‘It’s the Best of Times and the Worst’: John Watson Talks Challenges, Opportunities Ahead of 2025 AAM Awards
When John Watson’s name was called out as the Legacy recipient at the 2025 AAM Awards, the music industry let out a collective sigh of relief.
Watson has left a positive mark on countless aspiring artists and industry professionals, an expert always ready to share knowledge, give time, fight the good fight.
The Townsville-raised, Sydney-based artist manager and label chief is rarely in the spotlight, by choice. That will change on Wednesday when the Association of Artist Managers’ awards are presented at Melbourne’s Northcote Social Club.
On the day, Watson will be recognised for an “incredible career in artist management” during which time he has guided the likes of Silverchair, Cold Chisel, Missy Higgins, Midnight Oil, and many others.
He’s president of the boutique indie label Eleven: a music company; founder of John Watson Management; has been a key player behind “Michael’s Rule,” unveiled at the 2024 edition of the AAM Awards; he’s an architect of the AAM and has been a patron of the organisation since its formation.
“Management done well is invisible,” Watson tells The Music Network, “and I’ve always thought that the way Roger Davies’s approach is the ‘Don Bradman’ of Australian managers. It’s the blueprint to follow. Obviously, if there’s a way for this award to shine a little more light on the work of the AAM and on the issues and opportunities confronting the business, then I’m very happy to use it for those purposes.”
Issues and opportunities. Arguably, those two factors carry more weight now than at any moment in the business of contemporary music.
TMN caught up with Watson ahead of the awards to explore those pressing topics and more.
The Good News, And The Bad
The good news is that managers and artists can do a lot more for themselves than really at any time in history.
The bad news is that they have to do a lot more for themselves than any time in history.
So much more of the building of audience online is done directly now.
It’s not mediated as much, and there’s still clearly a role for media, but the artists manager has to get things to first base, and then everybody else comes along to help them round the bases.
The second challenge that is confronting managers and artists is that we are now in an “always on” economy, and “always on” business.
It used to be that music releases worked a little bit more like crops on a farm. You had a season to plant them, a season to harvest them, a season to take them to market and then a season for the field to re-energise.
The artists would take some months to write, then they’d record the record, then you’d release the record, then you’d tour the record, then you’d go back to square one again.
Whereas now, you need to be constantly releasing music and engaging your audience across all the platforms.
If you’re not constantly present, people might be inclined to forget about you. You don’t ever get that kind of respite that that would have come when things were based on a more annual or biannual rotation.
Much of that is on the artist and the manager together, because they’re the ones that are having to figure that out.
Watson’s Entry Into Artist Management
Well, my standard joke is that my career has been one long downhill spiral.
I started off as a kid working in an independent record store and playing in an independent band.
Anybody who knows anything about music knows that’s kind of the moral high point of the business, those places.
After I failed as a musician, I descended to being a music journalist, a freelancer. After a few years doing journalism, I finished up my uni degree and I got a job doing A&R at a major record company.
Silverchair came along and John O’Donnell and I signed them to their first record deal. I then left to manage them. So that was in 1995, and I’ve been managing ever since.
So my usual joke is that given that long series of downward steps, my only other career options are, you know, “axe murderer”.
Dad jokes aside, it was completely by accident.
Michael’s Rule
We’re at the 12-month anniversary of last year’s AAM Awards, and the proposal of the idea of what was being called “Michael’s Rule” in memory of Michael McMartin, to formalize that request that he made the year prior.
On that occasion, he called for a reinstatement of the custom of international artists having an Australian artist on their bills, which has fallen by the wayside for a whole bunch of structural reasons.
So, we’re coming up on the two-year anniversary of Michael calling for it, and the one-year anniversary of the AAM formalising it.
A year ago when the AAM did call for Michael’s rule, all the promoters to a greater or lesser extent issued positive statements. And in the conversations afterwards, talked a lot about how they’d like to do more to expose local artists.
Some promoters have even gone to the trouble of drawing attention to some of the local artists that they have put on shows, in recognition of the fact that this is an issue that has resonated with Australian musicians and Australian fans.
However, the reality is that not enough has changed.
The problem is still at least as bad, arguably worse, than it was two years ago when Michael first flagged it.
The reason for that is because you have multinational pressures, which are difficult, if not impossible, for Australian promoters to push back against.
However, looking at the walk that has resulted, not the talk, it would seem the government intervention will be necessary in some form or fashion, because of the obstacles presented by these overseas factors.
You have worldwide tours being booked out of L.A. and London, by promoters and agents.
They have no stake in our local industry, our local culture.
For so long as those big companies have those global imperatives, it is increasingly hard and we see great tours happening all the time that don’t have any Australian artists on the bill.
To be clear, we’re not saying that an overseas artist shouldn’t be allowed to bring their overseas friend along on the tour. We’re just saying they should have an Australian artist as well.
That’s sort of the nub of the issue, and I’ll certainly be continuing to work with the AAM in whatever fashion.
Export Class
Export used to be this nice add-on, once you were successful. Now, it’s absolutely essential that everybody has a worldwide outlook, a global outlook, and that’s a difficult thing to do on your own.
We just need to work together and (artists) need the support of government, to seize export opportunities.
The removal of barriers to entry has meant that we’ve been swamped in Australia by overseas repertoire, but it also means that our repertoire is competing on a more level playing field in other markets.
If you’re not breaking through internationally, you’re not making it into the playlists and algorithms that your next-door neighbour is actually discovering music on.
In order to be heard by the person next door, you need to make waves on the other side of the world, because that’s where they’re getting their content from.
It’s the best of times and the worst of all at the same time.
The good news is that we’ve got more of the focus of government. The bad news is that we are in a position where we’re swimming upstream in a way not done since probably the early 1960s, and that’s reflected in our charts accordingly.
Politics Lives Downstream of Culture
When you see what’s happening in the culture of a society today, it will be reflected in how people vote at the next election or the one after it, right?
And if that is true, then does Australia want to have more American culture if it means that our politics comes to look more like American politics?
Now more than ever, we should be having a genuine discussion about whether we want to consume more American culture. And we’re all doing it.
It’s not just a music thing, it’s happening on TV, it’s happening with film, it’s happening with books.
I’m absolutely guilty of this myself. I’ll jump on Netflix, I’ll jump on Disney+, I’ll jump on Amazon Prime. I’ll trawl around through the shows they recommend, which is based on the last thing I watched.
The same thing is happening in music. Your average music fan doesn’t even realise how far they’ve drifted into being passive consumers of American culture.
If politics lives downstream of culture, do we want a more American culture because it means we end up with a more American politics?
The AAM Award categories are:
Manager of the Year (Presented by White Sky)
Breakthrough Manager of the Year (Presented by DMT Lawyers)
Emerging Manager of the Year – (Presented by Live Event Logistics)
Community Engagement Award – (Presented by Oztix)
Legacy Award – (Presented by Frontier)
Patrons Gift – (Curated by The AAM Patrons)
APRA AMCOS Lighthouse Award