Warnock: ‘Agents The New A&Rs’

Being interviewed by Musicweek editor Mark Sutherland, Warnock said that “the substantial change to the business is that this is now a real business.”

When Warnock entered the business more than four decades ago, “there weren’t any percentage deals, artists just worked for flat money.”

Back then, artists had so-called charts clauses in their contracts that would reward them for breaking the hit list.

Touring has changed big time: “If you were doing a world tour in the ’60s and early ’70s you’d probably do it in seven months, because essentially the world was a small part of central Europe and America.” Japan and Australia were just coming in.

When Warnock sends Muse on tour today the band will probably be on the road for anything up to two and a half years, “because there would be multiple tours of America, there’d be tours of South America, of Asia, there’d be tours of Eastern Europe that weren’t there before. The world has become a bigger place.”

According to Warnock, “Income for artists has increased dramatically. The setting up of tours, the financial setup has to be done very carefully. Deals now are vastly different.”

He also addressed the shift in importance between the live and recorded sector. While tours were there to coincide with an album, it was now the other way round.

“No disrespect to the labels, but they cut themselves out,” Warnock said. “Labels back in the day were totally arrogant.” He referred to the practice of pushing products in any way the labels saw fit, dictating prices and the lives of recording artists

. “For a long time they forgot where the music came from. And the music comes from the artist. Artists should govern their life career. If labels aren’t included in their careers anymore, it’s the labels fault. It’s not the artists leaving the label behind,” Warnock said.

Warnock feels “agencies and agents are effectively the new A&R. We’re in an industry were the development of new artists happens so fast that even before they are signed we need to be part of their team.”

The services agents bring to clients “now aren’t just booking and strategizing how to work their live career. We now look into how their music gets streamed,” Warnock said. “Some artists actually want to be movie stars, so we have to be all-encompassing to offer our artists everything that is available in the broad spectrum of entertainment.”

Warnock sees no lack of headliners, not now, not in the future. Every generation had its headliners. What indeed was an issue was the fact that labels weren’t putting enough money into new artists. Up-and-coming artists needed some money behind them. He called the secondary ticketing market “fairly gruesome.”

He said that touting had been going on since the oldest days. “It’s supply and demand. I think there’s potential of a functioning market that is transparent,” he said. But some of the offers out there were “absolutely disgraceful. It needs to be regularized.”

He called the recent review of the secondary market by the UK government “a start,” but emphasized that it “didn’t go far enough.”

His tips for becoming the next Neil Warnock included: “Never give up – whatever you want to do in your career.”

He also pointed out the many hours an agent had to sweat away. “We work all day and go to see our artist in the night. It shatters marriages, it ruins relationships. But if music is your driver. If music is in your heart and soul, do it.”