I've been managing rock bands for 32 years. I started when I was 26 years old, when I managed ACDC and on their first record, Highway to Hell. I thought I would spend a couple minutes discussing what a manager did or does, because a lot of people don't know.
may know, but you may, you know, and so I figured I would discuss a couple things. First of all, like I said, I've been managing bands for 32 years. I started with ACDC in 1979. They gave me Highway to Hell.
I confidently predicted it would be, so at least 500. 300,000 records worldwide which they thought was very good because their last record only sold 300,000 records worldwide ended up selling 15 million copies and I was now a manager obviously and So if everybody ever asks me how I got started and what tips I had I suggest right Absolutely manage ACDC and manage their biggest record of all time and you're a manager so it's a very tough task for anybody to follow into that and then I managed Def Leppard and and and a bunch of other bands through the 80s. We picked up Metallica in 1984. I've been managing ever since. In the 90s, we moved from what Americans would call hair band music to grunge, and we started managing Screaming Trees, Veruca Salt, Courtney Love, or Hole, Smashing Pumpkins, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
And then in the 00s and the 10s, we were all over the place. And along the lines of... I've managed to do one album with Madonna, Ray of Light, and one album with the Rolling Stones, Steel Wheels, and a tour.
And those are the high points of my career. Louise knows my career better than I do, so I check with her. So what does a manager do?
Well, that's an interesting question. A manager, in my case, we try... A manager is basically all things to an artist. I can relate it if you're a painter.
Maybe it was the person who ran your gallery. If you were a writer, it was either your agent or the book editor that told you that the sixth chapter had to be fixed. Right? I suppose. So what you do with an artist essentially is everything you can possibly do for an artist.
Tell them what songs they should record that they've written. Tell them which songs stink. Tell them which songs are great. Suggest what video directors they should make. You know, help them book their tours.
Lend them money. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of lending the money.
to artists in the hopes that they become successful. It's listening to their conversations. It's helping them through their personal problems. It's helping through their personal problems.
That's a lot of that, too. It's trying to keep bands together. Bands are like marriages, or in the case of most of you, relationships. Bands are passive-aggressive.
They smile at each other a lot, but underneath the surface they seethe with anxiety about... shares of songwriting or more spotlights. And then, of course, some of them pick up girlfriends who wonder why they're not in the spotlight. But it really turns out that the biggest, both the plus and minus of bands is that they don't really talk to each other very much.
If any of you guys are in bands, the first thing you can do every day is say, what's bothering you to your guitar player or singer or drummer? And if nothing is, fine. Maybe you don't have to do it every day, every week. So I thought also, by example, I would...
I would tell you. So in the last... I'll give you some examples of what we do.
And the first one, and this is... Andy, where are you? Are you ready to go? There he is, okay. We manage Snow Patrol, right?
A very successful song they recorded a couple years ago. It's a song called Just Say Yes. I don't know if you know this song. I thought I would play you the Gary Lightbody demo of it, just about two minutes, that he wrote, right?
And then I'll play you the final version, about two minutes of it. And then I'll explain to you what the... manager did to change that song into being the demo, you know, to a fairly successful single. So if Andy will play the song, it's called Just Say Yes, for those of you who don't know it.
First one first, second one second. The first one's the demo. I want you to stay here beside me I won't be okay and I won't pretend I am So just tell me today and take my hand Please take my hand Please take my hand Please take my hand Please take my hand Just say yes Just say there's nothing holding you back It's not a test, nor a trick of the mind's only love Running out of ways to make you see I want you to stay here beside me I won't be okay and I won't pretend I am So just tell me today, take my heart, please We heard that song, we knew it was a hit, but we knew something had to happen to it. So we called up Gary and his producer Jack Knifeley and said, we need tempo. The song has to be more up.
Which is if you hear if any of you musicians in here you'll know that you'll notice that the second version moves along quicker and In fact the chorus gets lifted because he sings it you know like an octave up or something like that That's what a manager does You might think that that's what the musician should do, and we would hope that he would do that also, but sometimes he needs guidance. So that's one example. The second example is today the Foles are playing the Albert Hall. I don't have any Foles here because they're still waking up because they're in a sound check soon.
But I do have people who can tell you that the first time I suggested to the Foles they play the Royal Albert Hall, they said, no way, not a chance. We can't do that. We're the Foles. We're too cool. to play the Albert Hall.
I go, no, you're not. You should play the Albert Hall. And then when we put the show on sale, it sold out, much to their surprise. And I said to them, it sold out so quickly, we should play a second show at the Albert Hall.
And they said, but we can't. I said, oh, but you can. You can play one in the afternoon. They said, oh, we can't do that. Bands can't play two shows in one day.
I go, when I was growing up, bands did it all the time. In fact, I think jazz musicians still do it. So I had to spend another month convincing them to play a matinee.
show, which is also sold out. And then the third thing we said to them to make it really just a whole lot of fun for a rock band is, we're going to film the whole thing. So today, and oh, what's another example of what a manager does?
So those are all my ideas. There are people here who will tell you that. We're going to film the whole thing, and then we would go to our record company and say, we want to film the Albert Hall. And they would say, that's a lot of money. We say, okay, I believe that the Falls will be a very big band, and I'd like to film the day of my birthday, their shows.
and I will contribute half the money. So in this case, the manager The company is writing a check for 75,000 pounds, which is one half of the filming costs of the Royal Albert Hall. Another thing that managers do. You're all going, oh my God, I thought it was easy.
Just a phone and an iPhone. No, it's not that simple. I could go on for days and days about things that managers do. I mean, some of them are musical, some of them are financial.
Twenty years ago, or however long ago it was, when we first met and I wanted to go into the music business, I was in the music business. I remember one thing you said to me that was completely inspirational to me. You said, at my company, we look forward to Mondays, not Fridays. Because that's how much you loved your job.
And I want to know, and I thought, oh my God, imagine if I could wake up every morning and look forward to Mondays instead of Fridays. And to me, that was the whole secret of life. What was it about the record business that made you want to fling over the preordained path from a... middle class, privileged boy from Scarsdale who is expected to go be a lawyer. You had to throw the privilege part in.
Sorry. I think it's important because, you know, it's an escape for you as much as anybody else. What was it about you that made you say no to parental expectations, becoming a lawyer or an accountant and take those 400 records up to college and do nothing except run the college radio station, which is how he basically got into the record business? Well, listen, let's be honest.
Free records. free concert tickets and I own two suits one of which I met the Queen in I bought just to meet the Queen so the answer basically that that was it in a nutshell I mean look when I first started working at Lieber Krebs the company that I got fired from but I asked for my job back I was making okay ten thousand pounds a year a 1978 that was okay but it was ten thousand back then back back then when I was young, if you made, if you got to the point of you were making $1,000 for every year you were old, somehow that was a level of success. So if I ever got to 20, that time I was 25, if I got to $25,000 a year for 25 years old, somehow I was a big success. I don't really, I don't know if that equates in 2013. So basically, but then when I started, and I didn't know, by the way, I had no idea how to manage a band.
The other tell you, I forgot, is if you're going to manage a band for the first time, make sure when they do put the, if they have the world's biggest record at the time, any mistake you make is completely covered up by the success of the record. Because at a certain point in time, records, you know, if I were managing a Dell and I was 26 years old, it wouldn't make a difference. You think I'd stop her selling 25 million records? There's nothing I could have done about that. So the truth of the matter is that ACDC was a giant success and I was learning on the job.
In the late 70s, in the In the old days, let's call Led Zeppelin, people, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Tony DiCiaccio, people used to get paid in cash, like literally, the famous suitcases of cash, you've heard about these stories? By the time the late 70s came around, you would actually take a check from a promoter, like a piece of paper, because you trusted them to pay you. The job of the tour accountant was to go to each show and to make sure that you pick up the check, essentially. You settled the show, you paid some expenses, and that was my job. I was the one who paid the bills.
I was the world's worst tour accountant. Couldn't account, my books were always off, but they thought it was fun to have around. But that's when ACDC started supporting Aerosmith, and that's how I met them.
What was it about ACDC, the band, that made you think, these guys are great, they've got more than they're showing, and... And plus, I can handle them even though I'm just a 25-year-old tour captain. Okay. The guys in ACDC are from Scotland.
They moved to Australia. They're all very small, right? And so... and people really ignored them. Australians have a chip on their shoulder.
Sorry, any Australians? I mean they have this giant chip on their shoulder because they're from a place that is 18 hours away from anything that's civilized, except Australia. And so they came in with an idea that they were never going to, that people were going to abuse them.
Their brother George Young had been in a band called the Easy Beach. He'd written a classic song called Friday on my mind, but he'd gotten ripped off. So when he sent his younger brothers out to the world with an Australian manager there was always this fear that somebody was going to pull something off on them and in fact they signed the worst record deal I have ever seen in my entire life with Atlantic Records yeah right so on a 15 album deal it was a 15 album deal right it's all you know but anyway when we solved that problem what happened basically was I'd never okay I'll tell you the story I don't know if you all for me with ACDC I'd only ever I'd never seen them play I bought an album of theirs called power age and on the cover was a picture, a drawing of a little guy with a schoolboy uniform with horns. I thought, oh cute, they have a mascot.
Or it's a logo. I had no idea. So it's like July 3rd, 1978 and I'm at this Aerosmith gig in Lubbock, Texas and I'd never seen him perform before.
This car pulls up, a station wagon, and five of the smallest people on the planet get out and one tour manager named Ian Jeffery, who's bigger, and I go, can you please go on stage now? in Lubbock, Texas is getting kind of anxious. Four of them said, we're ready to go. But the fifth one had to go change into what I now realize was a brown schoolboy uniform with a satchel and a hat. And I'm like, you're the guy on the cover.
And then he basically said in his sort of Scottish. Got on stage and basically ran around like the Energizer buddy for 45 minutes. I'd never seen anything like that before. I mean, literally the Energizer buddy was unbelievable, like this, back and forth, back and forth.
And then he gets on a small guy's shoulder, the singer, who's just yelling into the microphone, unintelligible words as far as I'm concerned, and runs into the audience. What made your bosses at Labor Crabs think... that you could handle ACDC as manager?
They didn't have a choice. You had a key man clause? Yeah.
He had a key man clause. For you people who don't know, as a key man clause, the band will sign to a management company or a label and say, if this guy is our manager, manager we will sign to you whether it was an official key man clause they just said we like mench will come but mench has to handle it was official because in 1981 when I got fired by the way that's the other part I mentioned that part about being a manager ACDC hired me in 79 fired me in 1981 while they were making for those about to rock and then my my partners Lieber Krebs wouldn't pay me so my key man clause became very important but that's we don't have to talk about we'll do that later okay let's get to some questions from the students here because there are some fantastic questions. The first one comes from Caris Jones, who's, where is she?
Hi Caris. So she's a media undergraduate and she wants to know, do you think you learn by experience if you go into the record business or do you think that a course in music management, these academic courses that are being offered these days have value? And as a choral, would you require somebody that came to work for you to have studied music management or to have taken a course on it? Are there any teachers in the building?
I have a master's degree in social sciences from the University of Chicago. My partner, Cliff, was getting his Ph.D. in demography. I don't think there's an employee or a co-worker we've ever had who's ever gotten a degree in the music business.
It's not to say it shouldn't be a wonderful idea, and I can appreciate the fact, because there was no... You couldn't... Back when we started, there was no class in it.
You learned how to read a contract on the fly. Like, oh, my... Oh my god, there's a chapter in clause 23, you better learn that one.
So the answer basically is that, no, you really have to have a... Yes, there's nothing... It's not a bad thing to go to music school business classes, A, B, but you really have to like music. Because in case you were wondering, it's gotten a lot tougher to make money in the music business, both as an artist...
Do we have any musicians here? Okay, okay, we can talk about that later. And as the people making money, because by the way, if musicians don't make money, you don't make any money. In other words, it's like, I don't make any money unless they earn money.
So the bottom line basically is, and it's getting harder and harder to earn money because record companies tend to only sign what's popular. Fewer people are buying records. And if anybody tells me one more time about how live is going to save the world, I will tell you this, another corollary of the music business is, big record sales, big ticket sales follow big record sales.
big record sales, right? And so, you know, the answer basically is if a band can play the O2 Arena here in London, which is really how everybody makes money, including the band, right, it's because enough people want to go to the O2 Arena. That usually means they bought the record.
Okay, you're welcome. I'm going to ask another question from Gemma Hall. Gemma, is she around here? Anyway, she submitted a question.
Why are the people all in the front row? She submitted a question which was kind of similar to Karis's, but she had another little question at the end. the end which I want to add in which I think is important you just said that you have to love music is there a way in which somebody that wants to be a music manager can be like Beethoven maybe tone-deaf doesn't particularly love music but is completely business minded and has a little creative experience and can still do the job is there a model of music manager that's a businessman purely and can do the job like that or is this a requirement that you love music Musicians, put your hands up again. Anybody shows up and says they don't like music, run as far away from them as possible. Because...
That's like, who would ever do that? That's insane. Yeah.
It's like, I'll give you another example. We manage Jimmy Page, the guitar player, and Led Zeppelin. And we...
I was... We were hired... by him in 2007 fired by him in 2009 and rehired by him in 2012 because they had done a concert the o2 in 2007 and they recorded it and filmed it but for five years the DVD couldn't come out because and the members of lives up and let's put it mildly were squabbling over it so I came in and said And Jimmy said to me that sound is terrible. I said well I have a suggestion let's get Alan Mulder to mix it.
Jimmy Page says I've never heard of Alan Mulder. I go trust me. So Alan Mulder who's an excellent mixer did the Falls record went in and mixed it. You can't do things like that as a manager. then you're screwed.
I'd happen to know Alan Mulder's a brilliant mixer because I've heard his mixes. He did Smashing Plum is the Melancholy of Infant Sadness. I knew I was recommending to three guys who started in the business when I was in knee pants, right?
Somebody that they'd never heard of. to mix their two-hour DVD and audio CD. And if anybody's heard the record, it turned out brilliantly. Of course, they're a brilliant band, and they played it well. So the answer is, I would never, ever have been managed by anybody who was just business.
That's crap. The business part of it's this big. This big. Okay.
The next one I'm going to jump to is from Sarah Miles, who's at Point Blank Music College. And she wants to know something I'm sure lots of young kids in the audience want to know. I want to know when I was 18. Which is, I want to go into the record.
record business what's the best way to go about it how do you build your contacts you don't know anybody you're starting from scratch how would you advise the ambitious young person that wants to get in to get a foot in the door that's a good question Steve Matthews, how do you get into the record business? Because I never was in the record business, I was in the management business. I mean, I think basically, you know, I guess you try and intern, and you try and intern, you have to have parents that are willing to put your... up for years, you try and intern long enough that someone will convert. We started to do that at Q Prime, for example.
We have interns from universities, and what we're trying to do now is basically we pay them and we're trying to... to if we have a job opening and we're talking at the lowest possible level like answering the phones right we try to give the intern the job because you know it's normally what ends up happening nowadays is the music business is so small they only want to experience people so you have to do is basically suck it up for three years right and offer to do everything and hopefully they'll understand that you're smart and you know that getting the 300th cup of coffee at Starbucks is is not the best use of your time this This one is from Emma Price, and she's a student at the University of East Anglia. And this is a question probably lots of people have.
You love music, but you manage your roster is incredibly varied. I mean, you've had the Smashing Pumpkins. You've got the Black Keys, who just won the most Grammys out of anybody at the Grammy Awards this year. You've got Metallica, Cassiara's Pure Pop.
They're so different styles of music. Josh Groban on the one hand, and Chili Peppers on the other. How do you manage your roster? How do you manage to be consistently good through such different styles of music and manage acts across such a wide range?
I'm really smart. No, no, no. You are. No, no, no.
I like music basically and I like challenges. So when... it's just, it's all interesting.
Like you, I want to learn. So my feeling basically is that if you present me either... A, you tell me, I figure out that you're smart.
B, that you're a nice person. I think that's a good thing. Q Prime, for example.
So once we've got that, and then you have talent in your chosen field. And the other thing about it is for us, as managers, and I would say the same thing for baby managers out there, is that what you don't want to try and do is you don't want to manage the fourth version. Let's say, for example, the new movement in England, or maybe it's not in England, but it's in America, is Mumford & Sons. I don't know what you want to call that. Electric folk music with a banjo, right, basically.
You know, it's like... you know inevitably what will happen in the record was it always happens is they'll someone will sit there go hey I've got where's my Mumford and Sons or something? Oh, where's my Adele?
The answer is basically great So they're gonna go they'll go to the schools and look for the next Adele and the answer is The next Adele will be a you know will be not as good as the first Adele because she's there's only one Adele So you really want to try and you really want to come come up with something You want to either by the way as a musician you want to be something unique Because you never want any way something go right you sound just Just like Jamiroquai. Well, that didn't work, or that doesn't work now, so we're going to move on from that. And the same as a manager, you want to have something that no one else has, because if you look around, what sells well or what is successful turns out to be unique.
I can safely say that with very few exceptions in my management roster, most of my bands sort of have their own niche. I mean, Gillian Welch, a favorite of ours, because it turns out he's a favorite of David Cameron's, is an acoustic folk duo. country folk duo from Nashville.
Nobody else does what Gillian Waltz does. Certainly when Anthony Kiedis opens his mouth, it's Anthony Kiedis. And Metallica, there are 15 people who we used to get tapes on going, they're the next Metallica, be it Slayer, be it whatever.
But they're not. There's Metallica. Even Def Leppard for the 25 years.
John Bon Jovi has to acknowledge the fact that Def Leppard came first. I think when I hear the Foles, when Yanis Philipakis opens his mouth, or more importantly, plays his guitar, nobody else sounds like that. that. Right?
You know, and so I like that, you know, so I'd rather be, I'd rather fail with someone who's unique than somewhat to be successful with someone who's a complete copy. The reason I like Kasia Conway is because she reminds me a little bit of Courtney Love in that sort of like I'm a girl, right? And, but it's pop. And so it's, you know, it's like I said, she's got, she's got attitude.
I like people with attitude. With a lot of bands and artists going a bit more DIY than they have in the past, they're like, you guys are used to it. How, how...
companies like Hugh Pride kind of modernize to account that? I know you don't think that life will just save everything for us. Oh, well... What's going to change?
Well, what's going to change? What's going to change is that... Okay, let me, let me, let me, let me take...
tell you this, is that it depends on your scope. If you just want to be big in England, you can probably do it on your own. You can make your record, you can borrow some money to make copies of it, or put it on iTunes so you can buy it. The problem becomes if you ever want to leave England and you want to be big in Germany, or Italy, or France, or America, or Japan, or Australia, or any of the other 123 countries in the world that buy recorded music, then you need a company to do that in each country.
country because you can't do that on your own. I guarantee you. Well maybe you can and if you can please give me a call and tell me how you did it so we can do it ourselves.
So I still need the record business to basically market and sell my records in other places in my home country. But in North America where Q Prime is based, what I've done with my management company is now I have ten promotion people, I have three marketing people, I have an internet person so I have a record company. company. So now, for example, the next record that comes out by our group Dawes, you've never heard of, record after that for Baroness, you might have heard of them, right, the Silverstone pickups, and in fact, Metallica, for that matter, will come out on their own record label through my management company.
So I'm just replacing the record company, but I still need someone, either I pay them or the record company does, to take my record to a radio station in San Francisco or in Baltimore. Now, in London, it's easier. You go to Radio One in your home. so you don't really need that.
But in France, with RTL or various special stations, or Germany or Italy, somebody's going to have to do that. So it's becoming more DIY in terms of making music, in terms of making videos. And people are buying it. The Lumineers record, everybody knows that record? They must have recorded that for a buck.
It doesn't really make... Monsters and Men. Maybe they slicked it up a little for radio. But people are doing this stuff, which is great because... Because the cost of entry is cheaper, but the internet is full of mp3s.
You might have put some up yourself, for all I know. And you're wondering why no one's listening to them. It's because music, like everything else, film, theater, art, has always had a filter.
It's a critic if it's filmed. Maybe you go to every movie that gets shown. I don't.
I read the New York Times. Someone says, this movie is great. I'll probably go.
Someone says, this movie is lousy. Guess what? I'm not going to see it. the last Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. As much as I like Arnold Schwarzenegger, I'm old, I know, because they got a lousy review.
The truth of the matter is the music business, first the record company and then radio stations have been the filter. And I know everybody grouses about the fact that they never got their chance. Turns out, like these six records or bands, their records weren't good enough.
They just weren't good enough for them to make a living as musicians. How does your your managing strategy differ? You were kind of spoiled in a way because your first band was ACDC and you were riding a rocket ship to the moon right away.
But sometimes you take a band and it's not initially working and you have to nurture them and break the band. How does that strategy differ? You've got a baby act. Can we talk about the falls for example? Is that a good example to talk about?
We met, we started managing the falls after their first record. It sold a hundred thousand records in England. It had a hit single ish Cassius. Cassius right?
Right. We basically have haven't made a dime. Tony, have we made any money from the Foles yet? No. We haven't made a dime from the Foles since 2009. 10, 9, 8, whatever it was.
The last tour of America, we paid for it, the management company. Tonight, we're spending 75,000 pounds of my own money, you know, within the company to fund their tour. video so the strategy basically is is to manage the act as if they're going to be a big band so do all the right things but because they can't afford them figure out a way to pay for them does that make sense yeah so if Alan Mulder for example the second record total life forever we had a recording budget at Warner Brothers 7 Tara how much ninety thousand pounds she's not here ninety thousand pounds we exceeded it Warner Brothers Wouldn't finish the record We did So that's your manager as your master as you treat them the same way You know, how are the songs? How can they be better?
How's the live show doing make it better? You need more crew fine. You need in ear in ear microphones to sing better.
We pay for all that stuff It's a bit of going to the roulette table. You know, Becquerel, James Bond. It's like we put it all on red and we hope it works.
You know, this one is from Chloe, Chloe Gin, or Gin, Chloe Gin, at the University of the Creative Arts. and she says how do you manage to keep your chin up and keep making successful business when the record business is under such strain from piracy and everything else did I tell you I was smart no no but we have good taste I'll be honest with you the answer basically is you know we've taken out we take on very few clients and you know I said we have made wrong bets although I think pop etc still on the shot but you know you know you basically hear music and if you if you know if you believe in the music and you believe they have a long career in other words it's not just either of the moment or just and that's a lot of pop music as you can imagine of the moment you know the answer you know yeah listen I'd like to manage Calvin Harris he's clearly more than a one-hit wonder right you know it's like you know somebody figured out that Calvin Harris you know was good and now it turns out he's really successful you know I yesterday I met the manager of Ellie Goulding she's pretty successful too right The question for me on Ellie Goulding will be, let's hear the second Ellie Goulding record. I haven't heard it yet.
How do you choose which artist you would like to work with? Kouaz Fahadi, who is at Point Blank Music College, asked a similar question, which is, when you're looking for talent, how do you evaluate the values of the band and the artist that you want to manage? God, sorry.
I wish I could quantify it. You manage Jimmy Page because he's Jimmy Page. You manage Madonna because she's Madonna. You manage Josh Groban, who you're not sure about.
because you don't ever listen to any of his records because Josh Groban interviews 25 managers you get down to the finals but you lose three months later Josh Groban calls you up and says I made a mistake by the way artists you ever want to make your manager happy one day say I made a mistake to them you were right the manager will live off that for years this is from James's point and it's very similar to the question we just asked now but it's flipping it this is how you pick an artist. If you are an artist or a band and you want a manager to be interested in you, how do you know from a musician's point of view, what advice would you give them if they want to secure management for themselves or their act? Number one at Q Prime, this is by the way our philosophy, not necessarily everybody's magic philosophy, we don't care how good or bad you are live. Couldn't give you a good answer.
Not at all. Because what everybody remembers after nuclear winter and we're all all wiped out and only the cockroaches are left are the songs. It's about the songs. It's always about the songs.
It's the songs, the songs, the songs. Because guess what I can do for you? I can put you on tour. And gig one, you'll be terrible.
First saw Def Leppard, Joe Elliott split his pants. He couldn't hit the nose. Not so he can hit them now, but 100 shows later.
I can tell you right now, I went to see the Foles in Paris on Monday. I've seen the Foles since I saw them that day at Reading Festival when And Yanis Filippakis, basically, instead of facing the audience, sang the whole show like this. And I said to him, if you want me to manage you, you're going to have to face the audience. Tonight, he faces the audience. But the truth of the matter is, they're so much better.
Why? They played 150 shows. You get better. So that's the one. As for picking another manager, when people ask me, when I turn them down, I say, find a manager that's had more than one.
than one hit act that they've broken. Because here's the one thing I've learned for 30 years, and this applies to managers, artists, A&R men. First one, that's luck.
Easy, right? Luck. Ocean Color Scene. Luck.
Owl City. Luck. Maybe even the Lumineers. Luck. One record.
It's the second record. The artist's second record. It's the manager's second client. Right? You know what I'm saying?
that they've broken, not that they've inherited. If someone decided to have me manage to take that, I can't sit there and say, I broke, take that. Of course I didn't.
I can tell you, though, on Madonna, the record that we made, Ray of Light, sold 15 million copies. It's her second biggest record of all time. Her record sales were in a slump. So I can safely say I took a brand name, like Madonna, and doubled her record sales. You know, so...
I think I had something to do with that. What did I have to do with that? I picked the right first single, Frozen. She thought it should be Ray of Light.
She was wrong. A year later, in her begrudging way, she said, you were probably right. it was what frozen should have been the first single yes Madge that's why you've sold 15 million records but so seriously you wanna you wanna pick somebody who likes what you're doing but the same time because your future's in their hands remember you're like the baby birds and I'm like the mommy bird and I have to feed you, that you think actually has chops, like broke band X and broke band Y. And you know, maybe didn't have luck with band Z, but has a track record.
We've got two that go well together. Zoe asks, let's talk about money. What do you think is a reasonable percentage for a manager to ask in today's climate, especially if, as you know, let's say you with the Foles, you're half manager, half backer.
And so you're putting up some of the money. What is a reasonable percentage for a manager to ask of his client? It starts at 15 and it ends at 20. But the other thing is that a lot of managers act like consultants in that they charge expenses back.
So I'm over here today for the Falls show and to talk to all of you. Normally what would happen is I would have the Falls pay for my airfare. But I'm also here to talk to Jimmy Page.
We had a meeting with him yesterday. yesterday. At 2 o'clock I have a meeting at Universal Music about a joint venture we're doing with them.
So we don't charge our expenses back. None of them, period, ever. Right?
So our average rate probably ends up being 70 and a half percent. Right, okay. Of the gross.
And of the gross. Not of the net. Because, and I'll tell you, hang on. Sometimes the guys at Metallica, one of the form members have been, how many jets, Tony? Three?
Three jets. Three private planes. They can do that with their money, not with my money.
So I'm not going to commission on the net, I'm going to commission on the gross. And they can spend their money any way they want to. For all you private plane-wanderers, I'm not going to pay for your private plane.
He says, if he wants to be a manager, and he's a baby manager starting out, and he finds an act that he thinks... Then you're my competition. And then you're his competition.
He thinks this act's got potential. How does he prevent the situation where he nurtures them, gets them to a stage where he thinks he can get record company management, and having done all the work to break them, a bigger firm like Q Prime swoops in and takes them off their hands? C-O-N-T-R-A-C-T. Get a signed contract. Contract.
Notice, by the way, record companies have signed contracts, so managers have signed contracts. How do you make sure they're all given the right level of... level of attention and how to make sure that one act isn't jealous of another. It's like we have what 13 clients probably 14 they don't all make records at once right so what's going on right now Metallica is in the process of editing a 3d movie the chili peppers are finished fleas now and Adams for peace he's got to go write a new record that's two years away the guys in the black keys are writing a new record muses on tour in America we're working their single madness which wasn't hit in England hit in America, right?
Snow Patrol is on hiatus, Gary Lapoi just finished a Tired Pony record. There's, you know, we're working, the Foles, sorry, Foles we're working, there's a new Josh Goldberg. In any given year, any given time, I'm working three artists, in terms of work every day. But, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean that I can't spend 15 minutes with my partner Cliff listening to three Metallica songs and making a comment on them as they're being recorded. So do you think there's a limit to how big...
big you would let Q Prime get so that you could give all your artists individual attention? Only as big as my imagination. Would you like to be like Frontline?
No. I wouldn't want to manage 100. I don't trust anybody that manages 300 bands. Sorry. Okay. Fair enough.
Let's see. Okay. This is from Nicholas Saavedra.
He says, as your company did in the 90s, although it was more like the 80s when you decided to manage rock bands, have you decided to manage electronic music artists? And we've had several questions along the lines of how do you stick to rock music when pop music is in vogue? Obviously you're a silent cacher but it must have been a little bit difficult for you.
If you look at the story of Q Prime up until Kurt Cobain came along you had a pretty solidly heavy metal roster. It was like pretty solidly heavy metal roster then 1991 comes along Cobain kills your entire shtick stone cold death. He did too by the way.
When he killed himself of We showed up, you killed everything off. Bye. So Historia sells 50 million records.
What happens to you? Do you sit there and think? That's it, I'm finished, my career is over. How do you turn on a diamond and make sure that you can carry on being a manager?
It's all about the songs. We heard great songs. We heard Veruca Salt doing Seether. Veruca Salt's...
Okay. Did I say there was a big portion of luck in my job? Veruca Salt's lawyer named Rosemary Cowell had a meeting with Veruca Salt.
They called their album American Thighs. We said, I managed the band that wrote that song. You shook me all night long.
You're right, you did. Please manage. us. They opened for Courtney Love, Hole.
I went to see them in Columbus, Ohio. Courtney Love, I just had to see what Courtney Love was all about because she was already Courtney Love. That's in the 90s. I'd never seen anything like it.
The next day she came and sat there and said to me, you know, Kurt always said, that's how she started all of her conversations, if he ever fired his manager, he'd go with the guys who managed Metallica. Would you manage me? And I said, sure. What bands do you think could be more successful if you were managing them?
And by the way, all of them. is not an acceptable answer. Most of them? I don't know.
I don't know. It's hard to say. I can't tell you that. Oh, come on. Don't wish that.
No, I'm wishing that. I couldn't. I don't know. I mean, the answer... Okay.
Any band... Okay, what? All right.
Here's a good rule of thumb. I think I would do better with any band. Now, how do I say it, though?
Because my bands, the success, all of our bands, absolutely trust our judgment on music. music that they make. Because we come in and tell them exactly what we're telling you.
It's all about the music. It's all about the music. So the trick is that I would say that anybody that makes a seminal record and then follows it up with a piece of music I would do a better job on, provided they would sit there and say to me, the songs you're writing to follow up your seminal record are pieces of music.
Go write new songs. A lot of times what ends up happening for bands and managers is they believe their... doesn't smell anymore.
The manager doesn't want to sit there and... and say, it really does smell, because the manager doesn't want to get fired. When something really, really negative happens in a band, the lead singer walks out, Cliff Burton dies, the bassist quits, how do you keep people together? It's because they're a band. A band is like a marriage, right?
No one else wants to leave in the band. It may take weeks, ACDC, months. Metallica took us with Def Leppard Rick Rick Allen losing his arm and Steve Clarke dying a year but it's a band and it's their job and so they just can't stop and so you just basically sit there and go Like you do it like with anything else. Can I be of any help?
What can we do? Do you have any suggestions? The Chili Peppers. John Frusciante left after, by the way.
We gave him a list of guitar players. They ended up hiring Josh Frusciante. Josh Klinghoffer, who was the guitar player who played with John Frusciante on the last tour.
You do your best to help out. And you tell people to take your time. Why would you fire a client? What would make you say... They'd stop listening to us.
That's it. They don't listen to you? Done.
Bye. No matter how much money they're making you? Bye.
Bye. And by the way, good luck. Because why aren't they not listening to us? They're not listening to us because we've told them their songs aren't good enough. I mean, if you think about it, you're an artist, right?
You know, how do you take criticism of your material? I mean, think about that. It's hard. It's hard for someone to say it isn't good enough. You think it's great.
Your mother says it's great. Your best friend says, oh my God, you should be number one. I say it's not good enough.
And I'm probably more right than you are. the way it is. This is another question from Roger. Last question.
What distinguishes a good manager from a great one? I'm more successful than 90% of the men. We are.
I shouldn't say just me because there's a lot of people involved in this. Honestly. We are more successful because we exercise good taste of the acts we work with.
The acts we work with are collaborative. We come up with smart ideas either together or individually and more often than not it works. except in the case of some of these bands where it didn't work.
So that's really basically it. Most managers are stupid. I'm honest with you.
They only care about... By the way, for you artists out there, once again, put your hands up. Artists, people who perform. Okay, when all of a sudden the manager's booked a tour for you and you're thinking that you should be writing songs, it's probably because he needs the money, not because you do, right? You know, it's like...
You want somebody that respects what you're doing, that you respect, will listen to you, and that you can manage. You're in a relationship with your band. I'm in a relationship with my clients. And the only thing I want to be able to take them home for Christmas dinner, that's it. But I don't want to be their best friends.
We're not going to go hang out together and shoot pool. We might on tour one day. But it's a professional relationship. But at the same time, I want you to respect me, and I want to respect you. And I will respect you.
I don't have a lot long left at all, but if there are any musicians... questions. Please. Ah, thank you. You see in the newspaper, like, say if you were managing Justin Bieber, and he said on the newspaper that he doesn't want to return to England.
So how would you deal with that if that was your client? Yeah, my clients would never say that. Really honestly. By the way, if you've noticed, on my client roster, what Louise was reading off is, we literally take every one of our clients, whatever country. they're from, most of them from America, you know, because we don't live here, and attempt to shove them down your throats, the French throats, the German throats, right?
Because we do really well out there. In fact, when I started Imagine Metallica, you know, Lars is Danish. Denmark, right Ross?
I had no idea they were making all the records in Denmark. They were playing heavy metal festivals in places we never heard of before because they were in Denmark all the time. The answer is basically is that if you're one act manager you live with the vicissitudes of your act waking up in the morning going dude, you are my best friend and you need to get together and stuff like that, but I have bigger dreams than you do, right?
And you're at the door, you know? Because that's the trick about being a manager of like your friends or maybe you have to grow as quickly as they do. because oftentimes in big bands, you'll appreciate this, there's somebody with a drive, you know, because it's artistic vision, and if it clicks, you know, you better be right there with them. ACDC, probably the reason they fired me is because they realized I was only 28 when they were making For Those About to Rock, even though they'd sold 30 million records.
You sit there and go, that's not really fair, boys. You know, I've been successful with you, but fair enough. Oftentimes, when I pick up other acts, it's because a mate's been managing the act, and the singer or the guitar player's more ambitious.
than his mate is. Anybody else? My partner has a massive deal. He sometimes feels like he can just sell it out. It's a really interesting conversation about mass appeal.
The great thing about the public is they don't have to buy it if they don't like it. So, on any level, you know, it's like a restaurant that's really successful. They maybe make better food for more people than a non-successful restaurant.
I have a business to run. I earn my money. I can tell you right now, Gillian Welch, she's not mass appeal.
But we'll manage her until the cows come home. Because if nothing else, can I call my Samantha Cameron story now? Never mind. David Cameron, no that's not the reason why, because she's really good at what she does.
I will manage you forever if you're really good at what you do and you're prepared to write your best music and do your best work. And if you're not successful, it's okay. Because there are bands that will be.
But if you're sitting there going, if you're telling me that I don't really want to be successful, then I say find another manager. I'm perfectly happy to play, I don't know, what's a good name of a small club here forever and ever? Because that's fine. But I'm not really interested in that, because I can't make any money off that small club. And by the way, neither can you.
And maybe at the age of 20 you can, but when you're 30, right, and you have a boyfriend, right, boyfriend? You know, and he says, I want to have kids. You go, well, wait a second.
I have to play 250 dates a year just to make enough money for us to live in our, you know, suburban subdivision. I'm not being snide. He's going to say, well, that's not a life for me. I mean, there's all those indie bands in America. You know, there are sad stories of guys getting divorced at 32 because they've had a kid and they're never home because they have to go on the road so much just to make, I wouldn't say a middle class lifestyle, whatever you define that to be, right?
So the answer basically is I need people that really want to essentially try and play the O2, at least in their vision, right? Who really want to sit there and entertain 15,000 people. And I got to tell you something, from what I understand from talking to people, they really love entertaining 15,000 people.
people. I wish I could. That's why I'm a manager.
Right? So I'd say the answer is that mass appeal. Mass appeal is only because lots of people like it. I don't know if that's a bad thing necessarily.
But if you guys want to be artistic, fine. But not on my dime. Or my time. Other questions?
Oh, in the back. Do you think it's important that the production team aim for a publishing deal or a marketing Get a manager first. Well, the question was asked, do you think, anybody said a production team?
A production team you said. A producer. Two producers and one writer. Two producers and one writer.
How much money do you need? That's really what it boils down to. Look, the whole point about the DIY thing, you know, it's like, if you can... Okay, this may apply in many ways. If you own it, it's better.
If you have to sell it to somebody else, you no longer own it and they're paying you. So the more control you can keep on your product without, as I used to say, dancing to the Yankee dollar, the better off you are. So that's why, you know, I like...
DIY stuff because that way I can say to someone, let's say, you know, she's already signed a production company, let's say I thought it was a hit, right? But the answer is if the record starts happening because you put it up on the internet or you put a video up on Nylon Magazine, starts happening, then the record company has to sort of lease it from you, which means you get it back. This year Metallica, last year Metallica retained, regained ownership of their entire catalog. All of it. They own it.
They can do whatever they want with it. which means if they sell it to iTunes, they get paid directly. So the whole point is if you can in any way, shape, or form, you don't want to give up control.
You give up control because you've sold it to somebody else, and they make you jump to the tomb because they have the money. So you try and hold out. It really depends on where you can get the funding from. If a publisher will give you money, fine.
Just try not to do it all at once. And try not to do it, you know, keep it as much. Only take money.
It's like if you guys were... inventors right you know the seed capital you know all the entrepreneurs in Cambridge you know at that tech circle you take it only when you need it you try and hold on to it as much as possible so we have one more musician question um do you want to wrap up that's we have to wrap up in a band, what's the best way to build up on the bandwidth to gain representation and get voted by? In this country we play live, you know, and make, but rehearse and write songs.
make mp3s, and anybody can learn how to sell songs to iTunes. I think it's easy, right? I think it's easy. Steve, is it easy? Easy.
Steve Matthews, it works for me. So, because here's the interesting thing about iTunes. You play a gig in...
let's say Hull and you say hey everybody from the stage here's some songs available on iTunes and tomorrow 10 more people from Hull buy it guess what you've got yourself a record right because the great thing about iTunes is people just go home and pay 99p and push the buy button it's a hell of a way to find out it's working okay all right last one last one um it's your 60th birthday today yeah it's your 60th birthday today when you started out your first management gig you were 26 and you were working in the record business Why are you still bothering? You made a lot of money a long time ago. Why are you still bothering? Why do you bother?
Despite the fact that the helicopter dropped me on Mount Everest, you know, like success wise, I have a chip on my shoulder the size of K2. The second biggest mountain in the world for all of you who don't know. I love managing bands. I think it's the greatest thing I've done to make money. I love new artists.
Artists are great. God bless you guys for even trying in 2013. Anytime someone wants to give it a shot. But then, like I said, I don't know if she's going to be successful, but she's been trying.
And that's a great thing. hear a great song, it just makes me sing. Honestly.
I can't tell you. When I hear Dog Days by Florence, for example, I crank it to 13. I mean, it doesn't get, I can't get, I mean, I haven't cranked it all the way. I have these really big speakers.
I just start singing. It's just, it completely lifts me. It always has and it always will.
Okay. I just want to say that I love you dearly. I'm so proud of you.
I'm proud of her, too. Thank you for coming and happy birthday. Thank you.
Thank you.