Hot Seat: Falcona director Chris “Muz” Murray on 10 years of bangers & business

Under the leadership of director Chris Murray, Falcona have become a formidable player in the Australian music industry since its launch 10 years ago.

Falcona’s artist management and booking agency divisions represent the careers of electronic music’s biggest names. From Alison Wonderland and Hot Dub Time Machine to DMA’s and Hayden James.

Falcona will celebrate their 10th Birthday on Saturday (June 29) at The Wool Store in Melbourne with Running Touch, DMA’s, Hot Dub Time Machine, Carmouflage Rose, George Maple and more.

TMN spoke to Murray about the highs and lows for the return of Hot Seat.

On building Falcona

Falcona has become a formidable power player in the music biz in short 10 years. How’d you do it?

Firstly, that’s nice of you to say, but it certainly hasn’t felt short! It’s an interesting question because it makes you pause for a moment and reflect back to the beginning.

When we started we didn’t really know what we wanted to do, what direction we were heading, be it agency, management, events, touring – we were still working out what arm of it we enjoyed and what each of us were most suited to, and it was extremely tough.

We did, however, know that if we stuck to our guns and worked our absolute asses off, in 10 years we will have created something special and unique and hopefully have helped build some exciting careers along the way. Looking back it feels nice to say we have to a certain extent achieved that status quo, even though in many ways it still feels like we’re just getting warmed up.

From artist management to booking agency, you’ve successfully diversified the business. How did you know the timing was right to take a leap into new verticals? And why step away from the core business and diversify at all?

We get asked this a lot because we’ve so many pots on the boil, and I personally wear a few different hats. The main two reasons for diversification are 1. To open up new revenue streams and 2. To create new challenges for ourselves to stave off monotony.

Today, Falcona is, as you correctly mention, actually, a range of vertically integrated companies with artist services at its core: Falcona Agency on which I spend much of my time. At the agency we look
after bookings throughout Australasia for artists like Hayden James, Kira Puru, Hot Dub Time Machine, Carmouflage Rose, Running Touch, Young Franco and many many more.

Falcona Management which is spearheaded by partners in crime Leon, Garth and Ben who manage global artists including DMA’S, Alison Wonderland, Crooked Colours, Graace, ShockOne & more.

Falcona Events which includes things like our First Base Apres Snow parties, fun boutique events like the 10th birthday and club stuff like SOSUEME, which helps us provide platforms for the emerging artists on our roster, in particular, to perform live.

Separate to these I also run the nationally touring Wine Machine and NYE In The Park Festivals that initially launched as platforms for our artists (Hot Dub in particular) to expand and have now morphed into their own self-sustaining enterprises.

What have been the three major milestones for Falcona since opening shop?

Well, I can only speak for myself, but with my agent hat on, it’s extremely rewarding to have helped grow since the very beginning of their careers thee artists in particular to a milestone fee-level from a base of literally zero dollars. The fee level is considerable and something I would never have thought possible 10 years ago. What is most rewarding about it is that we all started and came up together so it has for the most part been a really rewarding thing to look back on.

I’ve had a couple of my artists close the main stages at a bunch of marquee Australian festivals, ones that I remember buying tickets to and being in absolute awe of before I was in the music industry. Those have certainly been some powerful and memorable moments.

Our first ever festival was a JV with some mates in Perth called Wonderland on NYD 2013. Looking back the lineup it was an absolute monster: PNAU, Flume, What So Not, Alison Wonderland, Rufus surprise set, Bag Raiders, Grafton Primary, Elizabeth Rose, Tim & Jean and more. Sold-out of course, it was a fairly nerve-racking but utterly exhilarating experience as I recall.

How are you planning to celebrate 10 years of Falcona?

With 5,000 of our nearest and dearest in a dank Melbourne Warehouse where a bunch of the Falcona family are playing: DMA’S, Hot Dub, Running Touch, George Maple, I Oh You, Young Franco, Carmoflage Rose, Paces, Graace, Tasker, A Member Of Your Local Community and more.

I have a strong feeling it’s going to be one for the books!

On the music business

People in the music biz refer to you as an “entrepreneur”. Are you comfortable with that label?

Technically, anyone that runs their own business is an entrepreneur, from artists and merch suppliers to tour managers and accountants.

Additionally, we’re all a bit crazy, which I suppose you kinda have to be to take on the workload and responsibility of one’s own business. Running your own business is like having a baby, full time around the clock non-stop God damned care… often cleaning up after it shits itself.

I’m not uncomfortable with that label as such, but uncomfortable more with labels in general. It’s not about us. We prefer the focus be on the artists or brands we’re helping grow than on those of us who find it more comfortable working behind the scenes, which is why I (normally) tend to avoid interviews.

You’ve had incredible success with Hayden James, Crooked Colours, DMA’S, Hot
Dub etc, including wins in overseas markets. How do you share your ideas and energy between these acts and the developing newbies on the roster?

Well we’re a pretty solid team these days and all have our different artists we manage/book and areas of specific responsibility. But it’s a really good point, by the very nature of the global market economy, one’s
time is naturally allocated more to those that generate higher income and less to those that do not, even though those who are developing need even more time.

It’s an incredibly difficult one to balance as there simply are not enough hours in the day to be all to everyone all the time. Employing more staff doesn’t always necessarily fix the problem either, it sometimes makes it worse. Our approach to scale has always been less is more. We are proudly boutique and only work with a handful of artists at one time to ensure everyone is a priority.

Most managers will tell you that artist management is a thankless gig. And, in the early days, not particularly fruitful. What advice do you have for up-and-comers?

I absolutely agree, I have some good friends who’ve dedicated some of the best years of their life to managing a band with no other revenue stream or safety net, who’ve got the ass in recent years and it really is heart-breaking to watch, just as the band is breaking, meaning the manager has worked tirelessly for years for next to no pay-off, only to receive at best a token sunset payment. Emotionally that would be extremely tough to handle. But it is the nature of the beast, it’s all relationship based, you either get along with someone or you don’t.

Time-wise it’s a huge investment. I manage Hot Dub Time Machine who is almost an extension of myself these days, I know more about his career than I do about my own mother and I really cherish our relationship and friendship – we’ve been through thick and thin and have a deep foundation of trust despite wanting to occasionally slap each other in the face.

My advice to up-and-comers is to work with people who are prepared to work as hard as you. It has to be all-in for each of you or it will never work and you will end up resenting each other. And you have to absolutely love it and them. You will spend so much of your life on it, 24/7 for years, you have to
be a unit, a rock-solid unit, you are part of the band and you all go through everything together. If you don’t have that you will either be 1. Unhappy and/or 2. Let go of the first major hurdle. One final thing: always have a contingency.

On the music industry

What keeps you engaged, focussed and excited about the music biz?

People doing things differently. Eg. A new stage show that blows you away and raises the bar, I absolutely live for that shit! Almost everyone I know was somehow at the same Daft Punk concert in Sydney in 2007 and all still agree it was the single best concert of their lives. Remember how much they
completely blew your mind-hole!? Both enjoying and helping create those moments.

What’s one industry trend that we have to move on from, and one we are not paying enough attention to?

Social media is eating us alive from the inside. This “look at me” generation is everything I hate about the world, one Instagram post at a time. It’s perpetuating a culture of unrelenting narcissism and self-entitlement and in turn, leading to enormous amounts of damaging social anxiety and depression for those who aren’t the 1% gifted with perfect features or a good photo-editing ability.

In the short term it would be damaging to the promotion of live touring and circulation of music, but imagine we woke up one day and the gram/FB/Snapchat and Twitter had been completely wiped off the face of the earth. Imagine how pure the air would taste, what a glorious glorious day that would be.

Three words to sum up the future of music?

Running. Touch. LIVE.