Speaker 1What's up? Welcome back to the James Kennedy podcast. I hope you're all good. You know, when I started this podcast, I didn't think I was going to make it past episode three. You know, I thought it was just going to be me talking rubbish about what I've been up to with my week. You know, and yet here we are approaching 25 episodes and we've had some absolute giants on the show. It's crazy. We've had a guest every single week. The podcast is still going and it's becoming more and more commonplace now for people to come up to me, you know, out and about and say how much they're enjoying the podcast and their favorite episodes and things like that. So people are clearly starting to listen to the thing, which is cool. I didn't think anybody was listening and it's made me wonder whether I need to start up in my game on the production side of things. You know, we don't have any intro music, no fun and games, no listener questions or anything like that. We can do some of that stuff if you want, but I kind of like the DIY punk rock aesthetic to the thing of just an unedited, unfiltered chat with super interesting people. No frills, no fireworks, just interesting information from interesting dudes. And speaking of interesting dudes, today's guest is an actual member of parliament. That's right. This person has actually shared the same air as Preeti Patel. So this is going to be an interesting chat and I'm really chuffed that I've managed to get their time today. So hang fire for what's going to be a really interesting conversation. I'm going to quickly do the preamble that I always do before we get started. Have you subscribed to the podcast? Have you hit the rating button? Have you left a review? If you haven't, stop being a freeloading jackass and get on it. This is free content, man. Come on, help a brother out. Now we're going to be talking a lot about the value of content in today's conversation because today's guest is a strident supporter of the creative industries from with inside the walls of parliament. And there's a whole host of things that I want to get into with them. So let's unveil the guest for today's episode. Kevin Brennan is the labor MP for Cardiff West and a member of the digital culture, media, and sports select committee. He is a staunch supporter of the campaign for fair remuneration for musicians in the streaming age and fights many causes for the creative industry from within parliament. He is also an active musician himself. So we've got loads to talk about. So let's get into it and welcome onto the show. Mr. Kevin Brennan. How are you, sir? I'm very well. Thank you. Glad to hear it. And thanks for being with us. As I said, you are a consistent campaigner for the causes of the musical community. And we thank you for that. So I wanted to start by asking you as someone who has a heightened understanding of these issues, as well as the regulatory backend of them. What do you personally see as the main issues facing the music industry or more specifically, you know, musicians and artists and the creative industries more generally? What do you feel are our main challenges right now?
Speaker 2They are industries and that they employ people to make a large contribution to the UK's national income, a growing contribution. In fact, the creative industries have been the fastest growing part of the economy in recent years. And that needs to be recognised by policymakers and by government. But of course, recent years have, you know, shown that they can be affected as other industries can be by all sorts of all sorts of things, including the COVID pandemic that had a massive impact on the live music industry, as well as live theatre and other creative industries that depend on you being able to have an audience and perform live. And it really, I think, threw into relief in the music industry, in particular, the fact that a lot of people were not making much money at all from the recorded side of the industry that the creators were finding that in this age of streaming, their income was, you know, pretty minuscule from the recording side. And live, you know, the absence of live release through that into relief. And there are lots and lots of issues affecting creative industries. I mean, for example, Brexit has had a massive impact, again, on the ability of people to play live to tour to develop their acts to the research and development of the creative industries, which is to get out there and play and perform. Yeah, and so on. And, you know, generally incomes for creators are pretty low.
Speaker 1And I know that you have been very vocal on the issue of remuneration rates within the streaming industries. Could you tell us a bit more about that? Yes. There's, you know, been a lot of debate about it in Parliament.
Speaker 2I'm a member, as you mentioned in your introduction of the Parliamentary Select Committee, which looks at culture and creative industries. And we did an inquiry into the economics of music streaming, precisely because of what I just said about the way that musicians are finding they weren't getting much money out of it and were concerned about it. And that inquiry, which was pretty groundbreaking, actually produced a substantial report with a number of recommendations in it, including a recommendation, amongst others, that musicians ought to be guaranteed a payment when their music is streamed at something called equitable remuneration, similar to what happens if you get your record played on the radio. And that's something that you're entitled to under copyright law. And so as a result of that report, a number of things happened. One is that the government set off a number of work streams within a part of the government known as the Intellectual Property Office, or the IPO, to look into things like creators' earnings, like the transparency of information that musicians get from their record companies and their publishers and so on. So there's a whole stream of work going on around that, like the kind of fairness of the sorts of contracts that you're expected to sign if you are involved in recorded music. And it also then triggered a report by the Competition and Markets Authority into the market itself and into the dominance of the recorded music market by three very large companies, namely Warner, Sony, and Universal, and whether or not that market was operating in a proper competitive way. Where we're at right now is that the Competition and Markets Authority have issued an interim report on that issue, which we might talk about during the podcast. And that there's a lot of ongoing work in the Intellectual Property Office, which people from the music industry, both on the creator side and on the business side, are discussing. And that is due, the government are due to give us an update, it's supposed to be in September, but at the moment, obviously, there's a lot of churn going on in government. So that may affect that, the timing of that, but it's supposed to report back on where they're at with all that work in September. So I know the Select Committee will want to revisit where we are in the autumn and see exactly what's happened to our recommendations. Well, that all sounds
Speaker 1quite hopeful actually. I mean, I was under the impression that this was an issue that had plateaued. I didn't think that there was a lot of traction within government on this. I thought it was kind of like a niche issue. I mean, you know, with everything else the country has got going on right now, I can't imagine that this would be seen as a priority within government. But given what you've just described, it sounds as if this is actually a bit further down the line than I thought. So then given that ultimately meaningful change with regards to remuneration rates is going to have to come from legislation because, you know, these platforms like Spotify are only going to work within the regulations that are set, they're not going to up the pay for musicians voluntarily. So what needs to happen next with regards to that regulatory change and how far away do you think we are from that?
Speaker 2Well, there is a process underway. So yes, that carries on. But you are right to point out. Obviously, that we are facing huge, broader challenges, you know, economically, as a country, you know, as other countries are as well. And you can't ignore the weather. And there's a there's an economic storm blowing in, in relation to the cost of living crisis that the country's facing. So that is going to dominate. I mean, I'm not pretending for one second that isn't. But there is a there is a lot of work that is in in train, if you like, within government. And so there's a process going on. Now, you know, the rates that people get paid, you know, they're not a sort of product of evolution or something, you know, some kind of natural law or anything, they are determined by the way in which the industry is structured, and the deals that have been made, for example, by the major record companies who are also the major rights holders in relation to, you know, publishing and the songs as well, because, as many of your listeners may know, they're very large. big three, also, as well as owning the recordings, if you like, they also own a lot of the publishing the money that goes to songwriters and composers from having written songs and music in the first place. And so, at the outset of when streaming began, you know, over a decade ago, now, they negotiated deals that were favorable towards the recording side of the business, because that's more profitable for the record companies, and then the song publishing side, that's, that's gradually under pressure gradually changed a bit, and the song started to get a bit better of a deal. But one of the questions of our report, really, and of this whole process is, has actually the value of the song being suppressed artificially by the record companies, because it's not in their interest, necessarily for that to get a bigger share of the pie. Now, these things happen because the negotiations that are done by these, these big companies, with the the streaming services like Spotify and Deezer and so on, They aren't set in stone. So part of the competition authority's inquiry was to look into that whole issue. What is going forward? I personally hope that, you know, what happens is that the industry comes to a much more sensible deal, you know, with music makers as to what the share of each part should be from streaming. I proposed a bill in Parliament which would have changed copyright law to ensure that that happens. That bill wasn't successful. It ran out of time. But there's still, the government's made it clear that if it had to, it would be prepared to legislate if it thought the industry wasn't making any of the changes it needed to make itself.
Speaker 1Well, for fear of repeating myself, you know, this does all sound quite hopeful, actually. I'm quite surprised. I mean, I can understand why this is an issue that's close to your heart as a fellow musician. But are you seeing? Hasn't that echoed amongst your fellow MPs, particularly, you know, across party? And do you feel that this is an issue that is actually understood and taken seriously within Parliament?
Speaker 2I mean, look, the music industry is a complicated industry. It's one of the reasons, I think, why sometimes it doesn't get all of the scrutiny it should be getting. And it isn't always understood by people in politics, you know, just how significant it is in terms of its economic contribution. And the number of jobs that it generates. So, you know, traditionally, the creative industries have sometimes been viewed a little bit as Cinderella industries. Right. Because you're not manufacturing hard bits of metal. Yeah. Unless it's heavy metal music. I was going to say. You know, you're not actually banging out widgets and things like that. Yeah. You know, and so, you know, as a country that has a tradition of manufacturing industry, you know, it's understandable that. That is the case. And manufacturing industry is very important. But we are actually very successful in our creative industries. We're one of the very small number of countries in the world that are net exporters of music. We earn more foreign currency from our music industry than we actually pay out from our music industry. Most countries are net importers, if you like, of music in that sense. And so we should be trying to maximize the comparative advantage we have. And in the long term, that comparative advantage. It's underpinned by our great creators, our musicians, artists, songwriters and composers and so on. And unless, you know, we have the right structure for them to be rewarded into the long term, then we'll lose that comparative advantage. And there are some unbuilt things about the sort of ecology, if you like, of music streaming that mean that our creators into the future musicians are likely to see a decline in their income rather than a growth in it. And so we should be trying to maximize the comparative advantage of music in that sense. And most countries are net exporters of music. We earn more foreign currency than we actually pay out from our music industry. Most countries are net exporters of music. And if you were doing that, then musicians get this guaranteed payment when your music is played on the radio called equitable remuneration. But if it's streamed in the way I've just described, they don't. And, of course, over time, if streaming services gradually replace radio, then obviously that income will gradually be lost to musicians. So unless we do something about some of these things, we are undercutting our own advantage in music. And ultimately, you know, that's shooting ourselves in the foot.
Speaker 1Well, this is something that we've talked about a few times on this podcast with previous guests is, you know, on the subject of music. It's just how insane the cultural global footprint of the UK's music output is on the world. You know, I mean, for a tiny little island, you know, our musical footprint on the world is massive. You know what I mean? You know, it's the one thing that we do better than anywhere, I think. But I know that for certain politicians, that musical aspect is not going to be the primary concern for them. They need to know that the economics add up, which, you know, as we all know, and as you outlined already, you know, they certainly do. So I'd be keen to find out what some of the other findings were from this interim report that you mentioned earlier that we could come back to. What were some of the key elements from that report?
Speaker 2I might be a little bit disappointed, actually. And I think people from the campaigns have been disappointed by the competition and market authorities assessment because they seem to have swallowed the analysis of the of the large record companies rather than listened hard enough to what's being said to them, you know, by the musicians and songwriters and composers who have been giving evidence to them. And I think people from the campaigns have been disappointed by the competition and market authorities assessment because they seem to have swallowed the analysis of the of the large record companies rather than listened hard enough to what's being said to them. And at the end, at the end of the day, you've got consumers who are probably getting, you know, a good price out of that in the sense that the supermarket prices are pretty reasonable before the current cost of doing crisis, that is. Yeah, but I mean, that was a situation I'm just talking about over a decade ago. But what the competition and markets authority recognized then is that in that equation, what you have is a very large number of small businesses, which is what musicians are small, you know, businesses who are trying to make a living through their individual, you know, endeavor at quite a small scale, often a large number of small businesses who are dealing with these very large companies who have a lot of market power over them. And therefore can, you know, draw them into arrangements, you know, that that are that are not fair in terms of the balance of power between the small businesses and the large ones. Now, the competition markets authority exists to make sure there's, you know, good competitive markets and fairness within markets. And in the case of the supermarkets back then, they recommended to government that there should be a code of practice brought in in the way that these large businesses, the supermarkets deal with the small suppliers, and that there should be an independent adjudicator kind of ombudsman, if you like, to make sure that that code of practice is enforced and is being followed by the big supermarkets. Now, it seems to me there's a strong analogy with what's going on in the music industry here, in that the big, big businesses control really, the way that the money is divided up and distributed from the streaming services, because they own all the rights or the vast majority of the rights and they have the ability to therefore to, you know, say, the streaming services, these, these are the this is the terms on which we're going to allow you to use our catalogs. And at the end product, the little supplier at the end, the musicians and so on, who for the most part are small businesses. We all know the famous exceptions to that. But that's not what we're really talking about here. No, you know, I get in a raw deal. And I'm not saying that everybody, whoever puts a song up on Spotify can make a living out of it, because they can't, the vast majority can't. But those people who are incredible artists with a following, you know, who, who definitely ought to be able to make at least some part of their living from their recorded music. You know, the system's not working for them.
Speaker 1You know, on the bad old days, you know, these aren't disruptive tech companies who are reshaping the, you know, the landscape of the arts, they are actually building their castles on the bones of the pre existing, grossly unfair, major label model. So who do you personally see as the the main obstacles here? Is it you know, the major labels? Is it these tech companies? Or is it a conglomeration of the both?
Speaker 2Yeah, well, it is, it is. The impact of, of both and Tom's absolutely right. Of course, you've got this effectively analog structure, you know, from the old world of the old customs and practices of the music businesses, you have the music business, which are notorious, even back then, you know, back in the 60s, you know, the business was largely run by gangsters. Yeah. But, but the, the, the, the, the fact is, this whole system was kind of based on the assumptions of the old world, i.e. that you had record companies with big underlying fixed costs, like distribution, you had to have loads of lorries, and yeah, trains and planes to get the records out to the record shops and like the retail front end where you had to have high street shops in order to do it manufacturing plants to manufacture um uh albums and cds and so on i know vinyl is making a comeback but uh nevertheless that that that is no longer the case for the vast majority of the way that people consume music which is digitally so yeah all of those costs have gone from the industry a lot of the a and r costs in a way have gone because of social media and tiktok yeah spotify and facebook and all the rest of it because you know before you even get anywhere you're really discovered you know by half a dozen people in a club like oasis were you know these days you're you're you're actually already got a significant following so you do your own a and r in a sense because you you've got a significant following already probably on social media before you're going to get signed by a company so lots of those you know former costs have fallen away but the industry is behaving as if uh they're still there and still taking the same cut or a very similar cut as they did previously when in fact more of that money should be filtering down to artists and in a case of legacy artists who might have signed a contract before um you know streaming was even invented they might be being held to terms in their recording contracts which assume all this extra money for manufacturing and so on and therefore pay them a pretty low percentage royalty. so um and in many cases i'm sure tom told you some people you know are deemed to never have recouped on their original advance so they're deemed never to have paid back the record company for what they were given as an advance in the first place yeah and therefore receive next to nothing or if anything at all from their streaming they probably might get something on the songwriting but maybe nothing at all from the recording side uh even though that their their music is being streamed you know by by their fans so um that if you like is is the way the industries continue to behave and of course what they've done then is the the distribution part of it i.e the streaming platforms uh now have arrangements with those um big record companies for uh being able to distribute their their whole catalog via those streaming platforms now those businesses are not profitable in the sense they don't report profits but they are generating huge revenues i mean daniel ek just recently spent millions and millions of pounds on sponsoring barcelona football clubs club shirt i don't think the executives who are paying themselves vast fortunes in those companies are too worried at this point about whether they're profitable since their aim is simply world domination at this point rather than profitability so all in all you've got there a structure that suits everybody except the musicians uh the actual people who are the source if you like of the product that these uh people are distributing and and selling to to listeners uh and that's wrong
Speaker 1yeah 100 100 i agree with you so um as you said this is likely to be despite the the progress made on this this is likely to be put on the back burner now because we are entering some very volatile times economically and socially um what can people do who wants to get behind this because you know music is it's an it's an essential element in everybody's life isn't it there's no lack of support for artists and musicians out there on the streets so what can people do to support their favorite artists or you know emerging independent bands over the next however however long it's going to take before there start to be some rumbles of systemic change on this issue
Speaker 2well i don't give up on i wouldn't give up on systemic change although there's lots of other things happening the business of government does go on and and and we have to keep pressing the campaign uh because this is a this is a long-term reform that we're looking for so it just because the economic weather is absolutely terrible at the moment it doesn't mean it's still not the right thing to pursue and to do so i'd say that first of all and things only change if you if if people get together and um you know campaign for it so we should keep going and not not put your head in your hands about the situation and as i say there are a number of bits of work going on that are due to report you know in the coming months so um it's a very very active um situation at the moment for individuals there's a number of things that people can do obviously i mean keep supporting music for a start keep attending and and and go into to live music because for a lot of musicians you know that's the only way that they'll make their money do buy you know their physical product from them directly as well or through bandcap and other other interfaces like that because you know often uh you know smaller musicians will make more money from selling a few records than they will by streaming you know you know millions of millions of streams on on spotify and so you know do continue doing things like that and and do actively get involved in campaigns and and and raise your voice about this i think that um you know that that's that ultimately people really do care about music and they they but we need to re-establish that connection between the musicians that they love and and the people who listen to their music and one of the in one of the unfortunate side effects i think of the whole streaming ecology is the way that it breaks down the the direct relationship between the fan and the musician yeah so lots of people don't understand that and they don't understand that and they don't understand that you might pay your 10 pounds a month to spotify because you want to listen uh you know uh when you can when you're you know if your work environment or whatever to an artist that you love you know who whether it's you know miss miss a nobody whoever it is but you might listen only to miss a nobody um but your 10 pounds is not going to go to the person you listen to no you pay money to listen to it's going to go to um somebody whose music is uh you know being streamed millions and millions of times by other people who might have their music on all day because they're able to do that in in whatever is there so that in other words there's no there's no you know there's no connection between the fan direct connection with the fan and the reason they're listening to through the economics of music streaming it's it's uh it's something i think that that um uh you know some people like soundcloud for example are experimenting with trying to yes to change that um but but as fans i think we ought to be and as consumers we ought to be saying actually we want our money to go to the musicians that we like to listen to and and to to advocate for that and speak up for it well that's
Speaker 1the difference between the pro rata system isn't it and the user-centric or the fan-centric system um it is it isn't the answer to
Speaker 2everything but it is important i think that that that's that that connection is re-established between the music we listen to that and the people who make it and and the people who listen to it and and it has been broken down i think in in in recent years partly by um the way that the digital economy works in streaming and it doesn't have to work that way forever
Speaker 1no i think it's crazy and i think it's a really important issue i mean if i pay my my 9.99 a month for spotify and all i listen to is swedish death metal you know they're not getting any of the money that i pay every month even though that's all i'm listening to i mean the way that it works for for listeners that don't understand is that the all of the the subscription money gets put into one big pot and then divvied up amongst the biggest um the biggest streamed artists such as ed sheeran or drake or whoever they're getting all of the the money that is paid by listeners who may only be listening to swedish death metal you know and who don't even listen to music made by the one percent yeah that's
Speaker 2right you're you're you're 10 you're 10 pound you know the government will take its cut first of all inevitably we've got to pay our taxes um then the the you know the um the the streaming service will get its cut um ie spotify or or um diesel or whoever apple music then uh the the the publishing company will get a bit um and then the record company will get a chunk and the publishers and record company will pay whatever percentage it is they have to pay out ultimately to the uh to the musician in the case of publishing obviously you get a bigger percentage going to the musician than you do from a record deal hence the reason why in my view the system is skewed towards you know the the record deal rather than towards um the song russian composing side and plus you know obviously as part of that the big chunk of it will go to the the the record company um so that's how the economics of it works but it isn't going that bit that goes to musicians to who you listen to it's just put into a pool and divide it up according to the number of streams yes in a way that's a weird way of defining it isn't it if this is supposed to be which is what the record labels argue the equivalent of what you have you buying a record in the past because that's the argument they make to justify the system that they use if it's supposed to be that well if you bought a record and you took it home and you played it all day you know the artist is not going to get any more money because you played that record all day at home um you know the artist uh is actually only going to get what you you paid for uh their share of what you paid for for the for the record so you might be a connoisseur of of music and uh and buy every record by that particular artist but under this system um you know they don't get the rewards and it just shows i think this is a new type of way of consuming music it does have elements of being a bit like buying a record but it also has elements of being a bit like passively listening to the radio yeah and that's why there needs to be a different way of rewarding artists to make sure that people are getting fairly paid that reflects the reality of that new technology do you
Speaker 1think that streaming is here to stay or do you see there being another shift to
Speaker 2come well if i you know knew what was going to come next then obviously i could put my meager savings
Speaker 1into investing in
Speaker 2it and i do read the music press and look at the forward trends and so on then there are various you know predictions that people make and in fairness i you know i i you know i think people deserve reward for investing in new technology and so on i'm absolutely not saying that that isn't the case but just as they really you know deserve reward for investing in in new music as well but um uh it would seem that the that this technology streaming technology is certainly has become the dominant way that people consume music but then would we have anticipated did many people anticipate you know 20 years ago that it wouldn't be downloading um where you actually you know effectively if not if not legally effectively owned a track when you downloaded it from itunes onto your onto your ipod and so on um would it would many people 20 years ago said actually downloading as a technology will only last 10 years and will be pretty much completely replaced by streaming where you don't own any tracks at all you just listen to them from a catalog um you know so who knows what what comes next and all sorts of things about you know what's what's the significance of the metaverse what's the significance of the use of music in virtual worlds and so on where you know people's music is going to be being performed you know where you can attend a virtual gig performed by avatars we've seen a recent story about you know um you know the music industry getting into trouble for for artificial intelligence and music that is generated by you know by by algorithms and so on uh and actually creating virtual artists there are all sorts of things that could seem like a dystopian future that we might face but in the meantime um i think we should fix what we have got and what is going to be the dominant technology for the foreseeable future to make sure that it rewards creators great
Speaker 1point yeah well it does sound as if you know things are in movement on this issue you know thanks to the the tireless work of people such as yourself um so that does bode well for you know the future but i want to steer off topic a little bit whilst we're on the road and i want to get back to the point where we were talking about the fact that you know we have a lot of campaign groups and charities on the podcast and i always try to end our conversations with them about with what can people do to help you know and as well as supporting the charities and get behind the campaigns every single time the answer to that question from these campaigners is what can people do to help is to lobby your mp so whilst i've got an actual mp on the call i'm dying to ask whether you echo that as an effective means of change you know i mean as as i can see it you're only one person so if you have you know 100 different causes lobbied to you from your constituents you can't represent all of them effectively so is lobbying your mp the ultimate tool of the constituent with regards to change or are these groups being naive to the power of that what's your experience no i don't
Speaker 2think it's naive i think it's important to do it actually and i can tell you that members of parliament the thing that they listen to the most um you know you might think they only listen to big powerful interests you know and you know clearly you know there are all sorts of people who are very powerful often trying to lobby members of parliament about things including the music industry but unless the voice of a constituents are heard then then you know there's there's not enough incentive for them to do something about it and the thing that mps do listen to the most is individual lobbying from their constituents now sometimes where campaigns go wrong i think and they're not as effective is if they sort of engage in what you might call a kind of clicktivism if you like where you you say here's an online letter click it and send this link and send it to your mp and then that member of parliament might get a you know 100 identical emails you know from a campaign and and that you know if you if you imagine you're you're receiving that on the other end as a a member of parliament um you know then your your your only way to respond to that really is to is to sort of come up with a stock answer and to to send it back you know the answer to constituents or whatever to post it on your website and so on but if you're an individual uh constituent and you're a you know you're a job in musician you run a local venue there's something like that where you're making you know a contribution in that person's constituency and you live there and you approach your mp individual and you're like oh i'm going to do that individually either by you know writing to them by email or even by by snail mail still happens uh or um visiting their constituency surgery if they're able to hold one copsie covert has disrupted a lot of that process uh you know um or you know and asking to ask you to meet them to to discuss you know the the issues and to explain your concerns and asking them to do something like will you write to the minister to say please can you make sure that uh the government does actually do something as it's promised to do um in relation to improving creators earnings from from music streaming Etc in other words you know whatever the campaign please can you you know support the the campaign to to to get musicians to be able to tour more freely around Europe and talk about that sort of engagement actually does make a difference and engages the interest of uh of of members of parliament and ultimately we're all realistic lots of things that happen in Parliament are determined by uh you know the the way that the government decides to do things they control a lot of the agenda and the votes in Parliament but the more you build up a body of MPs who who take an interest in the subject of musicians and understand the contribution that the music industry and the other creative Industries make in all of our constituencies um then the more likely it is that policymakers will take notice well
Speaker 1that's great to hear and thanks for answering that because I know we're going off topic but but staying on that subject a second um do you feel that as well as you know the personal lobbying of of one's representative do you feel that as well as that things such as you know protest and direct action and civil disobedience also influence you or are they not as effective to that end as a direct reach out from one of your constituents
Speaker 2well I mean it's a long and it's a very long and sort of Noble history of protest in in in our country and a vital part of any democracy and sometimes that does include things like like civil disobedience Etc um you know but I mean around I think issues like music industry reform and so on I think this is this is something that is you know best done through uh campaigning and raising voices and and getting people to understand the importance of our creative Industries and to up their profile and importance within government because you know it's it's a it's a hugely important chunk of our economy as well as of our culture and yet it doesn't have enough um heft if you like within government compared sometimes to other departments so part of the work I do on the select committee is to try to you know raise these sorts of issues up the agenda to get people to understand their importance uh clearly people you know will protest and take industrial action where things affect them are directing where they have the ability to do so as we're seeing at the moment and that as I say is is also another part of our our democracy but I'm not advocating going around smashing anything up by the way but damn it's just getting ready as well certainly not but but but definitely you know obviously you know we we had a night we had a good protest outside Parliament a sort of typical musicians protest playing playing music and drawing attention to ourselves you know when my bill was uh underway and it got that it got the interest of a lot of MP so I think one thing music's got going for it quite often actually is that many people including politicians you know are actually fans of music themselves so that that's something that can be leveraged to get their attention and get them to understand issues that affect musicians and other creators I'm just
Speaker 1going to take a guess here but I'm guessing that the music that's listened to by the uh the party in blue there uh is probably exclusively made by people from 500 years ago am I right in that or am I being unfairly uh prejudiced
Speaker 2probably a little bit because I actually I chair the old party parliamentary group on on music which is a group of MPs from different parties who try to work together you know you often don't see that on on Primus's questions or on question time on the telly or something but there are that some of us do try to work together understanding that that you know sometimes behind the scenes you can achieve quite lot by doing that and um you know there are um uh conservative politicians who are big music fans and and and fans of uh of um you know more than just uh sort of beethoven everything anything from everything from from heavy metal to sort of indie stuff and you know um so or even hip-hop and you know so there are you know i wouldn't i wouldn't seek to totally parody uh people you know in that way um but obviously there are there is a there is obviously a tendency for people who have a strong interest in in you know the arts and so on sometimes to take a more uh you know kind of uh liberal left-wing view of society yeah i would
Speaker 1agree with that but i i also love the idea that uh as you just described it of uh jacob reese mogg listen to some hip-hop but i'm guessing that's not who you're talking about i want to stay off topic for just one more question before we loop back to talk about your band before uh the clock runs out here because i'd be doing my fellow lefties a disservice by not asking you this whilst i have a labour mp on the line you know as we all know the country is in a mess right now worryingly so we've got this crazy cost of living crisis the the fallout from brexit the price of energy is just disgraceful and we've got a brutal winter coming up as well which is going to exacerbate that the nhs is struggling workers rights are being threatened we've got the policing courts bill coming through which is going to make protesting about any of it essentially a criminal act and the country appears to be being sold out from underneath us to the highest bidder so my question is where's the opposition we need labor more than ever right now and i just don't feel like an effective opposition to the behemoth of tory destruction has been there for us and i myself left the party to join the greens and i know that many other former labor members are angry and disappointed so i would like to ask your thoughts on the current state of the labor party and do you understand why people are feeling so let down by you guys right now i think
Speaker 2it you know let me tell you i've been both in government and in opposition you know in my time in parliament and uh you know one one day in government is worth a thousand days in opposition uh and uh it you know the the truth of the matter is that that you know it's a bit like shouting into a vacuum so i think it's a bit like shouting into a vacuum so i think it's a bit like shouting into a vacuum sometimes being in opposition and it's no good just being making a noise and it's no good just being a party of protest you know you actually have to have uh you have to be very very serious about understanding that in order to win an election which is what you have to do to really make any difference that you've got to persuade people you know who haven't previously voted for you uh to vote for you so i think you know i think that that you know it's it's quite easy sometimes to to say you should be making more noise should be more disruptive and so on i think what's needed most of all is for the labour party to provide a credible opposition that can look like and that people see as an alternative government with the mess that the current government's made and the mess that's going to be you know left behind that's going to be an extremely you know difficult task so i actually think it's we really need to focus in on trying to unify around getting rid of this current government because of the fact that it's going to be an extremely you know difficult task because of the mess they're making of the country and the more and more that we just simply are kind of uh you know disunited about that the more it will allow them to to have yet another term in office and that's always been the problem i think on the left side of politics we tend to divide ourselves up into factions whereas the tories are focused on one thing on one thing and that is power and they that the reason they are so successful is because they do focus on what it takes to to to actually be in power and then to stay in power and uh if we you know if we can't unite at the moment to say we have to get rid of this dreadful government which led us into this economic disaster and which is doing so much to um ruin the country and you know disrupt our reputation across the world as well uh then you know then then then that would be a terrible indictment a terrible failure so i i think we all need to just you know that we can argue about various things but if we can't focus on that um then i'm afraid you know we've got no
Speaker 1chance yeah great point well argued and you know thanks for answering that because i know that wasn't really on the sort of topic list by the
Speaker 2way a lot of the a lot of the proposals that i'm making are you know in the labor you know front bench um policy book and will you know be things that we'd be proposing in our manifesto so they're worth fighting for and worth voting for if you're interested in trying to bring about the sort of change for the creative industries and musicians that we're in and i think that's a really good point and i think that's a really good point
Speaker 1that we're talking about well as i mentioned i've now left the labor party i'm now a member of the green party um because of like i said because of the the growing sense of this point
Speaker 2vote tactically for labor in the uh in the general election you know uh unless you're you know because otherwise you might let a torian depends where you live obviously but
Speaker 1yeah well we had owen winter from the campaign group make votes matter on a few episodes back talking about proportional representation and obviously unfortunately until we get that then you know tactical voting really is our only option and it isn't it isn't it because the as you say the priority number one is to get the damn tories out you know by hook or by crook you know so we could figure the rest out later on
Speaker 2well i'd agree with you on proportional representation but as you say it's it's you know don't let perfection be the enemy of the
Speaker 1good love it love it right well before we quickly wrap up i just want to ask you about your bands and your own music so let's loop it back to music and tell us
Speaker 2what's going on yeah uh i've you know always uh played music since i was a teenager and written songs and so on so i've been actively um playing music you know all my life and from time to time i played in in bands and so on but when i became an mp uh last thing i expected happened was to end up playing in a rock band but it turned out that we had some musicians in parliament at that time in the early 2000s one was pete wishart who is the scottish national party uh member but who played in the early 2000s played for 18 years in run rig who were you know big scottish band and uh were on top of the pops and you know played to 100 000 people at loch lomond and all that kind of thing and uh another guy who was a labor mp called ian causey who who had played semi-pro all his life as a bass player mainly in covers bands but you know and then and then they were looking around and thinking we'll never find a drummer and unbelievably they stumbled upon a guy called greg knight who was a conservative mp but who played in a lot of soul soul bands in the in the 70s uh and then i said well you can't you can't just have keyboard you know bass and drums you're gonna have guitar and vocals as well so we end up in a band called mp4 and over the years you know we've done a lot of gigs we've been on tv and we've raised quite a lot of money for charity and made a few records and uh and then just recently on a personal basis i actually finally got around to recording um a solo album which is out on revolver records you'll be interested your listeners might be interested to know more about that so i'm going to go ahead and get started and it's available on all the streaming services despite the lousy rate that they pay and uh it's called the clown and the cigarette girl and uh under the name kevin brennan and they're all um you know my own compositions uh and if you like a bit of kind of folky rocky americanery type of um music um singer songwritery stuff with an emphasis on narrative songwriting that's what you'll find on on my album so give it a spin if you
Speaker 1fancy well i have an i can say yeah it's really really good man i'd love to come and check you out if you're playing in the area sometime soon you'll have to let
Speaker 2me know well um there are a limited amount of gigs i'm able to do given that yeah of course the full-time job but i did i did do one at the hundred club earlier this year which uh which was fantastic and i also did one in cardiff to launch the vinyl uh version of the the album which was also great and i was lucky enough to be able to recruit glenn matlock i.e. formerly of the sex pistols to play both both on the album and live with me before he defected to blondie where he's currently he's currently on tour in the states playing with blondie so um i may have lost his services i think
Speaker 1well i'm just in awe that you managed to do all this stuff you know whilst you know your full-time job as an mp and everything else that you're doing as well you're putting me to shame man and uh and on that note i promise i wouldn't keep you uh past half past so the clock is getting on now so kevin i'm gonna bid you farewell and let you go on with the rest of your your pressing affairs thanks so much for taking time out your schedule to chat with me today and i'll see you in the next one bye and to share all that info and thanks so much for uh everything you're doing inside and out of parliament on this uh on this issue as well the musical community thanks you and we're rooting for your success it's
Speaker 2been an extraordinary pleasure james thanks for having
Speaker 1me oh anytime man you know and uh you know i look forward to coming out and catching one of your gigs definitely keep going cheers kevin cheers there you have it ladies and gentlemen mr kevin brennan member of parliament for cardiff west and also as we've just discovered you know performing in a kick-ass rock band with a with a slamming solo career so you know definitely putting my lazy ass to shame that was another chat that challenged quite a few of my preconceptions which i always like to have done you know and kevin made some interesting points there towards the end about the nature of representation and democracy which was off script which was off topic it's not what we'd arranged to talk about so i appreciate him um letting me take us into that territory and i hope that that gave an interesting insight certainly into kevin's experience as a member of parliament and what is effective means of lobbying somebody who's member of parliament because that is something that gets discussed a lot on this podcast is you know how do we affect change i'm still not going to be making up with the labour party anytime soon because i am deeply disappointed in them but i do understand kevin's point about you know they they are unfortunately the only chance we've got of getting the tories out so you know we may have to do what we've got to do on the next election but i am deeply dissatisfied with the labour party which is a shame because you know that is traditionally the party that i would align myself with as a person on the traditional left but that notwithstanding you know kevin in particular is as a labour mp is doing amazing work on the issues of fair remuneration for musicians and you know a whole host of other cultural concerns through the work that he does at the select committee so you know as i've grown to learn over the years after my 10 years in the dark abyss of complete cynicism as i've grown to learn they're not all the same you can't say that about any group of people you can't say about any race or religion you can't say it about protesters and you can't say it about politicians as much as i'd like to be able to tell them all with the same brush and say they're all the same unfortunately you know they're not all the same it's not that simple but you know democracy isn't perfect it's messy it's slow it's full of compromise but at the moment it's the best we've got you know and we're lucky to have it because so many places around the world don't so having kevin confirmed for us now that yes mps do react to being lobbied by their constituents i think we've all got an open door now to uh to start making some noise with our representatives about whatever the issue may be that we're concerned about so that's a great insight i hope you enjoyed the rest of the chat as well about the music industry and the streaming models and as kevin said the best way that you can continue to support your favorite artists between now and getting any kind of legislative change is to you know get involved directly with the artists that you want to support you know get behind the crowdfunding campaigns you know buy some merch you know make a donation to their tip jar or whatever it might be you know musicians have gone from being shafted by the music industry to now being shafted by the music industry and the tech industry you know so we keep doing what we're doing because we love it you know that that's the drug for us is being able to share our passions with people that want to hear it but at the end of the day you know we've got to eat food in order to do that as well you know what i mean so if you're able because i know times are hard for everybody right now if you're able you know there are so many ways that you can directly help to support the artists that you love and the same goes for us lowly podcasters as well you know we don't ask for much all we ask is that you subscribe to our podcast you click follow you click this the star rating and you leave a review is that too much to ask i mean i don't think i've mentioned it before on this podcast but i would love it if you subscribe to the james kennedy podcast to get these you know awesome episodes direct into your notification box every week so that you never miss an episode and if you can give me a rating so the algorithm starts to think there's something cool going on over here and suggest it to other people and then we can spread the propaganda even further then that would be awesome so um there's something you can do to support a humble artiste without even spending a shekel we've got some insane guests coming up over the next couple of weeks so stay tuned for those and in the meantime as always take care of yourself take care of others have an awesome week and i'll see you next time same place same time love you loads
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