Jeremy Lascelles had spent so lengthy on the high of the music business mountain that he determined it was about time he visited the valley beneath. Particularly, the Napa Valley.
In 2010, after Chrysalis Music, the publishing firm the place he had been CEO, was offered to BMG, he discovered himself out of labor and – after a lifetime in an business that seemed to be in a terminal, piracy-induced tailspin – considering doing one thing else for the primary time.
“The final yr at Chrysalis had been fairly powerful,” he says. “I actually wanted a break. It was the primary time I hadn’t labored since I used to be 17. And I did assume, time to do one thing completely different.”
An enormous soccer and cricket fan, he thought of a transfer into sport (“However they’re really very scuzzy companies – soccer makes the music business look pristine and saintly!”), earlier than deciding importing wine may very well be the long run.
“I’m a passionate wine collector and I developed an actual curiosity in Californian wines from my frequent journeys to LA,” he smiles. “There have been all these beautiful wines that weren’t very obtainable within the UK. I’d imagined I’d simply be tasting wine and promoting it, however I realised I’d spend more often than not filling in paperwork, coping with customs and all types of shit.”
So – having reconnected along with his previous vinyl assortment whereas free from the fixed work stress to hearken to nothing however new music – he determined to stay to what he is aware of greatest.
“I realised I really know rather a lot about these things,” Lascelles says, with trademark self-deprecation. “I’ve been fairly profitable, I’m fairly good at it and I had this concept for one thing else I may do…”
That ‘one thing else’ was Blue Raincoat Music. Launched in 2014 alongside co-founder and legendary producer, the newly knighted Sir Robin Millar (“He’s nonetheless simply Robin to me!” quips Lascelles), as an artist administration firm, it has since added a publishing division (Blue Raincoat Songs), purchased the legendary Chrysalis Information catalogue and relaunched Chrysalis as a frontline label. It partnered with Reservoir in 2019, giving it entry to loads of funding capital. And every little thing’s going in response to plan: Millar lately discovered the pair’s unique enterprise proposal and found they’d achieved “90% of what we got down to do”.
So, no surprise that visiting the Blue Raincoat workplace within the coronary heart of Shoreditch is a throwback to the times when music HQs would buzz with excited speak of recent artists, and executives would eagerly press information – precise information – into your palms with the zeal of true believers.
And there’s a lot to be enthusiastic about at BRM proper now. On the administration facet – which brings impartial managers and their purchasers underneath the Blue Raincoat Artists umbrella, in addition to growing acts and managers in-house – new acts comparable to Nova Twins (managed by former VP of selling, Rupert King) and The Mysterines (former SVP of selling, John Leahy) are breaking by way of to affix Arlo Parks (Ali Raymond), Phoebe Bridgers (Darin Harmon) and Cigarettes After Intercourse (Ed Harris) on the high of the choice tree.
And Lascelles himself can also be returning to administration, personally taking care of legendary rockers Skunk Anansie – who he revealed again within the Nineties – in partnership with Large Life Administration’s Kat Kennedy, following the retirement of the band’s long-time supervisor, Leigh Johnson.
“It was pleasant to reconnect with Skunk Anansie,” grins Lascelles. “They by no means obtained the credit score that they deserved as trailblazers. Kat’s good and completely up for it, so it’s all programs go…”
In publishing, Blue Raincoat represents every little thing from Self Esteem to the Nick Drake catalogue (a forthcoming Nick Drake tribute album with a stellar forged checklist is “a terrific instance of how one a part of the enterprise may help the opposite,” in response to Lascelles). And whereas the Chrysalis Information catalogue – residence to The Specials, Ultravox and Suzi Quatro – ticks over very properly, frontline artists comparable to Laura Marling, Emeli Sandé, The Wandering Hearts, William The Conqueror and brand-new signing Marika Hackman are constructing a daring new future.
And Lascelles, removed from sitting along with his toes up and a cheeky glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, is on the coronary heart of all of it. This was the “hybrid music firm” he dreamed of launching and, following stints as an artist supervisor (his brother’s band, World Village Trucking Firm), a tour supervisor (Lou Reed, Curved Air), a label govt (Virgin Information) and a writer (Chrysalis Music), in some ways, that is the multi-tasking position he’s been warming up for since getting into the business as a naïve 17-year-old in 1972.
“I’m altering hats on a regular basis and generally I’ve to remind myself – am I the supervisor, the document label or the writer?” he chuckles. “Generally I’m greater than a kind of issues! My finance folks needed to try to work out how a lot time I allocate to the completely different companies, and I mentioned, ‘I haven’t obtained a fucking clue! I simply do it. I’m going the place I must be…’”
Fortunately, the place he must be proper now could be holed up in his workplace, speaking to MBW. And it seems that the wine enterprise’ loss may be very a lot the music business’s acquire…
What’s been the important thing second on the Blue Raincoat journey?
After we purchased Chrysalis Information in 2016. That was the second when all of the issues I needed to do, I may do. The unique imaginative and prescient was all the time to personal a list.
After we began Blue Raincoat, we thought it was most likely extra doubtless we’d purchase a publishing catalogue than a recorded music one. Now, I’m delighted it was the opposite approach spherical, as a result of issues have modified.
After we began, streaming barely existed, we coincided with its explosion. So, shopping for Chrysalis was pivotal, as a result of I had one thing of substance and will construct the crew I have to run a label, market a list and supply companies for all of the issues which can be riskier: releasing new information, doing publishing offers for unknown artists, increasing our artist administration enterprise… You are able to do that if you happen to’ve obtained the monetary safety blanket of a list that’s constantly doing nicely.
And that was all the time the plan. While you begin a brand new enterprise, you need to minimise the alternatives for sleepless nights.
So, is something supplying you with sleepless nights for the time being?
Jet lag! No, after they come, they are usually about particular tasks that I’m so eager to get accomplished that they get in the way in which. However for essentially the most half, it’s
been okay!
Does your expertise of so many alternative music business roles offer you an edge in negotiations?
Properly, it ought to do, shouldn’t it? After I make a deal, I all the time attempt to put myself within the place the place, if I used to be on the opposite facet of the negotiation, would it not be truthful? A superb deal is one each events really feel optimistic about. A superb deal isn’t one facet screwing the opposite. Properly, up to now possibly it might have been, however I by no means subscribed to that.
“I’ve all the time been conscious of the truth that this enterprise solely exists due to the artists.”
I’ve all the time been conscious of the very fact this enterprise solely exists due to the artists, they’re by far a very powerful ingredient in the entire panorama and if we fuck them over, what are we doing? Our job is to take nice music to an viewers, to not try to be greater or extra highly effective than the folks making it.
Are artists in a greater place now?
Sure, with none query. They’re much less reliant on having to have a relationship with a 3rd social gathering like a document firm. As a result of it’s completely doable to operate independently. You are able to do all of it by yourself – it’s not all the time the perfect factor, however you’ll be able to.
After the streaming debate, do labels want to vary?
They’ve modified, however not sufficient. Document corporations nonetheless have an vital position to play in the event that they reposition themselves in the precise approach.
They’re nonetheless potential suppliers of vital sources, of which cash is among the greatest; whenever you’re attempting to interrupt an artist, it’s very onerous to do with out entry to capital. Document corporations are large traders, they take a whole lot of danger and I’m a terrific believer within the risk-and-reward ratio in any enterprise deal.
It’s not unreasonable they need to get a correct reward for the danger they take, but it surely’s obtained to be proportionate. They’ve obtained to cease pondering of themselves as lords and masters and assume extra like companions of their relationships with artists. It’s a couple of fairer distribution of cash earned and a fairer approach of coping with rights possession.
Plenty of folks have made the parallel: if you happen to’ve paid off your mortgage, why do the mortgage firm nonetheless personal your home? At Chrysalis Information, we make offers we expect are truthful and balanced: give the artist an enormous chunk of the upside and they’re going to get their rights again after a time.
We try to construction one thing that we’d assume was a very good deal if we have been the managers of that artist.
How does the connection with Reservoir work?
It really works very nicely, that’s the easy reply. They’re extraordinarily good companions, very supportive, they’ve given us funding of working capital and a worldwide infrastructure to plug into. They’ve obtained quite a bit out of it and so have we.
Are you left to your personal units?
For essentially the most half. They’re companions and traders, so it might be impolite and irresponsible to not inform them what we’re as much as, and we
speak on a regular basis. I don’t simply spend cash with out speaking to them. Nevertheless it’s an excellent working relationship.
You relaunched Chrysalis as a frontline label at the beginning of the pandemic, by rush-releasing Laura Marling’s Music For Our Daughter. How is the label understanding?
[Laughs] That was an uncommon approach of relaunching Chrysalis! We principally did the other of everybody else and introduced every little thing ahead.
It was a daring step in how we offered and launched the document. Administration of a frontline document label is, I assume, the place my true passions lie, however what I appreciated about relaunching Chrysalis was, I didn’t need to go, ‘Proper, we’re a document firm, we’ve obtained to feed the machine and put a document out
each month’.
I can put out eight albums in a yr or no albums in a yr and it doesn’t matter, as a result of my crew works throughout every little thing. We will make choices on what to signal primarily based on benefit, relatively than a panic about what we have now obtained subsequent.
You’ve made some strikes into {the catalogue} acquisitions market with Reservoir. What’s your view on that development?
I’ve obtained combined views on it, to be sincere. It’s each artist’s prerogative to do what they assume is true for them, and also you perceive if an artist will get to a sure age, does the maths, and realises they’re getting this amount of cash now, significantly greater than they’re prone to earn of their lifetime. As a easy option to cope with your legacy and of capitalising what you’ve labored for, it is sensible.
What worries me is that – and Reservoir is an exception to this, thank God – it’s not all the time music corporations which can be shopping for these property. They’re going into the palms of huge monetary establishments who don’t actually have a really feel for the ups, downs and vagaries of the inventive world.
They don’t do it as a result of they love that third album, they only take a look at the numbers, which isn’t all the time the healthiest place for music property to take a seat. As a result of these songs, these information, these artists, usually are not three-to-five-year issues, they’re right here for our lifetime, the subsequent era’s lifetime and
for ever.
They’re a part of the material of our existence as human beings on this planet. And the very fact they’re now being overseen by folks we wouldn’t even have thought of partaking with, enterprise capitalists and pension funds… If we’d had this dialog 25 years in the past, we’d have thought you’d taken significantly unusual medicine that day and also you most likely shouldn’t take them once more!
What’s the proudest second out of your profession to date?
It’s all concerning the artists, significantly when the percentages are stacked in opposition to you and other people have informed you, ‘This ain’t gonna occur’ – after which it does.
David Grey is the largest, most evident instance. I signed his first document deal to Virgin after which left quickly after we made the primary album [A Century Ends, 1993]. After which, in opposition to the recommendation of my then-boss at Chrysalis Music, I signed his publishing in 1996, pondering this man’s simply so good, one thing’s going to occur.
I used to be informed, ‘Don’t signal an artist who’s had three unsuccessful albums, don’t signal an artist you’ve signed earlier than, what do you assume you’re doing?’
He made White Ladder with a few of our assist financially and resource-wise, but it surely was a self-made, self-released document which, initially, nobody was keen on placing out. The album’s now at eight-to-nine million gross sales.
That was undoubtedly a pleasant second, as a result of I consider so strongly in Dave and his expertise and I nonetheless assume he’s one of the under-rated artists round.
You labored for Virgin and Chrysalis, two indie giants. Can Blue Raincoat obtain related standing?
No! We’re by no means going to be of that measurement and stature. And that’s not significantly the ambition – though, frankly, I don’t know what the ambition is! I didn’t got down to ‘conquer the world’; if you happen to set your self foolish targets, it’s simple to fail. However we stand for one thing that I hope is recognised by the inventive group as being a very good place to be inventive and have a robust partnership with.
For those who may change one factor about as we speak’s music business, proper right here and now, what would it not be and why?
I all the time used to dislike the very fact that there have been a small variety of gatekeepers that blessed you with their patronage and mentioned, ‘Sure, I’ll will let you have your document performed on my radio station or stocked in my document shops’. That’s gone, but it surely’s been changed by a special set of gatekeepers.
“Individuals swear by algorithms, however they trigger as many issues as they resolve.”
And I don’t like the truth that you’ve nonetheless obtained a system that principally says, ‘You match, you don’t match, you’re proper for our playlist, you’re not’. Individuals are typically very narrow-minded when it comes to the music they deem worthy of being uncovered.
And folks swear by algorithms, however they trigger as many issues as they resolve. I don’t like being informed what somebody who I don’t know thinks I ought to like. I really like completely different music – I don’t just like the same-old, same-old, generic, neatly packaged product.
You continue to appear very enthusiastic concerning the music enterprise – or are you simply actually good at faking it?
[Laughs] It’s the latter – I hate each minute of it actually! No, I’m one of many fortunate people who earns a dwelling out of my pastime and keenness as a child. I really like the artists I work with, the corporate we’ve constructed and the folks which can be a part of Blue Raincoat.
The day I cease having fun with it, I’ll cease – or it is going to inform me to cease. It will be good if I resolve, relatively than it tells me, ‘Your time’s up Jeremy, piss off!’ However I’m genuinely having fun with it and really feel extra energised than at any stage of my life.
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