Consultants Are the New Management Role

 I heard from a whining artist the other day that managers only took a percentage of what the artist earned. The artist was angry since he got an offer that he could pay for management services and as usual though he became screwed.

I have seen more and more managers actually turning into more of a consultant. Even more and more of them call themselves consultants. In my opinion, that is also where the management role is going to be, and here are the reasons why.

Yes, in the old days the management role was just a percentage. At the same time, this is quite long time ago and the industry has changed. This is mainly in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s people born in those years are now middle-aged. Back then the artist made money. Touring was a substantial part of the income. Getting a percentage of that and merch sales could make you a living, not a big a living but an income. Same with record sales. The sales came hand in hand with the release that also could be sold and get some monetary value. This was more the 70’s and 80’s, in the 90’s it started to change.

In the mid 80’s there were many managers just discovering artists then went out to the record labels shopping for a deal with a large up-front payment. Back then many labels used tax reductions to get losses deducted. Not unusual that they signed five artists in the same style and genre to put money into one, and the other four were just to kill the competition and the expression was to ‘shelve them.’ This set up worked for the manager that they just went out found a deal with a large upfront. Signed off the band took their percentage from the upfront money and then just disappeared or lost interest in the band. Went out and did the whole thing all over again, leaving so many artists stranded on labels that didn’t want to do anything for them.

This is now history. These tax reductions cannot be done. The labels now need the artist that actually is already making money. Also, they got every tool in the world to see when the artists start to make money by following numbers on streaming sites and social media. This left the manager role in 2000’s to be the developer of artists. Before you got some money now you become the investor for artists. The problem here was that the risk taken is so much bigger. In the early methods, you could easily see money after a year. Now the investment time of ROI could be as long as five years. To solve this many managers took on several bands at the same time. The risk was too big that working with an artist for three years and just when you should get some money back on your investment the artist quit. Instead, you spread the risk but did just what was needed to have them on and see where it leads to.

Over 2000’s since distribution became very easy and at no cost many artists started to manage themselves. With that, they also lost the knowledge of the manager. It was not just the money, the manager had the knowledge of how the industry worked, the manager also had the network to get things done, they did know how to ask for favours or how things needed to look before they went for something. Into the2010’s you just got more and more artists doing their self-management running around like headless chickens getting nowhere. Today,  we see many artists killing their careers with self-management. 

This of course destroyed a lot of the plans a manager could execute. That with all the risks that the manager had to do made many cross-over to other fields. The Management role became just a training course to get into a better position at a streaming service or a publisher. Then in the mid-2010’s a hybrid started to appear. Managers still needed money, the artist still needed the advice and the network. Of course, in most cases, the manager didn’t want to risk time or getting no salary for years to help an unknown artist. In many cases, they really didn’t want to get involved in that kind of way. They wanted to help but not to invest five years of non-stop free work.

Now we see this new role unfolds. Especially with the hit of Covid where the live industry went on to their knees. Under the table I see more and more managers become consultants and let an artist pay a fee for a certain time, usually a release of something. They do different things like co-ordinate the release, deals with PR, and with the distribution and shape social media and homepages up. A necessary thing for an artist to have, it’s the only way to stand out in the massive wave of music that is released every day.

Some managers think this is wrong. They get artists complaining like the guy at the beginning of this text, demanding that they should work for free and commit to working with the artist's music. They look back on history and get told that managers work for a percentage. That was true, back then the artist actually had money to share a percentage. Today 20% of zero is still zero. The artist invests in their career so they can make it a hobby until the money comes in. A manager is in a working profession and they need to have money to uphold the network and pay the bills. 

 “But please don't put your life in the hands of a rock and roll band who'll throw it all away” sang Oasis. My guess is that it’s so true. The managers that will go on the percentage will be the partners of the band, like a wife or a boyfriend. They work for free since they want to be part of the project. They are managers but I would like to have a new word for them. In reality, they are managers in training as they go along.

The professional managers will be setting up services as a consultant, that is the future. More and more are doing it and it is worth paying for their services and knowledge. We just have to teach people not to think that this world works as the world before cell phones and the internet.

Original story in Cashbox Magazine Canada

Dropped because of laziness.

One of the showcases I went to, I meet a friend who is doing management in the same style as me. I have helped him in some cases with a specific artist so of course, I asked how it was going around that?

I dropped that artist he explained. I was busting my ass off to get them opportunities and get things going. Still, it felt like they very just in for the ride. and when we got eight on the chart and they didn't even post something around it on facebook I just dropped them.

This is very common. In most cases when I start talking to a manager I have seen for a while I ask if they still have the artist they used to work with. In many cases, they just grew tired of all the work they put down and then they are treated like shit.

Here in our office, we call it "sitting in the sofa method". The artist has no longer any go, they just rely on what you are doing and whatever you are doing they just complain. More or less sit on the sofa like a teenager playing mobile phone games and complain about everything.

But it's not your teenager so after a while you just grow tired and throw them out.

This is the reason I don't trust artists when they tell me that their latest company didn't do anything. In most of the cases, they didn't but the reason for them not to do anything was that the artist was sitting on their asses and did nothing themselves.

And in today's industry, the companies can wait, they don't need to develop the artist, just wait until the right time is there and then take 50% of the share. So an artist that just sits there not even updating the social media or the homepage or nothing, well they get dropped.

And they get dropped in many ways and fashions.

Get these blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

Managment is not a booking agency.

I'm really tired getting from artists seeking management that they want a manager to get more gigs.
Managers are not booking gigs. We could look to get you a booking agency, but at the same time if you can't get a booking agency interested there a very slim chance that the manager could fix that problem.

It seems artist thinks a manager is a personal butler fixing all these things that they think is hard to do. They are not. If you have a hard time to find a record deal, they will have the same problem. The manager then can fix things around you so you have a better chance to get a  record deal. But then you have to do other hard working things even work twice as hard as you already are doing.

Stop looking to the manager as a personal slave so you can sit around and feel important. Think of the manager as your personal investor on the bank.

Oh yes, when I write this I just got that exact stupidity. If this artist had management they would surely do this to them. An artist (not even on my management) asking for a link. This link is not even hard to get, it's on the homepage they are asking about. You can easily google the thing and get it. No instead they send two text messages and three facebook notes that they need "the link".
Why not just go to the homepage and check it, or google it. A five-year-old can do it. No instead they use valuable time and money to get me to do something that they really don't should ask about.

You would not send a stupid request to your bank like "do you have the address to your login". No you won't you will go to the bank's homepage and look for the login. If it doesn't work you really can't find then you send a message.

It's too many that don't really know what the different people are doing in the industry. Also the new world today is more that people just scream for help without checking some easy options. And thinking it would be great with a  personal server that can fix this easy stuff.

Get these blogs updates straight to your mail.
Enter your email address:

Wrong aim

I was talking to a manager during a showcase that was complaining about that his band never got out anything from showcase festivals.

He was taking his band to this festival and complained that he didn't get a record contract. I asked if he got something. Yes, a booking agency got interested and signed the band. He kept complaining that the booking agency didn't get his band a tour fast enough and had kicked them. He now wanted to go back to a smaller showcase festival in the same country. I wondered if that was wise since I know the Booker and they are the best in that genre and the festival is perfect to be discovered. So why try a smaller one?

Later that night I meet the organizer of the smaller festival and talked about it. Then the organizer told me that they got paid to have that band and told me that they always paid well to get this band into festivals. Their country's export gave money for that.

We later saw the band. And it really sucked. A mediocre shit band. Of course, they could brag about many festivals, they paid their way in. Of course, the results were not that good. The product was not ready at all.

Lost in the studio. Lost in the game.

I got a mail from a manager today. He has been complaining that his artist is not going that much forward. Actually, the whole thing was not moving that forward. I suggested getting to some conferences usually you get new contacts and you get things moving in some way. So I gave him a couple of suggestions of some that is pretty good.

Now he got back thanked for the suggestions but he didn't have time since they were spending time in the studio.

At the same time, I got a message from a band that they were soon ready with their new EP and since they had spent time in the studio the last six months they were keen on going out playing,

This is the greatest stupidity of them all. In the old days yes you were in the studio, then did PR and touring band then went back to the studio. That was the life cycle of an artist. Still somewhat for big mega artists. But for a new unknown artist that is just empty phrases.

In reality, most studio things happen when you don't have anything going on. The possibility that you will spend six months to record an album in a studio is not realistic. Not even the megastars are doing that. To put all other things on hold sitting and rot in the studio is just not an option either.

In this new world, I bump into artists that actually release two songs a week and still do three live shows and think that is the normal speed. You have to be in the limelight the whole time. My artists usually record between shows one day in the studio here, one weekend there. You do it between when you have days off during the touring, and the touring is always.

You are out when you start to say no to opportunities I usually say. But you are also out of the game if you stop looking for these opportunities.

What puzzles me is what the manager is doing in the studio at least he should be out there getting new opportunities for his artist. The artist the answer is possible that easy that they actually don't have anything going on so they spend time in the studio. In the end, it will just be hard to present the finished results. A release of a song is not much of an event today so you have to keep you busy in the feed of things that people are bombarded with all the time.

If you have a manager, you have a manager!

Things you really hate are when an artist contacts you. You answer the questions. Then they artist hands over to a ”manager”. It’s really annoying when this manager is just some dude that really knows as much as the artist does in the matter so when you answer (in some higher terms) you get an answer back that is so stupid you want to kick them in the face. In the first place, it just annoying that it hands over to someone else.

While you are having the painful task of explaining this to the “manager” the artists start sending new questions in many are questions to explain what the “manager” doesn’t understand. Suddenly you are answering the same questions to two different people.

Of course, now you look like a real asshole as an artist.

If you have a manager, well then it’s the manager who should ask the question, in fact, that manager should have started the conversation and you should not hand it over. Then it’s good if the manager is someone that knows something about the business. It’s okay to have friends as “managers” that deal with the backline at gigs and sell the merch, but when it comes to more complex things get a real manager, and stop doing the managers job.

Blind leading blind

Aren't we all failed musicians? I guess everyone that is in the musicindustry is failed musician in some way.

I usually say I'm not a failed musician and that is my strength. It's not totally true. I was in a band rehersing (never made a show) when I got into studio work where I stayed and then went to the business side.

It's worse with the people that really tried to make it and then failed and now gonna fulfill their dreams through someone else.

If you look at it on a business side they didn't have their business plan correct. The sad part is that they transfer this malfunction business plan to a new artist.

Also they are not focused. I just was on a party with a manager like that. He had been an artist. Blamed he failure on lack of opportunities when he was an artist. Now he was working for a new record label that he started with a friend (also faild musician that turned producer). He was happy like a kid in a candy shop when he managed to get into this party.

Of course he didn't have the shit together here. First he was acting like a musician when he was networking, in this case not networking at all. I felt sorry and introduced him to a good contact. Then he started talking about his own failed career and his new label. A contact like that don't care about how setup a label like that is the hardest thing in the world (it's not, the hard part is to achieve something).
The biggest mistake, not a single word about the artist he manage.
Instead he started talking about how his label had got a contract with a distributor (that everyone knows as shit and really you can get a contract with online) like it was the best thing after sliced bread.

My contact later asked me what that guy was doing. It made no sense what he was talking about.

I guess the history will repeat it self. In the end I was talking to him how it all went. It was of course marvelous to have been there. But he couldn't say what he had achieved.
I guess he achieved nothing since the business plan was not ready. His mindset was still faild musician not a artist developer.

There is no point to surprise

We are in the studio right now so we don't take gigs, we wait until we have the whole package to deliver and the right time.

Quoted from a manager that clearly don't know what they are doing. If you think you should reveal all in a big splash you are deep in shit. First it's hard to make a noice if no one us knowing that you are working on something. That would be like releasing a movie without trailer or posters beforehand. Second you don't know what the audience really think, if you test the stuff you at least have the chance to tweak any mistakes.

Then it's about the right time. There is no right time. You create the things around you blend up to the perfect storm. If everything is just calm you won't people excited. And it takes time to build up excitement specially today on social media. You can't just repeat the same message, it has to be tweaked everytime.