference every year. AIM is a small organisation and there are scarce resources, so we have to be really practical in how we think and actually deliver, to punch above our weight and affect change. What worries me is that there’s a lot of talk, but not enough practical action. Part of the piece [issue] is for the music industry to do, and part of it exists in the context of our society. And there’s a broader conversation about how we educate our kids, how we want to inform and instruct our society. But there is absolutely a role in the music industry to take leadership, to affect change and to make it better.” Is the industry ready to change? “Honestly, no, I don’t think it is. I think it wants to be
24 | Music Week 19.03.18
A frank ocean: Paul Pacifico
“AIM should be the beating heart of business building in music” PAUL PACIFICO AIM
How can AIM help businesses or artists in the independent sector? “We are working hard to bring a little bit of cash into start-up businesses, which may be a self releasing artist or micro label. Then it’s the stability moment, where you’ve been through start-up and you’re now getting to a stability phase. That’s really important, and covers a very large number of businesses, from post-start-up to established labels that could’ve been around for 10 or 15 years. The question then is how we get those businesses to scale up. How do we really start to get a next generation of the established independent community to become brands that we all know? Part of that challenge is funding, part of that challenge is structure, access to markets, and really that’s where AIM needs to be operating with a real focus on each area.” So, will we see new companies growing to the level of, say, Because or Transgressive? “Yes I think we will. Look at labels like Boy Better Know; clearly it is a music business [now]. The thing I wonder about is how they will cluster. Obviously, we’re at the end of the Warner divestment process, there are clearly challenges around how that’s unfolded, and how those catalogues integrate into the independent community. So, yes, there are challenges, but we see some green shoots, too.” We’ve arrived at the big question. What are the real differences between independent labels and the majors? “I think about this a lot, and I’m not anti-big businesses, I just try to be realistic about where we overlap, and where we don’t. Major labels operate mainly on a market share basis: ‘you win, I lose’. To the independents, it’s ‘If you win I might have a better chance at winning next time.’ Because they’ve made the point to that playlist committee, shown that media partner, distributor, whoever it might be, that there is traction there for independent artists and independent music
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and that genre, whatever it might be’. Look at sync, where you have some amazing specialist businesses within AIM like Ninja Tune, where they have such an incredible reputation for good rights management. Music supervisors can go to them and know what they specialise in, what they stand for, that the rights chain will be clear, everything will happen very efficiently, and be a very reasonable conversation. That builds the independents’ reputation, and what we’ve noticed is that sync is a huge area of opportunity for our members. The independent space remains a really interesting, exciting and attractive market. The [levels of] opportunity to build really strong businesses has never been stronger.” Are the majors on a pedestal, with higher resources, looking down on the indies? “That’s a really good question, you’ve got three main companies with access to large parent company balance sheets, so for them cost isn’t necessarily a critical issue. For the independent community, finding funding from outside its ecosystem remains a challenge. That said, as the model evolves and, for example, streaming becomes mainstream, we see annuity revenues increasing in labels that are building catalogues. I think the access to capital question will resolve itself, and at that point you have to really ask yourself why you would step into [debating] major vs. indie? The question becomes much more about strategy than about money. And maybe it becomes much more about art, I would like to think it does.” Does the indie sector get a raw deal from streaming companies? “There have been some incredibly insightful decisions made over the years; the formation of Merlin was
a masterstroke, Merlin’s now 10 years old and is absolutely at the cutting edge of deal-making with digital platforms. It provides an incredible opportunity for the smaller independents to take advantage of similar rates to the best commercial rates available. I think they do an incredible job and the interplay between Merlin and AIM, for example, is very healthy. They go off and do the commercial deals, we don’t get involved in that, but we’re there for the community, to inform, educate and support.”
“Independent music, over time, stands to do very, very well from streaming” PAUL PACIFICO AIM
So it’s not easier for major artists to get on playlists, for example? “Independent music tends to have far lower skip rates than the rest of the market, and it tends to over-index in subscription streaming. So our most passionate fans seem to be drawn towards independent music. I don’t think that’s any surprise to anybody because it tends to be the more interesting content. Independent music, over time, stands to do very, very well from streaming because, ultimately, the fans decide. If artists are making incredible music and fans are connecting with it, then there’s a very positive future for us. Independent labels are showing time and again that their cutting edge A&R expertise is second to none. Their ability to make great things happen on very scant resources is unbelievable. Look at major label A&R spend vs. indie A&R spend and the relevant market shares, there’s some really interesting maths to be done there. At the same time, the draw to homogenisation for the majors, with big global marketing campaigns, goes against the democratisation and the opportunity we have in streaming to specialise and provide really, really great content.” You’ve referenced innovation frequently since starting at AIM, how foward-thinking is the independent sector? “Smaller businesses move quickly, they see opportunity and go for it, they don’t have to call LA to ask permission. Lots of piloting of new technology happens with the independents. One of the things we started last year was a partnership with Digital Catapult, the government-funded tech accelerator. Hopefully it brings good products to market quicker, that are ready to be used by the industry. We do those sessions quarterly. AIM’s Music Connected is coming up [on April 20], the UK’s biggest digital music conference. If our sector wasn’t interested in innovation, we wouldn’t be doing those things, we do them to respond to the thirst for that next tool.” How does the wider music industry view AIM? “I get a real sense that they feel that AIM is fizzing and that we’re into some really interesting areas. Obviously, I’ve come in as a new CEO after 18 years of organic growth, so there have been things that I’ve wanted to change, to restructure, to respond better to our members, to be more representative, to mirror better the voice of entrepreneurship in music today. Those changes are starting to take effect. The team have responded brilliantly.”
I sea you: Paul Pacifico with FAC artist in residence Imogen Heap and (right) holding court at the AIM Awards 2017
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So, when you get to the end of ‘action year’, where should AIM be? “Anybody thinking about coming into music professionally should be looking at AIM and saying, ‘I need to be part of that, that’s where access to information, news and innovation is going on.’”
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