Scott Rodger

Scott Rodger manages Paul McCartney, Shania Twain, Andrea Bocelli and more. You're gonna want to listen to this!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Podcast. My
guest today is manager extraordinaire Scott Roger, who looks after
such acts as Paul McCartney, Shania Twain Andrea Bocelli. Scott,
good to have you on the podcast. Thank you, Bald,
nice to see you and hear you actually tell me
who you're looking over completely in your management roster. Now, boy,

(00:32):
we get a bunch of young development offists, you know,
and that's something that i'd straight away from for a
few years and really go back into. You know, we
just signed just under a year ago that young twenty
year old from Nashville coach Celia Castleman, who's working with
Daniel Glass. Um. We did the album with Dona was
in l A which was great with Peter and Palladino

(00:56):
enable Boreal as her backing band. She plays guitar, so
we made an and we just went a minute album.
This is a kid who hasn't released a single thing.
There's no social media. Well, well let's go back to
the very beginning since we're going into detail. How did
you find her? Daniel Glass? He emailed me and says,
I found this girl. I think you might be interested
in working with We just signed there and he sent

(01:19):
the music and I thought it was great, and we
arranged a zoom because this is still you know, through COVID,
and she was so good. She played the song She's
in the bedroom in her mom's house, UM, and I
thought it was so good. I flew to Nashville about
a week later to sit down with her to see
if it was a real deal. And she's legitimately the

(01:41):
real deal. Alison Cross found her because she knew her
father her father, and then Allison referred her to her attorney,
who looks after her own career. And then from there,
the attorney sort of brought in publishing in label UM
and we just jumped in and made an album. She
had about forty so so we're gonna launch the first
song in March. Daniel was telling me about this and

(02:04):
telling me that he was putting a lot of money
into the recording, more than usual. Was that your perspective, Yeah, definitely,
because he he just signed it to little development EP
deal and then everything naturally fell into place, you know,
like we thought, can we make this a bit more
of a story. You know, the way records used to
be made, you know, instead of just going locally with

(02:25):
some young natural producer, make a very nice record, no
real story behind this. We took a time. We spent
a good six months, and I sent a few tracks
to Dawn because he's a friend, and and it was
actually it's a serious recommendation. She's like, hey, you know,
i'd love Done Wars. I'm like, you're twenty. How do
you even know who Done War? Was it? You know? Um?

(02:47):
But she's such an old soul. And I sent him
to Dawn and don't call me the next day and
he's like, how do you find these people? You know?
This is amazing? Is this she really this good? He
was kind of blown away by it. She can't be
this good. I never do new projects ever, you know.
And and that's where the conversation stuff. Cecilia went to

(03:07):
meet Don, who was in Detroit at the time, and
they hit it off and he's like, let's just do
the album. And from there you pool every favor young artists,
low budget, the team enhanced the studios who I love
Farrel who who runs the studio. She went, oh, we'll
well we'll cut your deal. You know, we've got this time,
and this time we'll do half rights. She made so

(03:29):
many friends, she got she'd never left Nashville. She went
to l A with her mom, started recording John Mayer's
there the first day and she texts me sure, Oh
my god, I'm just make John Mayer. You know. It's like,
I love John Mayr. He's so amazing. And John Mayer's like, hey,
you want to use any of my guitars, you know,
feel free just come in and help yourself, you know.
And the whole sessions ended up being like that, to

(03:52):
the point where Fario, who runs the studio, is like
being my husband. We love her. If she ever need
to spend time in l A, she can stay at
our house. Everyone had met her, just felling up us girl.
So it all felt very natural. Even though Daniel spent
a bit more than he wanted to, it all felt
really natural. Okay, so now the record is done in
a completely changed world. What are the next steps? How

(04:13):
do you make people aware of her? How do you
grow her career? This? You know this, this used to
be when I was a kid, This is this was
the job. How do you find a new artist and
how do you break them? And times have changed over
thirty years or so since I've been doing this. It's
no longer the same as the hustle is different. Everything
is different. She's got to find friends at DSPs. We

(04:34):
gotta literally old school and get her in a car
and drive around and go and do little sessions and
go on do you know whatever radio that we can
get her into, just to try and get some music
out there, start working on social presence and do some videos,
just real least get content out there. We hope we'll
get some support from not only YouTube, but Apple and Spotify, Amazon,

(04:58):
just to stead of giving a little poosh, give a
little profile, get her own some appropriate playlists. You know,
it's not country. She's from Nashville, but it's not country.
You know, it's it's got a real modern feel to it.
But she could you know, she's so influenced by people
like Steve Nicks and Fluwood, Macs of the world, and

(05:19):
it's got that a bit of that flavor. This record
could have been made in n Yeah, yeah, yeah. You
can tell the technology that's in there that it's made today.
So as you say, you know, the business really changed
in this century with the advent of the Internet. Give
me the hierarchy of and this includes both old acts
and brand new acts, and they may not be identical.

(05:42):
What has the most power and exposing an act the
most power and exposing an act if you and again
as you said, whether you're a brand new office or
you're the most established office, most successful artist, what has
the most power? I think it changes was genre, Bob,
And you know this. You've been a music fan, you know,

(06:03):
your entire life. And when when you think when you
were fifteen years old to twenty years old, you loved
whatever was popular. Whoever that was, was the Stones and
the Beatles, and who was it Led zeppel In, the
Symphonies or whatever it was. The biggest music throughout every
era has been pop music, same as today. You know,

(06:24):
the most of the biggest consumers of teenagers and young people,
they're the ones who consume all the Drake or Kanye
or Taylor Swift or or you know anything that's huge.
It just they just need to put a song out
and it goes. It just goes. It's got a life
of its own. As soon as they drop. They tell
everyone on social media, you track dropping today, and it

(06:46):
just goes. They have their own legs. But then that's
pop music throughout the ages. You know, everyone would wait
for the new big thing. And again it could have
been anything through any era pop music because its always
been the biggest music. It's probably consumed ninety plus percent
of the world's music market, pretty similar today. So to

(07:09):
put an artice who isn't in that genre, they could
be a rock band, they could be sort of a
more independent type, you know, avant garde style band or
or singer. Um. They don't have the mass consumption that
pop music has. We still need to support of the

(07:30):
Amazon's Spotify is all the DSPs, But that's not answering
your questions, like is there one thing. I don't think
there is one thing. It seems to be the sum
of a thousand different small things that only to be
happening at the same time. But more importantly than that,
it's like when you're socializing with friends, family, or having

(07:51):
a cup of coffee with someone just catching up, you'll
talk about things like great movie, you've just seen a
great series, and you know what, what have you been
listening to? Uh? What book of you just youve got
to read this book. It's amazing. The word of mouth
is so important. And what I find is with every artist,
I work with because I don't really work with the

(08:12):
young pop artists, the artists that I wish I worked
with a Taylor Swift or a Drake or you know
one of those arts where you just drop Beyonce, that
you drop a song and it just goes boom and
that's the job is done. But I don't work with
anyone like that. So it's how do you get in
the conversation? You know, I find that's the most important
thing because if you're you know, you're sitting having sort

(08:34):
of lunch with three or four friends, and if you're
in that conversation, did you see the new video by whoever?
Did you hear that new song? It's incredible? Or did
you see something that they did whatever was creative and marketing,
the visual, the artwork, Oh the artwork was done by Stone,
So isn't that amazing? How did that happen? How do
you get in the conversation, whatever way in you're gonna take,

(08:57):
you have to be in the conversation with the brand
new act. What is it like with your interaction with
the DSPs? What are you looking for from them? What
do you want in a perfect world? Well, you know what,
I think all of the DSPs, it's like the old
kidney candy store analogy. You know you love candy, you
walk in the candy store, you have no idea what

(09:18):
you want to have, and DSPs feel like that. For
most people. You're very different and very different. I know
exactly what I wanted to want to go in there.
Most of the time, it's still good to find things
on curative playlists that you may not have known but
you actually like, and it's been a great way to discover.
I think most people are still of the playlist mentality.

(09:40):
You know, they're like a genre music, so they're quite
happy to listen to playlists that features that genre, whatever
that genre happens to be. So I think for new
artists the playlist concept is so vital. It's a great
way to introduce someone who's never going to go in
that store and choose your song. You've got to present
it to. Okay, let's go a little bit deeper in

(10:00):
the weeds. You're talking to one of these uh streaming companies.
How hard is it to get on a playlist? How
many playlists will they put you on? And then there's
issues of you know, save rates, tell us you know
how you get to the point where you have some traction.

(10:22):
This is where it becomes a global issue because you know,
the great playlists in France or Germany, or Italy or
Sweden or Australia very different to what they are in
the UK or the US. Every country is that localized.
Don't one the playlists. So it ends up being a
task that you got to go around the world exactly

(10:43):
excuse me as we're doing now on Zoom. You know,
we do constantly we're on zooms with territory of the
territory of the territory and trying to find out what
they need to do, what they you know, to in
order to achieve set up in these art results. A
lot of times they may want to bring us in
from management on a call with a Spotify or an
Apple or whoever happens to be or a Deezer, and

(11:05):
you know, all all these companies, and it's trying to
find your friends, find people who actually believe in the artist.
Then they want to help. It's it's it's it's like
you're doing the sales pitch. And for the most part,
you know, we have a lot of friends now in
these companies and we can go to these friends and
try and ask them for support because they know we're established.
What we have is legitimate. We're not coming in cold,

(11:27):
We're coming in with a track record, and we sort
of not asking for the world. We'll try and isolate
where we want to be. Can we can you please
just try and get us on this. We know we're
not going to get music Friday on Spotify for example.
You know that may be further down the line, but
initially it's like, let's see where we need to place
this artist. Let's isolate the key playlist that we feel

(11:48):
would be appropriate. Then we've got to try and get
on them. Some of those playlists are curated by the company.
Some of those playlists are curated by individuals you know,
And then that's where you need to label help because
a lot of the time they know a lot of
these people because they've solicited music to them before, and
maybe they have a track record with those people. It's
it's the workload, I think for a manager. And you'll

(12:09):
probably hear this from a lower manager of friends of
yours or people you talk to the workload from saying
when I was a kid working for managers versus what
managers have to do now two different jobs. Two different jobs.
You can never I don't think you can never achieve
if you've got a checklist of everything you have to achieve.
If you're releasing a record, you can never do. By

(12:31):
the time the records are the job doesn't end. Okay.
These streaming services provide a lot of artists data. So
to what degree do you look at that data and
does it affect your game? I think that depends on
the size of the office. I find that really really
useful with the larger office because you can focus on

(12:54):
certain areas um and then the areas where nothing's happening.
You know. Okay, we've got to put a bit of
weight over here for a young artists. And it's someone
like we're talking about Cecilia, who hasn't put a record out,
so there's zero data on her. So I think it's
just going to be interesting and how we act on
as two different you know another thing. You know, you

(13:15):
get the data, what do we do with that data?
You know, we just want to see, Oh, is there
people you know, as the New York there's graviting towards
her but nowhere else or is it just the coast,
or is it maybe in the in the South. Maybe
it's just naturally if everything, so, it's going to be
really interesting to see what comes back. Then at that point,
we still know what kind of office we have or
where people are. You know, is she being played on

(13:37):
rock and alternative or should be being played on sort
of you know, more sort of the middle of the
road type stations or is it she going to get
in some country stations? And maybe the cover song. We
have no idea how this is going to pick up.
So that's where the data is interesting because it sort
of tells you where you are and where you've got
to focus. Um, you know, if we get the heat map,

(13:59):
you know, and terrist, she's not just in the US,
but around the world, you know, because these things can break.
Oh this thing is breaking out of France. Well, how
did that happen? Then you gotta figure out how it happened,
and then you gotta go there and you've gotta chase
that one. And if it breaks in one place, you know,
you can mirror it elsewhere, you know, And that's kind
of again. I never thought I would get into trying

(14:19):
to break a brand new artists from zero again until
I heard this music. But you I'm a music fan,
heard the music, so this isn't a way to make
a living, you know. So we're definitely not doing it
to every quick you know. And I say, it's coming
back to why are we doing this in the first place?
Because the music is great. She's legitimate, she's the real deal,
she's a real artist. She didn't just write a one

(14:40):
off pop song that we think we can chase and
make a hit, you know. So it's trying to remind yourselves.
Are people that work with me, we're all music fans,
as like, why are we doing this? Let's do with this.
We're not going to earn a penny for years, if
we ever earned anything, but it's the right thing to do.
In these various as of the stool. How important is

(15:03):
television today? Into what degree do you put attention in
that area? We keep analyzing that and discussing that internally. Um,
during the late nights, you know, all of the late nights,
without even naming any of them, they're all good fun,
they're great. You really don't get much from them with

(15:23):
your music unless you're doing something there's some kind of
gimmick production gimmick you know, or your your you know,
the artist has created something where it may go viral
and it lives online after the performance. But the actual
sort of look at their ratings on all these shows,
who watches them? Are they? You know? How real are
those ratings? Are people really watching to the last five

(15:45):
minutes of the show when an artist is going to
put a song on. I don't know about that. I
really don't know. He used to be such an important tool.
Now I think it's one of those things unless you
can make it viral, unless you can create something that's
a little different and again create a talking point where
we sto down, we have a coffee, they're like, oh,
did you see your selling so on Jimmy fallon last night?

(16:08):
You know, I see, You've gotta watch it because this happened.
Then you go online and you'll look it up, and
you will you'll take a look. That's the only way
that sort are really resonating, or if there's some kind
of stunt value to it. UM Saturday Night Live seems
to be the one that still really really need something.
UM that shows so many highs and lows over the

(16:30):
past most been on for five years, has been on there.
You know, so many highs and lows. At some point
everyone thought, but this is the show is gonna end.
It's not going to be relevant anymore. Then Boy comes
back on the newcast and it's on top again. That
show is still absolutely resonating. That's the one that everyone
wants to try and get on, you know, but that
they are always smart with what they book, unless there's

(16:51):
someone who drops out last minute because of COVID, you know,
which has been happening lately. You know, they're not getting
the artists that they wanted. They had someone book for
models and then they drop um. So that one still
really really means something um. But then you go internationally,
what else means something? Not a lot of the TV
none of it really means what it used to mean

(17:11):
unless you can make it something making something special. So
what I'm finding is like with the bigger artists, you
need to try and come up with something that's almost
like an artist special. Can you make something that's just
different from the norm. Can you make something that's artists
in conversation with someone you know, like try and get
a BBC or an NBC or another network to get

(17:33):
them bored. And so you've given fans something a little
bit richer than just use one song from a new album.
Never gonna work. But yet it's still something you do
because you know, this is that they are of marketing.
If marketing is a science, you know, we don't know
how to do it when we throw everything at the wall. Okay,
we're going to do the cover of Billboards so that

(17:55):
the industry knows what we're doing. And we're gonna do,
you know, try and get the cover of Rolling Stone.
Doesn't really mean anything, but we're gonna do it anyway,
you know. And we're gonna do Jimmy Fallon and we're
gonna try and get set in that live. And we've
spent all this money in advertising and all the key
markets and stuff, and you started throwing everything at the
ball in the wall, and we've got all this social
stuff that's going on and everyone's doing the same thing,

(18:18):
you know, And again, how do you make it resonate?
How do you get in the conversation, because then it
becomes a little bit like wallpaper and this instead of
our daily task. How are we shaking this up? You know?
What is the next trend? You know, especially for a
lot of the acts that I work with, you know,
they're older, they're really established, they're really really successful, you know,

(18:38):
the biggest artists in their fielding, in their genre. You know.
Yet you can't take up a brand, so you can't
just drop a record like Beyonce it and you know
it's gonna go. It doesn't work like that, So you
have to be more creative, you know. Stuff found that
more and more my jobs. It's almost like, yes, you manage,
but it's more about marketing. How do you present these
artists to market? You know, And that's the toughest thing.

(19:00):
It's got to be right for them. It's got to
feel good, feel appropriate, connect with their audience. Um, and
it gets harder. Let's leave a side top forty radio
because you don't really have acts in those areas. Those
are the Beyonces, etcetera. And that's narrower than it's ever
been basically hip hop and pop. So the other types

(19:21):
of radio to what degree did they fit into your
plan and how effective are they in terms of getting
the message? I study use the same sort of analogy
very diod from marketing. It's important to have a presence
serious ex sam is probably the most important I feel,
you know, unless you're again on the top party radio,

(19:41):
then I how's your best friend? Um? But for us
is that I work with you know, serious is legitimate.
They have a real listenership, you know, and how they've
grown in the past fifteen years, you know, from a
few million subscribers to probably all closer to forty million
subscribers not um, I don't know the exact date on that,
but it's getting well. They announced thirty two and there's

(20:01):
six point six point five that are on free accounts,
so your number is pretty good. Okay, So yeah, you know,
I keep seeing it every sort of year where they're at,
and you just that they're going up. But it's that's
a lot of potential listeners more so than anything else. However,
you know those listeners is like, yeah, I only like
sixties or seventies radio, you know, or I only like country.

(20:24):
I only listen to Howard Stern. There's still a lot
of that. But they're really really good at what they do,
and you've got to think that whatever genre you're in,
you're gonna have a dedicated listenership, you know, because let's
face it, you know, like where can we're rock bands?
You know, alternative radio doesn't mean what it used to mean,

(20:45):
you know, gone on the days of the label spending
money hiring independent radio specialists to try and push your
music on specific formats. Yes, it still happens, but they
don't think they get the return anymore. You know, if
they get all there, the payback isn't what it used
to be. It doesn't move any you know, so that
is a challenge. Um. But yet, like when I look

(21:09):
at sort of a C radio or how a C
you look at the total listenership and it's so small.
It's important for artists to see that their music is
being played. So a lot of it is. And I
get this from big artists. How do I measure my
success today? I used to look at my success where

(21:30):
you know, whatever radio chart with a song in the
top five, my album went in in the top five. Oh,
my album's gone go no, no, my album's gone platinum.
That's how they used to measure their success. Oh, and
doing the two or thirty days and they've all sold that.
Artists feel successful today. They might still do the shows
that way, but then they see any we've got number

(21:53):
one record this week, and you you're very very aware
of this. Over the past few years, you know, we've
gone from bundling tickets with some authors, we've got really
big tours, you know. So you're buying the ticket and
it comes with the CD, and the CD goes out
an accounted for for a scam and that doesn't happen anymore.
So now everything changes to formats. How do we get

(22:14):
our hardcore fans two collected from formats and boost our
numbers first week? Um, So measuring off the success, which
you know, everyone I work with is like, well, what
does that mean? Yes, I got number one a week
two I was number thirty, you know, week three I
was number sixty three, whatever, So how do I measure
my success? And it's a really hard question to ask.

(22:37):
But in the advent of streaming the big artist that
I work with and we work with as a company,
you see a whole lift across the entire catalog, you know.
So that makes it even more complicated to measure success
unless you really get down to the analytics of exactly,
say what you were doing across the catalog to what
you did for the catalog over a very small window

(22:59):
of time, and what does that lift equate to, and
then trying to break it down financially is even more
complicated because then it goes down to the nature of
the artists deal. Um So, trying to measure success for
the biggest arts in the world has never been harder,
I don't think. But they will see the revenue eventually
flow through because of the increased across If you've got

(23:21):
twenty albums and your catalog and thirty albums your catalog,
you see movement across the whole thing. Not necessarily a
new record, but everything goes up. People are curious, Oh,
I like that record, I'm going to go back to
that one, not necessarily the new one. Um So I'm learning.
We're all learning. Just when you think you know your job,
you don't know your job. It's back to square one again.

(23:41):
How do we do this, How do we do better?
How do we service our artists? How do we make
them feel that it's not just about touring. Yes, touring
has never been better for certain artists, but that's not
what feats them. They like their shows, they're happy to
be paid well, but they still want to see their
art and their music becomes successful because that's why their artists,
you know, like working with all for example, he doesn't

(24:03):
stop h whites it all the time. He's never stopped
since years. Yeah, So it's he wants to know that
he's relevant. He's putting up music and there's an audience
that have music. Okay, so you mentioned the charts. Hey,

(24:24):
do you feel there's a significant chart in addition to
the Billboard Nielsen chart, and that chart, as you say,
number one, can be manipulated with games physical product In addition,
they meld physical and digital downloads along with streams and
now YouTube in a certain way. So, hey, to what

(24:48):
degree do you play the games because everybody else does
be would you be in favor of the game's going
away and see what is it like actually living in
the world? Okay, Um, I feel that I'm partly responsible
for creating the games. Um why the game's created? Um? Again,

(25:11):
going back to say what we're saying about pop artist
pop artists through history. If you're Beyonce, if you're Kendrick Lamar,
your Drake, you're Adele. Any of those artists drop a
song today, it's number one next week. They don't do anything,
no physical products. It's probably just there are people who

(25:32):
still digitally download the few that are there. It's still relevant,
but the rest of streaming those artis can just drop
the song in the system and boom. Yeah, it would
be a dream. I'd love to work with something like that,
but I don't um so in order to try and
get that chart, because again, let's face it, and you

(25:53):
probably have exact stats on this, I don't. Is it
something like the top three percent of all big artists
probably consume nine plus percent of all streaming. I don't
know the exact staff there. It's I don't know the
exact one, but it's not too far away from that.
And what that means is if you're not a pop

(26:16):
artist that has been consumed at insane rates by people
say between the ages of twelve and twenty five, and
and that's just a very random number. Those are people
with more disposable time, more downtime then say maybe their
parents who have good jobs and trying to sort of
run their lives. They don't have as much free time

(26:38):
as young people. Young people are free time. They can
consume that their friends, they share songs, they're online, they're
all chatting with each other, sharing music all the time,
and they're they're consuming a lot of music. They're not
doing that for more, shall we say, established artists, people
who have had more than five albums in their career.
As soon as they hit that thirty five to forty

(26:58):
five maybe plays a little different. They seem to be
breaking them old um. But most other artists aren't streaming
like they should. I would think most artists that I
work with, and let's make up a number. Let's say
for ch our purposes, they've got a hundred thousand albums
in the U S and week one, that's what the

(27:19):
sales equivalent would be. I think probably between three and
five on a good day would be streaming numbers. So
without having any kind of creative game plan, you're never
gonna get that hundred thousand target if that is what

(27:40):
it needed to be to be number one that week,
or even playing top five, You're never going to get
there without first having to say, Okay, how are we
going to break this down? You know, how are we
going to get to where we want to get to?
And then you have to find the path to get there,
and I've started become really really good at that with
everyone that I work with. You've got to try and

(28:01):
look after the fans. What do the fans want who,
at least hardcore base, what do they really really want
from this office, and then you've got to try and
feed them, knowing that your streaming numbers right now aren't
going to get you there alone, you know. So I
couldn't put a record up by and Paulay or s

(28:21):
Twain and just any of the albums up. We've got
a great final, We've got a great CD. You can
stream it on Apple and Spotify and Amazon, you know,
and it's just it would probably do a tenth of
what we've needed to do. Let's go to YouTube content.
To what degree is it necessary? And do you create

(28:42):
specific content for YouTube like videos? It used to be,
you know, you made a video for MTV. Now the
bigger acts make a video especially for YouTube. Maybe it
might be distributed elsewhere. Other acts do nothing and hope
for fan content or something that might be from a
late night shell. To what degree is that part of
the plan? And what do you do YouTube? I've found

(29:03):
at least for they are acts, I work with them
in such an important partner because they're willing to be creative,
they're willing to do things out the books, and they're
willing to assist you to fund it. A couple of
years ago, McConney released an album called Egypt Station and
that was the name of the album. So we're trying
to think, how do we launch this album, you know,

(29:24):
and we've done a bunch of great stunts over the
years with him. He's really open to doing things if
they're created. And we thought, we we've never done anything
in a station, So what about Grand Central Station probably
one of the most iconic training stations on the planet architecturally,
everyone knows it would be anywhere in the world. And
you say grind Central, they know it's New York. Why

(29:47):
don't we try and do the album comes out on Friday.
Why do we try and do the show just after
rush our sitting pm on a Friday night in Grand
Central Station, and let's film it, you know, because it's
a beautiful, beautiful room there. As architecturally, it's actually stunning.
Next time you in New York, if you haven't been there,
have a walk around. The building is unbelievably beautiful. So

(30:11):
we found this amazing room. We've got the permissions. New
York's very friendly. You know, three different police forces. You know,
you've got the Metro police for the station, You've got
state police, you've got a city police, got them all
talking in harmony. The Mayor's office gave his permits. It's
really strict. Everything about it was really strict, from the
minute you go in, the minute you get out what

(30:32):
you have to do. And YouTube came on board and
filmed this and we we filmed it in such a cinematic,
beautiful way the really creative director and we broadcast alive.
So those stunts are so few and far between, they
don't work for every artist, but it was such a

(30:53):
monumental event. That event was captured, it's still online. And
we we partnered. We did a fun partnership, say would
lift and on their maps because anyone wanted to the station,
they gave him a lift there for free, you know.
And they re branded the station on the maps and
Egypt Station for a night into Grand Central Away. So

(31:14):
we had a bunch of fun, gimmicky things. But but
the YouTube partnership was so vital there because we couldn't
have afforded to do it without them. You know, I
think they paid, you know, just over half of what
it costs and the rest we use from marketing budgets
from the label. But it was such a stunning event
and created a real moment and what we gained from

(31:34):
that media wise, especially in New York, the biggest selling market,
you know, or literally the state of New York is
where he sells more product than anywhere else, and you
get all the front page coverage from that, you know,
McCartney shuts down Rush Hour and things like this, and
but it was all because of YouTube. We could have
done it without. Then I go into Andrea but Chelly

(31:58):
and this is in April. It was Easter Day and
we went to This is actually one of my staff, Francesco.
We were in a team in Italy. He came up
with this idea and we all thought, yeah, that's kind
of a cool idea. It didn't set our worlds up

(32:19):
far and thinking like, yeah, cool, we should go with
it if it's you know, and his idea was on
Easter Day because everything was a lockdown. No one was
allowed other than the groceres or walking your dog or something.
We did this event at the Duomo Cathedral in the Lama.
We sold the idea to YouTube as and would you

(32:39):
like to help fund this and we're broadcast it live
um and it was just really under it in the cathedral.
You know, he sang a couple of songs and we
had to rehearse and walking out the cathedral because he's blind.
He walked all the way outside of the cathedral and
sang a song in the square at that's normally full

(33:00):
of tourists and full of people. There was a ghost
town and he sang a song with the cathedral as
the background. The weather was beautiful. We had a crew
of six people and a couple of staff, and there
his wife. There's no one there. It was all very
tied because of COVID pre the call, and that changed
the game completely because everywhere, I think we had something

(33:24):
crazy like three and a half to four million people
chewed in the live around the world. It became such
an event. We were thirty million the next day because
people would go back because the world them out. You've
got to see this, you know. And and that for
him was something that we thought would just be a
cool little thing for him to do, and he just

(33:45):
wanted to do it earthly and then turn it into
this global event. And again I think it was a
hundred and fifty thou dollars in costs for the film
crew and the satellite up link, a lot of money,
but not a lot of money in the grand scheme
of things, and that was such a game changer. And again,
and you know, I'm probably the best salesman right now,

(34:05):
but they thought, this is a great idea. We want
to support the artist. Let's do this. So going back
to your point though, artists doing videos for your YouTube,
I think to try and get an engagement, you know,
like YouTube are always willing to if you go to
them with an idea. Okay, we're gonna have this artist
of this group of this band sit down with this

(34:29):
actor and this other artists friends of theirs, and they're
going to talk about the new music and then all
of a sudden they're going to introduce a new video,
almost like a premier. YouTube are always game for any
cool ideas. I did one with Paul and Chris Rock.
They just chatted about music and it was over zoom
because it couldn't be in the same place YouTube. And yeah,

(34:50):
we'll do this, but not only will we do this,
we'll actually support this and we'll take our off side
billboards because like most companies, they book billboards around the world,
but they pretty much take on a twelve monthly basis,
and we will drive more traffic to this, so they
really get behind the artist. There's such an important partner,

(35:10):
but they're one of many really important partners and it's
just another piece of the puzzle. You've got to get
them on board, and you've got to be really, really creative.
What works for the fans, what works for the artists,
and also what works for the company. Can you get
all three right at the same time. Um, the biggest
issue with YouTube will always come back to, well, how
do they pay? You know. It's like like all of

(35:34):
these arguments you know, with Spotify or how are they paying?
You know? Is how they paying fair rates to the artists.
There's always that fine line between water is promo. If
you look at YouTube like we U see look at MTV,
We're not getting paid for that. They're playing our video
ten times a day. So it's that fine line between
ensuring the artist gets paid when music is being played

(35:57):
and also we need to promotional outlet because if we
have something that we feel is great that our fans love,
hopefully we can create that project. If YouTube is partnering
with you, do they still pay from view one or
do they say we invested all this money you want
to take it off top no, they still pay from Okay,
let's go to the other end of the spectrum, Cecilia.

(36:20):
You know, without you can talk about her specifically but
in general and act like that with much less visibility.
Will you create specific content to post on YouTube very
close to launch or even before I think so. I
think you have to try and get the autics personality across.
Maybe it's something conversation piece, maybe it's sort of playing acoustically.

(36:41):
We will create specific content that we will put on YouTube.
Her sitting in our bedroom. You know, there's nothing better.
At the amount of time she's a zoom and say, hey,
I want to play you this? What do you think
call it? And it's so fun when when that happens,
because no one else does that. Let's face it, you know,
the young artists who are not tainted with this industry,
not jaded in any way, Hey can you do the zoom?

(37:03):
And she'll just sit in her bedroom with a little
leftop there and taught herself how to record, and she
will just play a song and it's it's so effortless
and amazing. It's almost like we just put a little
camera crew in your bedroom with this little twin bed
and your little leftop on your desk and stuff and
just record you doing this. So absolutely because contents King,

(37:24):
how do you you know when someone discovers you discover anything,
you want to know more, Oh has that person done
anything else? And you go backwards what else have they done?
Kind of learn more. It's gonna be the same for anyone,
any new fan, anyone who's remotely interested. They want to
go digging, and if there's nothing there, you're not feeding them.
So we're going to try and feed them until we
put an album out. Then it comes to question, who

(37:46):
you know, if she puts an album mobile, I'll be
putting out physically. You know? Is there a marketing even
for vinyl as big as viol is Right now, we
kind of don't know what's what shape this is gonna
take until we start. It's kind of exciting, really, this
them is our hope or only hope for this album.
Even if we don't sell a lot of records, I
guarantee we're going to be in the year top ten lists.

(38:08):
That's where we're going to get with the record. Let's
go to TikTok. What do we know? The traditional music
infrastructure was blindsided by this. Then we had the incredible
success with the Cranberry Juice and Fleetwood Mac. You know,
it's not run like the other social platforms. You know,
the company invests and it allows you to not have

(38:31):
talking about as someone who's creating videos, not myself, but
a creator they might be able to get into in traction,
whereas on the other systems, if you haven't already made it,
you're really pushing the rock uphill. To what degree do
you interface with TikTok? Does it work or is it
really just about getting lucky that someone picks up yourself

(38:52):
and peels like it's really just about getting lucky? The
genuinely does. Like every other outlet, you have to address it.
You can. It's not an afterthought every call that we do.
What's our plan for YouTube? What's our plan for Spotify?
What's our plan for Apple? What's our plan for TikTok's
our plan for Amazon? Every single partner you have to address.

(39:13):
You have to give them time. You have to try
and get creative. What content can we put up there
that's not only going to connect with the artists fans?
How do we get new fans? How do you introduce
this new music to people who may I've never heard
of the artists a new artist, even as an older artist,
you know, like a new music out How do we
get this out there? Um? And by far no means

(39:36):
an expert on Spotify, on TikTok. Luckily I have younger staffs.
They're way more you know, well worse than I am. Um.
But it still feels like it's pot luck. It's about
music connecting with something a creator has done, you know,
or the artists does something that's really appropriate for that platform.

(39:57):
I haven't had anything big breakout of it. Had some
fun moments with it, but they never really turned into
anything tangible. But I've seen but I think it's something
that you need a presence. The view counts that you
get on some of these uh little pieces of content
that you post are insanely large, but I don't see

(40:18):
that translate off the platform. Okay, let's go to the road.
Let's talk with someone like Paul McCartney is essentially going
to sell out everywhere he plays. How do you decide
on frequency, location, building, ticket prices. Paul was always really, really,
really adamant, even with the new world of secondary ticket

(40:41):
things stub hubs and all those after market platforms where
people would sell the tickets for two or three, four
or five, ten times the cover price. Paul never wanted
to charge more than three dollars, even though he could
have this role and that is two thousand dollars whatever.

(41:02):
He always wanted to keep it tight, still does, still
having these conversations. Always make sure he's aware of how
things work, to make sure you knows what every other
office is doing. And at that point it's his choice. Um,
that's generally ticketing. So his grocers are always going to
be lower than what they could be because he doesn't

(41:22):
want to raise his prices. That's just the way is,
even though he knows that three ticket, so I'm gonna
buy for two and a half thousand dollars. Okay, how
do you decide how often on the market? Now? How
do you just decide forre you get to the yeah,
in terms of uh, if leaving COVID out of the picture,
let's really talk to paradigm before that. How much does

(41:43):
he want to work and how do you decide the
market and within a certain country where to play and
what size buildings. Let me give you an example saying
in the US, probably easiest one to do um Pose
agent and co promoters a gentleman named Aarry Marshall who
has worked with Paul for decades. One of the best

(42:05):
I've ever worked with, learned so much from He's such
a mentor, such a you know, fountain of knowledge. And
if you ever go to Barry's office, which is in London,
he's a map of the world, big map of the
world on a really big wall and there's little color
coordinated pins on this map and each pin will signal

(42:28):
signify a year and the tour, so you can see, okay,
how many times has he been here, how intends to
be there? And that's what it ends up doing, is
where has he never been? So you find out all
these markets where he has never been, and he always
wants to go to these places. Even though with Paul,
if he doesn't run a dates, let's say shows in

(42:49):
the US, he could just do major markets, but he
could do major markets every two or three years if
he wanted to, or every year even but he doesn't.
He wants to go places where he has been just
adding to the fact that he will have played most
places and he was always into trying to do if
you went to a major market let's say New York,

(43:11):
I'm going to play in the Garden a few nights,
then maybe go across across the river to the Barkley
Center for a couple of nights. Maybe go over to
New Jersey for a couple of nights. I'm covering the
Try State area. Then maybe next time I'm go and
play Met Life. You know, so never wants to just
repeat MetLife, Met Life, MetLife Yankee Stadium, Met Life Yankee
Stadium sometimes wants to keep it smaller and more intimate,

(43:35):
mix it up for fans so they're not just getting
the same thing every time. Same In Los Angeles, you know,
maybe okay, maybe we're gonna play the Forum, or we're
gonna play Staples Center or Hollywood Bowl, and maybe we're
gonna do like Dodger Stadium. You know. So it's always
tries to mix it up. Um and then with the
rest of the world, it's like, okay, you know, he

(43:57):
hadn't really done South America. The Beetles never did South America.
So then we said, okay, let's start with Mexico, and
we did a whole bunch of shows in Mexico, played
the Aztecs Stadium in Mexico City who played Zokolo Square
for a free show for two children, fifty people, you know.
And there's another place called Fotosaul, which is like the
baseball stadium, you know. So okay, we're doing all these venues,

(44:19):
and we've done the arenas, so you covered that one. Wherever.
Never been never in a Paraguay, never been to Uruguay,
you know, and never be in the Chile never you know,
never been to Peru. When we started going around all
of these places, and I remember going with him to
a sun shone in Paraguay. Flying in, I can't even

(44:40):
see a city. I always see his jungle and like,
who is going to come and see him play in
this city? And you get there and you're really in
the you feel I really feel like I'm in remote
part of the planet, never mind in this country itself.
Then we go to this rookiey old football stadium and

(45:00):
thirty five thousand people show up, and it's like, where
did these people come from? How did they know him?
How can they afford the ticket? Doesn't look like a
wealthy country. Um, And we sell out and it's amazing.
It never ever ever ceases to amaze me how things

(45:20):
are that can happen. It's magical. And one thing that
Paul when we're speaking last week, he he he always
talks about this. He's going, you know, I'm hanging out
with friends or bump into someone they like, hey, what
are you up to? You know you're still playing these days.
He's going, people have no idea what goes on another
parts of the world, you know, and we've got to

(45:41):
remind them. We gotta do something with that. Because when
he's in Mexico, he's in Argentina, all those places, it's
still beatle Mania. Thousands of fans outside of that town
all night, singing Beatles songs with their flags and there
whatever they've painted on them. And when he tries to
get out of the hotel, more often than not, same

(46:01):
in Japan, he's got to go out from underneath the
service entrance. You can go out the front door. It's
kind of next level craziness. Yeah, And the rest of
the world is all very civilized, it's all very polite,
and he's like, it's kind of he says, that still
blows my mind that no one has any idea. You know,
we just played three nights that were played stadium. We

(46:21):
played two d and ten thousand people. It's beat on
many of their Nobody knos you know, so we have
we're talking about it. How do we pull something together,
you know in the future. You know, it's like, but
there's a little mini dark or something. Because we film everything.
You film all the shows, We record all the shows
with a bureau team were still photographers. We document all

(46:42):
of this. Um So at some point hopefully we can
do something and people are, oh, that was happening, that's
still happens. Um So it's pretty funny. Just that's one
artist perspective and can look at Andrea Butchelli. No one
talks twice about Andrea but Chelly that often. He's one
of the highest box office grossing stuffles on the planet.

(47:03):
Certainly in the US. Nobody knows. You know. You can
go down in Brazil and he's playing multiple nights and
football stadiums, nobody knows, you know. So this is sort
of off. His careers, you know, are so different, so
diverse across the world. And how you get that to
connect so that everyone is aware all over the world
is something I haven't managed to crack yet. Let's stay

(47:32):
with the Curdy for a minute. At this late date,
what does he want? Also, he has a reputation for
being a student of the game. There's certain artists that do,
like Elton John whatever, and the other artists are oblivious.
Just point me in the right direction and I'll do it.
So to what degree is he involved in strategizing, knowing

(47:53):
the numbers, etcetera. And what is he actually looking for
at this late date. Papaul is a master of his craft,
There's no doubt about it. No one has a career
this long, this successful without really being on top of
it and driving it. You can help artist careers to

(48:14):
a point, but if they're not the driver, it wouldn't
last as long. Um. I think I've learned more about
my job through working with him than I have done
through working with anyone else. It made me better at
my job, made me better with other artists because no
one's had a career like this who's still active. Um,
he's super aware every detail, every number he wants to know.

(48:39):
He's super tuned in, doesn't gloss over anything, needs reporting,
needs constant communication. Is a really big team, um, great,
great team that we've refined over years. This is my
sixteenth year poll. It took probably five or six years
to find the right team, and we have a great team.
I wish we could have a team like this, but
every artist I worked with, it would I get better. Um.

(49:02):
He's so tuned in and so involved in the creative,
you know, artwork, paper stock, everything we do. Were we
do working on the catalog piece and he'd approved the
cardboard stock and then that was out of stock. Covid
couldn't get a ship, got another one. He's like, just
not as good. Let's find something else. So every detail

(49:25):
he's on, no one, no other artists on the planet
has this attention to detail. I want to see printing
samples once, to see everything before he signs off. We
have a full time team who do this sort of
thing for him to make sure that it's perfect, you know.
And when it comes to touring every show, when's the
last time was there? Oh, haven't been here? He's really

(49:45):
really involved. The only time in my whole time with
Paul he let me run with something was when he
did McCartney three, because he delivered it with eight weeks
ago before the record came out. That was kind of
and it was writing Covid. It was run about the
holiday period of twenty and you know he delivers. The

(50:09):
masters were often running the hoops we had to jump through.
For vinyl, you know, I went to Thirpman knocked on
the door literally to see if they could help his
manufactured vinyl, and they did because without them we went
upand behind all So it's it felt like a punk
rock campaign for someone like Paul McCartney. Made this record
at home, gave us the record eight weeks before Street Day,
but no expectations, wasn't really doing any promo, and then

(50:34):
he says, like he usually does, so send me the
marketing plan, let me look over with what you plan
to do. It's like, Paul, trust me on this, just
go with it. We're gonna make it up as we
go along. We're not going to put any singles. We're
just gonna try and drive some excitement if we can
till the street day so people really want to hear
the music, and we'll do a series of little movie

(50:54):
trailers just with you know, little themes, maybe a little
bit of music in there, just to sort of our
energy behind this campaign from the moment we announced the
moment that comes out. He's like, you feel okay with
this and went feel good with it, just go with it,
and he went, all right, I trust you go with it.
First time. I took that long for him to not

(51:15):
be hands off, but just sort of take one hand off,
you know. And what I came up with on that
campaign was let's do the remix album. Originally I thought,
let's try and get out four weeks after the main album.
Just drop it McCartney. Three Imagined was was our concept.
And we just have a different artists, young artists, more

(51:37):
established artists, just a real, very group of genres. Do
each song that's on the record just for the fun offense,
purely for the fun of it, no expectations, just trying
to sort of all I said. All I was trying
to do was keeping the conversation longer, you know, because
there's no hit songs on this record. How do we
keep people talking about it? But then this album became

(52:00):
pretty good. Paul never, you know, wasn't really involved in it.
He signed off and all the artists, this is who
we're going to approach, great, love them, this is great.
That was really his involvement, and we just went on.
We made it. He loved every mix that came in
and spoke to every artist. He wrote to them all
was so grateful. Really was a fun project, but it
took longer simply because of the final backboat. We could

(52:22):
out five months after I think. Um. So that's the
one time he kind of took his food off the
guests a little bit and let his team, who are
really established we all ran with it. Um. But otherwise
he's all over everything, every detail, like you wouldn't believe. Okay,
tell me two things you learned from him. You say

(52:42):
you learned so much. I think when I first started
working with Paul, it was one of those things where, yeah,
it was maybe a little more cocky and confident. I
thought it was good at what I did with the
artist that worked with, you know, and I was I'm like, yeah,
I'm happy, I'm I know what I'm doing. I'm pretty
good at this. You know. I was my late dirties
and I'm like, okay, I got this. And then he

(53:05):
would call me at all Ours. You know that a
PM on a Friday night, you know you've had a
long week. You just get home, put your feet up,
I'm gonna maybe have some dinner. I'm tired. It's been
a long week. A lot of ours and he called
and he's maybe in the car, maybe driving from the
country up to town, up to London or something. Hey,

(53:26):
how's it going. I'm like, yeah, great, great, he's gonna
remember that thing we were talking about last week. You
said you get back to me. Didn't hear from you?
Where are we with that? And I'm like, let me
get my notebook, but don't worry about it. Can call
me Monday. Um. And you also said you were gonna
call me on this thing and that thing. I said, uh, yeah, yeah,
I haven't done that yet, you know. And I'm like,
and I got the game. I'm like, that's how people

(53:49):
don't survive. And he's always says you can call me anytime,
seven days a week, night and day. I'm always here,
and it's true. And he is that person you can
calm nine am on a Saturday, tempt you on a
Sunday something's going on, takes your call never, never doesn't
take your call, or he'll text back say I'll call
you back after this thing or whatever. I started playing

(54:12):
the game back, I'd call him on a Saturday morning
at nine am and say, hey, Paul, remember we spoke
with this thing and you you're gonna sort of approve
or not approve that, you know, so we need to
move with it. Ye forgot about that. I'll get onto that.
And and it was like playing ping pong, you know,
instead of being aced all the time, you know, you
started to play back and forth, back and forth. Um

(54:33):
And I got the point where I'd have to write
little basic notes because he could call yourn or somewhere
you're in a restaurant, you know, and he wants to
know the answers. I have all the answers. And then
I just got the point where I felt like I
was in top hall. But it took him in in,
you know, at the point where you feel like your
head bobbing underwater. You're like, then deliver, then deliver, and
that just makes you better at your game, makes you

(54:55):
more efficient. Um And through going through so many different
experiences with him, and they are of PR. How he
talked about PR having gone through from the Beatles through
the present day creative PR games that you play things,
I'm like, Wow, I learned they are are from him

(55:17):
how to do it better and that translate to other
artists what you need to do to make it connect
and be better, you know, And because he is the
master of it. He's been in the public eye for
sixty years, you know, and at that point I would
say he I would say he's an expert. At that point,
it's more than ten, that's for sure. You said you
also learned a lot from Barry Marshal the agent. Tell

(55:39):
me a couple of things you learned there with Barry.
Barry is the ultimate gentleman one. He knows his craft
better than anyone else on the planet. He promotes shows
all over the world. He's not just a British promoter
or a British agent. And his attention to detail. If
Paul has never been in the building, or he hasn't

(56:01):
been in the building, he will fly there with our
production manager and our tour accountant and they go through
the building. They say, can we do the show? If
we do the show, do we have enough of facility here?
What is everything? They check everything. He flies around the
world to check everywhere before he confirmed the show Number one,
number two. We've done some really weird shows with Paul,

(56:22):
really weird sort of you know, be a promo or
fun of whatever the reason. Small clubs, you know, tiny
little clubs or AMVA Records we've done all these weird shows.
That is the one who goes in, Okay, this is
going to be Poles dressing room, this is going to
go here. They make it amazing, unbelievably, So he doesn't
need to be doing that. There's other people on the

(56:43):
team that can do that, but he's the one who
walks through to make sure everything is perfect. When it's
looking at ticketing and how your ticket shows, and if
you're shore, you go into in his office, he has
that full map. You know, say we've got some zone
way up in the gods that hasn't been selling, he
makes sure it's going to be sold. He also does
things like every single show, without fail, always keep a

(57:08):
few seats quite a few seats, like maybe a row
right at the front that doesn't sell. He would go
and pick people that he thinks are really great fans,
reassigned them at front rows every show, so there's an
energy there. Because one thing that every artist hates is
the rich guy up front Cuson is iPhone type and

(57:29):
emails because they also sees that guy in the front row,
you know, so he they want to see real legitimate
fans and when you bring people down from the gods
who weren't expecting it. And then the front two or
three rows changes the energy for the artist and baries
the next Bert at that little detailed little things and
it's like, wow, Okay, that's amazing, you know, because not

(57:51):
a g A floor, it's it's you know, it's it's
reserve seating. You know, where his reserve When it's g
A and we have done a few g A quite
a lot of stadiums in South America. You get the
energy up front, but if it's reserve seats, he brings
people down because all of those little things. You know,
he's masterful of his job. Okay, what about Shania Twain
who played Vegas, etcetera. What are you what about her?

(58:14):
She is sort of the ultimate pro. Took time off
when her son was born, stepped back from the industry
as he got older, her son. You know, she's like, Okay,
I'm ready again, I want to do this. Um. She
loves Vegas mainly because she's a big horse rider. She's
a life just outside of Vegas. Where should go riding?

(58:36):
You know, it's just part of her global trek when
she moves around the world. Um. So it's very much
a lifestyle thing. She liked Vegas. She is her second
residency in Vegas, and we'll run a residency all year
this year and then look to go and do world
through next year. That's the hope. UM. Hopefully there'll be
a new album, you know, coming later this Year's fun

(58:59):
of working with office like that is introducing them to
new collaborators, you know, building new teams around them, giving
them a new revival energy for what they do. Um.
And not only that, she's very real. She's a great person,
great person, hang out with boundless energy, a lot of
fun to work with. And she's a worker. And you

(59:20):
find this a lot of the office who have had
the biggest successes, they work harder than the office who
have had a marginal amount of their success. I'm not
afraid to work. They know the game. What's your viewpoint?
I'm Vegas. You know it used to be the old
has beens now young people even people only you know,
you know, ten years in or less, like Katy Perry

(59:40):
go there. Do you think that's a good thing? To
what degree? When you go in you have to worry
about production? And of course for those on the inside
game in Vegas, the ticket game is totally different. You know,
if something doesn't instantly sell out, which is rare to
begin with, you have to have whole network of you know,
concier different price points, etcetera. Vegas is veggas cells. To

(01:00:07):
be realistic, you've got to be looking at close to
a hundred million tickets a year pretty COVID two million
a week. That's Vegas. That's a real business for artists
and promotors alike, and for the buildings. Then every single
theater in Vegas, all of the the in house theater
is not, including MGM Arena and Timobile Arena. Their stages

(01:00:32):
are as big or bigger than most arenas, so you
can put any size of production in there. I think
Usher had like fifteen to seventeen trucks worth of the
production in there. Huge amounts of production going there. It's unlimited,
so you can do the stage whatever you would do
in the biggest arenas in the world, you can do
in any pretty much any theater in Vegas. So the

(01:00:53):
facilities are really great and really production friendly. But then
you've got to boil down the business. If the theater
is between four and six thousand capacity, which mostly they are,
that's still less than half the size of your Aragorina.
So you're not going to sell as many tickets and

(01:01:15):
you're not going to make as much money as say
one Night am GM versus one night A planed a Hollywood.
You're not gonna make the same money. No about how
the tickets of scale, it's not going to be the same.
So again I think artists like it because it could
be a lifestyle situation, such as the Adele position. She's
she's like a young young child. I think quin Stefani

(01:01:38):
young child. You're Britney Spears with a couple of kids.
They like to go work maybe in the weekends to
fly home. They could fly back to l A then
fly back. It's a fortwo minute fly so it's really
friendly for them to be able to work, still be
a mother and have a different kind of life without
being on a bus and track and run the world
for six months. So some people choose it for lifestyles,

(01:01:59):
but then you boss is like being the Bruno Mars.
You have Lady Gaga all these other shows. Katie Perry
who also probably doing it for lifestyle because she's a
young mom. You know, she can fly back and forth
from her home and ever but a lot of artists
on in that position and they may just go in
and do I'm going to go in here for you know,
I'll do twenty shows in a year, spread out over

(01:02:21):
a few months. I think artists like it because Vegas.
I think on average, I was quoted as stats about
people at every show are not from Vegas. All people
who have flown in, They've flown in for a weekend.
They're gonna catch the Beatles Love Show or another set,
this Live show or a David Copperfield show. Then I'm
going to catch tonight twenty show or Bruna mar show
or whoever happens to be playing. So that very much

(01:02:44):
feels like Vegas. It feels like it's super active between
Thursday and Sunday, then really quiet maybe between the Monday
to Wednesday. Um. Do I like Vegas? Not really? Um,
but I get it. I understand that. Is it sustainable
that's another question because Vegas itself isn't a huge city.

(01:03:07):
You can see it grow by the year, but in
comparison to the major cities in the world, it's not
that big. So is it sustainable to do a hundred
million tickets a year? I don't know. Well, that hundred million.
Can't get it hundering twenty million. Maybe, you know, let's
talk of the new Sphere Arena opening there as well,
just the third arena possible in the city. You know,

(01:03:28):
they're they got the new Allegiance Stadium there where stadium
shows are going. I'm not sure who's played there other
than maybe golf, Brooks and guns and roles is so far,
but there's another stadium there, you know, So that that
city is growing in the growing in sports and trying
to bring more sports teams there. And they've got the
ice hockey team, you know, think they're trying to bring
a basketball team there, you know. So, um, it's ambitious

(01:03:50):
as a city. Um. No. Answering the last part of
your question, I think I've got most of it, and
now I think you gotta let me go one step
deeper here, you know, starting god almost twenty years ago,
even longer, touring for the absolute top tier change where
they would base in a city maybe Chicago, and they
take the jet every night to the different locations, and

(01:04:14):
then we have Vegas. Do you think Vegas is sue
generous just one thing or will the future be the
acts of the fans coming to the acts as opposed
to the acts going to the fans. Acts is they
were going to go for the fans. That will never change.
That will never change. It has ever changed through my lifetime,

(01:04:34):
your lifetime, and it's not going to change. I think
the residency concept can grow one office being based in
one city, even if it's not Vegas. I think that
can happen and people will travel depending on the office.
But I don't think it's a model for every office. Okay,
let's go back to the recordings. You know, Paul McCartney

(01:04:55):
is a thing unto himself, not that he's in this equation,
but if you go back to the paradigm was established
in the seventies and refined in the eighties, you had
an album come every three to four years, you win single,
the single, up to five singles, whereas today you can
put on an album and it's literally over in a weekend. Okay,
So what's your view on release schedules? What's your view

(01:05:18):
on putting out albums supposed to singles? What's your view
in terms of what dropped once every three years, once
every year, as opposed to every month. How do you
feel about all that? I mean, you still gotta ball
in down to basics. These singers, bands, artists. There are
artists that that's their craft. They write songs, most of them.

(01:05:42):
The load of young ones, there's four or five songwriters
in each song. It's all studio based. It's great. Is
that's a different lane people I work with their artists.
It's been a long time writing, you know, and they
constantly write. Then it's trying to figure out, well, how
do we put this up? How much should we put out?

(01:06:03):
And to your point, should we just do a whole
bunch of singles? That doesn't resonate for certain artists and
it really resonates for other artists. You know a lot
of young artists, you know, they don't even care really
about doing not doing albums. They can just put single left,
a single after single after single and have a super
healthy career. You look at DJs like Calvin Harris, one

(01:06:25):
of the most successful recorded music artists of the past
ten years. No one really cares about the albums because
it's song driven, event driven. He does the show, it's
an event. It's the biggest residency or maybe he goes
on tour in a stadium somewhere in South America, whatever
happens to be. That's a completely different business. It's just

(01:06:46):
another silo um. But with the people that I work
with and looking at the path turn as you say,
maybe it's this album over three or four years, maybe
it's you know, some music in between or separate projetrotects.
Albums can come um really quick, one after the other. Well,
you look at Paul, it was like two years from
his Egypt station to McCartney three. It was two years.

(01:07:08):
But then McCarty three wasn't planned. He was supposed to
be on tour in Europe and doing Glastonbury that year,
and there were a whole other plans, family stuff, private stuff,
nothing to do with music at all. He had a
whole year matth t there's no plan to do an album,
just wasn't meant to be. But he's not one to
sit around and just sort of put his feet up.
He would go to the studio every day, which was

(01:07:29):
around the corner from his house in England. You just
go in there and he just sit and work away,
clean up a few old things, working a few new things.
And before you knew he had an album, and he
wasn't sure he had an album yet. Think about it.
He's got I got all these songs. I think it's
an album. You know, that was the question, And I
think that's the healthiest attitude to have a put a

(01:07:50):
collection of songs here, we all sit down, what should
we do with it? Should I put this out? Why
should I put how to put it up? You know?
So every artist has again you lumped them all into
one formula or one system. I think you just got
to take them all individually, see what their own desires
and ambitions are for that music or that project, and

(01:08:12):
try and help them realize it. So I'm game for anything.
Whatever anyone wants to do it. So I was like,
let's do it. Let's go with it. Okay, how many
artists you have on the roster? Now? I have no idea?
Um in Maverick, like we were a group of partners,
we all have our own rosters. So I got my roster.
We have some shared services, some shared staff. Um, so

(01:08:36):
I is now and again dip in to help other
people out. They might dip in to help me out,
Like I'm quarterback in the red hole. Chili Pepper's record
with guy right now? Um you know, so he's like,
I haven't put an album for a few years. Can
you help me on the album projectin't sure, you know,
because I feel like I'm on the the album released
treadmill of being very up to date with how certain

(01:08:57):
records should be put up. So I help him and
his team on that. It's good for me to do
because it helps me stay on top of my game.
It's not that complicated. I don't really deal with the band.
I just deal with label and our team and what
we should be doing on a global basis to try
and make this record happen and deliver and be creative
around it. So I see that as kind of fun

(01:09:18):
for me. It's a big records, an amazing record, great band,
um and so I do a bunch of that. But
with my roster is Paul, It's Sny Twain, Andrea Chelli, Morrissey, Um,
I got Andrea Chelli's son Mateo Rich Kelly, who we
sugn to Capitol, who's just been putting a couple of

(01:09:39):
singles as the Sirie Castleman, Sint Pierre Revo, the actress,
and we had her music project with birth um and
again that was sort of a fun thing. She's she's
having so much success in film and television. Um, you
know that she wanted to try music as a solo artist.
It's going to take time because she's so busy in

(01:10:01):
film and television. Um. And then across the company between
you two Chili Peppers, Madonna is over on the guy
side and the big country side, Clarence Baulding, Jason Oldeen,
Danish Rucker, Reva McIntire, books and Done, Um, Morgan Wallen
um Man with g Robertson trying to think his own

(01:10:22):
jeez roster right now. You know he's in the hip
hop world. Let's go back a few years. So you're
running your own independent company and Irving as all starts
to roll up management companies. And he had a very
specific formula. You know, he wrote you a check based
on certain revenues and you have to earn it out.

(01:10:44):
What incent advise you to go from independent to going
to work with Irving's actually sort of learned, you know,
when you don't need the money, it's not financially driven. Um,
you think, how do I actually grow what I'm doing?
How do I build a bigger network? I always felt

(01:11:07):
like some of my UK because I'm British, as you know,
some of my UK manager colleagues like people like the
Richard Griffiths of the world or E. Mcanderon all these
other great UK managers. None of them spent other than
Richard when he was at LABEL. Obviously, you had to
spend time on the ground in the US if you're
going to service your artists on a global basis, unless

(01:11:30):
they were big enough where you just open an office
in New staff and they're going to deal with everything
over there. I wanted to be on the ground, and
Irving gave me that ability. You know. I had an
office in l A for about five or six years
before I sorry in New York before I spoke with Irving,
but just to sort of get a better level of connectivity,

(01:11:54):
and he certainly helped me get that. You know, you
want to learn from him. As soon as I did
a deal with Irving, Roger Rains, who was part of
Irving's team, based himself in my office, you know. And
Roger I remember as a kid that was managing Buork
and Roger was sort of CEO of Warner at the time,
and being terrified going in to have meetings with him

(01:12:14):
because he was a global chairman. Um to then have
him in your office and have him help you. They
are of dealmaking, They are of uh negotiation. Roger is
a math genius. He is the one person who you
can still have a cup of tea and he'll draw
a whole deal with all the tax issues, everything on

(01:12:35):
the back of a napkin. One of the most brilliant
men I've ever worked with. So, having Roger in my
office for six years, what I had learned it was invaluable. No,
he became a real mentor to me, unbelievably growing. So
that was my benefit really, you know, it was like,
imagine you've going back to do do a master's you know,

(01:12:56):
in your craft. That's what it was for me. So
I think, if I want my game, if I want
to work with bigger artists, more demanding artists, the only
way I can do it is by being better myself. Okay,
so Irving and Rapino or running Live Nation. Then it's

(01:13:19):
Irving's out and it's just Rapino. And it evolves into
what is now Maverick, what changed in their transition and
is how is your business different under this heading as
opposed to the old one. The whole Maverick concept was
an easy one. Look at it as a collective. You know,

(01:13:40):
it's not a corporation. It's a collective of like minded people.
It's a knowledge based you know. And the concept of
putting Maverick together again was really really simple on paper.
Can we as a group of friends who all know
each other long established relationships, can we together and this

(01:14:01):
is nothing financial and nothing business like. Can we leverage
the power of a lot of really big artists in
different genres to create opportunity for them? That was the concept.
You can we do better for our artists? Can we
bring them more by trying to leverage them collectively? It

(01:14:22):
could be a brand new start up. Imagine if it
was Twitter Mark two. Oh, we all come off Twitter
Mark one and go into Twitter Mark too. Can we
get all the artist equity? Very very bad concerts suggestion there,
But that was the concept. It was really really simple.
What happens in those situations? Are some of the individuals

(01:14:43):
become so astronomically successful because their artists are hitting and
they get this and off they go And that's sort
of okay because the whole concept was can we try
and bring opportunity, which we did um for the artists,
you know, And then it comes down to the core.
We're all like minded, we all help each other out,

(01:15:05):
we all have respect for each other, you know, and
the business is exactly the same, nothing changed. It kind
of works like a law firm. You have your own
client roster. You could have a hundred clients, you have
three clients, you have a hundred, you might earn more
than the guys cut three, you know, So it just
all downe to the individual and their motivation. I could
really really type team that are very, very long established,

(01:15:29):
you know. It's it's really like a family between London
and l A great team of staff. How many people,
uh tenoral living I think not alone, really tight if
we need. Paul's team is different because Paul was very specific.
When I work with him, he's he's He's like, I
want you to build a team for me that I
pay for so that when I fired you. This is

(01:15:51):
my first ever meeting. So when I fired you just
put someone else in and the teams there and I'm like,
I kind of laughed, and I'm like, Okay, there's probably
oone else in the world who could say that, And
that's what we did. So we get a team about
another ten people over on Pole's side who do nothing
but Paul McCartney. UM, and very specific jobs as well. UM.

(01:16:13):
We call it like a production company while the management company. UM.
So everything he does is in house. His whole world
is in the house. Nothing's out of house. All creative
in house, all the photography, archiving, in management, the databasing,
the the online team, everything is in house. They don't
do anyone else by him, and he's probably the only

(01:16:34):
artist who's in a position to do that, you know,
and every other artist, no matter how big, they don't
have that. They don't have that facility. So it works
again like a law firm. We all work as hard
or or not as hard as we want to work,
and we get paid as much as we work or
successful as our artists are. Okay, but in this particular case,
you're mentioning helping guy out with red hot chili peppers,

(01:16:57):
uh when you take them. But then guy helps me
and other stuff as well, So it kind of goes
back and forth. Okay, So there's not an issue of compensation.
You don't feel like, Hey, I did this work I
didn't get paid for. It really goes around because God
brings opportunity for the office. Because he's such a big
focus on start ups, tech and the whole new world

(01:17:18):
that he loves being part of. And he's very successful
at and none again. And he has an open door
whenever there's big presentations, any of the office want to
come in, anyone want to come and see this or
something great that might be appropriate for this aufice of
this aufice. So he's always bringing opportunities, you know, and
he's great at introductions. He's just super network. The relationship

(01:17:41):
really works. You know, we've been friends with twenty five years,
um so it's not a new relationships. Traditionally management was
either usually fifteen percent sometimes twenty. Irving charges fifteen percent
with no contract. What do you charge and do you
have a contract? In the very HEAs artists the artists,

(01:18:01):
um I would say, there's two very distinct styles of commission.
It was the European style, which was gross on advances
and third party revenue. Say, if you did a deal
with the sneaker company or whatever, it would be, but
on touring, it will be of net after all costs.

(01:18:23):
So the European model sounds like oh it's great, it
actually works out less than across. You get lesson advances,
but your number is known um so U style traditionally
fift like dirving model and in Europe of cross advances,
but net net on oud a mixture through my whole career,

(01:18:46):
some UK European style. It's whatever makes you feel is
making the artice happy. Have some deals in I have
no contracts because if you're not any good or it
doesn't work, okay, take hands and you can move on.
You know, I would never litigate against an artist, no

(01:19:07):
matter how badly you may be worked over, because the
first thing that people will do today, if you're an artist,
I'm gonna google this guy and the last thing you
want to see is so and so is suing this
office is for non payment of commission or something. And
it's like, I'm not going to go work with that guy.
I think you always want to put the office first.

(01:19:27):
They're not always right, but you still want to support them,
and the office comes first. Model is always work for me.
Um and I have this argument with some promoters that
they believe it or not. It's like you're really not
gonna let them hit their bonus points because there were
a thousand dollars on the threshold. The artist friendly look
after the artist. Artists comes first, look after them. Everything

(01:19:49):
else works out. So again, different styles of deals. Sometimes
it's not commission on every revenue stream. Sometimes it's different
commissions on different revenue streams. It's gotten really complex. So
what we have to do even with no contract, just
a basic term of agreement. This is how we agree
to be compensated. And if something is not work can

(01:20:10):
you go back and say this is great, let's change it.
It's too little because this is what we brought in
in this field and it always gets worked up. You
just have to have that healthy conversation. Let's talk about
promotion deals. You know, there was the roll up that
will ultimately became Live Nation. Ultimately uh, Philly and Shouts

(01:20:31):
brought concerts west, it became a G. Now you have
certain philosophies, the Q prime philosophy where we would rather
go market by market, work with the independence and we
can make more money uh going that way. Then there's
most of the big acts are taking national or international tours,

(01:20:51):
making a deal with Live Nation or a G. What
is your philosophy? Again, there's no one size fistul It
is down to the office. A lot of artists like
saying we take Paul mccarny do a monster Live Nation
or a Monster a G deal if he wanted to,
but chooses not to. Still likes to work with all

(01:21:13):
of the independence that he has history with. Shows will
always be mixed up between Live Nation and a G
sometimes with the promoter who was brought into one of
their folds. Very loyal tries to flip Eastern West Coast
shows unless there was a G. The stem up Live
Nation tries to keep a level playing field. Some artists,

(01:21:36):
even the ones that I don't work with, like to
do that huge deal. Maybe it's jay Z, maybe it's
Beyonce or whoever. They'll like to do that deal with
a big check. And I'm trying to see that from
the office point of view. If someone brought your check
for a hundred million dollars, a childred million dollars, I'm
sure if you're smart business advisors, that money over the

(01:21:57):
course of a year could be really well and ested.
So maybe that money as equity at the start is
right for that specific artists, Whereas if you go through
the c Prime model market by market, promoter by promoter um,
that might just be their philosophy, and that's okay if
it's right for that artist, because they'll have that conversation

(01:22:19):
with the artist, this is how we want to do it.
Are you good with that? You know? Whereas but the
cute prime model metallicas seem to do more Live Nation
shows than independent shows, different internationally than it is in
the US. So I think there's no one size at all.
You know, some promoters get the big ones a G
and Live Nation will get aggressive on Feast for certain
tours and I bid each other. Um, so the authors

(01:22:42):
tends to win in that instance if they go with
one of those promoters. Um, I'm sort of fairly never
been the same no matter who it is. If the
artice has history, they love a specific promoter, well that's
just going to do their show. That Sigma around the Okay,
he's always done our true that's who's going to do it,

(01:23:02):
you know. Or if it's Ja Marciano in the US,
let's just do it and we work with Jason's Universal
Concidize or something. Whatever the office wants to do, you
make it work, there's no question. You know, it's like
you want harmony. The record company situation has changed, you know,
with the New century. Used to be pretty much certainly
in the US, you were dead in the water as

(01:23:23):
an independent without going into why, uh, everything is up
for grabs now, Okay, anybody can get their record distributed
through tune Core or another CD baby, etcetera. The major
labels tend to sign things that have already been developed
online as opposed to developing things themselves. And you can

(01:23:46):
negotiate for things that were harder to negotiate for before,
you know, return of rights, owning masters, higher percentage royalty.
What is your view on whether you need a label
or not and whether to sign or not and what
kind of deal you can make? Again, I feel like
I'm a broken record here. It stands an individual artist

(01:24:07):
having done every single conceivable deal known to man with
different artists, and and did this a lot with Arcade Fire,
who I worked with for twelve years or so, who
did that, did their first five albums, and in the
beginning they had eight different licenses that you know, on
their first album they paid for it themselves, licensed to

(01:24:27):
eight different labels, and they ended up being paid probably
for selling about a million albums worldwide. They probably got
conversated on the five million albums, so they were really, really,
really well paid because of the nature of their independent deals.
Now that feels like a bit of an anomaly because

(01:24:49):
that was a physical buying market along with Apple digital downloads.
This is pre streaming, you know, in two thousand five,
two six, when the first album came up, and they
really benefited from that all the way through every album
that came out until probably their last album, you know,
when streaming was really the most dominant partner. Um by

(01:25:12):
being creative with all of their independent deals. When they
finally went over to major deal, they had split territory deals,
really short licenses, five year licenses, records come back. So
in my short twelve years with this band, did the
same with publishing. Publishing deal ends. Oh we're going to

(01:25:32):
sign the whole catalog again. There are three albums, are
four albums. They really reaped the reward from owning the
masters so they can be super creative. When they were
that hot commodity, every major wanted to sign and overpay
for but really short licenses. They signed the catalog, they
pull it back, signed a new album, catalog would start

(01:25:54):
reverting from another label. Really really creative deals. So that's
that's probably one of the most exciting unusual situations I've
ever dealt with and again I learned a lot from it.
Today new artists, let's say Seceria, who we work with,
imagine Daniel hadn't introduced me to and she had no

(01:26:15):
record deal. We could do anything that we wanted to do. Now,
if you go with a model where you just want
to own all yourself and work it yourself, we need
a bit of capital for marketing and video, and you know,
we could do like a rights deal with b MG
or whoever. If we didn't really want to enter into
long term negotiation, we could do that. You know, it's

(01:26:38):
a lot more work on the artist team, huge amount
of work, more staff, resources becomes really expensive. But then
you have to look at how competitive are you and
that's where the major labels come in. If you have
an artist who's really competitive, they have a big project,
they really want it delivered globally, not just us, they

(01:26:59):
want to globally delivered. You need a major label, I think, UM.
And the reason for that is they're just so streamlined
in the way that they work today. You find your team,
you have a great team. You know, everything works really
really efficiently. UM. You actually save money on because of

(01:27:19):
the amount of ad space they buy each year. Their
their cost per ad is way more efficient than something
that you r I could go and buy tomorrow for
the same space because they buy it more weeks a
year than you or I would buy, So you cost
them down a little bit. More opportunity will come to
them because those companies are so big now. They because
such you know, unique dedicated departments that work on you know, like, hey,

(01:27:43):
I'm only work with you know, apps and right share companies,
and this is an opportunity to command and like all
the stuff you can't do on your own. If you're
really depend you've just made a cool little record and
you're happy with that. You think we're gonna sell ten
thousand of these equivalents. We want to be paid five
dollars a unit equivalent. You might just do it yourself

(01:28:05):
and then you're happy with that, you know. So it's
all depends on the autice and how they want to compete.
A lot of authors I find there like, no, we
want to be huge, We really want to be huge.
At that point, you've got to think, Okay, how do
we get them there and not be too concerned. Be
concerned about the rights and the rights management, but don't
be too concerned about how much money you're going to

(01:28:27):
make off that album if you're agenders. Okay, let's go
back to the beginning. So where did you grow up.
I grew up in Glasgow, Glasgow? Okay, what was your
family situation, what your parents do for living? How many
kids in the family. My mom and dad split when
I was six. My dad remarried when I was twelve.
My mom was a hairdresser. My dad was a cooper,
so he made barrels for whiskey. He made what, um barrels,

(01:28:51):
wooden barrels. Really yeah, um, which was kind of fun. Actually,
I never drink whiskey because I think instead of just
surrounded by as a kid, um, and you drink beer, yeah,
drink wine of love. Tequila does not whiskey. Yeah, Whiskey
is just it was like everywhere I felt like it

(01:29:11):
was surrounded by it when I was a kid because
that was my dad's industry. Uh. And I get two
half brothers and half sister. One lives in Melbourne, one Australia,
one lives in leon and France and once they lives
in Glasgow. My mom still lives in Glasgow. My dad
passed on. You're growing up in Glasgow. Are you a
good student? Bad student? Popular? Not popular? Popular student, not

(01:29:34):
the best student? Because I got distracted. There's there's two
school levels in the UK. There's no middle school, so
it's essentially primary school and secondary school. There's no middle
school before high school. So that probably when I was
about living twelve years old, discovered funk groper music. You know,

(01:29:56):
it was the Clash, it was the sex pistols, it
was Ramons, everything that came, and then enjoy Division came
after that and it was like I just got consumed.
And the whole strategy at that point was how can
I go and see all these bands play live with
me and my friends? So we go and see every
show that came through tom There was a lot of them. Um,

(01:30:19):
we would travel to go see shows. You know it
that became the obsession and then you're instead of high
school bands, you're trying to how do we make this?
I want to be a rock star. Okay, so how
did you pick up an instrument? And what were you
in the band? My my dad bought me a guitar
or the cost thirty pounds. It wasn't very good, but
that was it. I brought an amplifier for five pounds

(01:30:39):
for a friend of a friend. It was terrible, you know.
It was really small one and you know, and you
just sit in your bedroom with song books and trying
to listen to records and then make the records. You know.
I was I could pass, but I wasn't that great.
You've learned pretty soon you're not that great. Okay, So
you finished secondary school. What's your next what's your next move? Um?
I went to London to stay with a friend for

(01:31:01):
a weekend and then went back. Now you're in London,
what's what's your viewpoint? What's your agenda? What are you
gonna do? Immediately it's like, I'm like, okay, I got
to find a job, just try and pay rent. My
friend had an apartment, found a job in a photography
studio doing that, which was really cool and I was
really well paid for my age. My dad said he

(01:31:22):
give me a gap year between school and university. Um,
and I'm like okay. So I sort of had his
blessing slightly. I was sort of being groomed to be
an accountant. And I was friends with this band on
four a D part of Martin Mills Empire. It was
run by Iva wats Russell, and I was friends with

(01:31:44):
the band of cop to the Twins. Robin got Freelizbeth Fraser.
Robin still one of my best friends to this day.
And they stayed in our apartment for a while because
they were trying to find a place to live in London.
There were also Scottish stay closed for about six months,
you know, and I'm super fun time. And then Robin said, hey,

(01:32:04):
there's a band on our label who are auditioning for
bass players. You should go do it. And I did
and I got in the band. So I left the
Toby studio job. This is all within six months of
moving to London, and I joined the band who were
still going m a band called Dead Can Dance who
was sort of this early and he's so I wasn't

(01:32:25):
Deck and Dance for the first two albums. What did
your father say about the gap you're knowing the university? Well,
he wasn't cool about it. He's like, okay, and then
we put a record on it, and all right, you
got a record on And he came to see us
play alive and he's seen there were like two and
a half thousand people there and he's like actually they
kind of liked you, and I said, yeah, we're doing okay.

(01:32:46):
He went, all right, he gave me a bit more rope.
He just kept feeding it because he actually seen that
it didn't look as though I was wasting my time
just you know, being a lay about doing nothing. Um
very quickly and this is a moly, but the time
years old or something very quickly learned, once you start

(01:33:08):
playing festivals or you're playing with other bands, were really amazing.
You sort of figure out actually and kind of just
getting by. Here am I going to get caught up
because I'm not that good? It's good fun. And everyone
in the band was five years older than me, which
seems like ancient at that age. You know, it's not

(01:33:28):
as you're an adult, but when you're really young, five
years is a long time. They were. I was the
youngest kid there, and I decided it's time I'm stepping
back because they were going to musical direction. That wasn't
really the guitar based drums set up. It was definitely
more orchestrated and more sort of ambitious. And then I

(01:33:51):
started to at that point I was a shift to management.
I was friends with the bandages in marriage and they've
just been taken on by Chris Morrison. Chris Morrison, who
again another mentor of mine, great, great, great manager who
has retired now, who in the eighties managed Living in
a Box that Are Alive, Thin Lizzing from the seventies

(01:34:13):
through eighties Ultra Box. He had had this huge, huge,
monstrous success, but could see the tide shifting, so he
went in this more rock alternative zone and he took
on Jesus, Mary Chane. He took on Blur that became Guerrillas.
We're still going but Damon from Guerrillas. So he was
able to anticipate sort of the shift from what was

(01:34:37):
going on. And I started working with Jesus and Mary
Change because they were friends. And then I worked with
Chris for a number of years and that kind of
became my start of working in management and working for
other managers, some really really great, some not so great.
But that was kind of my schooling until I started
on my own when I was about twenty five. Okay,

(01:34:59):
what was your motivation and what do you do for acts?
Going independent? Oh, that's when I started. That's when I
started company. It was the hardest thing. The hardest thing
was to get because you know what it's like. We
had a conversation on commission splits. So let's say your young,
hot new band. You're like, they're going to choose a
Richard Griffiths who's called you know, Global Success, or they

(01:35:23):
choose an Ian Montone or a John Silva, you know,
or they go to Cute Prime. All these big companies.
Everybody wants you and they all charge. Is saying, right,
I'll to go with this kid who has no company,
no track record. He charges the same as everybody else
as well. Who do we choose? And that's always the
tough thing, you know, And it's worked to my benefit

(01:35:45):
a few times by not being the biggest guy in
the room. You know, like the best opportunities to me
has happened because I wasn't the biggest guy in the room. Okay,
so you go independent with what acts? And then what
do you do next? The first two at first two
acts I had was one was called the Sneaker Pimps,
who had one one very big hit single off the

(01:36:05):
back of the movie The Saint the Belcolm or movie
the same and the had a song called six on
the Ground that I got to think top five in
the US the album went top five. I think we
did about a million albums in the US. You know,
we were I think we never have had a number one,
but we're always top five aorund the world. And that
was in the days of when there was so much

(01:36:26):
money in movie promotion. They flew the band around the world,
play every premiere, Premier in Madrid, premier in Paris, premier
in the premier New York. So this band sort of
started getting you know, we're flying around the world doing
most of promo at a movie company's expense. And probably
about six months after it took them on, I took
on Pure so be York could be in the Sugar

(01:36:47):
Cubes if I work with at the time, so we
had an established relations. Okay, so you worked with Sugar
Sugar Cubes when you work for the other company. And
she ultimately decided to go independent, leave the band. Were
you part of that? She came to you and said, hey,
I'm independent. It was very much a case of we
just caught up socially, hanging out, went for lunch and

(01:37:10):
she said, you know, we just said she didn't had
what he'd been up to, and I went, well, I
just started managing you know this man speak of him.
She went, I need a manager? You want to manage me?
And I went sure? And it was so organic and natural.
It wasn't like I wasnt part of the what we
call the beauty parade where she's meeting ten managers. She
just wanted someone she knew that she was comfortable way.

(01:37:31):
And that's when I felt, I'm out of my depth.
It's like, how am I going to do this? Because
she just exploded. Um, and that was learning as I went.
But such a great school to go to. At that age.
She was famous already, but really when she went independent

(01:37:54):
her solo, she was truly seen as an artist making
decisions that not everybody else would make correct, absolutely correct,
you know, and a lot of she was someone who
was very Again you learn from working with these artists,
all of them are different. She is the purest artist
I've ever worked with. And what I mean by that

(01:38:16):
is she never wanted to sort of have her face
in an ad, you know, for cosmetics or jewelry or something.
I didn't want to accept money from brands. She turned
down millions on millions of dollars. And she was not
a rich artist, you know. She just went I can't
do it. I can't do it. The closest we ever

(01:38:37):
got to taking money with Steve Jobs. You know, this
is the tour two thousand, two dozen one, just before
nine living. We managed to secure meeting with Steve Jobs,
much to the reluctance of his team. They gave us
fifteen minutes be the four Seasons and fifty seven Street
at seven thirty am. You got fifteen minutes or thirty minutes.

(01:38:58):
We had a really short time we got there. Trying
to get Buerk there at that time was something and
she was doing a tour. And this is just when
airport first came out, and you know, I'm going to
use airport on stage. We're gonna send little computer files
back and forth, and American use airport up front, you know,
for merchandise people beon Mac terminals and or the merchandise
for from remote computers, things that today sound really easy.

(01:39:21):
When WiFi wasn't everywhere, you needed one of these stations
to get WiFi. And that's not that long ago. And Steve,
we've got a meeting and she just charmed depends off Dejols.
He canceled his next two meetings with to hours with
Steve jobs. You could see his people were livid, but
she was just talking about her artistic and creative philosophy

(01:39:46):
and why she used his products and what we wanted
to try and do and it's going to use it.
And we'd love to try and secure a million dollars
because what we're doing with this tour, with orchestras and stuff,
it would really expensive and we're trying to keep ticket
prices low. Even let me come back to you twenty
four hours later, Okay, we'll give you all the equipment

(01:40:09):
you want, will give you the money. In two tiyears
and they were in and then none, no liven half
and then everything for us. No one knew what was
happening in the world. It gave us a bunch of equipment,
didn't give us any money. But then Steve was charmed
and he called up and he's like, okay, I want
to offer TV commercial really simple, there's no fee. I'll

(01:40:31):
give her as much equipment as she wants forever for
black and white, her creative manifesto, no product, no nothing,
just her talking about her creative her creative mind and
her creative manifesto. And at the end it goes to
black and we've got the white apple symbol on a
black screen. That's it. No voice over, no nothing, no

(01:40:52):
heart cell and told the orchids and she's like, oh god,
I'm not sure. She said, let me think about it,
and was in a car with her somewhere I can't remember.
I think we're going to Coachella, of all places. We're
driving there. I'm just driving her in the car and
Steve Jobs calls. She hasn't go back to me, what's happening?
You know. He was kind of getting because he's used
to get in his way, But why don't you speak

(01:41:13):
to her yourself and put her on? And she's like, Steve,
this is the best offer I've ever had from a
big corporation. You know, I love you, you do love
your products, but I'm punk rock. I can't say yes
into the TV ap And she never did it. And
what did he say? He's like he respected her even
more because just you know, like Bork became, she wanted

(01:41:35):
to go more into art world, and I was hanging
out with her at the weekend, which was really great
for her shows in l a Um. You know, we're
still friends and you know, like we grew up together,
you know, so my heart is still there, you know.
With her as a person, I really admire her. But
when she got into apps at the beginning of app development,
she was one of the first artists who made apps
for songs, and Steve helped him make the apps. He

(01:41:56):
introduced it to the right people, he funded a bunch
of it. He really helped her. And then I met
Steve just before he passed away. He came to one
of Polls shows in San Francisco and he was really
unwell at this time. He sat side the stage and
we chat and said, you probably don't remember me, Steve,
because about eight nine years have passed, but you know

(01:42:18):
I worked with you. And He's like, I love that girl.
She's the only person who ever said no, the only
person who ever said no. And you know she's good.
You know I helped her out with the as. Yeah,
I know you helped her out with the apps and stuff.
She's gone. She is just a creative inspiration. The world
needs more people like that. You know. He was so
generous with his words of praise. Um for someone who

(01:42:42):
was never a global icon or you know, on on
stadium level artist, she was. She did her own thing,
and she was difficult as an artist, but as a
genuine artist. Okay, so you're me and pure, how do
you work your way to our kid? Fire had a

(01:43:02):
few of the smaller artists. That one was called Alabama
three who only they loved that. They licensed the song
to sopranos and that was the one thing that they did.
Um probably the most successful sink in history because of
the way that was still television deals weren't like they
were now, so they were banned to the gift that

(01:43:24):
kept giving that point. Your licensed for a prop pilot,
you licensed for season one, Oh, your license for home
video DVDs? Come out with a license for DVD now
and it kept wait wait wait. The rumor on that
is that they got a very low fee. What's the reality. No,
the fee was never huge. There was just a lot

(01:43:45):
of fees. So you've got a fee for the pilot.
Then you got a fee for season one, and home
video via Chess came out, you got a fee for that,
and DVD came out. You got a FIFA that the
season two came out, you got a FIFA that, you
got a fee phone video d for DVD, and you
went through every season get a fee and the fee

(01:44:06):
would go up, so it became quite healthy until the
last season of sopranocos Um, David Chase, the creator, did
this huge Vanity Fair spread, you know, the great any
Labats pull out cover with the whole castle Sopranos, really stunning,
stunning photo. Remember reading the interview about how at that point,

(01:44:29):
which seems smaller now but this is haven't been a
long time ago, how they had made almost a billion
dollars from the franchise. Because we've got to remember that time.
Every holiday birthday someone to give you a books at
or season two of the Sopranos season season one to five,
you kept buying it. Again, it was a gift given

(01:44:50):
thing because everybody watched DVDs or VHS box sets, and
they made so much money from those physical sales, unbelievable
amounts of money. It was such a financial earner for
HBO at that time. So I'm sitting there reading like, wow,
this sort of almost a billion dollars, And I went

(01:45:10):
to Derek Burkeer, who's my best friend in the world,
who was within the weekend, who runs one little Indian
Records in London, who Buaquous signed to Alabama three signed too,
and we're still talking about this. It's unbelievable. We're talking
about it still, you know. And we said, let's say
no when they when the license agreement comes in further

(01:45:33):
the final season, Sopranos, Let's just say no and see
what they say, you know, because they're not going to
change the song at this stage. Everyone knows you hear
the beginning of that song, you know, sopranos. So we
said no, and they were like, what do you mean, no,
We need the song of the final season. We just
went no, and of course they probably got the highest

(01:45:55):
sink higher than any Beatles song for that final season.
And then it keeps going. It keeps going because the
was it The Many Saints in New York. I don't
forgot the exact title right. The movie that came up recently,
the prequel with James Gandolfini's Son is a Star. Songs
not in it, but what is it's in it? Right

(01:46:18):
at the end, you just hear a little bit of
the drum machine and the hairs in the back of
your next end up because this movie ends. And then
at that point you know Sourprianos is supposed to start,
but you hear the song and it's iconic with that,
with that story, and it's the song that keeps going
because they're gonna do another movie. They're going to use

(01:46:38):
the song, and it's just going to keep going in
might turning into another series. Um. So of that band,
who never sold the record, had a whole career off
the back of that song, kept them going to still going,
still do little clubs. Well, you know, I was a
huge fan of that band, and I played an exile

(01:46:58):
old Harbor Lane lot and Howard Thompson, the A and
R guy. Yeah, Howard said, you gotta watch this new show,
The Sopranos, And I remember it was a rainy day
at a really odd time. It was like, you know,
Sunday night or something, and I club it's out. I'll
be able three. Thank you can't believe it. I know.
That's just as a fan. I said. You know, they

(01:47:19):
don't have the whole introduction about the chest of me know,
oh man, it's unbelievable. So they were there was sort
of licensed to Geffen from the One Little Indian. You know.
Mark Kates, who's again who worked on that with me,
is still one of my dearest dearest friends in the world.
Um and I remember the colleges gone, this is you

(01:47:39):
kind of mafia pilot, you know, and we're like, who
just licensed? We got to get something going, and that
was how it stopped um. But then geff and dropped
them because they spend all this money, nothing happened, and
then We'll bought one when he was running. Columbia signed
him straight away. Not a big deal. That w the
songs I hit. We gotta make this song a hit,

(01:48:00):
couldn't make it a hit, you know, so they went
deal to deal, made a lot of money with the
advances at the time. It's just one of those really
really strange stories of a band who had one song
that was never genuinely a hit, but everybody knows the song,
which is kind of weird. I've never had that before.
So then from there to Arcade Far Arcade Fire, where

(01:48:21):
you know, just as they were bubbling under, they're still
playing Mercury Lounge and they're playing really small clubs, the
Echo and you know, and so on. In l A.
Everyone knew there's this really cool band and you've seen
them live, incredible live show. I didn't want a manager,
but I remember telling Bill Salona, their business manager at
the time, and dealing bo there the lawyer. It's like, hey,

(01:48:43):
if they just didn't need any help, you know, happy
to help them out, you know, even though don't manage them,
just sort their business out because they're doing all themselves.
And then about a month after that, Cold Giving Cold said, yeah,
they they do meetings now and then, just to make
sure I'm the last meeting, because they met with you know, Mention,
met with Silver, and they met with everybody. They did
the whole runs everybody, and I met them in London

(01:49:07):
five minutes. It was chaos, and they went, can you
come to Paris too? Were shown Paris? Like sure, and
I went to Paris. Then I ended up set of
same thing. After Paris, it was chaos. Everyone wants to
meet him, and I'm like, didn't get any time, Like god,
this is never gonna work. And they went, we're going
on a bus to Amsterdam. Do you want to come
to it? Sure? I just got in the bus and
I went with them and talked all night in the bus.

(01:49:29):
Stay for the Amsterdam show. Then I think I went
to the Berlin show. After that, I just kind of
went the same same clothes for about three or four days. Um,
And that's how that one came in and they like
the idea of working with me over all these other
managers who are way way more successful because I work
with Pure. And they liked the way her business was running,

(01:49:51):
the way her career was handled, how she was completely
in control of her career, the way they wanted to be.
You know the fact that she worked with Independence and
Majors and it was all mixed um and that's what
appealed to them. So how did it end with buerk
in Arcade, fireing You and ended with Buyork two ten
and Living? I think because she was making her album Biophilia,

(01:50:14):
and it was the first project of hers that I
had worked on that I didn't understand. And what I
mean by that is and instead of for one of
a better terms, the salesman, you give the product, I
could sell it to everybody, all your partners, labels, anyone else, promoters?
How are we going to do this? And I didn't

(01:50:35):
get it. I was trying to picture myself in her room.
And if I didn't understand that, how is everyone else
gonna understand it? Because that was an album where she
custom build instruments. It was very scientific if you look
at it on paper is sheer genius, absolutely brilliant. The
show was incredible, but I didn't understand it, and that

(01:50:57):
you know, we're still friends to this day. I just said,
I'm not the person and with who can realize your
project the way you want to realize. You've kind of
crossed the boundary between just doing sound based music into art.
And at that time her partner was Matthew Barney, who

(01:51:18):
was a brilliant artist, unbelievably amazing, had a career retrospective
at that time at the Guggenheim. All was the Guggenheim
brilliant artist for someone that I think he was the
youngest artist at that time who had the Guggenheim retrospective,
So there was clearly a big artistic ah I felt

(01:51:39):
like an underlying competition in their personal lives. Who is
the most extreme you can who can be the most
artistic and most brilliant and most ambitious. And at that point,
I'm like, this is you know, I'm the wrong person
to work this. It wasn't about finances and money or anything.
It's just like, I don't know how to do this.

(01:52:01):
And she never replaced me. She just built a team
people who could help facilitate and work and it's worked
really well. She never wanted to be famous, but she
said I tried the pop start, think it was great fun.
Not gonna be a pop star anymore, you know. And
she's classically trained, so her music is very, very complicated
and very ambitious and that's not my skill set. I

(01:52:23):
wish it was, but it's not an arcade fire. With
arcade Fire on the last album campaign, you have Winn Butler,
who is unbelievably brilliant as a songwriter, so ambitious. In
my twelve years with them and five albums, never had
a hit single, sold really well, live, unbelievable. You know.

(01:52:48):
It got to a point in the UK, specifically the UK,
who really welcomed them with open arms. Headlining Glass and
Breed d eighty thousand people within a week, Hyde Park,
sixty five people had any with Mom for the Son's
opening up UM and three nights at Earl's Court two
people a night. It was huge. Everything soldau instantly. There's

(01:53:10):
nothing they could do wrong, and when felt a failure
because they didn't get to stadium level because he would
look at Cold Clay and bands like that, how come
they're doing stadiums and we're not doing stadiums. It's like, well,
they're big hit singles, anthems, um, and they do a
lot of things that you don't do. They're driven in

(01:53:32):
a different way. They work it. They do a lot
of promo, they're playing the game, they're writing pop songs.
And it's like he didn't get it. He's like, well,
why are we not playing Yankee Stadium and Dodger Stadium
on this album campaign? You sort of know in the
air when you can do that, And if they'd had
a hit single, they could probably have done that. They

(01:53:53):
just didn't get there, you know, even you know, like
the last two wasn't successful. They did it in a round.
It was really big expensive doing shows in them around
is complicated in arenas. I didn't I didn't think they
should have done it that way. They knew that. The
tour before it was like two nights in Massacre Garden,
three nights in Barclays to three nights in the Forum,

(01:54:15):
two weekends headline and Coachella, like everything was going great,
and we looked at doing stadiums at that point, and
then that's when it became a numbers game because they
wanted didn't want to charge over a hundred dollars the
ticket and doll the ticket you're trying to do a
stadium on that you walk up no money because the
overhead to do the show is so high, cover the grass,
you know, everything of the infrastructure you've gotta bring in,

(01:54:37):
you know, and stadiums really only work when you have
a lot of shows and stadiums and you can you know,
aggregate your your production build and try and share stadium
with someone else. Maybe there's two different artists can do
the same stadium on the weekend, but uses the same
structures and same grass covering. You split the cost um.
So they felt that it's really when all the rest

(01:54:59):
of the band thinking felt that I wasn't getting into
where he wanted to go. We're still friends. We hang
out with drinks. A couple of weeks ago. You know,
I spent I spent a lot of time in New
Orleans because of them. They moved here and I still
have a place here, see them in the same bars, restaurants.
We're talking to He's like, how do you put music
out today? He's going, I've never proved so many formats ever,

(01:55:20):
so they're about to at some point pop music out
and we're talking about it and it's healthy, it's good.
So I like the fact that I don't work with them.
I wouldn't know what to do with them right now.
That's the thing because if you look at that genre,
the Strokes, Kings and Leon our Cape for Vampire Weekend,
you know, Jack White and are what are White Stripes

(01:55:42):
at the time when there were all those bands from
that period, that early in the two thousand's, Where is
their audience right now? Where is their radio audience? We're
talking about radio early in the conversation, interns of radio
is pretty much gone. It doesn't resonate, So what is
there out there? They don't scream, None of them have
streaming followers enough to get them over the over the

(01:56:05):
hump of streaming. It's a physical audience. It's doing nice,
cool packages for that audience. But then my big question
that I try and answer for myself. If you are
like a Stroke, Sa Kings, Leon, r K par or whoever,
who've done at least five albums and your show is great,
you have a loyal fan base, why do you really
need a sixth album? Or will you go and see

(01:56:27):
them for the fifth or sixth time when there's maybe
other new things that you want to go if you're
on a limited budget. So I'm trying to think and
that how would I have done? How would I do this?
How would I present this to the world is challenging. Well,
the interesting thing is since they've left you, uh, they've
had no further success greater than what they had previously.
It's gone in the other direction, and that's what's going

(01:56:49):
to happen. I delivered number one, number one, The biggest
radio hit was on the last album. Their touring was
globally successful. They're deal making structure second to none. They're
in a great place. They also have great stock and Spotify.
That's we'll see them financially right forever. And we negotiated
ten years ago before was public, So they had so

(01:57:11):
many great deals and in such an amazing position, and
I'm really really happy about that. I don't think the
next album is going to be number one. It's not
going to be number one because of what you need
to do together. Did they do they have a manager presently? Yes? Yes,
is he Vikovich who used to work with Kanye. Great guy,

(01:57:32):
really really good guy, which I'm happy about as well.
How did you get Paul McCartney. He co called me.
Why it's a really fun story, but this is the
Stars in Line. I'm sitting in my off as them
in London. I've worked with r K bar Bjork and
a couple of smaller acts and my phone goes it's
a private number. I just answered it when he's that Scott, Yeah,

(01:57:54):
this is Paul McCarty and I stood up attentions he
had walked in the room because you knew it was
his voice, and I'm like, why am I standing up?
And I'm in my room on my own. He sat
back down again. I'd never spoken to Paul, didn't know
anyone on his team, and he said, yeah, here your
manager said yeah, I don't really like managers, went me,

(01:58:16):
neither other than the couple, and he's gone, I'm working
on an album and I need some help. You want
to him in the office and we'll have a chat
about see if we can do something together. You know,
I'd love to get your thoughts and a few things.
He said, yeah you might, great, I have my assistant
call you will set up. That was a call really
short and I'm like, WHOA, that was weird? Where did

(01:58:36):
that come from? And then he assistant calls, choose day,
tentacle yet perfect. We stop and meeting in his office.
And but ten minutes after that, his lawyer calls because
he went he went rogue. He didn't check with anyone,
so Afric called me opens he called his lawyer, and
lawyer called me said, okay, that's the way the deal works.

(01:58:57):
NBA is coming over. Give me your email address. You
know all that stuff started. I'm like, okay, clearly he
just went rogan and tell a single person he was
doing the call. The next day, I got a call
from a really good friend of mine, Jefferson Hack now
Jefferson as a journalist. Him and his partner of the
photographer rank and the business partner that is, they started

(01:59:20):
a magazine, Dazed and Confused in the UK that was
kind of a lifestyle fashion music magazine. Since went on
rankings like Superstar. Photographer Jefferson started a few of the
magazines they still continues. He's Etra. I think he's the
publisher another magazine, another man magazine. You know Sally he's

(01:59:42):
a big and fashion and works with all the fashion
houses and things. You know, just someone who was really
in touch with the here and now music fashion culture,
and obviously he was friends with Stella McCartney. I wasn't
friends with I am now, but I wasn't then. So
Jefferson Cortey, Hey, Stella McCartney called me instead. I need
someone new and interesting to work with my dad. Do

(02:00:04):
you know anyone? He went, I don't know anyone in
music except for me, you know, because he was big
friends with The York and we knew each other and
I knew each other since the magazine started. And so
I hope you don't mind that. Gave her your number.
So Paul my call and I went, funny, you say
that he's already called, and he went, damn, sorry, I
should have told you earlier. Um. So this is the thing,
just Stella trying to like, which she still does to

(02:00:26):
this day, how to breathe in life into him? How
do you know? She's like a mini me of Paul
in a female form. You know, she's so dripped and
she's like, how do I just get my dad to
do things are exciting and interesting, you know. And that's
where the number came from. So it was this little chain.
They didn't do the beauty parade, he didn't go and
meet ten other people. I went and had a meeting.

(02:00:49):
They went, well, let's get a few months and see
how it goes. In the first few meetings were really
hilariously funny looking back on them. You know, I'll never
be the first time you like, he said, Okay, and
pull the team together, up the system, somethin the label
going to meet over at my house. We're going over
to his house in London. We're sitting down and wait, okay,
the albums are in eight weeks. What are we going

(02:01:09):
to be doing? And I went, well, first thing, Paul,
can we put it back four weeks so we've got
a bit more time? He went, Listen, when I was
in the Beatles, we finished the Friday record would be out,
but in three or four days, probably on the Monday
of the Tuesday. Now records coming out. It's fine, It's like, okay,
that was like one of the first meetings. Um, but

(02:01:31):
that I thought it'd be in there doing some consulting
for him and helping out just on that album project
and a few of the things he had going on.
He did Complation DVD at the time of my can't
he years and we're pulling all this together now, just stop?
That would sort of be it. He got away for
a few years, but then we really got into it
and we started getting creative because he one thing he said,
and the first meeting was he said, I hate getting bored.

(02:01:55):
I hate it. I still always want to be fair,
ideas and stimulating. All these things resonated to the point
where I started looking back, Oh, he hasn't want a
Grammy in twenty years, and why is that? You know?
And well I started doing all these things and then
we since one about fifteen grammy since I've worked with him,
you know. So it's like we just changed the course

(02:02:15):
and the energy behind what he was doing, you know,
and again making sure that the PR was on point.
And I learned that with him, how we do things
that are great and interesting. I think the first piece
of PR I made him do when I work with
him was a Pitchfork interview when Pitchfork was very different,
still run by Ryan back then, you know, and this

(02:02:36):
is two thousands seven six, and you know, and I thought,
this is why we should do it. You would never
talk to them and they would never think of talking
to you. And remember, Colin Ryanson, what do you think
about this? He went, we really get to talk to him. Me,
you really get to talk to him? Oh, hell yeah,
we're in and that just and that just traveled and
he loved that interview and he still refers to that

(02:02:56):
interview today. So it's just thinking, how do we do
things he hasn't before? That was like me, but I'm
probably gonna get fired after this one. He's never done
an in store, you know, so let's do the in store.
And then we got Grammy nominated from the twelve inch final,
were released from it and things like that. You know,
it's a didn't win the Grammy, but at least we've
got nominated. So we did a bunch of fun things.
You know, he's one of the biggest also on the planet.

(02:03:17):
How do we go to do things that's on the ground,
pool it right back down and then rebuild it back up.
That was really really good fun. And he was always
open to ideas, always open, never shot him down, didn't
say yes all the time, but it was all be
great idea, not for me or not for right now,
but great idea. And it was really healthy dialogue. So

(02:03:38):
again I'm done year sixty, so happy, heavenly fired yet, Wow,
this has been fantastic. Scott I wanted to thank you
for all the time you've taken for those who were
in the trenches of the business and for those on
the outside. This is really quite a primer of what's
going on. Certainly demonstrates how you have your feet both
on the ground and in the cyber world. So thanks

(02:04:01):
so much for taking the time, Scott, Thank you, Bob,
thanks for inviting me. You good to chat, been long overdue,
and hopefully see each other in person at some point. Okay,
just one question. You had this insane accident where you
were hit. How are you doing. How's your body doing? Yeah,
I get hit faced on by car. I'm doing it

(02:04:21):
other than my knees at one surgery. Didn't do the
second surgery because I didn't like the feeling of the
first surgery. Doesn't feel that great. So but I'm good.
Train every day except on place. And just one more question,
to what degree has your attention to business affected your
personal life, relationships, etcetera. I think and do what we do,

(02:04:45):
it's always going to affect him because and I'm trying
to get that balance right between you know, pre COVID.
I think I did a hundred thirty five flights back
cut down to about forty last year, who's back up
about eighty, you know, And I'm trying not to get
it to a point where I'm on a plane every

(02:05:08):
other day. You know, I love what I do. I
love the people that I work with. I love my team.
The artists are phenomenal. I couldn't ask to work with
better artists. So I'm really really lucky with regards of that.
I'm not trying to let all the people in my
team who have been with me so long, who are
so great, they can do a lot more of the traveling.

(02:05:29):
They can do a lot more FaceTime. I know exact
place when I have to be somewhere and then I'm there.
But I'm trying to find that balance where I actually
don't have to be in a plane. I say this,
but you know, you know, we could multiple shows, some
in the same city in the next couple of weeks,
and I'm in Atlanta and in Vegas and in l
a butin three days. So you know, what I'm saying
isn't really living up to what I'm trying to do.

(02:05:49):
But I'm trying to slow down the pace and balance
that sort of quality of life with quality of work
and then since you mentioned shows in COVID, I mean Elton.
Elton restarted his uh final tour, he immediately got COVID. Okay,
the laws, certainly in America are different depending on what

(02:06:09):
state you're in. There's been some super spreader events. You know,
how do you decide to go on the road, what
precautions do you take? What do you think what's gonna
happen here in the next six months? Every every artist
has different levels of there, that's how you put it.
How strict they're going to be with the policy if
you you know, there's something went round online with the

(02:06:30):
deadening companies COVID policy, which was the strictest that I
think we've seen. Finding balance what we've done on all
shows from from October and I've been having a lot
of big shows arena show since October last year, still running.
We have a COVID protocol so on every tour, everybody
going backstage has to be tested before we get in

(02:06:52):
the room. That includes building staff. All building staff have
to be vaccinated. Everybody in the touring on trash has
to be vaccinated because of good a singer or you've
got four guys in a band or whatever, happens to be.
They go down, there's no show, so you have to
keep them protected as best you can. Everyone has to
wear masks backstage, but ensuring that you keep this backstage bubble.

(02:07:15):
The only time the bubble breaks, it's down to the artice. Oh,
my sisters coming in, my brother's coming in on my whatever,
my auntie, my cousin, my Nick donaghbor's best friend, and
people start coming backstage. They we want them all tested,
We want them all vaccinated tested, you know, or to
make sure that you're still trying to keep some kind
of safety level, because that's the only way that the

(02:07:37):
artist is kind to go down. Um. We had a
big issue is the chelly through two nights of the
Garden in December. You know, like then we had a
few shows in Florida, like Miami and a couple of
other shows. Time we got to the Garden, two guys
in the video team, they were on a bus. Two
of them went down. Managed to replace one of them,
but not too often. Then the audio team started to

(02:07:57):
go down to the other shows. We were on a
skeleton staff from the very last show about the December.
You know, it's because we couldn't hire people people didn't
want to come up, catch COVID and be out for
ten days for Christmas. So people we couldn't reheart staff.
They went bell ill. They didn't want to be in
a bus sleeping on a bus. Of other guys might
have it because they've been exposed to the guy who
did get it. That became really complicated, and that's how

(02:08:20):
shows are going down. So I can see say, I
don't know what happened with the Dell show in Vegas,
no idea. I know as much as you know, and
the next guy knows just from what you read. Well,
I know that a lot of it's not public. Oh yeah, yeah,
I'm sure. But what I feel is like genuinely you know,
like if you aren't strict about it, as soon as
someone in your audio team goes down and someone else

(02:08:41):
goes down, there might be someone by No, that was
all horseship. There was only one. There was only one person.
It was an excuse. I mean, I'm not talking about
your concept. But in the case of Adele, the concept
is really the case of a Yeah, the case of
a Dell, it was an excuse. But keep going. No,
but that it's easy. Soon as some departments start to
go down because those big shows is have the whole

(02:09:01):
video team, they've got a whole electronics team, or you know,
things that move on the stage. They got your projection team,
you've got your lighting team, your audio team. Is a
lot of staff there. As soon as they start to drop.
If the key man goes the designer, director, the main
sound engineer, who's the best guy in the world, he
goes down, you can replace them, you know, you find
someone else to go in. That's when shows can get

(02:09:24):
in trouble when it's nothing to do with the autist.
So these staff members, this is where it becomes complicated.
Do you force everyone to stay in their hotels and
not go out when you're a day off. They have
to live in their hotel room to stay isolated, because
if they've got the hotel bar, but hanging up with
another guy. The two lighting guys are going for dinner
somewhere because a great sushi restaurant. Oh but they caught

(02:09:44):
it because they've been out and went for a drink
at the bar before. Then that's the point. Do you
not allow anyone to leave? They don't have to stay
in their rooms to keep it pure. It's really tough
and to what degree our acts hesitant to go out
and work. I think the older officer perhaps hesitant to
go out. And you see Aerosmith just canceled it. To

(02:10:05):
think this week or wait last week? UM, yeah, I
think I see a lot more shows being canceled. We're
scheduling a bunch of things in Europe. They're definitely getting
hit hard over there, harder than it feels in the US.
But this late recent wave in the past couple of months,
the kron uh you know, strain definitely was so yeah,

(02:10:30):
that's probably the thing the worst we've seen, because it's
so infectious um in comparison to previous strengths. UM. And
my hope is it's hopefully starting to die off and
go down, just the numbers of stating that, But then
I'm sure not too far behind. It will be another string.
How we keep navigating this? And how about yourself? Have

(02:10:53):
you gotten COVID? You know what I did? I caught
it second of ganguery. I've been all over covering a
bunch of shows. I was in London, it was in
New York, it was in d C. We did a
show at the White House with Pcelli in l A
I was on a plane. It felt like every other
day in December. Got home. It's fine, fine for New Year,

(02:11:15):
had lunch of friends the New Year's Day, walk up
in the second in January through a little you know
particularly but it's just just the cold, because we could
forget that you can still get a cold. Just got
tested and it was positive. Fortunately, you know, double jab
with a booster. It was lighter than a head cold.

(02:11:35):
You know, it's a little you know, block sign us. Um,
it was co feeing a little bit, it was it
was It's fine. I was working as a normal you know,
just stay at home that first week in the year.
So I feel like I'm glad I got out of
the way. And if that is as bad as it
will be for someone like me, then I'm okay with that.
You know. Um yeah, still said that. I caught it.

(02:11:57):
I felt like you see all these memes going to
run with someone with beer and someone's like dodging, dodging, dodging.
I felt like I was like, great, I've gone around
the world, have been so many flights, I've skipped this thing.
I've been everywhere, and then I felt like, where did
I get that didn't go at any New Year's Eve
events or parties around anything that was really good. Super quiet,
mell time still caught. Wow, we can talk for days.

(02:12:19):
We're gonna leave it here. We can, we can, we can. Okay,
It's always great to talk to your Scott YouTube lo
YouTube Till next time. This is Bob left Sex