Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bottom Left Sets podcasting.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Richard Griffiths. He and his partner
Speaker 1: Harry McGee make up Modest Management, and they are receiving
Speaker 1: the Music Industry Award. Richard, what is that a war?
Speaker 1: But it's a great honor that is persperoed once a
Speaker 1: year from within the industry to artists. Paul McConney got it.
Speaker 1: Roger Roger Adultery got it, John Barry, the great composer
Speaker 1: got it. Uh, Rob string On, Lucien Grange. Okay, you
Speaker 1: know in today's world, are you impressed that you got it?
Speaker 1: Does it mean something to you? Um, it's very flattering.
Speaker 1: I think it's Uh in a way, I feel it's
Speaker 1: an acknowledgement that management is now somebody something that needs
Speaker 1: more respect than maybe it has been given in the
Speaker 1: past by the industry. Because we are the first managers
Speaker 1: ever to receive the award. Um so i I although
Speaker 1: it's been given to Harry and me, um, as far
Speaker 1: as we're concerned, we're collecting it on behalf of managers. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: you used to be an executive. What's the difference between
Speaker 1: working at the label or in publishing and being on
Speaker 1: the management side. As a manager, we are involved in
Speaker 1: every aspect of the artist's career um. And that means
Speaker 1: obviously in helping them get a record deal, getting the
Speaker 1: right air and our person helping to make sure the
Speaker 1: right record is being made, then making sure it's being
Speaker 1: marketed properly, uh, and then getting the right agent to
Speaker 1: book the right tours and the right gigs for them
Speaker 1: to take their music out live. Um, the right publicists,
Speaker 1: the right publisher. So we as managers are in the
Speaker 1: epicenter of everything that goes on with an artist. Whereas
Speaker 1: a record company guy may only be involved in a
Speaker 1: and R ng the record, he may only be involved
Speaker 1: in a and R ing in in marketing that record,
Speaker 1: maybe only in a certain territory. Um. And the manager
Speaker 1: is the one person who is involved in in every aspect,
Speaker 1: including um, the health and welfare of the artist, which
Speaker 1: is obviously an incredibly important part of our job. Now
Speaker 1: we can really put the demarcation his napster the turn
Speaker 1: of the century. Now what a manager used to be,
Speaker 1: in what a label used to be have flipped right? Yes,
Speaker 1: well in in uh, you know, I was lucky to
Speaker 1: be you know, running a major American record label in
Speaker 1: the glorious nineties where you know, quite frankly, if you farted,
Speaker 1: you went gold, you know. Um, And so all the
Speaker 1: all the money and all the influence really did come
Speaker 1: from the record companies. There were still great managers around,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean I had to deal with Sharon
Speaker 1: Osborne on a regular basis, who I love dearly and
Speaker 1: who I learned an incredible amount from, uh, Roger Davis
Speaker 1: who does pink Um and many other great artists. Bill Kurbishly,
Speaker 1: you know, behind the who I mean when I when
Speaker 1: I when I said Virgin and did a couple of
Speaker 1: records with Roger Adultery. Um, I came across Bill Kurbishly
Speaker 1: and I and I learned there was definitely a different
Speaker 1: way of doing things. Well, give me an example. Um.
Speaker 1: It was just the great thing I found working with
Speaker 1: those managers was that they believed that they knew better
Speaker 1: of what was the right thing for their artists, and
Speaker 1: I believed in them sufficiently to go along with that. Um,
Speaker 1: there were managers that I would deal with whom I
Speaker 1: didn't think were necessarily on top of it, and so
Speaker 1: we would we would take much more control in those days. Uh,
Speaker 1: but I think that, as I said, the role of
Speaker 1: manager has just continued to grow and become more and
Speaker 1: more important. Okay, how hard is it to break a
Speaker 1: record today as a posed to years past? Um, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's different. Um, it's it's a longer process. And UM,
Speaker 1: I think we are certainly seeing sitting from a from
Speaker 1: a British point of view, where for a long time
Speaker 1: British artists would be successful in the UK and then
Speaker 1: that would travel around the world quite easily. Uh, if
Speaker 1: you have the right people in the right place. Um. Obviously,
Speaker 1: now with the streaming and the predominance in America particularly
Speaker 1: you know of hip hop and rapp and everything that,
Speaker 1: that doesn't that that makes it harder for newer British
Speaker 1: artists to break in Having said that, you know, Lewis
Speaker 1: Capaldi is going to be the biggest new artist of
Speaker 1: the year and that's in the UK. Do you think
Speaker 1: it's going to happen in the US? I'm absolute it
Speaker 1: because it hasn't happened yet. It will happen here, I
Speaker 1: have no doubt about that. Well, I think that he
Speaker 1: he's an incredible artist and he the songs are absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 1: I'll declare a vested interest here. My son in law
Speaker 1: did co write the Absolute smash? Well, you don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about stopping your daughter money. Well there you go. Um.
Speaker 1: But and he's an incredible character and I think that
Speaker 1: plays out and you know in the way that that
Speaker 1: ed Sharon and Nadele. You know, these incredible characters that
Speaker 1: that have have reached beyond just their music, you know.
Speaker 1: But you know you're still going to have British artists breaking,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt about that. It's just a longer, longer process,
Speaker 1: and it's a longer process for everybody, and particularly on
Speaker 1: a worldwide basis. On the one hand, you have it
Speaker 1: great that you put your music out on a Friday
Speaker 1: and then it is available to anybody in the world
Speaker 1: to hear it, so that is one of the great advantages.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, you have to get out there
Speaker 1: and make sure that they're getting the opportunity to hear it,
Speaker 1: you know, Okay, other than Louis Capaldi. Even though we're
Speaker 1: recording this while you're in Los Angeles a couple of
Speaker 1: months before, people will hear it contemporaneous with when you
Speaker 1: were reserving this receiving this award. Um, anybody else we
Speaker 1: should be looking out for. Um okay, okay, let's uh,
Speaker 1: let's switch it up then. Okay, so presently on your roster,
Speaker 1: who do we have? Uh? Well, nal Horren, who's a
Speaker 1: member of One Day and you were the manager of
Speaker 1: One Direction? Yes, yeah, um, and they may have alms.
Speaker 1: How kameoly Morris hasn't broken in America? Um I um,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that he was right for America. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's a bit too bit too British but to English.
Speaker 1: Um uh. And I think that um yeah, Little Mix
Speaker 1: we also have and they have never really done it here,
Speaker 1: and that I actually do I put pretty firmly on
Speaker 1: the table of the labels promotion department because that band
Speaker 1: deserves to be bigger here. You know, we we supported
Speaker 1: Ariana Grande with Little Mix a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: and you know there were fifteen thousand people in the
Speaker 1: in the Arenas and and twelve thousand of them were
Speaker 1: singing the words to every single Little Mix song. And
Speaker 1: I would turn to various Colombia folk present and you know,
Speaker 1: give them an exasperated um. But you know, because a
Speaker 1: Little Mix are are you know, absolutely massive in the
Speaker 1: UK and very very successful in other parts of the world. UM.
Speaker 1: Five seconds of Summer who obviously have done incredibly well
Speaker 1: here um and and do very well around the world.
Speaker 1: You know, we have a we have a very broad
Speaker 1: UM roster. You know, we still look after Alison Moyer,
Speaker 1: who most people in American from YEAZ but she's been
Speaker 1: incredibly successful in the UK and in Europe and Australia
Speaker 1: and as a solo artist for thirty years now and
Speaker 1: we've representative for for the past fifteen years. UM. We
Speaker 1: still represent Paul Potts in fact, who was the original
Speaker 1: winner of Britain's Got Talent and people forget that that
Speaker 1: James Cordon played Paul Potts in the movie of his Life.
Speaker 1: James tries to forget anyway, we still represent him and
Speaker 1: he does like eight gigs and on the world every year,
Speaker 1: you know. UM. So you know, we like we're proud
Speaker 1: of the fact that we have a broad rostrum. We're
Speaker 1: proud of the fact that we have worked with a
Speaker 1: lot of these artists for a long time. And how
Speaker 1: many people worked from artists uh worldwide it's about uh
Speaker 1: forty four and where are those people? You say, world
Speaker 1: one well, mainly in London, but we were in New
Speaker 1: York we have a couple, and in l A we
Speaker 1: have like four. We're just adding more of fact, we're
Speaker 1: for going to be six soon here and then we
Speaker 1: have one in Sydney and Australia. Okay, let's go back
Speaker 1: to the beginning. How did you get into music as
Speaker 1: a little pup um? Well, because the great thing in
Speaker 1: in England was that there was radio radio stations that
Speaker 1: that everybody was listening to, and they were very broad stations. Um,
Speaker 1: and I just used to listen to the radio a lot,
Speaker 1: and I just became a okay, well just for those
Speaker 1: of the Americans were listening. We really don't know that much.
Speaker 1: So how many BBC radio channels were there? Well, well,
Speaker 1: and in those days they were probably three or four,
Speaker 1: you know, and now and then then and but the
Speaker 1: other great thing that we had in England was pirate radio.
Speaker 1: When did pirate radio hit The pirate radio really hit
Speaker 1: the scene in about sixty five sixty six, I think,
Speaker 1: And that was just when I was starting to get
Speaker 1: into music, and and and I was living with my
Speaker 1: my mother and my parents are divorced, and I would
Speaker 1: listen and live with my mother and she would go
Speaker 1: out to work, and so I would I and in
Speaker 1: the holidays I would just listen to the radio stations
Speaker 1: under the pillow and until two in the morning when
Speaker 1: they turned off Radio London and Radio Caroline. And then
Speaker 1: and then there was this other station called Radio Luxembourg
Speaker 1: fabulous two oh eight um, and that that was just
Speaker 1: where you got to hear every kind of music you
Speaker 1: could you could think of. And then when Radio one
Speaker 1: came along for um for the BBC, when they got
Speaker 1: rid of the pirate stations. Radio one has always been
Speaker 1: incredibly broad so you would you would you would hear
Speaker 1: Jimmy Hendrix, the Four Tops and Dusty Springfield one after
Speaker 1: the other, um on on Radio one in in and
Speaker 1: so you you you found that Brits generally have a
Speaker 1: far broader um sense of sense of different music. I think. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you started buying records, So I started buying records. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The first single I Have a ort I was reached
Speaker 1: out I'll be there by the Four Tops. Well, I
Speaker 1: know you're a big fan of the fourte Levi's stubs
Speaker 1: is the greatest, uh. And then the first two albums
Speaker 1: I bought were was Sergeant Pepper. Uh, and the first
Speaker 1: Vanilla Fudge album. You know, first one was great with
Speaker 1: of course they hit you get You, keep Me hanging
Speaker 1: On and take Me for a little while. I bought
Speaker 1: the second album because I love the first one so much.
Speaker 1: It was terrible. The Beagle's Hard Yeah that actually if
Speaker 1: funny enough. Something made me think of Vanilla eventually the
Speaker 1: other day. So one of the great things about Spotify.
Speaker 1: I went on Spotify and I listened to This is
Speaker 1: Vanilla Fudge for about two hours. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: need to go back, probably for a few more years.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, I that just sort of all
Speaker 1: of that just made me a fan. You know, And
Speaker 1: I've never I've never been a musician. I've never There's
Speaker 1: not an ounce of frustrated musician in me. Um. I
Speaker 1: just I just love love music and being lucky that
Speaker 1: I've been able to to work with it. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you're in high school. Tell us about your experience there. Well, ah, there,
Speaker 1: So I did pretty terribly at school. Um. And what
Speaker 1: had happened was, um, in the fifth year, which which
Speaker 1: I can remember what year that would be, So that
Speaker 1: would that would so when I was fifteen, Uh, you
Speaker 1: you took a set of exams called O levels and
Speaker 1: and then and then the next year you sort of
Speaker 1: there were no exams and that was scored the lower
Speaker 1: six years, So that was sort of the year where
Speaker 1: everybody us doss around doing nothing. And then in the
Speaker 1: upper six year is when you took your A levels
Speaker 1: to go onto university. So at the end of the
Speaker 1: fifth year I got made the secretary of the jazz club.
Speaker 1: I was a school in a place called Abingdon, near
Speaker 1: near Oxford, and in those days used to go up
Speaker 1: to Ronnie Scott's once a term to see people play.
Speaker 1: And so I decided, well we're not going to go
Speaker 1: to Ronnie Scott's. I'm going to bring the artists down
Speaker 1: to to play at the school. This is a boarding school,
Speaker 1: boarding school, well actually it was. It was one third
Speaker 1: boarding school, two thirds day boys and yourself. You was
Speaker 1: a boarding school. And this is how far from London?
Speaker 1: It's an hour? Yeah, um, we'll just stopped for a second.
Speaker 1: The jazz club, were they really into jazz, Well that
Speaker 1: was that was sort of what they how they got
Speaker 1: away with going up to London once a term to
Speaker 1: see jazz. Yeah, I mean we mean somebody rich. And
Speaker 1: we saw um Dick Hextel Smith. I can't remember no
Speaker 1: other really great people. But anyway, I brought I brought,
Speaker 1: I brought in cars Nucleus down to the to the
Speaker 1: local town, into the local well a little bit slower.
Speaker 1: You're going on a boarding school. How do you even
Speaker 1: make that happen? Who do you call? What happens? Okay?
Speaker 1: Well I had I had started going to a place
Speaker 1: called the eighteen thirty two Club in Windsor, which was,
Speaker 1: you know, ten minutes from where I lived. And I
Speaker 1: got friendly with a guy called Andrew Kilderry who booked
Speaker 1: the two club. And uh, so I have this idea
Speaker 1: that I want to start bringing concerts on and so
Speaker 1: I ring Andrew and and he and he books the
Speaker 1: band you know, for I think it was forty quid
Speaker 1: or something in those days. And and I managed to
Speaker 1: get the school to agree to pay everything up front,
Speaker 1: and and that the tickets would then go on on
Speaker 1: the accounts of the boys, so that would then be
Speaker 1: paid for by the parents. That's how I anyway, I
Speaker 1: managed to get away with that, and so I so
Speaker 1: the first one with Nucleus worked quite well, so that
Speaker 1: that was in the school time. So then I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: well look at in the holidays coming up, why don't
Speaker 1: I put on a couple of concerts and the holidays.
Speaker 1: So at that time I was really getting into Prague
Speaker 1: and Egg. I don't know if you've ever heard of
Speaker 1: I remember they've never really made anything you ever made
Speaker 1: it anywhere? Really, But anyway, I was a huge Egg fan.
Speaker 1: So I decided to put on Egg in the in
Speaker 1: the local town hall, and which I did, and uh
Speaker 1: made eight pounds, um, so that was reasonable. So I
Speaker 1: then so if you're making a pound, how many people
Speaker 1: are coming at what price? About three or four hundred people?
Speaker 1: That's pretty good. At god, it was seven and six,
Speaker 1: which which is about thirty fifty cents really um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: so I then put on another one with if who
Speaker 1: are on island, and I had to pay them more.
Speaker 1: I can remember what I had to pay them, and
Speaker 1: it was it was it was selling badly, and luckily
Speaker 1: I I got a call from from Andrew Kilderry's saying
Speaker 1: that the band couldn't do the gig, so and he
Speaker 1: had Bloodwind Pig sorry the Mick Abrams band. It was
Speaker 1: Cabron's band before he became Bloodwind Pig so and they
Speaker 1: were about a third of the price of of of
Speaker 1: if and so actually I got away with it, so
Speaker 1: but that was I then decided that was enough. So
Speaker 1: I then started doing them with Andrew in Oxford town Hall,
Speaker 1: which is like a capacity With the first one we
Speaker 1: put how far is that from your school? It's about
Speaker 1: twenty minutes by past. So, Um, what did he need
Speaker 1: you for? Because he he was booking various places, various
Speaker 1: town halls, right and and so so we um uh
Speaker 1: were I was sort of acting as an agent for
Speaker 1: him as a you know, as a local promoter, right,
Speaker 1: and we put on Genesis at at Oxford town Hall.
Speaker 1: Now how much a Genesis cost I can't remember, but
Speaker 1: I can tell you who's money. That was Andrew's. Andrew's money. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm taking ten percent. How big is ours return? It's
Speaker 1: about anyway. Um, we've sold about three hundred tickets, so
Speaker 1: we're losing our shirt, right, but the but the hall
Speaker 1: is completely rammed full. And Tony Smith, who you know
Speaker 1: is the managers still is the manager. You know. It
Speaker 1: came down because we're crying off saying we haven't got
Speaker 1: money to pay him, and he said, yeah, but the
Speaker 1: fucking alls full, you know, what do you mean? What
Speaker 1: do you mean? And of course because we didn't have
Speaker 1: any cash, I hadn't hired any securities, so all these
Speaker 1: people had just come in through the through the doors.
Speaker 1: So there were twelve people there, but only three hundred
Speaker 1: of them had paid. So that was the end of
Speaker 1: that one. That My other big mistake was I was
Speaker 1: putting on Arthur Brown's Kingdom come in in Newbury Town
Speaker 1: Hall and I go around with the mate plastering posters
Speaker 1: all around Newbury, you know, for Arthur Brown's king didn't
Speaker 1: come coming to play. And after I put on the
Speaker 1: last one, some old geezers stops me and he says,
Speaker 1: so you know, what's this? What's this gig? And I said,
Speaker 1: it's Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come and they're coming, They're coming
Speaker 1: to play. And he says, yes, but when are they
Speaker 1: coming to play? And I looked at the post of
Speaker 1: and we've forgotten to put the date on. So I
Speaker 1: guess I worked out quite early on. I wasn't wasn't
Speaker 1: cut out to be a promoter. Okay, two things, how
Speaker 1: did that gig? Do? We canceled it? Yeah? And why
Speaker 1: where did this entrepreneurial spirit come from. Um, that's a
Speaker 1: very good question. I don't really know the answer to
Speaker 1: that because my father was in the army, um, and
Speaker 1: my my mom just you know, would do jobs whatever
Speaker 1: you had to do to make to make a living.
Speaker 1: But so anyway, I'm at school, you know. So was
Speaker 1: there enough money to do and buy what you wanted
Speaker 1: to do before you became a promoter? Um? No, we
Speaker 1: were never There was never much money around. I mean
Speaker 1: I got a I got a grant to go to
Speaker 1: the to the school, you know, but it was it
Speaker 1: was the combat. But it was a combination of things,
Speaker 1: you know, how things happen. So I would I'd learned
Speaker 1: a bit about promoting concerts. So I was doing that.
Speaker 1: I'm playing a lot of cricket. Who are you a
Speaker 1: good cricket player at that time? I was, yeah, thinking
Speaker 1: of going professional or just enjoy just enjoying it. So,
Speaker 1: I mean we watched the cricket matches go on for
Speaker 1: like days. So you say you play a lot of cricket.
Speaker 1: I mean, as kids, we would walk down to the park.
Speaker 1: What is playing a lot of cricket look like? Well,
Speaker 1: try explaining to an American that a cricket match and
Speaker 1: last for five days ending a draw, and yet be
Speaker 1: a great game of cricket. They cannot understand that at all,
Speaker 1: in the same way as baseball can sometimes be something
Speaker 1: that goes on forever until somebody HiT's the final. But
Speaker 1: but you've had a good time going to a baseball match,
Speaker 1: you know. Anyway, a combination of those things and sort
Speaker 1: of being madly in love with the head girl at
Speaker 1: the local girls school. Um My, my A level results
Speaker 1: were well, let's put it this way. So the night
Speaker 1: before I'm supposed to take my Economics A level, I
Speaker 1: go and see my economics teacher and I say, whose
Speaker 1: nickname is Doze? Doze Milton? I say, Mr Milton, you
Speaker 1: and I know I'm not going to pass this exam.
Speaker 1: I don't want to fail it. I just don't want
Speaker 1: to take it. So he says, Okay, go in and
Speaker 1: then after half an hour leave and then I'll just
Speaker 1: roll your paper so it will be that you you
Speaker 1: never took the exam. So that's great. Anyway. Four weeks
Speaker 1: later I take English and History A level, and four
Speaker 1: weeks later my A level of Arts come in and
Speaker 1: I've got two d's. Okay, this is a disaster. But
Speaker 1: I rang a guy called Tony Bowman who I shared
Speaker 1: a study with, and I said, Tony, can you believe it,
Speaker 1: I've got two d's. I'm going to get them to
Speaker 1: remark my English a level. And he said, but Richard,
Speaker 1: you didn't read any of the books, which was effectually
Speaker 1: correct statement. So there I was, you know, with two d's.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody's piste off. All my family are all
Speaker 1: piste off of me because I haven't done any work.
Speaker 1: But actually my my mom is married again by then,
Speaker 1: and so I do a deal with my mom my
Speaker 1: stepdad that um, I want to try again into the
Speaker 1: music business and if it doesn't work after a year,
Speaker 1: I'll go back to Polytechnic and retake my exams and
Speaker 1: go and become a you know, a bookkeeper or something,
Speaker 1: you know. So I when i'd been promoting these concerts
Speaker 1: through with Andrew Killderry, but I had I'd come across
Speaker 1: other agents, so I just wrote, because this is in
Speaker 1: days of writing letters, I wrote to the number of
Speaker 1: agents that I've done some business with them. One of
Speaker 1: them called me up and he said, can you come
Speaker 1: up and have an interview? A guy called Dave Winslet,
Speaker 1: and he was at an agency called the Terry King Associates,
Speaker 1: and he said that just so happens that one of
Speaker 1: our guys is leaving, why didn't you come up and
Speaker 1: you know, let's do a month's trial and see how
Speaker 1: it is. I go up and I start doing that,
Speaker 1: and I'm booking caravan, and I'm booking Southern Comfort, and
Speaker 1: I'm booking in all Desmond Decker and all that. And
Speaker 1: because in those days, every student union in and every
Speaker 1: college had had gigs going on. I mean, there were
Speaker 1: just hundreds of gigs going on every week. And so
Speaker 1: they handed me the student union handbook and they said, okay,
Speaker 1: just cool. Started a at aberrast with university and work
Speaker 1: your way through it and so our X. So my
Speaker 1: first day, I I started aberrast with university and I
Speaker 1: get as far as St. Andrew's University when I finally
Speaker 1: sell them Southern Comfort, not with Ian Matthews, by the way,
Speaker 1: so I slightly condom there, but anyway, but so I
Speaker 1: I sold them for you know, fifty quid or whatever.
Speaker 1: And anyway, one thing led to another and I and
Speaker 1: I started and then the office that I was in
Speaker 1: was in ward Or Street and the Marquee Club was
Speaker 1: in Wardoor Streets. So every night I would go down
Speaker 1: to the Marquee Club and I would watch all the bands.
Speaker 1: And that's when I that's when I first started to
Speaker 1: realize that I had an ear for picking bands. And
Speaker 1: I signed My first act as an agent was Eddie
Speaker 1: and the Hot Rods, who were on this the sort
Speaker 1: of pre punk thing that there was going on at
Speaker 1: that time. And and so an Eddie and Hot Rods, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're hot, you know. UM and I then
Speaker 1: I'd met a guy UM who managed um John Martin
Speaker 1: and a number of other Island acts, and so he
Speaker 1: asked me to to represent h John Martin UM and
Speaker 1: here and I fall formed a company called Headline Artists
Speaker 1: and UM. I then started looking at doing lots of
Speaker 1: other things with with Ireland and and what happened was
Speaker 1: that that I then got offered this job at Ireland
Speaker 1: Records to sort of be an artist liaison guy, to
Speaker 1: to work with managers and agents and the artists. Now,
Speaker 1: before we get much further, tell the story when you
Speaker 1: were an agent and the backstreet Crawler story, etcetera. Okay, so,
Speaker 1: uh so um John managed Paul Kossof and Backstreet Crawler,
Speaker 1: and uh so I was, I was there agent so
Speaker 1: and obviously Paul Kossof had been a major star out
Speaker 1: of Free. So we're booked this arena tour with Backstreet
Speaker 1: Crawler and I'm looking for a support act and this
Speaker 1: Australian guy comes in to see me and he he
Speaker 1: plays me this band of his from Australia called A
Speaker 1: C d C. And I just flip out, and you know,
Speaker 1: I just think they're incredible. So I get John to
Speaker 1: let me put them on the Backstreet Crawler tour. And um,
Speaker 1: then a few months later, UM, the band A C
Speaker 1: d C Are flying in from from Adelaide to to
Speaker 1: start the Backstreet Crawler tour. And of course in those days,
Speaker 1: it took thirty six hours to fly from Adelaide to London,
Speaker 1: and during that time that the band were in the air,
Speaker 1: Paul tragically died of a heart attack, also on an aircraft.
Speaker 1: So I go down to Heathrow to meet Michael Browning
Speaker 1: and I say, Michael, a terrible, awful news. Poor Kassa
Speaker 1: has just died. So you know, there's no tour, and
Speaker 1: he said, for fox sake, don't don't say anything to
Speaker 1: the band. You've got to get them a gig. So
Speaker 1: I managed to get them a gig two days later
Speaker 1: at a at a place called the Red Cow and Hammersmith,
Speaker 1: and I get them doing two forty five minutes sets
Speaker 1: for pounds. I still have this contract frame somewhere. And
Speaker 1: because no one there's no publicity for this, they're just
Speaker 1: they just I've just managed to get him on the
Speaker 1: gig somebody else that obviously pulled out. Anyway, I go down.
Speaker 1: I go down to the gig. I've never seen them
Speaker 1: play live, and they come out and that there are
Speaker 1: like two men and a dog in the in the room, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just nobody. But they come out and
Speaker 1: they do the all a C d C show and
Speaker 1: Angus is on Bond Scott's shoulders and then Angus Duck
Speaker 1: walks down the bar. It's the most incredible thing I
Speaker 1: have ever seen in my life. And they finished the
Speaker 1: forty five minutes set and that the two men and
Speaker 1: a dog leave, and I'm thinking, we've just seen the
Speaker 1: second Coming of Christ here, you know what's going on? Anyway,
Speaker 1: half an hour later, the place is just rammed. Now
Speaker 1: there's no mobile phones, no internet, no nothing, right, God
Speaker 1: knows what had happened. Anyway, it's rammed. Now. I've told
Speaker 1: the story a hundred times, and you know, you as
Speaker 1: you tell stories, I'm sure we all do this, you
Speaker 1: embellish them in et cetera. But I was at my
Speaker 1: niece's wedding a couple of years ago and my brother
Speaker 1: in law said to me, God, Richard, do you do
Speaker 1: you remember that a C d C gig? And I said, David,
Speaker 1: you tell me exactly what you remember. And he told
Speaker 1: the story exactly as I've just told you. And Harry
Speaker 1: he had come down with me to the gig. So
Speaker 1: that was that. That was an extraordinary, you know, once
Speaker 1: in a lifetime experience, you know. But I you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't have the experience for to to to carry
Speaker 1: on working with a C d C. Is I get
Speaker 1: I get fired as their agent. I didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about Europe or anything like that. So but Michael and
Speaker 1: I the manager, and I remained good friends, and that
Speaker 1: had a they had a knock on effect in my
Speaker 1: career later on. But yes, so anyway, so I'm then, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm doing I'm now an island record. You're the liaison
Speaker 1: and and I started doing a bit of A and R.
Speaker 1: And the first band I signed as a bank called
Speaker 1: the jags Um who had one hit called I've Got
Speaker 1: your Number written on the back of my hand and
Speaker 1: I am determined one day to get someone to cover
Speaker 1: it and make sure it's a proper hit. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I did that, and I'm I'm I'm working with John
Speaker 1: Martin and and then a band called the Buggles comes
Speaker 1: along and they had this track called video called Killed
Speaker 1: the Radio Star, and that you know, it goes on
Speaker 1: to be the first number one record that I was
Speaker 1: ever involved with. And I've got I've got quite close
Speaker 1: to Chris Blackwell, and so Chris and offers me this
Speaker 1: gig working pretty much really as this sort of p are,
Speaker 1: you know, just sort of traveling around the world with him,
Speaker 1: helping him do stuff, you know, And there was an
Speaker 1: incredible experience, you know. And you know, I've got to
Speaker 1: go to Bob Marley sessions and I've been in negotiations
Speaker 1: without armored Rrigan and all this, and and Chris says
Speaker 1: to me, you know what I want. I want you
Speaker 1: to run Island Records, but you're too young. And David
Speaker 1: Betteridge and Tim Clark, they're never going to accept. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm twenty five at this stage, never going to accept
Speaker 1: a young guy coming in. So what we're gonna do is,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna start a company together and you
Speaker 1: can run Basing Street studios and you'll sign artists and
Speaker 1: we'll we'll make this a success, and then I'll be
Speaker 1: able to bring you in to run Island. Great. Wow, fantastic,
Speaker 1: he puts. He puts in some money, and he says,
Speaker 1: it's gonna it's a fifty fifty joint venture and it's
Speaker 1: called Peninsula Music as part of Ireland Records. Peninsula Music.
Speaker 1: You know, what have I done to deserve this? And
Speaker 1: so soon afterwards I go out to lunch with Brian Carr,
Speaker 1: who is the lawyer for the clash and the sex Pistols,
Speaker 1: and and of course in those days you used to
Speaker 1: drink at lunchtime and and and he says, Richard, what
Speaker 1: do you mean it's fifty fifty. It shouldn't be fifty fifty.
Speaker 1: You're doing all the work. I mean twenty tho pounds
Speaker 1: he's putting in. What's that? That's nothing to Chris Blackwell,
Speaker 1: you know it should be it should be ninety ten
Speaker 1: to you. You know, it's crazy. You could go and
Speaker 1: tell him, go and change it, you know. So I
Speaker 1: go back to the office and Chris happens to be
Speaker 1: on the phone talking to one of the guys who
Speaker 1: worked for me, Danny Goodwin. So I get Chris on
Speaker 1: the phone. I say, Chris, Chris, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: thinking about this, I'm not sure there should be fifty
Speaker 1: fifty really, you know, I think it should be you know,
Speaker 1: do you don't you think that's fair? And he says,
Speaker 1: you know what, Richard, You're right, it shouldn't be fifty,
Speaker 1: it should be a hundred zero. So I said, what
Speaker 1: do you what do you mean, Chris it should be
Speaker 1: a hundred zero? And he says, well, if you think
Speaker 1: it should be today, then one day you're going to
Speaker 1: think it should be a hundred zero. So let's just
Speaker 1: cut straight to a hundred zero. The Lowyers are being
Speaker 1: touch goodbye. Plank puts the phone down and all I
Speaker 1: can all I can see before rushing before me, you know,
Speaker 1: David and Tim laughing, and finally we got rid of
Speaker 1: that fucker, and you know, blah blah blah. They're still
Speaker 1: great friends with my mother. Way Um, so I get
Speaker 1: on a plane and I fly to the Bahamas where
Speaker 1: he wasn't and Compass Point, which I've been too many times.
Speaker 1: And I get to the Apple. I get to the
Speaker 1: airport and Compass Point and I ring Chris Compass Point Studios.
Speaker 1: I said, Chris, it's Richard. He said, where are you?
Speaker 1: I said, I'm just down at by the airport at
Speaker 1: the Pelican Beach or whatever it was called. So why
Speaker 1: are you there? And I said, because I've come to
Speaker 1: talk to you said, we've got nothing to talk about.
Speaker 1: I said, Chris, come on, We've we've got to talk about.
Speaker 1: I've flown all the way out now. So um, he
Speaker 1: takes me out on a boat and he basically tries
Speaker 1: to scare the living daylights out of me with the
Speaker 1: driving over the pebble the rocks, and you know, he succeeds.
Speaker 1: I'm scared shitless, you know. Anyway, and he stops and
Speaker 1: he says, you know what, you've got to learn to
Speaker 1: be a much better negotiator, and uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: can be friends, but we're not going to be in business,
Speaker 1: right So UM, I go to the airport. I have
Speaker 1: my Peninsula Music credit card, so I upgrade to first
Speaker 1: class for the first time ever, and and and fly home.
Speaker 1: And that was the end of Peninsula Music. So what
Speaker 1: do you do now you're out of a job. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm out of a job. I'm managing the Jags and
Speaker 1: a few other things. And and that's and I this
Speaker 1: this uh young agent from from America called Bobby Brooks
Speaker 1: and Rob Light ring me up and tell me, tell
Speaker 1: me that they think the Jags are going to be
Speaker 1: the biggest thing since Ize Bread and and Chris is
Speaker 1: Chris has got me to meet Frank Barcelona and Barbara Skydell,
Speaker 1: and I just didn't really relate to them. I related
Speaker 1: to Bobby and to Rob. So I signed to Bobby
Speaker 1: and Rob with the Jags. And then Barbara Skuydell sends
Speaker 1: me a a TELEX saying, we understand that you made
Speaker 1: this decision to go with Bobby Brooks and robbed Light.
Speaker 1: That's entirely, entirely you're right to make that decision, but
Speaker 1: it is our right to decide who we do business with.
Speaker 1: And please don't ever think of doing any more business
Speaker 1: with Frank and myself. Here at what was Premiere Premier talent,
Speaker 1: you know, and here's the most powerful agent in the
Speaker 1: world basically telling me to funk off, you know. But anyway,
Speaker 1: there's a comeback on that story later, um and uh,
Speaker 1: I know obviously, I mean Rob Light, who has been
Speaker 1: one of my best friends and closest working associates ever since.
Speaker 1: You know. Anyway, things that shared. I go down my
Speaker 1: friend Michael Browning, who had met the ch C d
Speaker 1: C sends sends some your notes and come down to
Speaker 1: Australia and I'm gonna I'm starting this label. Come and
Speaker 1: work with me. Here, I had. I've been in Greece
Speaker 1: on holiday. I've met this girl who I've fell madly
Speaker 1: in love with at first sight, Olivia. I find out
Speaker 1: that she is going down to Australia, so I decided
Speaker 1: to go down to Australia. And uh and Olivia comes
Speaker 1: down to Australia and and our pass cross and and
Speaker 1: here we we've been together the best part of four
Speaker 1: years since. Um I had also been managing a guy
Speaker 1: called John Fox who had been the lead singer and
Speaker 1: writer of Ultravox, and when the band broke up, um
Speaker 1: I made what would normally be the right decision of
Speaker 1: going with the the lead singer and the writer. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Ultravox and went on to sell millions and millions of
Speaker 1: records without me. But anyway, that got me working with
Speaker 1: with Simon Draper at Virgin and and I'd been a
Speaker 1: Virgin in the agency world for a for a very
Speaker 1: short time. And uh, they ring me up and ask
Speaker 1: if I want to come and and run publishing company.
Speaker 1: So this is like one um so, so I leave
Speaker 1: Olivia in Australia and and and I and I go
Speaker 1: to to to a Virgin, you know, and of course Virgin.
Speaker 1: That was just an incredibly exciting time. And you know,
Speaker 1: the Virgin was was just taking taking off really and
Speaker 1: the publishing company had already been very successful, um and
Speaker 1: and we just went on this incredible run of of
Speaker 1: signing you know, ABC and the Pet Shop Boys and
Speaker 1: Tears for Fears. I mean, we just had an incredible
Speaker 1: run of of success, um and and and Virgin Records
Speaker 1: was also having this incredible run of success. And Virgin
Speaker 1: was just becoming this amazing place to be. And you
Speaker 1: had Richard Branson who had all these crazy ideas, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, let's let's start our own record
Speaker 1: company in in Germany, you know, and when nobody else
Speaker 1: was even thinking of doing it. And then Ken Berry,
Speaker 1: who was brilliant at making this stuff work, would make
Speaker 1: it work. And then Simon Draper would find these incredible
Speaker 1: artists and and and one thing, you know, we we
Speaker 1: just there was a moment really through the eighties where
Speaker 1: we're just you know, everything we touched turned to gold.
Speaker 1: It was the most amazing time to to be with
Speaker 1: an incredible group of people. And it was just amazing excitement,
Speaker 1: you know. Okay, and then you moved to a mirror
Speaker 1: with Virgin So then so then uh, uh we start
Speaker 1: a record company in America and they want someone to
Speaker 1: go and run the publishing company in America, and uh,
Speaker 1: Richard and ken and Simon persuade me to to go
Speaker 1: out to l A to to start the publishing company.
Speaker 1: And um we then and that's the So the two
Speaker 1: guys who have been working with me at a Virgin
Speaker 1: Music was a guy called Danny Goodwin and has its
Speaker 1: on a Mere and we we all moved to to
Speaker 1: l A. And of course the publishing business in England
Speaker 1: was a very uh cutthroat, you know, very aggressive business.
Speaker 1: Um and when we moved to l A, we couldn't
Speaker 1: it was just it was just like you know, everyone
Speaker 1: one was half asleep, you know, it was you know,
Speaker 1: so people would be our for these deals and we
Speaker 1: just think that they were they were nothing. So we
Speaker 1: just signed, signed, signed, and and and in our first
Speaker 1: year in America, we were the number one on Billboard.
Speaker 1: We were the number one charger company in the first year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we signed all the writers who did that if you remember,
Speaker 1: Paula Abdel had that huge number of seven number ones
Speaker 1: or whatever. And and of course things like tears, so
Speaker 1: fears were massively there, and the Patriot Boys were messive there,
Speaker 1: and Ozzy Osborne I had signed and anyway, we just
Speaker 1: went on this incredible run. And um, what also happened
Speaker 1: then was we've all been young guys growing up together.
Speaker 1: You know, we've all been you know, nobody had really
Speaker 1: made any money. We were just you know, we'd all
Speaker 1: gone holiday together. That was. But then then we're getting
Speaker 1: to the age where you know, we're getting married, we're
Speaker 1: signed a families and so a slightly different perspective came
Speaker 1: along and and Virgin went public, um and uh, and
Speaker 1: that wasn't very successful. So so that the options and
Speaker 1: everything that we've been given to to you know, be
Speaker 1: able to cash out, you know when it when the
Speaker 1: share price went on, that didn't really turn into anything
Speaker 1: because the public just couldn't you know, deal with with
Speaker 1: Virgin at the time, you know, so as as the
Speaker 1: as the publishing company was being so successful, and I'm
Speaker 1: then getting offered all sorts of jobs, right uh, you know,
Speaker 1: to go to to m C A and to get
Speaker 1: chrysalists and to anyway, in the end, I get approached
Speaker 1: by Tommy Montola to to go to to to CBS
Speaker 1: as it was then. And then after a long thought,
Speaker 1: you know, I I turned it down and I stay
Speaker 1: redo my deal with Virgin and I stay with Virgin
Speaker 1: and then and then so that was that was like
Speaker 1: in November, and then the deal the deal just never
Speaker 1: got done. My deal never got done. And then I
Speaker 1: then in the new year, i'm I'm I'm at the
Speaker 1: A M A S and I um, I bump into
Speaker 1: Tommy and he says, so you're happy with your decision,
Speaker 1: And I said, actually no, Tommy, I'm not. I think
Speaker 1: it was the wrong decision. So he said, okay, come
Speaker 1: and see me tomorrow and we're going to work out
Speaker 1: a deal and and we'll make it work. So I
Speaker 1: went to see him and we worked out a deal.
Speaker 1: And at that time I didn't think I wanted to
Speaker 1: move to New York. So the job he gave me
Speaker 1: was to be the head of the West Coast Um.
Speaker 1: But then he was genius what he did has He said, Okay,
Speaker 1: so that'll be your job. But what I want you
Speaker 1: to do is I want you to come to New
Speaker 1: York and and learn how the company works, understand how
Speaker 1: the company works. And I'll rent your house in Greenwich,
Speaker 1: Connecticut for six months. I'll give you a car and driver, uh,
Speaker 1: and I'll give you X number of flights back and
Speaker 1: forth from l A. And you know, I mean just ridiculous. Really,
Speaker 1: you know, this was crazy times for the business. But
Speaker 1: because he knew what would happen, he would He knew
Speaker 1: that as soon as I went to live in New
Speaker 1: York and experience New York and experience CBS and New York,
Speaker 1: that that would be it. So I go, and then
Speaker 1: he then he gives me to start with it, gives
Speaker 1: me the job president of Associated where I worked with
Speaker 1: Tony Martell and I had you know, the door not
Speaker 1: the doors I had Ozzy Osborne, and I had lots
Speaker 1: of different things there and and anyway, and I and
Speaker 1: and I started signing acts. In the first first band
Speaker 1: I I signed UM was UM to Spin Doctors, right Um.
Speaker 1: And of course in those days, you know, you have
Speaker 1: one hit and you sell eight million records, right right right,
Speaker 1: So we did that, and then I had Hard Michael Goldstone.
Speaker 1: And the next thing we sign is Pearl Jam. And
Speaker 1: then and then we signed Rage against the Machine. And
Speaker 1: so this is all going crazy. So they then make
Speaker 1: me um president of Epic, and they make Dave Glue
Speaker 1: the chairman of Epic, you know, just the the the
Speaker 1: secretary to the the The Barbara's Skydell story is that Um,
Speaker 1: the manager of of Regen of Pearl Jam, comes to
Speaker 1: see me and he says, look, you know, I've got
Speaker 1: two people who are really keen on on being the
Speaker 1: agent for the band. One of them is William Morris
Speaker 1: and one of them is Barbara Skydell. And I said, look,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I can't get involved in this because I'm
Speaker 1: not allowed to do any business with the premier talent
Speaker 1: and Barbara Skydell. So he ended up signing to William
Speaker 1: Morris and and then Michelle Anthony rings me and says,
Speaker 1: what the fun is going on? Why why are you
Speaker 1: telling and not designed to Barbara s Crater And I said, well,
Speaker 1: look because Barbara sky Dell was the one who told
Speaker 1: me that I couldn't do any business with us. So
Speaker 1: you know, I was a young guy and and she
Speaker 1: scared the ship out of me. And and I'm just
Speaker 1: following on what I was told. You know, you would
Speaker 1: be careful what you say. And did you ever make
Speaker 1: up with Barbara sky Yes? Yes, yes, okay, so you
Speaker 1: have this run and then on it was all going
Speaker 1: incredibly well, and then um we get to sort of
Speaker 1: where are we about nineties seven I suppose, and we'd
Speaker 1: started a second label. Uh good, so Columbia had started
Speaker 1: another work work, that's right, and we had started five
Speaker 1: fifty Music with Polly Anthony running five Music. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's funny how things work out. You know. Over the years,
Speaker 1: I've been let down by people and disappointed by people,
Speaker 1: but actually I've only ever been betrayed by one person
Speaker 1: and that was that was Dave Glue because he took
Speaker 1: me out. He took me out for lunch and just
Speaker 1: to say, um, you know, Richard, I want you to
Speaker 1: know I think you're doing an incredible job and it's
Speaker 1: just amazing what you're doing. Blah blah blah blah. The
Speaker 1: next day, I have a meeting with Tommy Matola and
Speaker 1: Michelle Anthony and and they basically say, look, we love you,
Speaker 1: but we're going to merge five fifty and epic. Um so,
Speaker 1: but we want you to stay. Will you? Um, would
Speaker 1: you like to run the publishing company that we started.
Speaker 1: Would you like to come in and be the number
Speaker 1: two in the international division working for Bob Bolan, Or
Speaker 1: would you like to go back to London and run
Speaker 1: CBS in or Sony as it was in in in London.
Speaker 1: And I said, oh, well, you know there's a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot for me to take in. Um, what
Speaker 1: about the other option? Will you pay out my contract? Right?
Speaker 1: And because he's in the days of non mitigation contracts
Speaker 1: and I just literally just signed a new four year
Speaker 1: deal and uh, but I said, let's leave it with me,
Speaker 1: let me think about it. And uh. I went and
Speaker 1: saw Paul Schindler, who was my lawyer at the time,
Speaker 1: and I talked it through with him, and he said,
Speaker 1: let me make a few calls, let's see and and
Speaker 1: what happened quite quickly. I found out that there were
Speaker 1: there there were going to be other other gigs available,
Speaker 1: and Olivia and I had been thinking that about going
Speaker 1: back to England. Uh. You know, originally we only went
Speaker 1: out to the States for three years, but um, we've
Speaker 1: been there for for ten and UM, so I go
Speaker 1: back to Tommy and I said, you know, well, I'd
Speaker 1: like i'd come back, I'd go back to England and
Speaker 1: I'd run I'd run the Sony in UK. Anyway, Paul Burger,
Speaker 1: who ran Sony in the UK, didn't want to didn't
Speaker 1: want to leave um London, so it was all too complicated.
Speaker 1: So and then and then Clive Davis approached me to
Speaker 1: go and run Aristair in New York. And then when
Speaker 1: so when the BMG people heard about that, then the
Speaker 1: BMG people, Rudy Gassner, who ran BMG then UM, approached
Speaker 1: me about going to run the European side of things
Speaker 1: for for for BMG. So long story short, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: if I'm rambling here. The the we end up I
Speaker 1: end up getting my check and going to London to
Speaker 1: to work for Rudy and run the UK and Central
Speaker 1: Europe of of BMG UM, which sort of indirectly is
Speaker 1: is why you know why we're here today, you know,
Speaker 1: indirectly meaning what well, because what Hammen was tragically Rudy
Speaker 1: died six months later, and I loved Rudy. I thought
Speaker 1: he was an incredible man. And um, anyway, this guy
Speaker 1: rol Schmidholtz comes in and um just here and I
Speaker 1: just from day one just did not see eye to eye,
Speaker 1: you know. Ah. And you know, I accept that I
Speaker 1: probably behaved rather badly, you know, to him, calling him
Speaker 1: a fucking idiot in board meetings and things which I
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't have done. But he was a fucking idiot,
Speaker 1: and not surprisingly I I get fired. Well, you told
Speaker 1: the story about putting your feet on the desk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to tell that. Yeah, So at the
Speaker 1: board meetings, I would I would sit there, uh, and
Speaker 1: I would just put my feet on the on the desk.
Speaker 1: It's just been something that I've always done, is put
Speaker 1: my feet on the desk. And Rof would get really
Speaker 1: piste off about it, and he would one day he
Speaker 1: he went and he went and got a cloth from somewhere,
Speaker 1: and he picked up my feet and put the cloth
Speaker 1: down on the table and then plumped my feet, you know.
Speaker 1: It was it was doomed from from from day one.
Speaker 1: But um, but actually, of course what had happened was
Speaker 1: that I had hired Harry McGee to come and run
Speaker 1: our c A in the UK and here, and I
Speaker 1: became very close, very quickly. Um. And so when Ralph
Speaker 1: firs me, um, he fires Harry as well. And they
Speaker 1: so that I'd been at the Spanish International meeting and
Speaker 1: they summoned me to New York. So I get someone
Speaker 1: to New York. I know what's going to happen here.
Speaker 1: So I go to New York. I have a ten
Speaker 1: minute meeting where they farm me and then then I
Speaker 1: get back on the plane and I fly back to London.
Speaker 1: And on the way back, after a couple of martinis,
Speaker 1: I've been through every job that might possibly be and
Speaker 1: I realized that that there isn't one for me, you know,
Speaker 1: and frankly I'd had enough of it all by then anyway,
Speaker 1: And then they fire Harry, and then uh, two days
Speaker 1: later it was the BMG Golf Day and Harry and
Speaker 1: I think funk that, you know, we put the bloody
Speaker 1: golf Day together. We're going to go to the golf day.
Speaker 1: You know. So we go to the golf day and
Speaker 1: on the way to the golf day, we start talking
Speaker 1: about what what are you going to do? He says,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I'm going into management. I said, well, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go into management. Why don't we go into
Speaker 1: management together? Yeah, great idea. So we go to the
Speaker 1: BMG golf day and and and we come back managers,
Speaker 1: but not no artists or whatever. But then Jeff Quantits
Speaker 1: gets in touch with me, and I'd signed Corn when
Speaker 1: I was an epic and I had a very close
Speaker 1: relationship with Jeff Quantz and Jeff Jeff flies me out
Speaker 1: and he says, look, you know, I want to start
Speaker 1: an international division of the firm. Is a huge man
Speaker 1: Ashman company. Then hundred acts and you know, two hundred people.
Speaker 1: It was. It was just massive. So we start so
Speaker 1: that we've been through this cold period for a few
Speaker 1: months where no one's calling us and no one's talking
Speaker 1: to us. And then then we opened up one day
Speaker 1: as the firm and we have twenty three platinum martyrs
Speaker 1: from America, so suddenly everybody is calling us, etcetera. And
Speaker 1: we we really started managing. You know, Lana Ritchie and Enrico, I,
Speaker 1: Gleasias and Lincoln Park, you know, we and and working
Speaker 1: with those managers, we learned a huge amount um and
Speaker 1: it was going. There was a real feeling that it
Speaker 1: could that the firm could have gone on to be
Speaker 1: something massive. But then Jeff then got into the film world.
Speaker 1: He bought Mike Covids as company, and it just became
Speaker 1: a little distracted. So we decided, Harry and I then
Speaker 1: decided that we would leave the firm and we would
Speaker 1: start start start our own thing. And we'd already picked
Speaker 1: up our first uh sort of a few acts, and
Speaker 1: that we've been appointed to There was a TV show,
Speaker 1: talent show called the Fame Academy, and we've been appointed
Speaker 1: to be the managers of the Fame Academy. And so
Speaker 1: we we, uh we start that and and I remember
Speaker 1: we didn't have a name. And then Jed Doherty, who
Speaker 1: was who had taken over from me actually as the
Speaker 1: chairman of BMGs to this day a very great friend
Speaker 1: of mine, rings up and he says, um, so what
Speaker 1: are you doing? I explained. He says, oh my god,
Speaker 1: So what are you going to call the company? And
Speaker 1: I said, I've got no idea what we're going to
Speaker 1: call the company. And he says, why don't you call
Speaker 1: it modest, laughing, And I said, that's a great idea,
Speaker 1: but we'll put an exclamation mark at the end of
Speaker 1: it so people know that it's ironic. And then, you know,
Speaker 1: just one thing sort of led to another. Really, um,
Speaker 1: and you know we had from that show, we had
Speaker 1: some great success and did our first arena tour and
Speaker 1: that was Lamar Lamar. And how come he didn't break
Speaker 1: in America? Uh? I just don't think it was right
Speaker 1: for him. You know, Um, where is he today? What
Speaker 1: he makes a good living? Still still working and still
Speaker 1: see him every so often and he yeah, he's he's
Speaker 1: doing okay. But we then had then we started then
Speaker 1: we started working because Simon Simon cow had worked for
Speaker 1: me and and he he had started The X Factor
Speaker 1: and nothing really was happening with that for the first
Speaker 1: couple of years. And he brings me up and he says, look,
Speaker 1: this is driving me mad because each each of the
Speaker 1: judges had had a manager looking after their acts and
Speaker 1: and he said, it's just chaos backstage. I've got I've
Speaker 1: got four judges, I've got four managers, and I wanted
Speaker 1: you to come in and you and Harry and when
Speaker 1: you to manage all of the artists from the beginning
Speaker 1: through to whoever it is ends up winning. And so
Speaker 1: we started doing that. And it was at that time
Speaker 1: when even the act that came twelveth in the show
Speaker 1: could go out and make a reasonable amount of money
Speaker 1: um doing you know, we do three clubs a night.
Speaker 1: You know, there was the the X factor was so
Speaker 1: huge that the knock on effect on all those artists
Speaker 1: was massive. Um. And then the first year that we
Speaker 1: did it, uh, Leona Lewis won it, and of course
Speaker 1: Leona is an incredible talent. UM, and we sold you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know ten twenty million hours. I suppose more
Speaker 1: than that probably, UM. So that you know that. Then
Speaker 1: jere Less came along and they were they were they
Speaker 1: were huge and um. And then then then One Direction
Speaker 1: told the story of One Direction. One Direction. There's lots
Speaker 1: of people who claimed to have put that together, but
Speaker 1: I think it really it was all down to Simon's vision. Um.
Speaker 1: The what's your name Scherzinger was you know, was on
Speaker 1: the panel, and a couple of the boys, none of
Speaker 1: the none of the boys were getting through right, um,
Speaker 1: and Nicole said Luis should put a band together, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't involved with this at all, um, and Simon
Speaker 1: just thought that was a great idea and chose the boys.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's it's it's been done a hundred
Speaker 1: times and a thousand times, and it's just you can't
Speaker 1: explain what it is that no pun intended X factor
Speaker 1: that is there when it when it works. But you
Speaker 1: had five, you know, very likable guys, all with different characters,
Speaker 1: all doing their own thing within the band. Um, and
Speaker 1: it just it was just the perfect storm really and um,
Speaker 1: although funny enough people forget, I mean so Sunny Taker,
Speaker 1: who was running Psycho Records at the time, had got
Speaker 1: hold of That's what makes You Beautiful, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: just an incredible song, you know and southern. You know,
Speaker 1: I wrote it as an incredible writer and um, so
Speaker 1: that was a smash in the UK, not not really
Speaker 1: anywhere else at the time. And then Simon insisted on
Speaker 1: a track called Got to Be You as the second single,
Speaker 1: and nobody wanted that to be the second single. Nobody
Speaker 1: the band hated it anyway that you know, Simon was
Speaker 1: the king and that's what happened, and that that was
Speaker 1: a flop, you know, and people forget you know, it
Speaker 1: came in at six rightever it was, you know, it
Speaker 1: was a flop. And then and then the next most
Speaker 1: important person in in the history of of One Direction
Speaker 1: is is Amy Barnett. And Amy Barnett is Steve Barnett's
Speaker 1: niece and she was living in in Um in the
Speaker 1: UK at the time and she told Stephen all about
Speaker 1: One Direction and we were doing some shows and she
Speaker 1: she got him to come and see the band to
Speaker 1: play at Hammersmith Apollo, and you know that the light
Speaker 1: bulb went on and Barnett was a huge champion for it.
Speaker 1: And then Rob was a huge champion from Stringer, Rob
Speaker 1: Stringer and they put One Direction on on the tour
Speaker 1: with a Big Time Rush and which was already sold
Speaker 1: out that tour. And you know, as I was saying
Speaker 1: about gigs and moments that that you just never forget,
Speaker 1: you know, the A C. D C moment, well, the
Speaker 1: Chicago One Direction supporting Big Time Rush moment was this
Speaker 1: was a sold out to before the band where ever
Speaker 1: put on One Direction, come out and perform not very
Speaker 1: well six songs, but you cannot hear a thing because
Speaker 1: of the screaming that is going on. And then when
Speaker 1: they go off stage, they go UM that half the
Speaker 1: crowd leaves the auditorium to go to the merch stand
Speaker 1: and we sell out of every piece of merch that
Speaker 1: we had for the entire American tour in one night
Speaker 1: and one night and Steve Barnett comes down to the
Speaker 1: dressing room, and this is in February and he says
Speaker 1: to the band, you will be playing Madison Square Gardens
Speaker 1: by the end of this year. And at the end
Speaker 1: of the year we played Madison Square Gardens and then
Speaker 1: ultimately you played stadiums all over the world. What do
Speaker 1: you think ultimately drove it? I think that it was
Speaker 1: the unique chemistry and character of the boys Um, because
Speaker 1: they were they each had they each had their own thing. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously it was it was Harry and his looks.
Speaker 1: H and Zane you know, you know, had an incredible voice,
Speaker 1: Liam had an amazing voice. Nile was just this incredible
Speaker 1: charmer UM and funny enough, Louis he doesn't get nearly
Speaker 1: enough at it. You know, he was the one, he
Speaker 1: was the one who was really the driver behind the band.
Speaker 1: UM and it was just it was just that magical
Speaker 1: combination of all of them, and they were great mates.
Speaker 1: You know. Obviously, as as bands go on, then things
Speaker 1: changed in the chemistry. As you get older, that that
Speaker 1: changes as well, and that obviously came to a head
Speaker 1: when when Zane left. But for the longest time they
Speaker 1: remained great mates and had great fun and and the
Speaker 1: fans recognized that. And the fans can recognize when it's
Speaker 1: not real, and it was real with them. Plus they
Speaker 1: had some incredible songs, you know, and you know, you
Speaker 1: you need to give Simon and Sunny Taker, you know,
Speaker 1: and sarden uh credit for for that, you know. Um, Okay,
Speaker 1: So to what degree is one D one D equivalent
Speaker 1: to keep up? Or what do you think of ke pop? Well? Uh,
Speaker 1: I can't to this day, I can't understand how and
Speaker 1: what has happened though, other than it has happened, and
Speaker 1: I see the huge success, um and I freely admit
Speaker 1: that it's something that I don't understand, you know. But
Speaker 1: what what what hasn't changed, And what you do see
Speaker 1: is that from the days of Elvis Presley, through the
Speaker 1: Beatles and the b Gs and then you know, all
Speaker 1: the other great pop bands. Twelve to sixteen year old
Speaker 1: girls have always loved falling in love with good looking boys,
Speaker 1: and that is never going to chang change. Just putting
Speaker 1: up you know, it's four or six good looking boys
Speaker 1: isn't good enough. It has to be something that is
Speaker 1: tangible for those fans to relate to. And that is
Speaker 1: the bit which everybody is always trying to do. And
Speaker 1: you look at the number of times that that has
Speaker 1: has been tried. But you know, you look at Backstreet,
Speaker 1: Backstreet boys, you look at um, you know, and everything.
Speaker 1: You know, there's always you know, in England we had
Speaker 1: a Bank of Westlife which never made it outside, but
Speaker 1: you know, there's You're never going to stop those young
Speaker 1: girls wanting to fall in love with good looking young men.
Speaker 1: And why did Robbie Williams never make it in the US? Well, ah,
Speaker 1: I don't really know. I think that they, um, I
Speaker 1: don't know too much about that. I think maybe they
Speaker 1: went wrong. They should have gone straight with angels rather
Speaker 1: than try to be They maybe went a bit cool
Speaker 1: to start with um. And then he called his American
Speaker 1: album the Ego is Landed. You know America. That doesn't
Speaker 1: translate well in uh in American you know. Um, I
Speaker 1: mean it's extraordinary really considering what a huge story is
Speaker 1: everywhere else in the world and now here he is
Speaker 1: doing weeks at a time in Vegas, you know. And
Speaker 1: why did you start working with ka Um? That was
Speaker 1: really Simon's decision, you know, he just decided that we've
Speaker 1: had some problems with Little Mix, um when when Sunny
Speaker 1: left the dynamic with the label change. And of course,
Speaker 1: when you've when you've had artists on on a TV
Speaker 1: show and you've sort of dictated how that all went,
Speaker 1: and you've and you've given them the break, and then
Speaker 1: they've gone on to be very successful, you do have
Speaker 1: to realize that there's a moment when you have to
Speaker 1: give the artists their head and allow them to grow up.
Speaker 1: As they are growing up there, they're no longer sixteen
Speaker 1: year olds or eighteen year olds there, They're they've grown up.
Speaker 1: And Little Mix had really reached that stage and they
Speaker 1: were being asked to record some tracks which they just
Speaker 1: didn't like. And uh, you know, Simon felt that that
Speaker 1: that that wasn't right and he felt that we we
Speaker 1: weren't supporting him enough in getting getting that done. But
Speaker 1: the simple fact of life is that We work for
Speaker 1: the artists, we don't work for the record company. Um
Speaker 1: so you know, we're there to support the artist and
Speaker 1: actually we felt the artist was absolutely right at that time.
Speaker 1: So um, as far as we're concerned, that was Simon
Speaker 1: fell out with us. We we don't feel anything but
Speaker 1: but good feelings towards Simon. But also since you start
Speaker 1: working with his TV shows, none of those acts of
Speaker 1: hit well, uh yeah that that yes, that could be true. Yes,
Speaker 1: but it's true. Does he ever regret it or he's
Speaker 1: just you know, keeping his distance? Well, I hope that.
Speaker 1: You know. The funny thing is we've had far bigger
Speaker 1: arguments about things, you know, far far bigger arguments about things,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, So it was you know, there was
Speaker 1: there was just a lot of change going on there
Speaker 1: at the time. And you know, I hope that one
Speaker 1: day we'll find something to work on together again, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: but that's we'll just have to see how that plays out,
Speaker 1: you know. Okay, So where's the business going. Well, I
Speaker 1: think it's a very exciting time, you know, um I
Speaker 1: I I I judge success now from with our artists
Speaker 1: with by ticket count and per heads and merchandising and
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of talk about live work,
Speaker 1: you know, business being down, and that may well be
Speaker 1: the case, but I suspect that in certain areas it
Speaker 1: probably over expanded. So that's sort of contraction, is just
Speaker 1: like a leveling out from what I see from where
Speaker 1: we are, it's it's just growing and growing. And I
Speaker 1: think that the what what's exciting about the way the
Speaker 1: DSPs work is that the whole international thing, when you
Speaker 1: get that right, that does mean that that although you
Speaker 1: do still have to go and visit territories and put
Speaker 1: the artists in front of people, an awful lot of
Speaker 1: that work is being done for you up front, you know,
Speaker 1: through through Spotify, through Apple, etcetera. You know. So I
Speaker 1: know you're a big Prague fan. Is there any hope
Speaker 1: for rockers? Rock dead? God? I hope, So, I tell you,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I think I've got two remaining
Speaker 1: ambitions in life. One one one is to win the
Speaker 1: Eurovision Song Contest one day, because I grew up listening
Speaker 1: to the Eurovision Song Contest, watching it with my mother
Speaker 1: and my sister, you know. And I actually did represent
Speaker 1: the English entrance in six but we we only came six,
Speaker 1: you know, but one one day, even if it's not
Speaker 1: the English entrant, I hope I have the entrant that
Speaker 1: that wins it. And then the other would be to
Speaker 1: be going to see a great probe band or a
Speaker 1: great rock band. You know. I I was so lucky
Speaker 1: working with Rage Against the Machine and Pearl Jam and
Speaker 1: Corn and Aussie you know, I I loved working with
Speaker 1: those artists and and I I'm in the same way
Speaker 1: as there are always going to be uh, you know,
Speaker 1: twelve to sixteen year old girls looking to fall in
Speaker 1: love with, you know, good looking guys. I believe that
Speaker 1: there are young guys who are going to be looking
Speaker 1: to want to have an idol of a guitarist or
Speaker 1: a singer and to be up there doing that. You know,
Speaker 1: well that I agree that there's a business. But right
Speaker 1: now in America the radio and Spotify is dominated by
Speaker 1: hip hop, not live. So is there a chance that
Speaker 1: rock can you know, break up that hegemony? Well? Uh,
Speaker 1: you know you should ask Peter Mention that question. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, he's far closer to it than than I am.
Speaker 1: But I do believe that there will be, you know,
Speaker 1: a band that will come through that will start a
Speaker 1: movement again. It may not be on the on the
Speaker 1: scale that we've seen, but I just hope. Maybe it
Speaker 1: is only hope, but I do also believe that there
Speaker 1: will be a movement again that will happen. And since you're,
Speaker 1: you know, living in England, but you've lived in the
Speaker 1: US and you were we said these worldwide acts, what
Speaker 1: do you see as the difference between those two major markets.
Speaker 1: When I was managing the Jags, and when we arrived
Speaker 1: in New York, we were going to be the next
Speaker 1: big thing. We were on the back page of Billboard magazine.
Speaker 1: We were on you know the ad they used to
Speaker 1: take there, and on cash Box on the front page,
Speaker 1: and we were going to be the next big thing.
Speaker 1: And then we toured our way across America doing radio shows,
Speaker 1: and then we get to l A six weeks later
Speaker 1: and suddenly no longer are we going to be the
Speaker 1: next big thing. So the tour support gets pulled. I
Speaker 1: have to get rid of the tour manager, and I
Speaker 1: end up driving the band back across America, gigging in
Speaker 1: a in a Winnebago, gigging across America, getting down to Miami,
Speaker 1: where we're gonna then get on on boat and go
Speaker 1: over to a compass point to make the second album,
Speaker 1: and what I learned from that was just how fucking
Speaker 1: huge America is. And I think the point that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of British acts over the years have
Speaker 1: not appreciated that America is not New York, m l A.
Speaker 1: It's everywhere in between, and you do have to go
Speaker 1: out and you do have to go and play there
Speaker 1: and see it and make that connection. I think that's
Speaker 1: uh that that's that's something that you can come to
Speaker 1: London and to England and play London and essentially you're
Speaker 1: taken care of of the UK. But in America you've
Speaker 1: got to get out there and you've got to you've
Speaker 1: got to doodle. You know, you've been listening to Richard
Speaker 1: Griffith's here on the Bob Left Sets podcasts. We're doing
Speaker 1: this in honor of modest Management getting the Music Industry Award. Richard.
Speaker 1: You're a great rock and tour and you've dropped a
Speaker 1: lot of wisdom. Thanks so much for being Thanks very much,
Speaker 1: lovely Glea