Speaker 1Welcome to a new episode of the James Kennedy podcast. How the hell are you guys doing? There's been a brief disturbance in the force this past week because I've been a little bit late getting these episodes out because I have been finishing my book. I know I've been talking about this thing for fucking ages now, but the bad boy is done. I bring good news. The thing is finally done. Man, I'm so chuffed. It's been sent, submitted, signed, sealed, and delivered to the publishers. It is done, baby. And I'm really chuffed with how it's turned out. I mean, it's turned into a very different book from what it started out as. There's loads of stuff in there to do with... Well, I'm not going to even tell you. I'm not going to tell you. You're going to have to wait and see. And you know what? I'm not even going to moan about the journey of writing the thing because I've done that too many times now. To this episode, I'm just going to get straight down to business and bring on the guest. This week, it's a music industry special. As you know, this podcast tends to fluctuate between my connection to the music industry and life as a musician, and also my personal interests in politics and philosophy and science. Science and health and all that good stuff. This week, we got a deep dive into the music industry, and we've got the best man to give us the lowdown of what we got to do as musicians to navigate the murky underbelly of the music industry in 2024. If you're in a band, if you're a musician, or you've got some independent releases coming up, or you're trying to get signed, or you're trying to book some shows, you don't know what the best thing to do for your career is at this point, listen on, because I got the man with the answers. Because we are joined today by the one and only Mr. Andy Farrow. For the past 30 years, Andy has been a record label owner, artist, manager, music publisher, tour booker, and much, much more that we're going to get into. He is the top dog at the mighty Northern Music Company, who currently represent the awesome Opeth and Devin Townsend, amongst tons of others. This man knows his stuff, and I'm super excited to pick his brains on your behalf about a whole range of topics. Let's get down to it and welcome him onto the show. Mr. Andy Farrow, sir, thank you so much for doing this, man. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm okay, thanks. Good to speak with you. Oh, it's good to have you with us, man. We appreciate it. To start with, I mean, obviously, I've been in bands and stuff for 20 years. I mean, me and anyone like me knows exactly all about who Mr. Andy Farrow is. But for those listeners who don't, could you give us a brief background on, you know, who you are, what you do, what you've done, and what's going on?
Speaker 2Yeah, so I have a holding company called Northern Music Group, which encompasses a management company, Northern Music Co., a record company, Graphite Records, and I've been in the business for 20 years. And I've been in the business for 20 years. And I've been in the business for 20 years. And I've been in the business for 20 years. And I've been in the publishing company, AMF Music, booking agency, NMC Live, merch company, Omerch, that I co-own with OPEF. So I've been kind of managing bands professionally for, well, since 1988. Wow. First band I got a major deal with Warners for. Prior to that, I was kind of involved with an arco punk scene. So over the years, as managing bands, I've kind of learned every aspect of the business. And then, of course, I've been in the business for 20 years. And I've been in the business for 20 years. And then, of course, I've been in the business for 20 years. And then, of course, I've been in the business for 20 years. And then, of course, I've been in the business for 20 years. And opportunities came along to, you know, have a record label. So I had a band on V2. And they were like, Oh, you're Mr. Rock, do you want to have a record label? So I said, Yeah. With publishing, I was managing Ocean Size, I got them a big orange mobile phone advert and Cobalt again said to you, Mr. Rock, do you want a publishing company? So kind of moving along. And then, you know, obviously, prior to the pandemic, it became pretty evident that live was the big earner. And so, I thought, you know, looking at booking agencies, much easier, making money booking and managing bands. So set up the booking agency. And with the merch, again, OPEF, massive merchandising bands. So we thought we would, with the sales they do, we will be able to get the scope to get good prices. So, you know, set up a kind of, well, management, so artist owned company. And, you know, that's done pretty well. So it's not a 360. It's not a 360 company where you have to sign to everything. It just means that if, for example, you know, I publish you and I can't get you a record deal, I might better put the record out. So you can tap into whatever you want to use, really.
Speaker 1That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, the term 360 has a different connotation these days, doesn't it, with a certain type of record deal, but that's not what you're doing over there. You've just got a massive kind of umbrella operation that kind of houses all of these different elements that people can tap into if they want to.
Speaker 2It's a one-stop shop if you want it, or you can just go into sections. But, you know, I will say, actually, releasing records whilst I do fight labels and really push them, you know, releasing records is definitely a tough thing. The amount of work that goes into it, really, for what you get back or what you have to go through, especially if you're still doing physical, it's, yeah.
Speaker 1Well, you've been sort of in the game now during the great change of the music industry. So you were kicking it in the old world, and now you're still kicking it in the new world. What's your thoughts on the transition? Is it better now for bands or labels? Is it harder, or is it just different?
Speaker 2Well, I think for labels, labels are making a huge amount of money on catalogs. So firstly, it was a case of when the CD came in, you know, the Beatles and Pink Floyd, oh, let's issue it on CD. So with all the new formats, so record labels are making more majors. More money than ever before. And this is mainly down to catalog. You remember that, was it 98% or 98.5% of bands that signed fail or they don't recoup or drop. So very much about catalog. As far as for bands, I personally think, you know, when the internet came along, and it was all like, file sharing and stuff, and people worrying about bootlegging, but you know, to be honest, I think it's easier for bands now to establish an audience. Because people have got access to the music. When I started, you would buy a magazine and read about a band, and then you go to the shop and buy it. You already had a view about what they sounded like, whereas it's very accessible now. The only thing is that now, it's not the gatekeepers, anybody can put stuff out. So there's so much music. And then there's a situation of younger people, do they actually want to pay for music? If you talk to young kids, they're like, well, you know, they expect it for nothing. You know, having a publishing company, sometimes with soundtracks, they say, oh, well, we haven't got much money. It's just our music, it doesn't matter. You know, everything's spent on the other side. So overall, for me, you know, different kind of deals. You know, I think it's good now, and the kind of deals that I've got for my bands, where they're licensed deals, and they get their masters back, is good for them. And you know, even when you talk about streaming, yes, streaming is not good, when you've got record label distribute, everybody taking cuts. But you know, when you go direct to the market, if you've got your catalog coming back, you can earn a lot of money streaming.
Speaker 1100%.
Speaker 2I mean, admittedly, Spotify could pay more. But you know, the reality is, releasing records, doing physical, getting returns, declining retail, it's difficult. So the thing with streaming is that you can reach an audience. I mean, it's all kind of controlled. But it's, yeah, I mean, I'd say that deals these days are better. In the 60s, you know, they had life of copyright publishing deals. So I think deal wise, are better for bands. I mean, obviously, they'll achieve the huge sales they used to. But I do think if you're clever, or you've got a manager who knows what you're doing, you can certainly make as much money.
Speaker 1I played everything, produced it myself, put it out. And yeah, I did quite well with that one. So I just kind of followed that model, really. But that was kind of before Facebook. I mean, it was kind of before the great transition, really, it was just kind of starting. So it was all I've ever known. And I've kind of stuck with it ever since, really, I'm I set up my own publishing company, just to represent my own catalog, which is now sub published by you mentioned Cobalt, sub published by those guys. But in terms of making and distributing the record, I've kind of experimented with it. I've experimented with all the things that have come and gone over the years. And it's kind of all I know now. So it's interesting when I speak to people with experience from the other side of the industry, the more traditional way of releasing things, I suppose, it kind of sounds like a foreign world to me, because I'm a big evangelist as an independent artist who as exactly as you said, you know, through COVID, I was making a few hundred bucks a month from Spotify, which is not Ed Sheeran money, but it's more than I was making selling fucking CDs, you know, so. So I think there is a lot to say for the new model for people. People who are sort of willing and able to sort of delve into managing those aspects of it themselves. But the hardest thing, I think, is being heard above the noise, which is what you alluded to, there's so much fucking stuff now. How does anyone, with a deal or without get heard above the noise, you know, but I mean, you know, yeah, I mean, before, before social media and self distribution, that wasn't even an option. So I think it probably is better now.
Speaker 2Because you get limited radio and TV. And even when you're looking at streaming, you know, within that genre, it's still very behind pop and hip hop. So when you're talking about, again, you know, going about DIY, I do believe in record labels, because I think the problem when you do it yourself is you haven't got a marketing reach, you know, for example, in Germany, if you don't advertise in a magazine, they won't cover you. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you would fly journalists all over the place. Does having a good review or an advert sell records these days? Not totally, but, you know, it can give you the hype and everything. So I think, you know, the whole DIY model, yeah, you can get to market, but it's about what you're willing to give up. So if you went to a record label and you said, all right, you'll do a license deal, means you get the master back. Because sometimes the amount of money they give you, you might have spent more on the master. And there are also acts, when you just mentioned Spotify versus Physical, who do vinyl and they could sell 2,000 vinyl direct to their fan and make enough money to live on that way. But that is looking at the model as just earning money. I think, you know, if you really want a career, you'd have to look internationally. And, you know, there's a lot of acts that have kind of only sold in one country and might have been big in that country and been dropped because the amount that's been spent on them, they need a bigger audience, international audience.
Speaker 1That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, well, I've certainly felt that myself. I mean, I'm able to make and put the record out, which is fucking amazing. Couldn't have done that in the 70s, you know. But yeah, I mean, touring, putting on your own tours and stuff like that, you know, it's very, very, very difficult if you're just doing it yourself. You don't have the infrastructure or the know-how or the contacts or anything like that. And, yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, scalability is so hard as well. I mean, you're essentially, by relying on getting picked up by a playlist or an algorithm or something, you're essentially just rolling the dice and hoping for the best, you know, rather than building a tangible long-term career for yourself with a manager or a label or something like that. So, I mean, I've had a few people on the podcast, like Simon Raymond was on from Bella Union and Brian Slagle from Metal Blade. And they all said, yeah, it's great that you can start yourself off as an independent artist that way, but in order to... think long-term and build something, you need... you still need the industry. So, it's kind of an interesting merging now of the two models, I think.
Speaker 2Oh, definitely. I mean, you know, you've had a lot of labels doing artist services and with some of my bigger acts, we were offered these deals. And I did say to one of them, well, what about me? And they were like, well, we'll give you X amount of money because it's a massive job for a manager. So, if you do a label services deal, you really need to be with the right kind of artist that is very... business-like as well because some acts that I deal with are kind of... they still want the mysteriousness and so they don't embrace digital assets and being available. So, yeah, you know, again, as a musician or an artist, I think it's important to have an understanding about how to sell yourself because I do tell acts, no matter how good your album is, it will not sell itself these days. Yeah. And, you know, you need to promote. And, I mean, there's countless... releases. I mean, you know, I'm signed up with the official charts company so I can see what every band has sold. And when you cut all the hype away, they can have Koran covers, et cetera. And, you know, the sales are small.
Speaker 3Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2Because the other thing is, it's, again, you know, even when you're in the system, if you've not got a manager fighting, the labels are putting so much out that some of them are, you know, they go through the system, they go out. But also running a label, I know how difficult it is.
Speaker 4Right.
Speaker 2When you've done loads of work and you're like, well, we sell 450 albums, physical. And for the amount of effort that goes in, that's not very much. But if you set up things like pre-orders, direct-to-consumer campaigns, doing in-stores, all that, there are ways that you can get your sales up.
Speaker 4Right.
Speaker 2But I don't find a lot of labels do a lot of those things. I mean, obviously Earache did it with Skin Dread where they do the in-stores, but then you've got clashes with promoters who don't like underplays.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2So it's like a constant thing. The whole chicken and the egg, it used to be release the record, then you go on tour. Now, if I want to get a band in charts, I release the record, I tour that week, I use Lightning Strike app for on-the-road sales, doing in-stores, got your pre-orders. But the whole model has changed. And when people say, well, what does it mean with a chart position? But it does give you a bit of hype. Yeah. With the internet, you can say you're number one in Finland. It's only 1,500 sales, but it's still number one.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's mental in it that you can have 1,500 sales and be number one now, you know?
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah. So, you know, if I was looking at the charts today, I mean, take that where, you know, six figures are number one. I haven't seen a band, you know, and this is the midweek, a band, you know, you can go top 10 and sort of 6,000, 7,000 in the right month.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2So, so, so it's changed. You know, it has changed a lot, the actual figures of what acts out.
Speaker 1Well, you said it's not all about the money. And it's a great point because it's not, is it? I mean, if any of us were doing this for the money, we probably would have given up a long time ago, especially musicians. You know what I mean? But I mean, in this day and age where we're mostly funding things independently by ourselves, you know, these aspects, you know, the commercial ability and the hype factor and all that sort of stuff, anything that does shift units does make a difference because, you know, we do need to fucking eat, like, and we do need to keep the show on the road. And that costs a lot. It costs a lot of money, you know?
Speaker 2Yeah. But, you know, one side, you know, when you're an artist, you have to look at your income stream. So, you know, early bands, like when I took over Paradise Lost, they were on a small independent label. And, you know, Roadrunner wanted to sign the band, but Roadrunner wanted merchandise and publishing for a small advance. So we didn't go for that. So with Music for Nations, they didn't want publishing and merch. So I did separate publishing and merch deals. And that gave enough money for the band. We set up a company. And then they have a salary. So it's about looking at income streams, which is where certain record companies are offering deals, where they wanted to control web stores and things like that. It's very tough. So what they're doing is, you know, in the old days, people would sign on, get dole, and they'd go on tour, and somebody would say, oh, you're in Kerrang this week. We're not giving you the dole. But, you know, you've got to allow a band the freedom to become a business, to sustain themselves. Because if they have to work, they can't tour. If they're not available, they can't do promo. And if a label or somebody comes in and squeezes all of those areas, then they don't, you know, get it. I mean, it's like, you know, when you look at publishing, a songwriter should be in PRS. Bands don't fill out the PRS live income sheets. They're losing loads of money. You know, there's stuff you can do. You know, the other thing is knowing your market, T-shirts, all that sort of thing. And, you know, looking at yourself like a cottage industry. So it's important that the labels don't try and get it. I understand one needs to give bands tour support, that they want to earn on some other things. But I think if they're not actively bringing something to the table, why should they control it?
Speaker 1100%. And do you feel the power of social media has waned? I personally feel that. I think there was a kind of gold rush period where how many followers you had was a kind of a metric as to how well you were doing. And then people started buying followers and buying comments and doing, you know, and all this bullshit.
Speaker 2Well, there is that. But I can say as a manager, when somebody wants a support slot, I, you know, you can tell my age then, because I look at Facebook, whereas new bands, they go, oh, what's your face? Oh, no, no, we're just on Insta. And it's like, they're so cool. There's just pictures. There's not even music there.
Speaker 3That's what I used to do.
Speaker 2I'm like, right, okay, that's the picture. So, no, I still think people look at analytics where, so when you're on that social media, but, you know, so maybe people might start looking at Spotify streams. But what I see in the metal rock area, certainly with bands I publish, some of them have got tiny streams, but they pull a load of tickets and they also sell a lot of T-shirts. So social media is still there, but obviously the new thing now is TikTok. So I think, like, major labels are looking at catalog and looking at things that are reacting to TikTok and working in the rock metal area. We're very behind on TikTok. And it's about how you tap into that. But what I have seen having a publishing company is all of a sudden, some actor, publishers, you know, hardly earns anything. And then because something's happened on TikTok, it's generated. So I think, you know, things move. As I said, Facebook, and it was Instagram, you know, Twitter, I didn't fully get myself. But it is, I think, yeah, people still look at it because you want to see in the old days, you would just blag somebody and say, yeah, we can bring 20 people.
Speaker 4Right, right, right.
Speaker 2Data is there now. You know, I can look up record sales in America here, you know, ticket sales you can get. And yeah, the art of the blag is gone now because of the data.
Speaker 1Well, that's good to know because social media is, it's rife with it. You see a band that you've never heard of. You're like, man, how the fuck are these guys got two million followers? I've never heard of them. And then you're like, you know, you look at the engagements and it's all the comments and all clearly paid for, you know, it's the same comment over and over again.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. I mean, I've seen, I've seen, yeah, bands where I've been like, oh, that is huge. You know, kind of extreme bands. But you know, what I would like to do is if I could tap into market the way that other businesses do, you know, on social media where you might have been looking at something and then, you know, it really is like they're listening yes maybe with all these things and you haven't even bought something and then they're still going coming back and yeah that kind of thing so i mean it's yeah i think the thing also with social media you know with facebook you only reach x amount of percentage of people which you know again when it comes to marketing certainly from a live point of view if you've got 40 plus audience i would push you to get a promoter to you know look at posters look at flyers not just rely with online because there are some people that don't live on their phones yeah yeah computers that are doing manual jobs and they're out and about or whatever and you know sometimes so that again is about knowing your audience and how to engage with them and aggregate them well i learned a very
Speaker 1important lesson in the lockdown when i released my album i've spoken about this in the podcast before uh the album make anger great again it came out a month before trump was going for a second election and i thought i was being very satirical and clever you know by releasing a political kind of punk rock album that was hijacking the uh the make america great again sort of slogan because it was kind of like the opposite messaging to that you know it was all about rising up against the power you know against the system and stuff and i felt like i had everything in place because for a few years prior to that i'd just been building up my social media following exclusively because i'm 100 independent so i don't have access to the editors of all the big mags and stuff like that so i so i threw all my eggs into the social media basket had everything lined up my audience was great they're very engaged and supportive i've done several successful funding campaigns and everything it was all going great so everything was lined up ready for this album to come out and then um one day after the first video came out youtube took it down because they said it was politically insightful facebook um revoked my advertising rights so i couldn't do any boosted posts or ads or anything like that because for the same reasons they said it was politically insightful i was demonetized on twitter um facebook and youtube and i effectively shadow banned like nobody has seen anything posted on social media ever since then and that was a massive wake-up call for me because uh you know i thought i had it going on but completely unbeknown to myself was that like at any moment in time you know by just using social media someone else can just flick the off switch and it's game over for you which they did with me you know or an algorithm can get your hashtag mixed up with the far right and then you know they're gonna just make sure that you just get back paged and no one sees anything you post ever again which is where i've been so yeah i learned a lot i learned that like you know you don't really have control over ultimately who gets the your stuff on those platforms and and also you don't own any of it you know like all those contacts i only have access to through those platforms which i now no longer do you know
Speaker 2yeah you don't own it but you know one thing that you know people are doing now that was done in the old days is mailing lists yes so obviously when gdp came in you know everybody lost a lot of data and stuff but that is starting to come back in marketing right because like you say you've got all these multi-millionaires controlling platforms and you know you've got all these people that are running these platforms they can shut you down and you know depending where you've got your database that you know i don't know google they can they still will have a control but this is an area that i've seen independent acts they're releasing themselves that are really engaging with emails instead of just ads right and you know if you've got your database there you could say look you've signed up so i'm going to let you know early when we're going on tour or we're going to give you a free song so you could have done that yeah did you do that no no i didn't do that
Speaker 1no i mean i have got a mailing list of several thousands um but i barely use it again because i was i was sticking with what was working i was thinking a social media game in the old days we
Speaker 2would literally have handwritten lists you know with people's details and then gdp thing came in and it was very difficult losing a lot but i just think that that is again you can refresh your database you're not reliant on platforms changing or whatever they're bringing in and you've got your people there and i think you look at artists like fish again he you know from meridian he didn't even opt in to have chart registered albums and you know he sold direct to
Speaker 1his fans and that is a way you can engage right yeah that's a great point and it's almost kind of going back to the old school a bit isn't it because i've been considering actually instead of doing facebook ads and facebook events because you know no one fucking comes to that they might click on it but they live in australia they're not coming um i've actually started resorting to flyering again with qr codes in the back and just you know old school you know i don't know benji from skin dread always carries flyers on him when he's in the supermarket and stuff you know so i think there is there is definitely still a more of a place for that now actually with these oh yeah i mean the whole flyering i mean
Speaker 2i've always done that with releases where bands have got a strong fan base because they want to be part of the band's success so you create your own street teams which is what like i said i've used to do and you just get uh yeah just say right can you put them in coffee shops or what have you and then take a picture and you put them on a guest list i'll give him a t-shirt and i think that does work definitely and you know a thing that i used to do a lot of was stickers but you know resulted in a few local local councils getting in touch you know graffiti and stuff but um yeah i think you know a mixture of of old school things and modern is is the way forward but it really is as an artist is to know who your audience is and not oversell but you know give them and keep them engaged but give them something for being engaged so it's not like you're selling absolutely everything
Speaker 1yeah great point so what does a band do then so let's say that they you know they've got their head switched on they've got good business acumen and they've done an ep they've done their first release or whatever you know they're hitting the local circuit um how does a band go from that level to working with you know andy farrow or northern music company or you know a label similar to their genre or whatever how do they go from doing it all in-house and you know getting things going but moving up the ladder then to that next room with this time to get some people on board that can actually help them build and steer a long-term
Speaker 2career for themselves well i mean i think the thing is that you know in the old days it was very much there would be buzz on certain bands in areas record labels would would venture out obviously with the internet now record labels are and our people are just they're seeing what's buzzing on the internet so for example i have my publishing company amf music so anything that's hot i move on it you know like green lung is it is a band i could see there was a very good buzz on them doing an underground label so i met with them i helped them get five offers wow and you know they're selling out the record chart another band as december falls they i set them up a distro deal they went to number 11 so you know sometimes i might have a lawyer or somebody approaches me so on the back of some of the bands that i published i've helped career-wise because i try and be proactive whether that's getting them gigs getting them a record deal because that's what brings in publishing income you know whether it's mechanicals and performance income and syncs so you know i've had a lot of people that have you know it's generally you can see what is happening there or people generally they just talk and say have you heard this or for me it's a case of so if some managers come to me or bands on publishing or if they come on management and i say look i don't want to manage any more bands but i'll do publishing and give you certain management services so how do they get on the radar you know it's not difficult to find email addresses you got to understand when i started out you literally sent a cassette to eml emi records manchester square london w1 that was it and then you kind of developed there you got a name you know there was not even mobile phones i mean this was just a total different time that you know a bit of research to target the correct people you know i get people sending me rap and i'm like well you'd have researched or you know stuff that i wouldn't know anything about so again research and look you know and i think if you're a band is maybe look at a band you like and think oh that label or that manager or that agent's done well and just do some research but i how do they do it i think that they get off their butts basically do a bit of research and find people and you know if you believe in yourself again it's it's a fine line between badgering people and then knocking on the door and reminding them you know because i mean i've had bands in the past where they might have come to me and i didn't get off my butt to go see them and they've done well but but you know that's why if it's anything i'm interested but again it's also about yeah that fine line between annoying and just saying oh have you had a listen yet yeah so i you know so for me and so so so it like so you know if i get a for publishing and i'm gonna help them get a deal i just go to all my contacts and then even if nobody bites i do get irritated and think right i'm gonna put it out myself and show you you know it was kind of a bit like with wild hearts you know i was managing them and uh you know certain labels turned them down and we got to number one nine in the charts and i went like that to the like
Speaker 1how the fuck could anybody turn the wild hearts down for christ's sake i mean ginger wild heart is a fucking genius man um well that kind of segues into something i wanted to ask you about the subject of luck how important is luck because you mentioned at the start like it was 98.5 percent of bands are not going to recoup they're going to get dropped they're going to get the big deal and then fizzle away and god knows we've seen tons of them certainly in my lifetime i've seen loads of my friends get signed to major deals get loads of money thrown at them and then the next year they're back fucking you know on the building site whatever and i've also got loads of friends who work really really fucking hard they got great fucking music they do all the things that the rule book says you're supposed to do like network and be professional and be nice and turn up and work your ass off they do all that stuff and they got amazing music but they just cannot catch a fucking break so do you think that luck is the is the missing ingredient between the 98.5 percent of people that can't catch a break and you know that 1.5 percent that do and also the ones that manage to to actually stay there after catching the lucky break because i think that's
Speaker 2another element as well well look i mean it depends i mean obviously you know i'm not a luck in anything but i think again timing is important so you know when a new metal scene came along so many people got signed and there were so many ass also runs and then there were bands who were lumped in with new metal and they all sound different you know the punk days you know you you look at what majors sat they signed loads when you too broke through everybody was after stuff so i think the thing is you've got to you know the problem is with the music industry is very conservative especially in america because if you don't fit into that square box you know the hole and you're a bit different it's like how do they categorize it because even radio and everything's like that and you get the odd band that kind of breaks through by being different you know and i always have a situation where bands go oh well we're not editing the song tool don't have to i'm going well tool a tool but generally you can't do that you can't do that you can't do that you can't do that nine minute video so how do you get through i mean you know again my thing always comes back down to fan base because you know in the old days you know i started out with anarcho-punk stuff and then you know bands new model army southern death got all of these bands had huge fan bases and even meridian on the product of record labels could not turn them down so you are proving that people want to see it you know it's like i'm the agent publisher and record label for a band called ferocious dog who sold out rock city unsigned that's eighteen hundred two thousand people and when it comes to the business people are who is this band and then you know i've sold like nine thousand albums here but it's still probably to the music industry they might go oh no you know and again so my brother's involved with the levelers who are in another band that built up a massive following i know those guys the business didn't like him i know you did your thing with dan but we're talking about going back ages ago they were never the darlings of the enemy but they got so big and i was at that glass to be with the biggest audience that you know the industry can't ignore you so so if you're saying yeah bands they have good songs and stuff like that but you know it's got to be about your team as well right so not just a manager the agent beyond you as a band or as a writer have really got to play your part and you've got to play your part and you've got to play your part and you've got to play your part and you've got to play your part and you've got to play your part and you've i do think with the internet and everything these days you've got so many tools at your hands but not all acts use it but it's yeah there is an element of luck the other thing is yeah the right
Speaker 1place at the right time you know hundred percent yeah well the levelers are a great example i mean i had um mark chadwick on the podcast we were talking about this you know about how their journey has unfolded and they've just always stuck to their guns they've always been 100 authentic to who they are and their message and their music and they speak to their people and they've not really given up on their music and they've not really given up on their music and they've not really about anything else they certainly haven't bent over backwards for the industry or cut any corners or tried to change themselves in any way and i think that is the key to their success is that authenticity is just speaking to your audience harnessing your audience and your tribe and just fucking doing it diy style which is how they do it you know and funnily enough their festival beautiful days i actually played up with my band um last august and i think ferocious dog were on the bill as well i didn't get to see them i didn't get to see anybody i was too busy doing my thing but um yeah another fucking great band man and i think yeah it just speaks to that it's another testament to that that spirit of just focus on the fans you know speak to your audience do your thing and and and focus on who is really important which is ultimately your audience yeah yeah no so you know what i'm saying
Speaker 2there are acts you know you've got acts like young blood and stuff that really sort of developed but you know i'm just saying if it's like if all else fails and you're not being picked up by the business he's trying to develop your audience and just build a fund base so that that's the thing because the business can't ignore you if you have proved your product people want because otherwise you're at the mercy of whoever's trying to sell your product so i think if you actually know who your audience is then you know you're going to be even in a better position when you sign a record deal about how a company with a budget reaches that wider audience and stuff like that but it's yeah i mean you know there is there is an element of luck but
Speaker 1i don't know it's about getting in the trenches i think 100 yeah no that's great advice um and what do you think about the future then because we're sort of on the precipice of an interesting future now with the arrival of ai um i don't think we're as far down that rabbit hole yet as people might be freaking out about but certainly we're seeing more and more of it now you know ai compositions and things um my personal feeling is that the first thing to go is probably going to be sync music because that's kind of easy for a computer to replicate um and then we're probably going to see more and more of it doing the production work and studio things and then it i mean eventually if we're going to go full dystopian you know it could actually probably replace you know musicians and singers as well i mean these are a lot of
Speaker 2the theories what what are your thoughts on it well i mean to be honest you know i've read about you know i mean you look at a beatles single but that's come around through through the use of ai i mean i have this other app chat well i mean i've read about you know i mean you look at a beatles single whatever it is that you know technically you don't need a lawyer you could just put on that i mean i i think that uh somebody yeah i mean ai should be used for physical type jobs not creative somebody had put and i don't know you know but kids these days are gonna have virtual coffees they're all like playing games or whatever you know but i mean much like bootlegging everything that went back can you really take away from actually being at a concert you know so on that thing where the ai is used for concerts you know it's interesting when you say about syncs yeah because what happens is they don't want to pay the rolling stone so they're like oh we want something that sounds like this and people do library music yeah yeah to be honest having just come through the pandemic i haven't been focusing you know like everything that changed with the music industry i haven't been getting bogged down you know i haven't been getting bogged down by the music industry i haven't been getting bogged down in in ai but i think that it's much like everything in life some of these advancements are not advancements at all whereas you know we can do this which is great it means i don't need to travel to see you but i think with technological advancement you miss some human it's all about being human that's it you know so i haven't thought a lot about it but my my thought is that you know once the human element goes on things it changes and i'm already seeing this post-pandemic just the way people work and everything now it's very different
Speaker 1how have you um seen a change in the industry since the pandemic because it's been compounded for us by the fact that we've also had brexit you know i did a talk um in the house of lords with the carry-on touring campaign talking about how it's affected new touring and stuff like that in brexit since brexit and i think it's been a big change in the industry since the pandemic um but there is that element we know that it's made it difficult for you know smaller bands i think to tour with the carnays and the 90-day rule and all that sort of stuff but also yeah i mean it's compounded by covid which i think we're still feeling the effects of now in a way the ripples of
Speaker 2it what are your thoughts and all i think you know firstly i'm not a fan of remote working i have 12 people some are remote and some aren't i think that what has happened is uh businesses including the tax office because they needed to get their money in over the pandemic most people are working at home and i think some things are slow and even with record labels i do zooms and people are in their front room or kitchen or wherever they're at and generally before say i would you know i'm not based in london i go down to london say oh i'm in town do you want to meet oh i don't work that day and right yeah it's what you call a tuesday wednesday thursday club that happens in the music industry in london now i've never been based in london so i've always had to travel um and i can understand the expense of london but what you've got post-pandemic is you've got cities where there's buildings that are empty and the music industry the film industry all of this they used to have big expensive buildings now if you're universal or sony and people have got used to this remote working plus young people you know Don't they expect it? working duvet days i shouldn't have said that but anyway so so so it's there's that move so personally i find stuff very slow but not just the music industry whether it's the tax office i mean we had a situation with a band where during lockdown they sent us our vat check repayment check for quite a large amount of money two checks obviously no one was in the office and we've only after three years managed to get that money back off them because you're ringing out and everything so i just find everything's very very slow now maybe this is not the interaction i love zoom so now i don't have to travel to a different country to meet a band and everything but again much like the advent of email most of us do emails but what happens when you're just emailing people can't they might say oh how's he writing to me you you lose the human element the thing about actually meeting someone thinking oh i'll get on with this person and you get a bit more business done because i certainly know on email sometimes i come across as very abrupt and they might think oh he's a right twat but if they mean i'm not as bad so so you know it's it's so so that's the one thing that the post-pandemic the other thing is what we did to survive since i got all the companies was you know shut down we did a lot of streaming stuff but we focused back on the band's catalog and our merch company trebled its turnover because people were so yeah my only thing post-pandemic is that what i'm worried about is that with technology and stuff more and more people there's not a human interaction and if there's not human interaction you know what's going to happen to live eventually is everybody's gonna want to just sit and you know as you say young kids having virtual conversations as far as brexit goes i mean a huge you know i started out when there was carnage but you know the real big problem especially for uk is a vat and the other thing is that getting a credit card machine for merchandise one that was legally linked up to a bank was one thing now they are but it's not fully linked as you know you're supposed to pay that in each country and then you've got these concessions where they do it so what's happening is you're playing a concession plus for that plus they're taking the local vat off and the old days to be on ec6 so in norway you can look at 46 deduction so if you are a band trying to sell your music a cd it's just not worth it and that is why you know gajira is a band there was everybody said why t-shirts 50 euros so the other thing with brexit as well as the paperwork and making it tough for new bands the one thing with brexit is that you know you need to be an expert in europe it is a minefield and you need to be an expert you know we've got a merch company and we've got a warehouse in lithuania but yeah without going into detail that the vat in europe and they all have different rates it's yeah i'm not sure anybody knows what's going on in the government
Speaker 1i think that's general across the board i think you know including the customs officials and you know and oh god yeah what what a fucking bullet to shoot ourselves in the feet with you know what i mean but hey it's here to stay now so i guess we've got what we've got you know i mean i
Speaker 2did have one of my bands go oh well that's all right that means we haven't got competition from smaller bands i either they can't you know build a career which was a bit selfish but then you are having situations where you see bands are just doing mainland europe and not the uk or one or
Speaker 1the other sort of thing well it's not there's an exemption if you if you can carry if you're carrying it um then you're fine you haven't got to have a car or anything like that so for smaller bands you know especially certainly like acoustic trios and shit they're fucking fine you know they can just stick their banjo on their back and their snare drum on their
Speaker 2chest and they're away yeah but technically how do small bands survive merchandise right you can't just print in the uk and go through with a big duty that makes sense yeah i mean i was there back in the day and i mean we got me in paradise lost we got fined in sweden a lot of money and pounded well oh fuck yeah many but you know no they took us and the boss yeah it was very heavy oh jesus christ so so you know again it's like we try with norway and that you know carne is there and the you know french and english don't get on brilliantly the french didn't stamp it you go to germany you come back and you could lose the money you put down i mean i used to do the carne myself and go at least chamber of commerce and stuff but yeah then there was all that into
Speaker 1country rivalry all right bullshit but you mentioned paradise lost there um and i remember where at the time i can't keep you all day you mentioned paradise lost now i was going to ask you what's coming up at northern musical if you've got coming up i know paradise lost you've got the anniversary of the iconic icon album what else is happening yeah so i mean with icon it was
Speaker 2the 30th anniversary so that was back when they had a record deal so a lot of their stuff emi onwards we did license deals where we got masters back and we've seen you know how to monetize that so you know the idea was to re-record icon some fans are going how how can you do that but you know they don't understand the concept of how deals work and you know the band is doing um a tour but it's kind of unusual venues because because we were already touring in europe so we had exclusivity clauses uh for a lot of mainland europe but yeah so they're doing shepherd's bush empire starting on friday which is sold out and then a kind of hometown gig is probably going to be on friday and then we're going to do a little bit of a st george's hall 16th of december so you know we're doing that as a diy release in the band start right the next record i've got devin times end infinity record remastered reissued catatonia on tour in america um opeth will be recording a new album in february so yeah a lot a lot of stuff going on with releases the big thing is you know when you're as a management company is planning your time and you're going to be doing a lot of stuff going on with releases the big thing is you know when you're as a management company is planning your time and you're going to but also income streams so next year we will not have as many bands out on the road and if they're not on the road that brings in income and merch income so maybe we need to start looking back about anniversaries of albums and then remarketing those albums bundling with t-shirts things like that but it's it's never a quiet moment as such here so interesting man so and the fact that
Speaker 1you're still fucking crushing it after all these years and after all these years and after all these changes in the industry i mean are you still um what what keeps you going are you still is it in your blood you're still as passionate about it as ever or is it all you know now and you can't get out you know you or you still wake up every day you know you know i think i think you know one
Speaker 2thing is that i need to learn to put boundaries in on how it affects my life because i've given so much to it that it sort of became my life but you know i'm kind of uh what's the word i like to have an award i'm not driven by money it's not but it's about something being successful like a sold-out gig or going to number one or just just you know something like that a kind of recognition thing it's not not all about about the money but you know one thing i'll yeah i'm still passionate for it but it's kind of so by doing publishing i'm able to to give some of the things i can do as a manager but without having to deal with a musician's head you see what i mean yeah right i can help you here but you know i've managed various people and you know creative people can be irrational and it can be very difficult you know and everybody talks about uh musicians mental health they rarely talk about a manager's mental health so i think it's important to yeah i'm still passionate but you know i need to continually put more boundaries
Speaker 1and i think on yeah how far i go with everything amen well well on that note of respecting your and respecting the kind that the time you've very generously given us today to uh enlighten us all thank you so much for doing this man it's been great to meet you thank you so much for all the advice and wisdom that you've shared with with us all we really appreciate it best wishes everything coming up next year and yeah we'll see you out there kicking ass okay thank you thank you man bye bye bye bye andy farrell ladies and gentlemen put it together for him you can find andy at northernmusic.co.uk that's his company i'm not going to give you his personal socials because in real life he's got a lot of stuff going on he's got a lot of stuff going on he's got a lot of respect of his boundaries that's none of your fucking business but you can check out all of the amazing bands he works with at the website and they are also on facebook at nmc limited so check them out you can you can find out who they're working with and what tours they got coming up and what releases are happening and all the exciting shit that's going on over there so join the pages and uh get involved and show those guys some love man i hope you enjoyed the conversation if you're a musician or in a band and you're trying to get out there on a circuit i hope that was informative because andy has got just a fucking ton and ton of experience and knowledge talking about so i hope that'll be a useful chat for you guys in mapping out your next step and the next step for everyone listening to this right now please if you can subscribe to the podcast give us a follow give us a share give us a like give us a subscribe give us a fucking comment do whatever you gotta do but it all helps to kick the algorithm's ass into gear and help push this thing out there and it's also nice to just know that people are enjoying it and give me some feedback because as andy said we're kind of all a little bit atomized at the moment you know i don't engage with anybody when i'm doing these podcasts other than on zoom so it's nice to know that someone out there gives a flying fuck so give us a like give us a share give us a subscribe it all helps to uh you know keep this thing moving i will be back next week with an episode i promise you the times of me taking two or three weeks or longer off in between episodes is now behind us a thing of the past i finished the book it's all about james kennedy and the underdogs new material new gigs new adventures and of course the podcast new guests every single week and boy have i got some great ones in the can already so do subscribe to the podcast they'll be coming back at you thick and fast every week thanks so much for listening have an awesome day have an awesome week and i will see you next time take care of yourselves take care of each other love you loads
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