Ken West

Ken West is a fascinating guy. Most concert promoters are business people, but Ken is an artist. Ken co-created the legendary Australian festival Big Day Out, but first he went to art school. Listen to Ken tell stories about Nick Cave and Christo and his other influences. He's a raconteur as well as an entrepreneur. This podcast was recorded live at Australian Music Week.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
This watt me up ken breast, Kevin, this partner did
you started to pick out? And this is doctor typical
contect promoter who references Christo. He's really an artist underneath.
It's really intrigued. It's like, Kevin, how did you become
up from contract propos um? I don't know if he

(00:30):
ever became a concert promoter. The probably the simple answer
that is that in the round eighteen made seven, Uh
went to art school where all the dysfunctional people. So
it's just like uk t um and I soon discovered

(00:54):
that I didn't like the idea of producing art and
hoping somebody bought it. Didn't feel very good about selling myself.
But then I did notice a lot of music came
out of art school in those time. That's just generally
how most of the modern movement kind of happened. And
I did notice straight away there were some people with

(01:15):
incredible talent that couldn't tie their shoelaces, probably because they
were so tunnel visioned about what they were producing. Um.
Probably the earliest one to come along really was was
Nick Cave when We're both one Um and that Gravitator
and Ed Cooper from the Saints how did you know

(01:38):
Nick Cave? Uh? I got involved with Ed Cooper, who
was the songwriter guitarist for the Saints, because I got
invited down by a friend to hear them rehearse, because
they were rehearsing for six months for their first shows,
the Laughing Clowns, And they had a very strong connection
with Nick Cave, so that when they went down to Melbourne,

(02:01):
they supported what was then the Boys next Door, and
when Poison next Door came up to Sydney, they'd support
the Laughing Clowns Mutual Appreciation Society. Okay, we rassed a
chapter there. You would going to art school? Yeah, you said, Okay,
I don't want to promote myself. I don't want to
be victimized by the public. Was Nick Kieve a friend

(02:24):
then became a friend pretty quick because when you're that young,
you're working together, there's no real structure anything, no real
management structure around the place. Uh. It just very quickly
snowball party to do with amazing person called Keith Glasses
started missing link records and started signing all these acts

(02:45):
and so as he's running an independent record store and roster.
Then I started to move into the factor that I
knew how to. I was originally enlightening and then went
into producing shows, and then was booking the shows bearing
a mind. In those days, there was no such thing
as somebody purchasing the show of this sorts of things.
So it was renting halls, it was taking door deals

(03:10):
at venues. But I want to go back to the
beginning or at school. Yeah, how do you say I'm
going to promote a show? I'm gonna how how do
you just say I'm gonna go to the jump to
the other side and be a business person. Okay, I'll
take it back to the simple thing. UM. At the
round at the age of nineteen, the artist Christo came out,

(03:33):
you mean the Christal of the guy who does you
know umbrellas? And he had wrapped Shelly Beach for years earlier,
had just completed running fence UM and similar situation. I
suppose he did a talk at what was to become
COVID wasn't called co for at the time. UM. Only

(03:55):
four people turned up. There's only two of us were interested.
I just kind of had him for two hours and
just talked through everything, and he talked in terms of
what I needed to do running fence it was going
to cost six million dollars and it took me five

(04:15):
months to get that money together. You also mentioned that
he never used volunteers. He tried to use volunteers, but
they were hopeless, so it was easier for him to
find more money than use volunteers. Talked about the tribalism
of say, running fence, where you'd end up with ten
teams that were kind of competing against each other, all

(04:35):
again pre mobile phone, and running in isolation like isolated tribes,
and he'd be holding that thing together. And then I
pretty much became the cornerstone of understanding of the concept
of being about humanity more than making something to hang

(04:57):
in the gallery. That impermanence can be more permanent, uh,
And that the the real point of it comes down
to is that you can amplify something great a lot
easier than something that's not great. And you don't need

(05:22):
to be the most aware person to notice that there's
something special going on with Nick Cave and he's twenty
one when he's producing very very angry. But I mean,
we got to see Kristi and you're very inspired, Okay, yeah,
inspired in a way that there's another way of doing
things okay, and then does it What what's your thought

(05:44):
process to say, Hey, I might want to have a
music event which would be kind of like an evanescent
event like running fans of the umbrellas or you know,
surrounding the lakes the islands in Miami, et cetera. Yeah,
that was already done. So Uh. The point of it was,
as I found that if there was a great subculture

(06:07):
that was going on, that could be um pulled together
to make a bigger statement. Also found that the performances
when say, the group Laughing Clowns played with a normal
support were pretty shabby. When the Boys next Door played

(06:27):
become the birthday party later when they performed with an
average kind of opening act, didn't really give it everything
they had. But when you put two competing bands on
the one show on an equal bill, the their sets
are on fire. Okay, that's something great. But you are
an artist, Yeah, how do you literally become a businessman

(06:49):
because they had to be a business Okay, but you
woke up one day and say the answer is contro promotion. No, no,
it was just a natural progression. That line of it is.
As they spent four years in art school, primarily to
borrow the equipment because it was an electro media of course,
thing that gave us access to lighting, film, sound, very

(07:10):
low tech, a lot of it, some high tech. We
collaborated with many other things. Were collaborated with the Conservatory
of Music with Martin Wesley Smith, who was the just
pioneering the electronics division of the of the Conservatory of Music.
We worked on various things outside, such as architecture review

(07:32):
and things like that, where the arts end of things,
of different parts of it was on a similar path um.
And in that process I found that the real art
was because I was saying friends at the time, you know,
what's the point of art? Now? Warholes killed everything, so

(07:53):
we're starting to repeat ourselves all over again. And I
just tried to follow the art, and the art was
moving out of the visual arts world into the musical world,
and I wanted to be more part of the future art,
not the past art um. And as that grew in
that process and the experiments worked, there was the people

(08:16):
that are around at that time didn't want to We're
in seventy six, you said, seventy seventy nine when I
did the first silly show that did not work out
very well, and then so tell me about the two.
So tell me about the first silly show. It was
cheaper to hire a band with a p A than
the p A, and the band I hired was shipped.

(08:39):
But I actually put it on because I wanted the
band that I was living with at the time to
play with a good PA. But it didn't work out.
I learned my lesson, didn't I always stop whenever I failed,
and then regroup. Sometimes I've stopped for a six months.
Sometimes I've stopped for a couple of years. Um stop

(09:00):
now for five. I don't have any hunger to go
back to it. There's better being on the outside than
the inside at the moment, and I don't have that
compulsion to keep doing it because I think the arts
moved again now into science. Science you mean tech just
science in general. Two examples what you consider science. There's

(09:26):
the scientific process of trying to solve problems in a
futuristic sense that is needing the imagination of the artists
to get it there, that it needs to have people
around with the political and financial strength to make them happen.
In the speculative world of it at the moment, there's

(09:46):
a lot of failures. And I won't say that all
disruptive technology is good. Disrupted good technology. But I think
in terms of you're a young creative person, you're going
to drive more to war Woods a bigger picture, uh
attitude to life than I'm going to get a band.

(10:08):
I'm going to be an artist in paint. It's more
the hard end of the stick to go. I want
to do something that's important. So to use the old
term from the rate stuff and Chuck Yeager, you're all
about pushing the envelope. You're supposed to just money. I
prefer to throw out the envelope. Okay, But the point

(10:28):
is you're not. The way you're saying is money is important,
but that's not the number one driver. It's more about
impacting the culture. Well, money could never be important because
it's I've only ever seen even in in when living
in a squad and not being able to basically have
enough money to eat um. It hasn't been about money.

(10:51):
It's a bit the need to do it. Okay. So
so I think I've said two things about it in
time that the money for in most situations, created process
is your tools to achieve your goal. It's not the
end results, and if you do a good job in

(11:13):
the simplest of terms, someone will send your check. Not nowadays,
of course, but that's you can't be. If you're focusing
on that aspect of it, you're probably gonna fail just
a little bit slower. If let's say I have an endeavor, yeah,
and I certainly hope that it pays off. Should I
forget about the money completely. You need to get paid

(11:36):
for what you're worth. And if you can put something
in structure there that you're going to get paid for
what the value of you bring, then that will happen
down the path. If you're wanted to get paid on
a week by week basis, then you're beholding to somebody.
Let's go back to the beginning. You grow up where

(11:57):
in Sydney, Yeah, cover matters, and then what do your
parents do for your living? For a living? Father was
a paymaster, mother was a chronic epileptic. She worked sometimes,
didn't work sometimes. So the intuitive side of it with
me was that we ended up about in cabramattic was
and father fought World War Two and grew up in Ramwick,

(12:20):
went to Sydney Boys High. His brother died in World
War two as a Lancaster bomber navigator over France moved
to Cabra matter on the basis that if Japan invades
next time, we're further away from the very logical at
the time. Okay, how many kids in the family, just
my sister and your sister was older, younger, No, she's gone,

(12:43):
she's older. She wasn't particularly healthy. And did she pursue
what we would call a street life a civilian she
became an art teacher? Or really, so, where was the
influence for art? How did you know? How did you
get it? Was all there is latently in there? Um.
I could tell him the father painted the house seven
different colors, that there was something going on. Um, But

(13:06):
you know it wasn't. I grew up in the concept
of which is some of the things that championed along
the way was the skating, was the fact that hot
right art, um, the the idea of the of the
working class artist more than the I'm going to be
an artist, you know, the the when Big Daddy Roth

(13:28):
was making his start about cars for those people, I
found a lot of things really and in fact, he
did the cover for the Birthday Party Junk Guard album,
of which he got really angry about because he finally
listened to it and said that how dare you put
my art work on this album? Because they told him

(13:49):
it was a rockabilly band. Um, good old days. You
could hide that, okay. So your parents were fine with
you going to art school? No, they hated the idea.
They actually hid my sceptance until I quit the Commonwealth
Bank after three days and then I said, oh this
turned up so I would have never even gone there
if I had stayed another week. Okay, And how did

(14:12):
you pay for art school? I got a twenty eight
dollar a month living away from home allowance. I worked
part time and I lived in a squad. Okay, so
now you have it. You put on a gig we'll
call a gig because you wanted the band to have
the p A. Was that for like your arts? Was there?

(14:33):
Was there a show? Did you charge admission? What was admission?
I also produced a long form video for the entry
and tried to make it installation peace kind of thing
based on Kitel products, and called it ken Talent was
ken Tell's Show. I worked under alias is all the time.
It was much more fun. Um. The first touring company

(14:56):
I set up was Edwards Zimblis and syndicate Briebery Limited
Um because I just thought that's better to work that way,
and to the point where in nine and January eighty
five when brought out Lou Reid and dealt with Eric Kranfeld,
who was the Rolling Stones attorney as well as managing Lou,

(15:17):
he was convinced that this twenty six year old or
whatever it was at the time, that I worked for
Edward Zimbliss. And that was fine until he found out
in Australia when he was telling the head of security
that he'd had a meeting with Edward and John Miller.
The head of security said, you know, he doesn't exist.

(15:37):
So it was a good front because I was too
young to be me. Okay, so you put on this concert,
you made the video, you were having fun where you're
getting any traction? No, No, that's what I started. I
had to move out of the friend's house and move
home again for six months with my parents accepted de
Selm carr Um. Then it just kind of went back

(16:02):
into doing shows for people. There's more of an agent
position because I knew how to do stuff, and that's
when I started creating one off events I didn't like
during much. I like one off events. What kind of
events were those? Uh? Um? The first birthday party shows
were Birthday Party Love and Clowns Go Betweens at Paris Theater.

(16:26):
Um the first time two parents foolishly put five thousand
dollars in my bank account to so they get the
pension better. Which a week later I was on a
flight to London. UM stayed at Nick Squad, Nick Cave

(16:47):
Squat and Paddington in London. That was pretty good. Um.
The third floor was stairs with missing so we had
to use the ladder up that part and the taps
were leaking out the sides a bit, but but it
was good. Got a train up to Manchester, stayed on
Marquee Smith's floor. I didn't realize he took a lot

(17:09):
of speed. That's running away. He was talking all night.
And then went to the Hassie Endo to meet UM
to see a new Order plays like the sixth of
a show. It was a free from members night, so
a new order free for members night. UM. And the
weird thing was the connection with Nick kind of opened

(17:31):
doors because when well, you're in our you're in our world.
You know that's you. He's he we respect him. If
he respects you, then you get the time. Um ended
up securing the New Order tour by sculling a cocktail
with Rob Britain because Bernard had ordered some blue cocktail

(17:54):
backstage after the show and Rob said, here's this guy
from Australia wants to come to Australia and said, Bernard said,
I thought we were going to South America. He said, well,
you're gonna have to choose which one and burn and
said we'll scull this cocktail and we'll go to Australia.
And I thought he was joking, but then I sculled
it and he said, okay, we're going to Australia. And

(18:15):
I said the rubbull, can I come past tomorrow we'll
work out the deal. He said, don't worry about the deal.
That's factory records. Yeah, that's factory records all the way through,
which is kind of how became the Manchester specialist of
Manchester Think. So a lot of these things were event
driven in that. So the five thousand dollars your parents
gave you, you said, I'm gonna use this to put

(18:36):
on a show. He said, I gotta live and I
told me not to use it for that kind of okay.
And so but when you went to the UK, you
in the back of your mind said, I want to
do a show that the first time the UK yet Okay.
I clearly went there on the basis that they were
acts that I wanted to see and I thought people
needed to see, and I thought the traditional music industry

(19:00):
he wasn't going to do it. Okay, So you secure
this deal with New Water, Yeah, and the factories legendarily untogether.
How long thereafter they actually show up in Australia Not
that long after. It was November toward the fall before that,
and that did really well. Turned up. It was the

(19:22):
sound guy didn't get through because he filled out his
visa form wrong and the studio engineer was there, not
Martin had the other studio engineer was there, did a
terrible show at the Capital Theater because he kept saying
I was looking for the rewind button. Is he never
mixed live great help, totally top end sliced it, but
his heads off. UM And then ten shows, so I

(19:48):
got from like nine to of the first shows of
New Order in the world. Um came friends that created
the process of trying to create the goal for me
was to go, if they're in safe hands, if they
feel her in safe hand, the money doesn't matter that much.

(20:11):
And that was the foundation of what I wanted to go.
You're in safe hands. I will back you up on anything.
I need to back you up. I can't guarantee you're
going to make a lot of money. Okay. So they
came to Australia, they did ten gigs. Yeah, you make
money or lose money. Lost thirty dollars. Who's money kind

(20:32):
of ours but it was borrowed. Um, So I stopped
for a year, moved out of Sydney, moved down to Melbourne,
shared a house with business partner of that time, Vivian Lee's.
Eventually did the final convince the birthday party to come
back to do a show. It's a series of shows

(20:55):
that didn't do much more than break even. That was
the end of the Birthday Party. Um, it was just
hand to mouth. Did other things, but not class things.
Whose money was it? Oh, it's a friend of Vivian's
who was a dope dealer environ. Okay, so we didn't
want to lose You don't want to lose the money.

(21:17):
But he had the money. It didn't really care that much? Okay,
so now you're living hand to mouth. He got paid
back how much later? Okay? So what happened in that year?
How do you end up making the money back? Brought
back John Cooper Clark through all the weirdest things to
pay a lot of money. They just cleaned up um

(21:39):
single person again a heroin addict but kind of everything.
Just to go back to New Order because at this
point they're legendary when you bring necessarily, but when you
when you bring them to Australia with the advent of
their career, anybody, how do you why would people go
to see him? Were they playing on the radio? What
would drive tickets? Sale? Us stuy division? And the music

(22:04):
is great, the first album was sensational, right so, but
they would have to be word of mouth for people
to know to go oh yeah. But I had a
lot of ways of promoting things as well, Like I
did a Hunters and Collectors show at Sydney University Refectory
that's sold out at tickets. Instead of announcing the tour
of the usual way, I got a stamp made that
said New Order on sale date and stamped everybody coming

(22:30):
in with that. So everybody at the event was stamped
with the on sale announcement, which meant that the Capital
Theater sold out in an hour when it happened, and
we added extra days. But because the sound was so
bad at the first one I returned, it didn't do
very well. I wanted to do two shows, but then

(22:50):
they said, we don't like playing the same venue twice.
They just make things up. Okay, remember how much ticket
prices were on that first show fifteen dollars ninety Okay,
so now you end up, Meggi, you moved to Melbourne,
you end up making the money back. You do those shows.
What happens after that? Just slowly picked myself up and
started doing it again with it. No, you just go

(23:14):
through a series of the violent fems. I was. We're
going to basis that the it was much more mathematical
than what it sounds. The independent seen and the important
record model where you're paying more for an imported vinyl
album and a local president on the theory that it's
a better quality. You've got to go if they're selling

(23:36):
three thousand copies of an album through the independent stores,
because I can ask them and they say, we've sold
five copies of this Violent Fem's album here on impoard
and you go. Most of them are in share houses.
That means it's got a much bigger reach. It's not
in the charts, it's not there, but you know that

(23:57):
the people are buying that are going to come to
the show, and not only just them, but they will
drag friends along. Um. If they're a social act that
that you want to show off to your friends that
they're great, then they will be your spokesperson as well.
Plus a good relationship with Double J Radio before it
went to Triple J and became national. Um, there was

(24:21):
the beginning of the street press movement that was really
championing a lot of these things. That was the beginning
of the hunger for information tree Internet that they wanted
to consume more and so they consumed everything that was available. Okay,
so that was your next big The Violent Fams were
your next big thing. Yeah, okay, so the Violent Fams came.

(24:43):
How many deeds did you do with them? About and
how they do solid at every date? Um? No few
of a thousand people out front. So you meet Bummy
Maw and then I took a manic to in America
for four months and that's when things ramped up a

(25:06):
little bit. Wait, wait, so you went as the tour
manager in the States. I wanted somebody with an accent,
makes some sound more international. This was when blister in
the sun, when it's happening for the violent thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
So it was like a one thousand to two thousand
see you know, okay, I guess one of post being

(25:26):
Salt Lake City because I swear, okay, a little bit slower,
the biggest shower of the American tour at that point
in time, and three four whatever it was three for
it was Salt Lake City. They saw about three thousand
tickets in a big hole because they swear okay, because

(25:50):
it is very Gordon's a Christian okay, Methodist. Okay. Now,
when they ask you to be the tour manager, because
you've been a promoter before that you immediately say yes
or you have to think about it. Well, the deal
wasn't great. It was two dollars a week and I
had to get my way there. But um I had

(26:12):
an experience on road in America and so allowed me
to understand America a lot more. That everyone's the same everywhere.
If if you take the party to town, you'll find
all the widows. So you finished with violent fams. Then
one came back. Then did the Low Read tour that

(26:32):
was that successful? No, it covered. But um, I had
a falling out with my business partner at the time
Vivian and I parted ways. We're also managing a band.
There's a kind of an experiment, I suppose in seeing
what the pop world was like. But I'm talking because
they were credible artists that I wanted to make pop

(26:53):
music originally from rup best in an airport and things.
So they were friends all doing operates and philosophies and
things like that, so it wasn't the dumb end of
the spectrum. Um, but I had falling out, so I
didn't time what was it falling out about? Um? I

(27:13):
guess the simplest thing to say is that I I
was meant to be the creative one and Vivian was
meant to be the harder those businessman because who was
doing no Masters in economics minash um. And then when
somebody like Eric crime felt, I said, if we don't

(27:35):
get the money by this afternoon, we're going home. The
rest the money before the first show. No, Vivian um
uh imploded and my attitude was um I looked it
up and came to the the suite and said, there's

(27:58):
two flights out tonight, one at eight and one at ten.
Which one do you want? And and you still won't
get the money, And then there it went. I didn't
mean that were right, but then he said, I never
want to see that guy again. So I had to
kind of tell Vivian not to cause trouble, and so

(28:19):
I had to take over the tour and do it
that way, because in in that hard end of the world,
especially with a no a New York heavyweight attorney who's
the representing the rolling Stones and things, is that the
they're bluff and bravado is if you don't stand up
against it, especially when you know that you hadn't told

(28:40):
Lou yet. Okay, at the end of the day, did
he make his money? Did he get us paid? Yeah? Yeah,
but that was all on no tweaking things. Ok if
you tweaked things, but at the end of the day,
you lost money, no remain money. Okay, so you know
ar made but I made money, like by selling the

(29:02):
choir seats behind Lou read in Perth on a fifty
fifty cash deal with the manager. Never saw the money.
I do deals with the sound and lights crew, saying
if you can cut the lights down a bit, I'll
give you half the money back. Do you want to
double up in rooms, I'll give you half the room.
Did you give them the money back? Yeah? Okay, So

(29:24):
the louse ain't been paid in two months. Okay, so
the lou Read tour ends. Where does that leave you?
Just in a world of start again? And what was that? Well?
I was managing the band I'm talking for a while
and I managed time Kate Sobrano when the band broke up.

(29:46):
Um at the same time ended up starting up a
festival in Melbourne called the Melbourne Melbourne Music Show, which
ended up being a bicentennial thing for Jen eight at
the Melbourne Showgrounds. And what was the skill there? Um?

(30:07):
The scale was kind of weird. They wanted to be
ten days long and I wanted to be one weekend.
They tried to drag it out to that. We had
a big power meeting with everybody at the table, Hugodynsky's
and couples and everybody who is anybody at the time,
and I was saying, oh yeah, I could get you too,
and I could get this, and I could get that. No,

(30:28):
it's with the Victorian government and Irvan Rockman, which doesn't
mean anything to you, but I know he had the
Rockman Hotel and he used to be the Lord Mayor
of Melbourne. He was the chairman of it and said
I need to be the chairman of this because my
name's Rockman Um. And it was all fun except that
the polem. Once I said, none of these people get along.
No one's going to give their act to someone else

(30:51):
to do this. So I became the like the talent
director of it, and I handled so his works up
seminars schools, talking about pretty big numbers, like a thousand
people in some of them during the day and at night.
Had had the music and I had skating in and

(31:13):
all that sort of stuff with it all on like
a four hundred thousand dollar budget with a free venue.
That was it. I got Nick Cave and got go
Betweens down, I've got the Divinyls just generally friends I
could ring up and trying to say can you want
to do this? And then they stuffed it up at
the end by running out of money and taking two

(31:35):
and fifty dollars off the government Health Department to making
it a no smoking, no drinking music festival, which of
course then stopped the rest of any sales that might
have happened. Uh. And that's what I got sick of
it and just said, oh, I'm going to do my
own thing one day, okay. So it was the government's
money the four yeah, yeah, yeah, paid twenty tho dollars okay.

(31:58):
So that that please? And that's just success. No find
it right? So are you now intrigued the I want
to do festivals. I always wanted to do an event
and I don't like the term festival. I like the
Chilip Festival, but I don't like rock festivals as such. Um,

(32:18):
if it's if it's an event, that it has a
wider parameter than being the festival. So that was always
the dream. Yet, okay, so you do this thing from Melbourne?
What's your next up? Uh? Then I decided to drop
out of managing anybody, moved back to Sydney because I'm

(32:39):
still a moment at that point in time, and by
then would patch things up with Vivian. And when I'm
going back to Sydney is in Melbourne where we should
start the touring company again. So it was three reasonably
healthy to have a three years break from each other
at any rate on that point, because that was tough
enough as it was. And then it just went back
to back to back to back, starting with Jesus Marriage

(32:59):
I and Parkes returning new Order. Um, Deborah Harry, no
smaller things that I'm up john Stone Rose is long
the way all that kind of like about six two
is a year. They never have a laps, Okay, So
you gave up management because it's really unrewarding. Of course

(33:24):
if you deal with these people, the ungrateful and you
don't make any money to boot, No, it's like a
license to starve. Yeah, okay, getting back to that, I've
managed like eight acts of the whole time, and every
time I've quit, right, So I don't have a good
track record and management in that way. This guy, that's it.

(33:44):
I'm out of here. Okay. So were you now known
as the alternative promoter? I was alternative promoter the okay?
And then who was your competition if any, um, some
smaller promoters, people like Tim Pittman, not many, not really,
It's like it was more like a we had some

(34:06):
good international agent friends. Um, they understood us. We had
we just had supporters and I just want to send
their act down with somebody that could trust. It's a
long way. And at this point you're making money, yeah,
making very good money. Then Billy Bragg was a big winner.

(34:27):
Some of the scenes ago Billy Bragg, who have thought
he was going to sell out five two thousand theaters
in Sydney. He sold that many. Really I have sold
that more. Okay, So you continue to do this like
six tours a year until what uh? I was trying
to get the festival together because I don't know what

(34:49):
I'm taking an event together at any rate based on
what I did right in and get rid of the
things that were done wrong. We'd had a massive tour
of the Violent Firms in nine where they got seven

(35:13):
thousand people at one show at Fisherman's Wharf on the
Gold Coast, which is pretty out there. We'd do two
nights at Selena's which held two a half thousand. There'd
be fus around the corner because they still had a
door ticketing situation from a lot of it all hard tickets,
so you'd only sell half maybe more in advance. The

(35:35):
things I learned from it were that if you'd sell
out at two and a half thousand capacity venue License
Venue in Sydney, that the main act goes on at midnight,
no one turns up to eleven thirty because it's cheaper
to drink at the local pub. So that's when I
started to pull the show together. Then Lollapaloosa got announced

(36:01):
for for the August and I went our ship. You know,
I'm going to have to pull my socks up here
and get this going now, otherwise the horse is going
to bolt. The Violent Femins were scheduled to come back.
I knew they were too big for some of the stages,
Like as an act, they were too big for some
of the stages. You know, they're fragile because when I

(36:24):
put when I put them on, when I wrote at Milwaukee,
it's Summerfest and it was a big stage there. I
ended up taking all the furniture out of the house
and setting it up on stage, so the couch and
the TV and the fridge and wives and friends were
just sitting on stage during the show. This is its
summer Fest. Summerfest. Yeah, this was That's the legendary like

(36:44):
ten d event was I learned a bit of that.
I learned a lot of that. Okay, that was when
you were the rude Manager of the Year. But they're
from Milwaukee, so I was there for the whole ten days.
So in excess with supporting the go goes, um UH
had to talk to R. E. M. Because they were

(37:05):
thinking that Violet Fans and R. E. M were the
two acts at that point in time that we're going
somewhere um and I just understood all the sound spill
aspects of it, that you could have jazz pointing that
way and ballroom dancing or blues pointing the other way.
And it was kind of like the principle of it was,
as I said, is that you do the Easter show

(37:27):
it's called here or the Royal Agricultural Show and just
get rid of the animals and put bands in. And
that was pretty much the simplest thing to do. Because
those venues were wide elephants um, they were a lot
of governments wanting to develop them because it was an
obsolete thing of having a rural show there. So in

(37:52):
Melbourne and in fact both sides of the political party
were to redevelop the Flemington showgrounds kind of by us
upset in the apple cart. The venues were kept um
and so no longer shot it was is that then

(38:13):
the violent fms just trust me whatever I tell him
that I was doing. So I just told him this
is what I'm doing. Um. And then because I did
get asked to manage them, and I didn't want to
manage them because I didn't want to live in America.
Of course, you know how much fun management is, um,
and I thought that will stop me from doing other things.
So it was working with them as more as a

(38:35):
managerial than a promoter role, saying this is what you're doing. Um.
It started off as a four or five band bill.
I had to explain it just a little bit slower.
While the blues announcements, the violent fems sell out business.
You then in your mind stake we're going to go
to these agricultural venues. You just put that together. Yeah,

(38:58):
and how okay, but there's only one in Sydney to
start with. Okay, so the one in Sydney, what would
be theoretical capacity? Uh? Well, A beautiful thing about the
showgrounds these places is they have no theoretical capacity, um,
which is what I've said many times. What I thank
God it was me um because we utilize the horn

(39:19):
and Previnion, which had a capacity of six thousand. We
utilize some outdoor areas to put some extra stages in,
put a big skate ramp, try and find some decent
restaurants to put some reasonable food in. UM sorted out
to deal with the venue that was I'll take the door,
I'll take the merchandise. UM, we'll just pay a flat fee.

(39:41):
You take the bar. Let's just do that. Well, how
about the restaurants who's gonna They're gonna keep their own
money just for sake, they keep the fast food money.
I would run as a kind of a lost basis
the quality food a restaurant and said, do you want
to come down to a festival, even if it's Laurie's
Vegetarian or whatever it could trying to at jar and
food in I had clinton walk of a friend who

(40:02):
was riding for Rolling Stones set up a chili store
because he made good chili. UM and and that was it.
There was no backstage and cility structure anything with it.
So that the process came about by really going if
I can just do the horn and pavilion with a
six band bill and run it longer. Then the pressure

(40:23):
won't be all on the violent fans that they've gotten
too big or whatever. Okay, and in terms how many
people did you need to sell tickets to to break even? Well,
they kept changing because band's kept bringing me, until I
ended up with twenty one acts and three stages. I
go all all right, okay, I can find a spot
for you. And but they didn't know what a festival was.

(40:46):
I'm signing back to Churn Festival. They didn't know how
a festival work. I didn't know what it was. And
the whole principle of the Australian probably the same in
a national music scene, is that you don't play Beneathan
act that's smaller than you. No, you've fought a hard
road to get that spot. And so certain bands would

(41:08):
go but they didn't understand three stages, so no big,
small medium dang. So I'm going to friends going no,
we won't play before that band on the second stage,
and I go, but that means you'll be playing against Nirvana.
That doesn't matter, Okay, it mattered. Um So this whole

(41:32):
idea that like with Nirvana in there and Stranger, you're
the indie played after them if I didn't care where
they played. This is before they broke big well thore
Nobe one in the world the week. Okay, so your
four days earlier there in countries. Okay, So you've had

(41:53):
a very fortunate booking the budget for this. Whose money
is this now? It's always been my money. Okay, our money.
My money doesn't make it giff in your heart. You
say this is gonna work, or you say, yeah, I'm
gonna throw it up against the wall. Oh, I knew
it would work. I knew it to work. I knew
it had sell out. The main problem because the violent
firms are already that strong that they could do that.

(42:14):
For an actual fact. I used to complain about it
because because Nirvana became on the show, because Stephen Pavlovich
is the friend was bringing them out. Um, I said,
what they like to play on the show, said, I'll
check with them. He said, no, Nevana loved the fems.
That would be great. Now they've played the Phoenician Club
a few nights before. It was a bit of chaos.

(42:36):
Thousand capacity club of Phoenicians. I don't know where the
Phoenicians live nowadays, but then right, that's the uh. It
was all kind of who cares? Okay, so the dates play.
Is it chaos up to the last minute or is
it is it pretty much go according to plan? Well,

(43:02):
you find out things you don't organize. I mean, I
hadn't had any sleep because I realized I realized they
hadn't put up fences, so I had to start putting
up fences during the night. Not luckily, I found two
people in a tree at about two o'clock in the
morning trying to get in for free. And I had
gave him the choice of helping me put the fences

(43:23):
up or leaving. So you want to put the fences
up to keep our friends out so they can't get in,
or we have to leave? And I said yeah, So
they chose to put the fences up with me. Um.
I got through it. It was fine. The exciting thing
was is that ten o'clock in the morning there's two
or three thousand people out front. The main horror I

(43:45):
had was what happens if they don't turn up till
five in the afternoon or six tickets? Had you thought?
I sold fifty two tickets the first day with violent
Fences and Nirvana on the bill, and I kept adding
bands because it was a ten week campaign and I
sent oh well fifty two tickets. I guess they don't

(44:07):
know what it is um and still very much. And
then eventually as it started to click, uh, then it
just started to ramp up. And then when it ramped
up to I think the ten days out, it's all
like six d and fifty tickets on that day and

(44:28):
would have probably gone to thirty thousand if it had
had it. Okay, So ultimately it gets dark, everybody shows up, no, no,
At nine am they all turned up. I think, so
there're two thousand A yeah, yeah, yeah, but you're worth it.
But then by the guy at time, the guy's time
to ten thirty, it was it was everyone was there,

(44:53):
so just a question of getting everybody in. By midday,
everybody was in, okay. Was there an issue of over
capacity only with Namana, which I did complain about because
I had to stop selling tickets because Navanah got too popular.
If I could have balanced it out more, I could

(45:13):
have made more sense of it when you've got one started,
So we stopped it at nine and a half when
I wanted to go to ten. So i've also which
of course then I had to renegotiate the deal because
Nirvana confirmed for five thousand dollars um, so I changed
that to four dollars ahead, so they got right thirty

(45:36):
eight thousand dollars. So because it was unfair the deep, well,
that's rock and roll. The deal is never the deal. No,
it was. They were going to do it, but I
just thought, okay, well the d please mega success. Yeah,
and was it called Big Day Out. It was originally
called ken Fest. I booked everybody on ken Fest. I

(46:00):
didn't have a name, and then first Artworks ken Fest,
Richard Aland was doing Mambo worked with me on and
a lot of this stuff. Because a friend of dare,
I thought you weren't a self promoter, huh. I thought
it was gonna be ken Fest, right, yeah, But that
wasn't That was just the I didn't want to call
it something that was obviously going to be wrong later,

(46:21):
so it was something that was obviously wrong now, and
then eventually had to go with the Big Day Out,
the idea that it's mine but um And that was
partly to do with the fact that I'm worried that
people won't turn up early. So that was the basis
behind that, is to go it's a day out. It's

(46:43):
not no something that says it's cool to turn up
at eight o'clock and miss most of the things. Um.
And that really worked. It worked really well. Um And
what can I say it? Um? It all held together.

(47:03):
It was madness, it was dangerous. Um. You could drive
a truck through the middle of it when Nevada were
on no without even having to open your eyes. Wouldn't
run over anybody because everybody was either in or trying
to get in. Um. And and that success created a

(47:26):
few more problems for me, which were well the mainstream industry,
because I've never considered myself part of the music industry
for a start. I can't stand the term industry. Always
see that and lawyers get practice my music practice. Um.

(47:50):
The is that the money people will go, we need
one of those. That's the ultimate problem with success. We
need a Nevana, we need a festival like this, we
need this. We can't have this scene. So they want
somebody else doing a work to build a scene up
and then they can cannibalize it after that. So at

(48:11):
the same time, Triple J Radio is about to go national,
which means that they would be lowering their profile in Sydney,
so an actual factor. It was only one off event.
Next time it might not get much profile. And also
at the same time, we're a touring company now, we
didn't know we might have toured people on the road

(48:35):
on a big tour that that would be one act
and maybe a support act. But it's a big step
up to say, twenty people on the road, um. And
the infrastructure and the trucking and the budgeting um. So
I did all the budgets m through in a five
percent contingency for theft as I figured, once you get

(48:59):
to that point, we're going to steal everything because it's
not like the corner Shop anymore. It didn't happen that much,
but it started to happen a bit um and you
just find that it was organic. But it was almost
it was kind of like organic on speed. It was
like it was all logical, it was all natural. That's

(49:20):
the way it went. No, you go, I'm trying to
put this party together now, and the party is not
for the audience. The parties for the band and so
so moving into say it was like I really want
to get Iggy Pop back out because the tour he
did with Frontier was stupid. It was supporting Jimmy Barnes,

(49:41):
did some pub shows, went home halfway through it with
a nervous breakdown, had a book for eight shows a week.
It wasn't fun, so reached out for Eggy to do
this UM. At the same time, we already basically had
Sonic Youth ready to go UM and then mc harvey

(50:02):
called me and said, don't you don't you think you
need a well dressed, good looking band on the show.
And I didn't know what he meant, so went, oh,
you meant the Bad Seeds you basically you know? He
said yeah, he said, oh okay, because they love Diggie.
So then this system of no coming back to Nevana

(50:22):
likes the violent fems, is that the artist really built
the lineup. They'd say, why didn't gets on, and so
they'll bring them for you and then they could hang
out with their mates. So that became the cornerstone if this.
Everybody knew what everybody was getting paid. There was no

(50:42):
big deal. It was like there were some overages for
the top acts, rest of them on flat fees. It
was a question to keeping the guarantees down. Uh. It
just kind of held together on the basis that it
was if it works out, well, you will give me
some more money, Okay, A couple of things. So the
first year you do the one show. Next it's the

(51:04):
following year that you do multiple shows. Yeah, how many shows?
The following went to four? Okay, and now it's up
and running. Yeah, and you continue to do it for
year after year after year, not necessarily every year, as
I don't know we're going to do it again. Um.
It grew pretty quick. It became the alternative scene kind

(51:27):
of became the mainstream. The record labels gobbled up the
independent labels so they could get the main ax cheap
without paying them. Don't why buy the app when you
can buy the label for the same price and then
just not put the other artists out. A bit of
a sad moment. Um, no offspring goes off to mainstream
land and other people don't, and so it started to

(51:49):
fracture a bit already with it. The the the the
strengths of the show. It seemed to be for me
was just trying to produce as a bringing of the
tribes together, so that I didn't know much difference between
techno and metal because it had the same bpm to

(52:13):
a lot of extent, so exposed metal bands to techno
and as it's exposed techno people to metal people. And
they were just talking stuff all day, swapping numbers. No
had fear Factory asking later on fear Factory asking Prodigy
how do they get their drum sounds? So it's like

(52:36):
this weird integration of what's happening backstage and when you're
taking it on the road. Uh, that it's not possible
to do that on a one off event, it's not
possible to do it on a three day camp out.
Is that the interaction of the artists really only happened

(52:56):
on their days off. We organized bull games, boats now bowling.
It was that that was the thing that and if
the bands wanted to play an extra ten nights to
the fans, they could. Okay, But you talked earlier about

(53:20):
somebody establishes the paradigm and the vultures come in after.
So to what degree were people competing into Why did
you not get run off by the usual suspects? Um
they didn't know what they're doing? Did they try? I tried?

(53:41):
I tried a few times. I tried then, in which
I said, was a bit of a mistake because they'd
left it too long, so I was surprised about UM.
And it was a really good lineup, but it was
the three Michaels, Mac, Michael Dnsky, Michael Copple and they
did Alternative Nation, thinking this will work. Great line up

(54:04):
except a few problems, like they had the Chili Peppers
on who had canceled, but they kept promoting it for
two weeks like they were on, switched them with nine
inch nails ten days out, UM Flaming Lips and there
was a lot of good bands on, but it was
out at right out in the western suburbs. It didn't
kind of sound right. It wasn't quite a marketed right.

(54:26):
I tried to do it with the Triple M commercial
radio station, thinking will alternatives crossed over in the mainstream now,
so that'll be fine. They did some ridiculous things like
like UM I used to put on the Artwork International
Food Fair. They did it as a slight type of
by mistake and called it a multinational food Fair, so

(54:48):
we're joking about the McDonald's and KFC. UM. It just
didn't gell right now? Did it hurt your business? And
it was a failure. I started to wear me down
because the checkbooks were starting to come out, and so
therefore what was initially a thing of going all we
had to do in the initial stages that that was workout.

(55:08):
We'd do a full tool prop for the act as
if they were touring on their own, which we were
well aware of how to do, would work out what
that would do. Then that would be the basis of
the fee for the big day out of what we
think they'd work at the net and allow them to
add a few extra shows so that even if they
performed in daylight, they could do their own nighttime show
at a thousand capacity pub or or later on at

(55:33):
the entertainment center of their big acts. So they've still
got their fan base, they could still do their do
our show. The record company can buy as many tickets
as they want to that they've still got their own
spot in the sun. That also allowed for the other
bands to go and see them, so they'd still have
the same fun back stage from all the other bands
with the day off coming to see them at their shows.

(55:55):
Um uh. And then so ninety year that was a
bit messy. That was kind of We've had a really ugly,
highly successful, very ugly year and where it pushed the
envelope a little bit too hard. Had Ministry headlining and
Courtney and uh silver chair had just broken, which thanks Owen.

(56:20):
And they played the skate stage because it was great
to be on the skate stage little stage at a
skate route next to it, and so but that was pandemonium.
It was around the time of the pandemonium in the
was was considered cool, like you go and do a
show downtown l A in a comment park and ten

(56:41):
thousand people had turned up and it was chaos. And eventually,
you know, as there's the same guy's all it's all
fun and a game. Still somebody loses an eye and
that became very precarious. So we had to start pulling
back on that mayhem because it was heading to dangerous levels. Okay,

(57:03):
now ultimately over this run you break up with Vivian
once more. No, No, we just stopped. We just stopped
in In We got through. Was really difficult because Stephen
Pablovic had decided to do his own festival. He used

(57:25):
his contacts because he was supplying some acts, which I
like to be inclusive with everybody. Anybody could bring an
act in that to a manage it they'd promoted every
act we ever put on a big day out. We
put on our own tour manager. Well they had their
own tour manager locally, because I didn't want to hear
about problems afterwards, and I thought as a touring company

(57:46):
we'd automatically like normally I would have been the tour
manager and things with it. But everybody was there and
so ninety six had ended up very difficult to put
the line up together. Um. I went with the strength
of Australian Earnest and Steve and had a great lineup
with food fighters and back and oh Beastie Boys and

(58:09):
all of sets of stuff that we're going on and
that we had an argument over one act and it
was over raged against the machine and no one way
or the other, um, and we ended up getting raged
against the machine and they were on it in a
bit of the Nirvana spot. They're on it like six thirty,

(58:29):
which was pretty good fun, especially when the police are
got guns in the audience and yelling out the chant
lines in fact, you don't do it, I won't do
what you tell me, and the police are getting roughed
up by the audience and you kind of go, this
is getting bad, but it was a phenomenal show. But

(58:49):
then I decided that the pressures of doing this, the
the money train that's going on, um, it was wearing
away at me emotionally, physically. I had it in my
head seven um and I wanted to end that chapter,
which Vivian, for a better of worse agreed with it,

(59:12):
so we could go back to a nine show and
go with the farewell show. I'm not planning to do
this again, regardless of what everybody think. I had no
intention of doing it again. We were losing the Sydney
venue because they were converting it into the Fox Studios.
They were building an Olympic precinct which was two years away. Um.

(59:34):
Every council I spoke to said your show is too big,
so we had no venue. I said, let's just call it.
So I called it. And about a year later we
tried another show with Prodigy to try and go more
of a dance event. Chancel it because it wasn't really working,

(59:55):
and then we had to look at the new show
grounds and when all right, no, if I don't do it,
somebody else is going to do it. It is when
you're billing. We did the Big Day Out at the
Olympics side two years before the Olympics, so they were
still building right up until then. So we were pretty
much in the concrete jungle of it. Okay, after the Olympics,

(01:00:19):
you continue to do it. Yeah, then it was then
it was unstoppable. Okay, At what point is kenn out?
I mean, is Vivian out? Um? Lots of times, probably
just as many as me um the final out, because

(01:00:40):
we had lots of outs along the way, like let's
not do this. It's like, I don't want to do that.
You know, this is not coming together. It's it's it's
it's ridiculous having the idea that everything you've earned your
entire life has been put back on the table every
year because if it goes wrong, you're out, like really out,
which is no it can be unlimited. I mean literally

(01:01:04):
every dollar you me was every year. Yeah, if you're honorable,
if you pay your debts, you can warm your way
out of things. But if you're honorable, you're gonna pay everything.
There's no other financial backers. There was never any other
financial backers. In two thousand, Live Nation, which was clear

(01:01:25):
channel did they more for I don't know, offered twenty
million dollars for the show, and I said, why would
I do that? Um? And then I told Michael Godnsky
that about it a year or so later any um
in public. He went down and he said, I just

(01:01:48):
can't do that. I'd have to take the money. So
you had the respect thing of saying knocking back the money,
But it was more like the control. I couldn't hand
control over to if aaseless corporation because I knew it
would die if that. For start, everybody has sold well
if he's got doubled as soon as the agents knew

(01:02:09):
it was owned by like right, we want twice as
much money and you're not going to give any givebacks
if it doesn't go. Yeah. So if you're an independent operator,
it's simply think if you're a corporate company. It's a
different story to sing a song from McDonald's. It's a
bit different to something else, isn't it. Um. So the
end crunch really came for the for the Vivian was

(01:02:31):
over it and I was over it, and we didn't
have a break. I always wanted to have a break
every five or six years, have a fellow year like Glastonbury.
But he was set in his mind that if you
stopped it once, you'll never be able to bring it
back again. You had your chance once, you can't do
it nowadays there's so many competitors and yeah, he's right,
and year he's wrong. Um, if it's taken away, yes

(01:02:54):
the void might be filled. And if it's filled that
much then we shouldn't bother to bring it back. But
if it isn't, we can. So the crunch came that
going from six shows which was called six and out
from to getting to the point with the next time
around it's the four year straight after death and two

(01:03:16):
thousand and one with it going through a full comonial
after trying to book a lineup in September eleven, two
thousand and one for the two thousand and to show
all the metal bands canceled cowards. Um. Luckily we've got
convinced assertion systems are down to do it. Because the
world trade downs went down and all that chaos theory

(01:03:37):
going on. Um, it was just one thing after another
that was becoming harder and more expensive and bigger and
everybody demanding more. At the same time. The everybody's starting
the sources, apprentices people working with us setting up their
own festivals realizing they really can't compete with the Big

(01:03:58):
Day Out in that way, so they created their niche festivals,
which meant that everybody they needed I had five stages
that needed headliners for there was five different festivals that
needed a headliner. So instead you want to be on
stage four at the Big Day Out, or you want
to be a headliner on our festival. So we're being
chipped away from the underneath. The mainstream wasn't causing any trouble.

(01:04:23):
It was the new upswing that was wearing away at it. Uh,
everybody who we said we can't repeat just went to
our opposition. Well, you've been on three times, I can't
put you on a fourth time. Great, so the Chemical
Brothers in our future festival, or Prodigies over it there,
or or you know, Queens of the Stone Age go

(01:04:44):
and play sound way because I've really done a Big
Doubt three times, and so you're not delivering the show
you'd like to deliver because you don't want to look
like you're repeating yourself. At the same time, you're fueling
your opposition. The crunch came for two thousand and UM.
The crunch was kind of happening in two thousand and eleven,
and we managed to put on probably our strongest show ever,

(01:05:09):
which sold out like six minutes, which was a bit
different to fifty two tickets UM with no things like
Nick Kave Branham and like on the green stage we
see her playing before and no, and that's with Tool
and Ramstein and the main stage with Iggy Pop. Before that,
it was it was a really really massive line up.

(01:05:33):
But by then people didn't even look at that anymore.
This went there's X amount of bands here and there's
X amount of bands there. It's the same thing. It's
like when people were buying entertainment by the meter. Um.
Vivian was over it. I was over It was the
twentieth year. We're trying to get Prince. We kept saying,

(01:06:00):
if Mark Igher was going, you're trying to do a
deal with the devil. I was aware of know how
difficult it was. Uh are alternatives weren't great. I didn't
want to do the show. Even said if we don't
do it now and they'll be doing it again. I
was kind of okay with that. He wanted to push

(01:06:21):
it forward. I said, I've got my backpack for Hawaii.
Let me know if the shows on or not, And
then we ended up settling on Kanye and Sound Garden,
who had only recently been there for Splendor. I tried
to get watched the Throne, but that was two two
hundred and twenty person during party, jay Z and Kanye

(01:06:45):
together that even Beyonce be Cheap wouldn't work for us
at any rate, because it was two out there to
start with, and it just wasn't coming together. And and
the point of it was, I said it, so if
we go on, if we announced and go and say,
we're going to have to go through with this, and

(01:07:05):
and he either didn't hear that I didn't want any
of that. As soon as it went on sale, he
wanted me to come to Melment to cancel it. And
we couldn't agree on what to do about that. And
that's when we've been departed building. I had to work
out what to do with everybody that was left, all

(01:07:27):
the staff. It's a problem when you hire your friends,
you gotta fire with your friends. So foolishly to a
certain point went forward, n went out for a dollar
no with with his costs covered from where he spent
so far. Unhappy or happy with that doesn't matter. Then

(01:07:49):
C three became involved, we talked to the other players.
UM I didn't really want to work with the competitors
after all his years, not that I considered charge didn't
scure anybody competitors. I never worked with Michael Cobble. No
offense Michael, but I never would. He's a bit too
corporate for me. UM and that the the C three

(01:08:14):
opportunity was there because of the relationship Lollapalus and a
new Perry and who was trusted. And then we went
into this weird world of trying to rebuild the Ark,
but it didn't come together. It did, for one, it
did the two thousand and third and Big Day Out

(01:08:34):
was a really really fantastic lineup which I'm really happily
put together. Houston was incredible from C three. UM we
got the right prices, we got the right acts that
fell into place pretty well. It did a little bit
over break even maybe a little bit more than that.
UM No. I did two hundred and thirty thousand people

(01:08:56):
over the six shows, the five shows in New Zealand,
so it was two hundred thousand because we didn't do
New Zealand that year. We should have, but we didn't.
UM no, that was There was some really difficult acts
to get, you know, like yeah, yeah, yeah, it's hard
to get you know. I really had to talk to
people about about nurturing it and working out who else

(01:09:16):
was on. It's like a dating game. It's like people,
it's like gonna you're you're putting people in a camper
van for a long ride, so they're gonna like the
people they're going to be in there. Um So that
was all consensus and everybody thought that would be great,
that would be that, that would be great. That worked well.
Um then um uh no, thanks to Peter minch Uh.

(01:09:37):
He then sold Metallica to sound Wave, which I thought
was just totally stupid because he's managing both acts. And
then it was Metallica versus the Tili Peppers and kind
of nobody won. Like he oversold the event for Unwave

(01:10:00):
to the point where it was excruciating for everybody. Um
Our sales, which should have been easily a clean sell out, no,
ran a bit short. Sydney sold out right at fifty
five thousand. That was great, and then Sydney unfortunately had
the hottest day ever an Australian record at forty seven
point five degrees centigrade. I know you double it down too, right,

(01:10:29):
um And then UM, so that was a bit of
a ship fight. We nearly lost the show. I didn't
know what to do. It's like the occupation health and
safety standards nowadays, they don't write up about what to
do if it's too hot, but they need to, UM,
because it's that's an ongoing, real issue with climate change
and the realities of what we're dealing with. And then

(01:10:52):
so we got through that, that was all fine, and
then it just went from all over the shop. Um.
Pearl Jam were interested in doing two thousand and fourteen. UM,
Charlie James good friends. They were pretty expensive. But then
we tried to put a lineup together that might work.
Realizing I went, okay, Pearl Jam, A lot of people

(01:11:14):
I know won't want to go because the Pearl Jam.
I need to counteract that. How do we counteract that?
That side of it was coming together all right. We
had some other great acts were involved in it. We
had Kendrick Lamar locked in, we had various other start
no Mackael Moore was in there too. It was all
looking old and young at the same time. Then, because
of the winter Olympics in Russia. They moved the Grammys

(01:11:39):
onto the middle of our tour for one year, which
meant six months out before we'd announced, anybody who wanted
to go to the Grammys, I couldn't do our show.
So all of the cooler acts trim but they gone yeah,
well okay, Drick went no whatever. Um So then the

(01:12:03):
heart got pulled out of it and it didn't and
fear bad decisions mine and it just didn't connect, and
it was it was already out. And then the final
icing on the cake was when the feedback from the
Pearl Jam fans said, we're not going to go to
the Citty Big day Out. We don't want to go
and see him there. So even Pearl Jam was a

(01:12:25):
negative because they fans didn't want to see Pearl Jam
at the big day out. Okay, so pretty simple. When
C three came in, did you take some money off
the table? No? No, non't no, no, Now it's fifty
fifty So was there any eventing on the line all
the time? Okay? So you played it out to the end.

(01:12:47):
Other than doing the shows, you didn't get a big
pay day selling. No, I paid a million dollars to
go home by who I paid. I paid a minut exactly.
So in retrospect, you wish you'd take the Live Nation money?
Taking what taking the Live Nation money? No, no way,
wouldn't have lasted more than three years. Okay, So it

(01:13:10):
ends are you when it does have this five years out?
You're cool with it? What are you saying? And of course,
oh when it when it's in, Oh, it's just business
when it's the reality, is it it? It had no venues,
it didn't own any property. It was it couldn't protect

(01:13:33):
it's venues, even though I wrote contracts up decide they
couldn't put other shows in a similar style. I said,
you can't put two car shows in the same place.
Why not? You know, like you know the things going on.
So when other promoters could use the same venue, I
had the same cruise, the same security, the same middle management.

(01:13:55):
It was just too many choices for people to narrow
an experience. Okay. So it was business. It was over
it probably It surprised me it lasted that long, okay.
And would you say the festival business in Australia is
healthy now? I don't think the New South Wales government's

(01:14:18):
helping that very much. But I think it's healthy to
a level. It's it's it's healthy if you don't put
your head over the fence. Okay, and you know what
happens next you get punched. Have you outgrown it or

(01:14:39):
are you still paying attention? And if there were an
opportunity you'd get back in now. No, that's a time capsule. Um,
there's much more interesting things in life doer than that.
Because I said I went into the process more, is
it a there's an artistic statement that needed to not
lose money. They don't have any to lose, so I
couldn't lose money. It's a much easier way to do business.

(01:15:02):
It's so because your meaning dollars said don't lose money,
you're gonna lose it. Um. If you don't have any
money to lose, but you have nothing, you got nothing
to lose. You have to make money. Okay, but uh,
you it was profitable enough over the run that you're set. Okay,
I'm fine. I don't have any problems in life. I've

(01:15:23):
done really well. Um. The real point of the issue
is I feel like I'm always been more of an
educator than an entertainer. But yeah, but it's easy to
educate people if you're entertaining them at the same time. Okay,
So for the last five years, you've been on your
own personal journey, or I suppose so I called it.

(01:15:46):
I tried the Quentin Tarantino approach, which was which he
did before kill Bill, which was to lie on the
couch of his stone for a year, um, and then
he got up and did kill Bill. But then after
the end of that year, I I thought, I'm going
to have to change the story now, so I went
into sabbatical no um, and then started to reconnect with

(01:16:12):
what I think is important and not important um Um.
I'm working on a more of a textbook, and it's
an old term, an educational book in regards to large
scyle events. This would be about what the textbook would
be about what it's not necessarily how too, it's more

(01:16:36):
like I'm trying to do it in two parts. So
one it's called the Nuts. Now that's called the Bolts.
So there's two books. So because and that the bolts
part of it is more to do with the the

(01:16:58):
longer history of the process. Okay, but we're talking about
music business and we're talking about festival. What you learned
are you talking about the world at large both okay,
so back to the Ryman Coliseum okay, and the fact
that you've got to entertain the poor people that they'll
rise up and kill you. Okay. Now you started at

(01:17:20):
the advent of the alternative era and you wrote it.
So going back to what you said earlier about science,
is it over? It's it's no more over than fashion's over.
It's no more over than visual arts over. But the
big bang moments if you look at the simple music

(01:17:46):
hit a stole point until sampling, and then sampling kind
of upset the hall Apple card um. And now you're
at this weird point where you can put music on
now and you have no idea where it's from timeline. No,
it just there's the boxes are. So if you don't

(01:18:09):
know who it is or what it is is, say,
have a list't to theirs and it could be from
the seventies, it could be from last week. Um. That
confuses the arts process. There's the timeline, the natural progression
of it. I don't think there's I don't think there's
any form of it being over, because it's been consumed

(01:18:31):
more than ever. But the problem I have with it
is that music has a sense as a distraction from
working on your computer is not the same as a
experiential process of listening to music. And so do you
still have a dream? Lots of nightmares? Let's pass but no, no,

(01:18:56):
my nightmares? And when my best ideas got from? But
is there something you need to achieve either personally or
business wise artistic before you, you know, exit, there's a
few things, but I probably I'm still in a personal
explanation of what's important. So I think that what is important?
What have you? What have you learned? I've learned youve

(01:19:19):
got to challenge yourself more than your capable of UM.
You've got to work everything out in your head before
somebody starts telling you you're wrong. You you know, I'm
I'm a chess plan or to checkers plan. What does
that mean? Okay? Long game? Okay, UM, You've there's a

(01:19:42):
lot of things that need some nurturing that will be there.
But if it's if it's just entertainment, I'm not interested.
What are you? What are you most proud of it?
In your career? Shaking up the foundations UM, standing up
for use, being able to be used, UM, Helping artists

(01:20:10):
to grow in some case survive. Just let let them
reach their full potential. Um there's a lot of things,
but I don't think in terms of that are kind
of you know, I was in a I was in
a position I could do something that I did. Well.
You've been wonderful, Ken, you would We could go on forever,

(01:20:30):
but this has been great to hear your history. Until
next time, Ken West, thy good.