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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 bought 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 12 months at Chrysalis had been fairly robust,” 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 suppose, time to do one thing totally different.”
A giant soccer and cricket fan, he considered a transfer into sport (“However they’re truly very scuzzy companies – soccer makes the music business look pristine and saintly!”), earlier than deciding importing wine may very well be the longer term.
“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 gorgeous 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 kinds of shit.”
So – having reconnected along with his previous vinyl assortment whereas free from the fixed work strain to take heed to nothing however new music – he determined to stay to what he is aware of greatest.
“I realised I truly know quite a bit 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 might 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 Data catalogue and relaunched Chrysalis as a frontline label. It partnered with Reservoir in 2019, giving it entry to loads of funding capital. And every part’s going based on plan: Millar just lately discovered the pair’s authentic 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 discuss of recent artists, and executives would eagerly press data – precise data – 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 unbiased managers and their shoppers underneath the Blue Raincoat Artists umbrella, in addition to creating acts and managers in-house – new acts similar to Nova Twins (managed by former VP of promoting, Rupert King) and The Mysterines (former SVP of promoting, John Leahy) are breaking by to hitch 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 printed again within the Nineteen 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 bought the credit score that they deserved as trailblazers. Kat’s sensible and completely up for it, so it’s all methods go…”
In publishing, Blue Raincoat represents every part from Self Esteem to the Nick Drake catalogue (a forthcoming Nick Drake tribute album with a stellar forged record is “an excellent instance of how one a part of the enterprise will help the opposite,” based on Lascelles). And whereas the Chrysalis Data catalogue – dwelling to The Specials, Ultravox and Suzi Quatro – ticks over very properly, frontline artists similar 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 government (Virgin Data) and a writer (Chrysalis Music), in some ways, that is the multi-tasking function he’s been warming up for since coming into the business as a naïve 17-year-old in 1972.
“I’m altering hats on a regular basis and typically I’ve to remind myself – am I the supervisor, the document label or the writer?” he chuckles. “Typically I’m greater than a type of issues! My finance individuals needed to try to work out how a lot time I allocate to the totally different companies, and I mentioned, ‘I haven’t bought a fucking clue! I simply do it. I’m going the place I should be…’”
Fortunately, the place he must be proper now’s holed up in his workplace, speaking to MBW. And it seems that the wine enterprise’ loss could 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 Data in 2016. That was the second when all of the issues I needed to do, I might do. The unique imaginative and prescient was at all times to personal a list.
After we began Blue Raincoat, we thought it was in all probability extra probably we’d purchase a publishing catalogue than a recorded music one. Now, I’m delighted it was the opposite method 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 must run a label, market a list and supply providers for all of the issues which might be riskier: releasing new data, doing publishing offers for unknown artists, increasing our artist administration enterprise… You are able to do that if you happen to’ve bought the monetary safety blanket of a list that’s constantly doing properly.
And that was at all times the plan. If you begin a brand new enterprise, you need to minimise the alternatives for sleepless nights.
So, is something supplying you with sleepless nights in the mean time?
Jet lag! No, after they come, they are usually about particular initiatives that I’m so eager to get carried out that they get in the way in which. However for probably the most half, it’s
been okay!
Does your expertise of so many alternative music business roles provide you with an edge in negotiations?
Nicely, it ought to do, shouldn’t it? After I make a deal, I at all times attempt to put myself within the place the place, if I used to be on the opposite facet of the negotiation, wouldn’t it be truthful? deal is one each events really feel optimistic about. deal isn’t one facet screwing the opposite. Nicely, previously perhaps it might have been, however I by no means subscribed to that.
“I’ve at all times been aware of the truth that this enterprise solely exists due to the artists.”
I’ve at all times been aware of the very fact this enterprise solely exists due to the artists, they’re by far an important 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 larger or extra highly effective than the individuals 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 occasion like a document firm. As a result of it’s completely potential to perform independently. You are able to do all of it by yourself – it’s not at all times the most effective factor, however you possibly can.
After the streaming debate, do labels want to alter?
They’ve modified, however not sufficient. Report firms nonetheless have an essential function to play in the event that they reposition themselves in the best method.
They’re nonetheless potential suppliers of essential assets, of which cash is without doubt one of the largest; once you’re attempting to interrupt an artist, it’s very onerous to do with out entry to capital. Report firms are huge buyers, they take plenty of danger and I’m an excellent believer within the risk-and-reward ratio in any enterprise deal.
It’s not unreasonable they need to get a correct reward for the chance they take, however it’s bought to be proportionate. They’ve bought to cease pondering of themselves as lords and masters and suppose extra like companions of their relationships with artists. It’s a few fairer distribution of cash earned and a fairer method of coping with rights possession.
A number of individuals have made the parallel: if you happen to’ve paid off your mortgage, why do the mortgage firm nonetheless personal your own home? At Chrysalis Data, we make offers we predict are truthful and balanced: give the artist a giant chunk of the upside and they’re going to get their rights again after a time.
We try to construction one thing that we might suppose was a great deal if we had been the managers of that artist.
How does the connection with Reservoir work?
It really works very properly, 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 bought loads out of it and so have we.
Are you left to your personal units?
For probably the most half. They’re companions and buyers, so it might be impolite and irresponsible to not inform them what we’re as much as, and we
discuss 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 initially of the pandemic, by rush-releasing Laura Marling’s Track For Our Daughter. How is the label understanding?
[Laughs] That was an uncommon method of relaunching Chrysalis! We principally did the alternative of everybody else and introduced every part ahead.
It was a daring step in how we offered and launched the document. Administration of a frontline document label is, I suppose, the place my true passions lie, however what I favored about relaunching Chrysalis was, I didn’t should go, ‘Proper, we’re a document firm, we’ve bought to feed the machine and put a document out
each month’.
I can put out eight albums in a 12 months or no albums in a 12 months and it doesn’t matter, as a result of my crew works throughout every part. We are able to make choices on what to signal based mostly on benefit, reasonably than a panic about what we now have bought subsequent.
You’ve made some strikes into {the catalogue} acquisitions market with Reservoir. What’s your view on that development?
I’ve bought blended views on it, to be sincere. It’s each artist’s prerogative to do what they suppose is correct for them, and also you perceive if an artist will get to a sure age, does the maths, and realises they’re getting this sum of money now, significantly greater than they’re prone to earn of their lifetime. As a easy technique to cope with your legacy and of capitalising what you’ve labored for, it is smart.
What worries me is that – and Reservoir is an exception to this, thank God – it’s not at all times music firms which might be shopping for these belongings. 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 artistic 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 at all times the healthiest place for music belongings to sit down. As a result of these songs, these data, these artists, aren’t three-to-five-year issues, they’re right here for our lifetime, the following 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 individuals we wouldn’t even have considered 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 in all probability shouldn’t take them once more!
What’s the proudest second out of your profession thus far?
It’s all in regards to the artists, significantly when the chances 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 suppose you’re doing?’
He made White Ladder with a few of our assist financially and resource-wise, however it was a self-made, self-released document which, initially, nobody was all for placing out. The album’s now at eight-to-nine million gross sales.
That was positively a pleasant second, as a result of I consider so strongly in Dave and his expertise and I nonetheless suppose he’s some 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 straightforward to fail. However we stand for one thing that I hope is recognised by the creative neighborhood as being a great place to be artistic and have a powerful partnership with.
For those who might change one factor about right now’s music business, proper right here and now, what wouldn’t it be and why?
I at all times 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 mean you can have your document performed on my radio station or stocked in my document shops’. That’s gone, however it’s been changed by a unique 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 bought a system that principally says, ‘You match, you don’t match, you’re proper for our playlist, you’re not’. Persons are typically very narrow-minded by way of the music they deem worthy of being uncovered.
And other people 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 like totally different music – I don’t just like the same-old, same-old, generic, neatly packaged product.
You continue to appear very enthusiastic in regards to 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 folks that earns a dwelling out of my interest and fervour as a child. I like the artists I work with, the corporate we’ve constructed and the individuals which might be a part of Blue Raincoat.
The day I cease having fun with it, I’ll cease – or it’s going to inform me to cease. It could be good if I determine, reasonably 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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