Impact International: UK/Euro 2024 Honoree Craig Jennings

BUILDING “A SUPER-POWERHOUSE MANAGEMENT COMPANY”

Raw Power Management made many big moves this year, but forming an alliance with ATC Management and relocating to their London offices stands out. “I think it’s a game changer for us as a company,” says CEO Craig Jennings. “We started Raw Power in 2006. After 18 years it was time to enter into a slightly bigger scenario, and I think it’s going to benefit all of our team, and all of our artists.”

For Jennings, a merger of this magnitude is all about “creating opportunities. It’s definitely a one-plus-one-equals-three situation. I think managers sharing information, sharing problems and successes, wins and loses, is really helpful. I’ve been in this game for 40 years now, and I think that you’re always learning. And it’s good to learn from new people.”

With a roster that includes global touring acts like Bring Me The Horizon, Bullet For My Valentine, and You Me At Six, the spiraling costs of moving people and goods around the world have been one of the big challenges to manage in recent times. “Luckily,” says Jennings, “we’ve got a great team of people around our artists – tour managers, production managers, etc. – that could negate that the very best they can. But there’s no doubt about it, it’s a challenging environment right now, and it’s something that I’m hoping will ease up as we go through the next few years.”

Since Jennings got his first taste of managing a band in 1984, in his hometown of Birmingham, England, he never wanted to work as anything else. He had attended his first live show a few years prior, seeing The Damned and The Ruts playing Digbeth Civic Hall in 1979. His mind was blown. “It was on the ‘Machine Gun Etiquette’ tour of The Damned, and The Ruts had just had a hit with ‘Babylon’s Burning.’ I was 16 years old, I’d been into punk rock since 1977, and started going to shows in 1978, and the whole experience was just incredible. When The Damned played their original lineup shows last year, the promoter, Steve Homer from AEG, dug out an old copy of Sounds Magazine with the original advert in for that show – I think it was June 8, 1979 – which he presented to me. I’ve had it framed.”

Craig Jennings is from a generation who became music fans before MTV, music videos, or even CDs were a thing. “I remember going to see The Ramones, bands like that, whom you’ve never seen much footage of. You went and bought your vinyl every week at the local record shop, that was where you discovered it. I used to religiously read Sounds, NME, Melody Maker, it was just a very different way of consuming music. There was something very exciting about it, because you were able to have your own secret bands.
“I was really excited when American acts like Devo, The Cramps and The Gun Club came over for the first time. I hadn’t trawled through loads and loads of footage of those bands, I was just seeing them in the flesh for the first time. The biggest change since then is the way you discover music. You can’t hold progress, but there’s something very pure and special about those days.”

Another thing that’s changed from the old days is the conversation around mental health. “Arguably,” says Jennings, “mental health is the biggest challenge, certainly for artists. Artists are expected to be on the internet all the time, trying to push their stuff, the pressure on people is a lot. I think the industry has addressed that a lot more in recent years, and it’s something that needs to continue.” At which point he’s reminded of the recent death of Liam Payne. “It just shows how it can easily go wrong, if they haven’t got the right career support from their management or label. There’s a lot of pressure on very young people in this business, and it’s important that we look after them the best we possibly can.”

Raw Power Management has been expanding its sonic footprint over these last few years. The acts on the company roster that Jennings is particularly thrilled about right now include a band called Heartworms, Kid Kapichi, and Jordan Adetunji from Belfast, Ireland, who “merges rap and R&B post-punk feels,” according to his bio on the Raw Power website.

“We’re really excited about seeing those artists develop over the next few years. And then, of course, the established acts will hopefully go on to bigger and better things as well,” says Jennings, whose other ambition is to continue partnering with management teams to learn from each other.

“If we were sitting here this time next year, and we hadn’t started to work with some really exciting management teams, I’d be disappointed. I want to bring in people to work together with myself on an equal footing, to try and build a super-powerhouse management company, built on all the values we all share around putting the artists first – to give the artists the platform to be able to make the best music. That’s our job.”