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24 MusicWeek 30.03.12 GENRE FOCUSROCK GUNS STICKING TO THEIR


The recent success (in the charts, on the radio and on the live circuit) of Young Guns is the jumping-off point for a discussion with a live promoter, two managers and a label boss on rock’s state of health


FORUM  BY DAVE ROBERTS


F


or a long time, for a lot of people, music meant men with guitars. And it is undoubtedly a good thing that music now


means so much more to so many people. But let’s not throw the fuzzbox out with the


bathwater. Men do still play guitars – often quite loudly and far from apologetically. It would be a shame if some musical equivalent


of imperialist guilt meant that by doing so they were in some way marginalised, downplayed or written off (possibly as ‘punishment’). The consequence for dominating the landscape


for so long shouldn’t be exile. Get over it; just let them be part of the landscape. In other words, enough of this ‘rock is


dead’ bollocks. That’s certainly the view, albeit expressed


rather more eloquently, of four gentlemen who have played significant roles in the success of Young Guns – a UK rock band who recently scored a top 20 album (Bones) and last week supported Enter Shikari for a sold-out show at the Hammersmith Apollo. Andy Snape of Raw Power, who co-manages the


band with Mark James, sets his stall out early and clearly: “It’s fucking boring, isn’t it? I can confirm with 100% confidence that rock isn’t dead. To me that’s a handful of journalists who have literally no idea what they’re talking about. “Look at the festival headliners, look at the


growing support from Radio 1, look at the sales of Kerrang! compared to other mags and look at the number of rock acts that get to that Brixton Academy level and beyond. “And then look at the


indie bands. You have success stories with indie bands, sure, and they get a lot of attention, but there are countless examples of bands that are in the NME one week then never heard of again.”


BELOW Aiming high: Young Guns released debut EP Mirrors in 2009. Second album Bones, released last month, reached No.19 in the UK albums chart


RIGHT Good instincts: Andy Snape (left) and Mark James (right) began managing Young Guns when the pair had full-time jobs; and (below) The Agency Group’s Sean Goulding, a key supporter of the band


“I can confirm with 100% confidence that rock isn’t dead. To me that’s a handful of journalists who have literally no idea what they’re talking about” ANDY SNAPE, RAW POWER


PIAS boss Peter Thompson (who joined the


Young Guns gang in stages, by distributing the debut EP, providing a services deal for the first album and then signing them to the Play It Again Sam label for the second album) adds: “Part of the problem is that sometimes people see the terms ‘rock’ and ‘indie’ as interchangeable, whereas actually some very different rules apply. But another problem is that people can’t judge rock by traditional measures. They don’t have massive hit singles like, say, Gotye. Radio 1 have realised that and they’re looking at other metrics. “They’ll look


at YouTube and Facebook, of course, but


they’re also looking at live, because they know some of those other gauges are easy to manufacture or manipulate. What you can’t manipulate is kids buying tickets. “It’s quite interesting, with Frank Turner we


weren’t getting anywhere with radio, and then Wembley came onto the horizon and suddenly we’re on the playlist. Those two things were not unconnected.” Young Guns’ last single, Bones, also benefitted


from getting A-listed on Radio 1 – although, again, it was reward for a long slog and came three years after the release of their debut EP. Snape and James started managing the band


when they had full-time jobs and did it purely out of a love for the music. They didn’t draw a wage for the first couple of years and are still some way from a down-payment on their first yacht. These are fans first and foremost. But they’re fans that had good instincts,


good contacts and learnt fast. They soon had PIAS and The Agency Group on board and a team of committed individuals gathered around Young Guns. The Agency Group was key, not least because of


the vital role live plays in the making and breaking of a rock act. The firm’s Sean Goulding comments: “A big moment was when they were the first band on the main stage at Reading, but by then they’d sold out The Garage, they’d sold out a Barfly and


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