Irving and Jeffrey Azoff Storm Billboard Live Summit With ‘Unmanageable’ Q&A

– Unmanageable
Jeffrey Azoff interviews Irving Azoff at the Billboard Live Music summit in Beverly Hills, Calif., Nov. 14.

Easily the most entertaining session of the 2018 Billboard Live Music and Awards Summit came yesterday in a stunningly candid, wildly freewheeling and uproarious Q&A between music industry legend Irving Azoff, Chairman and CEO of Azoff MSG Entertainment and Chairman of Full Stop Management, and his son Jeffrey, a partner at Full Stop, that in every way lived up to its billing — “Unmanageable.”

The elder Azoff (who is also the co-founder of Oak View Group, Pollstar’s parent company), is considered one of the most powerful executives in the entertainment business and something of an iconoclast who has seemingly held every position in the music biz including manager, agent, promoter, label head, venue owner and even the head of a performance rights organization as well as things the younger Azoff noted few in the room would ever know of. This included putting up the original seed money for Coachella, producing movies like “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “Urban Cowboy,” and funding and creating Concerts West which became the core of AEG’s music touring business.

With his son asking the questions and members of his family in the audience, no topic under the music business sun was off limits including such rich topics as why David Geffen wanted to “murder” him (taking the Eagles can get that reaction); why the f-word “are you still doing this” at the age of 71 (which he turns next month, and it’s because he’s still having “fun”); his thoughts on AEG (whose owner he called the “dark prince of Colorado”); and his favorite child (sorry Jeffrey, Jaye apparently has that locked up).

Perhaps part of the panel’s good spirits stemmed from Irving Azoff’s optimism about the current state of the music business which he believes offers “endless opportunities.” This he said citing a thriving live sector, improving label fortunes, the scaling of music streaming and constant disruptions and innovations providing more options than ever for artists to build their careers. A consistent mantra throughout the session, and really a staple of most any Azoff interview, is his oft repeated conviction that “artists always come first.”

Azoff’s recollections of the past were similarly compelling as he recalled a wild story from back in the day when he was traveling with the Eagles’ Joe Walsh, who apparently then had a penchant for hallucinogens. This, he said, helped lead to a moment in an upstate New York hotel where the musician took a chainsaw to the wall in order to join his room with Azoff’s in the event he needed to be talked down from “seeing Martians.”

When asked how he survived the drug-fueled music business of the 1970s, Azoff explained that weed always made his throat hurt and snorting cocaine made him sneeze and anyway, artists want the “guy who’s flying the plane to be sober.” (Though he copped to getting wasted “one day out of 365” for his annual New Year’s party to show his clients just what it’s like to manage them.)

More candor came when the younger Azoff repeated one of his father’s adages that, “this is rock and roll; what can go wrong, will go wrong,” and asked what the worst thing was that went wrong for him?  Irving had a terse answer: “Inviting Don Felder to join the Eagles,” a reference to years of acrimony and litigation that followed the musician’s departure from the so-called “Peaceful Easy Feeling” band.

More telling was when Irving was asked who his greatest mentors were and the music veteran name-checked a slew of industry paragons old and new, including Geffen, Lou Wasserman at MCA, Steve Ross at Warner, Barry Diller at Ticketmaster, Liberty’s John Malone and MSG’s James Dolan – all of whom he said were “mentors in positive and negative ways,” and which again demonstrated Azoff’s singular music business pedigree.

The elder Azoff’s humor was on full display throughout. When asked his favorite agency he replied the “CIA;” he quoted lawyer Allen J. Grubman saying, “It’s not about the money, it’s about the money,” and allowed his son to test him on texting abbreviations as he nailed STFU, WTF, and YOLO but missed LOL (which he thought stood for “Lots of Love”).

Azoff became more serious when Jeffrey jokingly asked what AEG stood for. “You’re really going to go there,” Azoff asked. “There’s some wonderful people who work there, great people,” he noted before saying the person who runs the company is the “dark prince of Colorado” (a not-so-veiled reference to Philip Anschutz) whom he said needs to learn that not every deal is the “Super Bowl or a hockey championship” and that the company would be better served with an attitude of “win-wins rather than crushing people.”    

Clearly part of Irving’s relaxed and candid demeanor derived from having his son Jeffrey, 32, who as the interviewer was given a wide berth to ask probing, personal and challenging questions that would have left another interviewer excommunicated from the industry. But the charming scion has also paid his industry dues, having worked at CAA as an agent and for the late manager Jordan Feldstein before joining Full Stop Management with a roster of top tier clients including Meghan Trainor and Harry Styles. He spoke of having attended reconciliation meetings from the time he was six. And the warm chiding between the two Azoffs and other family members in the audience showed, the Azoff clan places a premium on family.

This also allowed the younger Azoff to read back a series of his father’s tweets in which he attacked Billboard, the confab’s host, which he once called a “tasteless gossip rag” among other choice words. But Azoff’s appearance here and changes in leadership at the publication have clearly gone a long way towards mending fences.

In a rapid response segment Jeffrey called out questions to which Irving gave quick replies. ‘Best Concert” was met with the “Beatles at Comiskey Park” in 1965; smartest executives elicited the answer Live Nation’s “Michael Rapino and Eddy Cue” of Apple; best guess of the total gross of shows you booked your entire career: “I’ve had half a billion this year, so my guess would be $25 billion.” A jaw-dropping number for sure which may or may not be quite accurate, but is certainly plausible given all Irving Azoff’s done over the course of his stunning music business career.