Andy Kelly, Michael Gudinski, Terry Blamey, and Paul Piticco talk artist management

The following is an excerpt from Andrew Watt’s 680 page “anecdotal textbook” Welcome To The Jungle: Navigating The Music Business In Australia. Watt is an Melbourne entertainment and media lawyer, journalist, presenter and educator – he is holding a workshop targeted at students, artists and industry aspirants on Saturday March 22, at the JMC Auditorium on Bank St in South Melbourne. Workshop bookings can be made here, where you can also purchase the textbook. 

The role of the manager has always been one of the most vital in the career of the artist. That hardly comes as a surprise. It’s often the first role that anyone wanting to enter the music business will think about, and for many it’s the first step they will take when crossing the line from being a fan to being an industry participant. There is something very pure and basic about the relationship between the artist and manager. The artist provides the creative genius, and yet rarely are they able to translate that genius into business processes. The manager is the conduit between the creative work and its appreciation by an audience.

Management probably is the only role where the perception is that the artist’s interests and those of the service provider are truly aligned, and for that reason there is a belief that the manager’s role is the most honourable of those that contribute to the artists career.

It’s also an all-consuming role and it’s fitting that this chapter starts with some perspective from Andy Kelly, one of the three partners in management company Winterman Goldstein.

[ANDY KELLY]: “You have to be aware that it’s not going to be a job; it’s going to be your life. If you are going to be serious about it, you won’t give it a second thought, because it is going to be your life. If you think of it as a job, then it’s a shit job. You don’t get any money, you probably work for 10 years before you see any money if you are lucky. If you go into it thinking that it’s a massive gamble and you don’t know what is going to happen, then you will be alright. It’s just so unusual to be able to make it a career and there are so many things that affect it. There are so many good managers who can’t make it a sustainable career and even after all this time it’s hard for us. Sometimes it’s good; sometimes it’s not. But the crucial thing to know is that it is your life. You will get calls at midnight about the mastering on a track or someone can’t get their baggage checked in. It’s an enormous amount of diplomacy and keeping a cool head while the fire is raging. It’s your life and it’s not just a job and it defines everything that you do.

It’s got to be collaborative. It can’t be the manager saying you should do this or you should do that. And equally it can’t be the artist telling the manager to do this or that, or else you may as well be a personal assistant. It’s got to be a continual conversation where you are working together. That’s another thing I’ve learnt over time, is that it really does come from the artist. You can’t say that you should do this, this and this if they don’t have the drive or desire to do it themselves.”

There are times when managers’ and artists’ interests can conflict though. Most notably this occurs around the need to perform live. For many managers their only cashflow occurs when the artist is performing live, so there is a temptation to have the artist performing when strategically their time might be spent better on other creative activity. This is often one of the first dilemmas a new manager has to resolve.

How a manager determines this dilemma will often come down to the business model they adopt and what they are hoping to achieve – are they looking to work exclusively with one artist in the hope of a stellar career or do they seek to build a roster of acts all contributing to a revenue stream for a management business? Does the manager simply hope to create a wage for themselves while providing services to the artist? In some cases, management might be seen as an adjunct to another line of business.

[MICHAEL GUDINSKI]: “Now you are managing a group of rights. There are a few forms of managers. There’s very few of the great old school Colonel Tom, Terry Blamey, Paul McGuiness, Elliot Roberts, Jon Landau-type managers. They would be at 85-90% of their artists’ gigs and that would be the only thing they would be doing. That’s great if the artist is that big and they can afford to do that. Now you can be a very boutique type of manager or you can be owned by a corporation, or you have to manage a lot of acts. These days acts don’t play 50 weeks of the year like they used to, so for a lot of time the manager doesn’t see any income, but the acts still expect a lot from their manager.

Australian Management Tradition

Australia has a long history of remarkable management relationships. Gary Morris and Midnight Oil, Chris Murphy and INXS, Terry Blamey and Kylie Minogue and before that, Glen Wheatley and the Little River Band were all internationally successful pairings, while later teams such as Paul Piticco and Powderfinger, Wheatley and John Farnham and Rae Harvey and the Living End were all teams that stood the test of time in the domestic market. There’s other managers such as John Woodruff, Michael Roberts, Michael McMartin and Rod Willis who established the level of professionalism that distinguishes the Australian business.

For Terry Blamey, the manager who guided Kylie Minogue’s career for about a quarter of a century, one of the great challenges in management is maintaining a long relationship with a client, something he achieved better than almost anyone. He puts it down to one word.

[TERRY BLAMEY]: “If I were to answer this with a single word, it would be “honesty”. Many may be surprised to hear that even slightly dodgy practices guarantee a short run in this industry. There are times when it may seem easier to answer a tricky question with a white lie – but believe me, it’s not worth it. For example, if you’ve been too busy to do something which your artist has asked you to do, you may be tempted to lie when asked if it’s been done; however, ‘sorry I’ve been so busy I haven’t done it yet’, will be a much better answer in the long run. You can then get straight onto it!”

Paul Piticco was able to maintain a long and extremely fruitful relationship with Powderfinger for the entirety of their career. He linked up with the band very early on in his career and, essentially, grew alongside them. He agrees with Blamey that most artists will recognise and acknowledge hard work from their manager.

[PAUL PITICCO]: “I think I was extremely lucky that the band I fell in with had a democratic/team-based philosophy. My advice though for younger managers is that, like a marriage, you need to be very sure you work at the relationship and never take it for granted and never let them take you for granted. Artists are generally strange fish in the sense that they’re both very confident and very insecure all at once and you need to know how to read those moods and to adapt accordingly. And, above all, work hard for them day and night. If you’re truly busting your hump for them they will look past your foibles _ of which I had many, as I really was self trained and learned as I went.”

[BILL CULLEN]: “There are some managers who manage their mates from school and end up becoming the biggest managers in the country, like Paul Piticco. There was an element of luck there, but he has proven that he was the right guy for the job. I feel like I chipped away for 10 years or so before I had any success. There are different ways of doing it. I had time to work out what my style was and what sort of acts I wanted to work with. I worked with another manager for five years and I learnt a lot; what to do and things I wanted to do differently. I tour managed a lot as well. There are all these different entry points.”