EMI Records A&R: Death or Glory. The Business of Making Records.
The journey toward Hell Is For Heroes and The Neon Handshake.
Aside from a senior executive veteran on a different floor taking care of Robbie Williams career, I’d been the only A&R Manager at EMI: Chrysalis for several months. My new boss arrived from Mercury Records in 2001 as our new Head Of A&R. We immediately got on well. Like me, he saw the label’s need for commercial success combined with building artist’s careers. He was down to earth. We both watched football and loved music. He helped me convince our MD, who I got on well with, that the label should sign Hell Is For Heroes. The band, clearly a highlight in a growing scene of young UK rock bands.
The label chemistry was finally working well, EMI: Chrysalis was emerging from being under Parlophone’s shadow throughout the 1990s. There was an assertive effort to go beyond our reliance on Robbie Williams, Iron Maiden, and Pink Floyd sales and develop newer artists’ careers. The business demanded such. A label deal with Heavenly, which suited both parties, had bought Doves growing success, two forthcoming no.1 albums over three years, a Beth Orton album in the works, which would result in the highest charting of her career. By September 2001, Music Week confirmed EMI: Chrysalis had had 16 hit singles that year so far compared to Parlophone’s 11, four hit albums, with the busiest quarter in the music biz still left to go. The company was “firing on all cylinders” in the UK declared our UK Chairman and CEO.
As a result, there was little indication a huge change in management structure across the UK labels was coming within a year. Our much respected and joint Chairman and CEO in the UK remained the most senior executive in the UK, with his open and friendly candour, he had made the effort to come down, knock on my office door and say hello to me in my first week. I respect him to this day. It is just unfortunate he would later allow a wolf within our midst to disrupt our label (and others), and for it never to recover.
The music industry can be a cruel business.
Being the first person in the EMI building with Starsailor demos, sent to me from a hometown connection now working in music PR, I was the first to play them at EMI and communicate the opportunity, despite a sibling connection to the band via Heavenly. My proactive actions would remain largely unacknowledged when success occurred. It was obvious they would sell lots of records for the label in the present climate and with the right guidance. We had fought off pretty much every label in the land, including our competitive colleagues at Parlophone to sign Starsailor. The fact I’d been heavily involved in the courting, signing, initial development and recording of their platinum sales success at the label, the only platinum album of their career, remained unacknowledged in liner notes, with no BPI platinum disc for my wall, I had been written out of history. This was out of order and crudely topped off by an article in the NME featuring quotes from certain label figures, a pure work of fiction on how the band had arrived at EMI. This was the rock ‘n roll business after all. People get shafted all the time. I had been warned of this by my former bosses and friends. It was clear to me an unspoken debt was owed from senior management. I felt this success was in the course of time traded for the autonomy I acquired for total control over any acts I would find and sign in future, that is until the next senior executive reshuffle.
Hell Is For Heroes held west London roots, with somewhat of the ethos of The Clash, but with harder riffs, brought up on Fugazi and Deftones. Crucially, they had good songs. ‘Bangers with a big chorus’ as Will from the band would call them. I admired the ambition, vivacity, and work ethic. These were grounded people prepared to work hard. The pressure upon them to deliver for a label was not new to them. Will and Joe carried experience from their days in Symposium. 13 Artists managed them, Radiohead’s live agency were now branching into artist management. They also had a good team for live bookings. Media and the music press were showing early signs of interest and support. Collectively this was a breakthrough opportunity and part of an energised movement in the face of the “bedwetter scene” as Alan McGee called it, with Coldplay at its helm. Many labels did not understand the growing appetite from young fans for these kinds of bands. Grittier, noisier, exciting. Just as major label executives had not understood punk at first, some rather played too safe or were too disconnected from the zeitgeist within a young audience.
I was convinced, and excited by the energy as crowds grew at shows. The band connected with people. After a final meeting at a Camden pub, with my boss in attendance, and a rehearsal with the MD in tow, we made an offer, and I signed Hell Is For Heroes.
This was a band I was proud to play loud.
My development label, Wishakismo, had its second signing, and EMI Chrysalis a new act in the wings. I now had a big-league budget and full resources of a major label. In the summer of 2001 EMI promoted me to A&R Manager. I took it as recognition of all that had gone before in my first 18 months, having won the annual chairman’s award from the EMI U.K. Chairman and CEO in my first year.
My promotion came with a modest bump in salary and a custom ordered VW Golf company car in black metallic paint. I began to acquire speeding tickets. After years of questionable accommodation, I had moved on from the days of a slug infested bedsit and now had running hot water on demand. I lived with a couple of university friends in a flat share in Kilburn. Jubilee line tube trains passed over a bridge right next to our living room window. Kilburn was rough. Unemployed labourers would stare out of pub windows throughout the daytime. Then fight in the streets over a can of Special Brew once they’d drunk their dole. My friends and I moved to a house share in West Hampstead. I wondered whether it might be the same house the Banshee’s Steven Severin had shared with Mariella Frostrup in years past. There was a strange flow of fellow tenants that drifted in and out of the additional spare room throughout this time. One guy lived nocturnally. He left within months. We were desperate for rent contributions. A couple moved in. The place was busier. Understandably I wanted my own space, but beyond a small bedsit, I still couldn’t afford to rent my own place. Buying was an impossibility. A delusional dream. This the reality for most music industry employees from lower income backgrounds without a bank of mum and dad, and why other professions are often eventually required.
Andy Gill from Gang Of Four produced Hell Is For Heroes’ debut on Wishakismo. Andy’s studio, with his art school punk heritage, was hardly the East End back to basics studio I expected. Tucked away near Hatton Gardens, home to London’s diamond trade, the interior of his studio building looked like an upmarket restaurant in Chelsea. Everything was white. Minimalist, clean and polished. Large white fur rugs covered floorspace. Huge SSL desk. All the mod cons. Very expensive. He had produced stadium rock gods like Michael Hutchence of INXS, so perhaps it was in keeping. VIP furnishing, this when VIP actually meant VIP, not someone who had the disposable income to buy a stupidly expensive concert ticket.
In the studio, we needed a song that was a belter, that radio, TV, and the press would love. I was now fully responsible for the result, and I was learning on the job. Nobody shared wisdom about the art of A&R. A&R was an intuitive skill set. You either had it or you didn’t. I could spot a good song from a basic demo recording, or a live show or rehearsal, spot a great band in the early stages. I’d proved countless times I could spot a single and most importantly hits, but I still had very little experience of making records. I had to now translate structure, sounds and ideas in my head into music production terms and a language producers spoke. No dedicated training for young A&R people in studio production exists. The industry is too self-absorbed for this. You learn on the job, teach yourself, while coaching five individuals in a band to make a record which your careers depended upon. You deal with studios, producers, mixers, engineers, and budgets. You deal with major label politics. You hold accountability for the entire production. The buck stopped with the A&R responsible at any label. I now had the ultimate test ahead of me as head of my own big budget album production. The stakes in A&R are death or glory, but despite this life was good. This is what I lived for.
Hell Is For Heroes debut single for EMI’s Wishakismo, You Drove Me To It, was a successful calling card.
Media attention now grew from their debut and only former single, an early polished demo recording of Sick Happy on Superior Quality. We now focused on the journey toward a debut album for EMI: Chrysalis, already with future hit ‘banger’ I Can Climb Mountains, Night Vision, and others coming into shape as songs.
Being budget conscious and with the interests of building a career band, my original plan was to record the album with the right producer in the UK. However, my plans evolved with the influence of the band’s newly appointed U.S. managers and their ‘think big’ bravado. Thinking big was a recoupment cost they were prepared to swallow on the terms of their deal. The band now had a Los Angeles based artist management company. Kelly Osbourne was a junior assistant. I had no idea I was speaking to Ozzy’s daughter when I called asking for their two managers for our many conference call conversations. They managed Papa Roach. Down the corridor was Deftones management, System Of A Down, and others. Successful bands with global sales was in the DNA of the way these guys rolled.
Plans for the album began. Before committing to the full album, we trialled doing a couple of songs with Gil Norton, who had worked with the Pixies and Foo Fighters, unfortunately this did not work out how I’d envisaged. I wanted more of the energy of the band’s live show. A different approach was required. The co-producers of the infamous Refused album The Shape Of Punk To Come, Pelle Henricsson and Eskil Lovstrom were appointed after meeting with them.
I booked the legendary Sound City studios in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California. Nirvana’s Nevermind and the debut Rage Against The Machine album had been recorded there, alongside a rich legacy of albums by Fleetwood Mac and Neil Young and many other legends. The live room was great for drum sounds, the main studio had a classic Neve desk - later bought by Dave Grohl when the recording industry and its studios hit hard times.
The whole plan had its risks, but it felt like this was what was required to make the best record possible with this band at this time. There was much work to be done.
Songs needed development. Booking Stanbridge Farm, housed in the Sussex countryside, was an opportunity for the band and the production team to get to know each other better in a professional working environment, and for me to see how producers Pelle and Eskil worked with the band. It went well. The songs blossomed. In January 2002 pre-production work began in Los Angeles, before entering Sound City Studios in February 2002 to record the debut album. Fuelled by strong Swedish coffee and copious amounts of Swedish tobacco, now with engineer Magnus, and local studio engineer Miles, the production team had a robust work ethic, a constant devotion to do their best work for a major label.
Checking into the Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Boulevard, I was unaware the band’s management had intervened to upgrade me to the best suite. This was on EMI’s budget after all. After a heavy session with the band to celebrate completion of our first tracking, my hotel bill was thousands after the partying. The room rate sky high. I panicked. I called my boss; we agreed I would check into a motel to balance the books. After the glamour of a five-star suite on Sunset Boulevard that David Bowie had used, I was now in a shitty motel in Van Nuys with tobacco-stained walls. Dealers outside the door. Gangsters on the street. A cut off finger lay on the pavement opposite outside the Denny’s Diner.
Such perfectly typified the ups and down’s of major label A&R management.
On subsequent visits to check in on the record’s progress, my hotel rooms on Sunset would be more modest and without any future intervention from ‘think big’ influencers. I was happy with my modest VW Beetle. Manual cars a rarity at LA car hire depots. I then accidentally had an altercation with Bruce Willis on the freeway. He shook his fist at me.
‘You just cut up Bruce-fucking-Willis’ my passenger told me, laughing all the way to the studio. My first brush with Hollywood celebrity might have been a car crash.
Over the next few weeks, we made a record that, after a delay in release due to a change of EMI executives, hit high on the album charts. Exciting the label. This was a record built to last decades, with an ever-increasing fanbase, as live shows over the years have demonstrated. Two sold out nights at Shepherds Bush Empire almost twenty years later. Then Hammersmith Apollo. More shows in 2024. The record lives on. Something all involved should be immensely proud of.
Play it loud.
I can climb mountains, indeed.
Hell Is For Heroes – The Neon Handshake (2003).