Management is one of the few professions in which the older you are the better
Management is one of the few professions in which the older you are the better you are. But is the only one of the older generation who has taken on new bands and reinvented himself. The same is true of Tony Smith with Genesis and Phil Collins. I used to say you were basically an overpaid nursemaid, but now I see the manager more as an extension of the artist who can go and sell the music to the record company and the promoters.Steve O’Rourke has done a fantastic job with Pink Floyd, keeping it going. A lot of managers are very hands-on with one or two acts but Roger Davies has got quite an empire.
He is very involved on the creative side, finding great songs for Tina Turner or Joe Cocker, while other areas are delegated out, in the American style.Gail ColsonGailforce Management(The Pretenders, Peter Hammill, producer Stephen Street)WHAT MAKES a good manager is the relationship with the artist. used to be the best manager in Britain who didn’t have a big act but now he has Blur. John Hughes mortgaged everything, put himself on the line for The Corrs and that has paid off. He pulled Tina Turner right back from the wilderness into the mainstream. He has great vision and focuses on the international territories.Ed BicknellDamage Management(Mark Knopfler, Notting Hillbillies, The Blue Nile)HONESTY, COMPETENCE, willpower and the ability to deal with people who are often irrational and don’t know the words “thank you” – that’s what makes a good manager And you have to be a bit in your face. He never has to employ a lawyer, he can quote paragraphs from contracts He is scrupulously honest. Simon Fuller is the svengali type, almost an entrepreneur; he took over the Spice Girls and grew as quickly as they did, then he put the concept of S Club 7 together Roger Davies works extremely hard.
Nowadays, there’s more usage of music in film and advertising than ever.You can be a small operation looking after one artist but I believe you give better advice when you have a roster of acts and use the skills of other people around you.Ed Bicknell was painstaking in his deal-making with Dire Straits. Ironically, we now have an interactive programme teaching financial strategy to MBA level, so we now have quite some authority.Interview by Rachelle Thackray. Chris Morrison
CMO
(Blur, Elastica, Morcheeba, Midge Ure, Ooberman)A ROCK manager is like the managing director of a company, while the band are the board. You negotiate the deals and you coordinate everybody else’s activities, the record company, the booking agent, the promoters, towards a common goal: success You also have to keep abreast of new technology.
We should have tried to fund that very first project ourselves, and got some customers. The first money you get is the most expensive, and you’re always going to need more. If you use up all the equity you’re willing to give away, that’s a problem. The more you can do before you take the money, the better.That mistake gave me a more thorough understanding of financial strategy and the changes during different stages of the process.
When we sold Xebec, it took six months and we had to think about whether we had enough money left over. If you run out of cash, you might find yourself falling into the arms of the purchaser at a bargain basement price. I risked my house to a degree, but I would have risked it to a much higher degree and would have gone without more during the process, and not taken so much salary.Success didn’t come quite as quickly as we expected, but we did execute our plan. Had we understood financial strategy better, we’d never have given up so much.