18 MusicWeek 06.07.12 INTERVIEWPETEWATERMAN Here, Waterman tells us how he thinks the
record industry has changed from the time when his compositions and record label defined the charts – and why, despite being approximately 4,200 miles from Barbados on a rainy Wednesday – he very much considers himself to have led a “charmed life”…
Will you really never revisit The Hit Factory again after this? I’m not kidding you, it took a lot of persuasion for me to do it. But I’m 65 – will I make another 25 years? I doubt it very much. [Laughs]. The reality is you’re 65, your artists are in their forties… some people got more successful, some didn’t, but we were always a family. In the Kylie and Jason years, it really was us against the world. Like with Abba, Motown and things like that, when you’re popular you’re going to find your detractors. People always want to knock you. I accepted that and never worried about it.
Do you miss working in the record industry – or being an A&R for someone else? Of course I do. I get incredibly angry with the industry at the moment. It isn’t as passionate about music as it was 25 years ago. There is far too much marketing and techno talk about formats. We’re dealing with record companies all the time [at PWE – formerly known as PWL] and A&R departments are a million miles away from what they were. When I started in ’72, the A&R man was king – what he said went, everyone backed him and if he was unsuccessful, he didn’t have a job. When I started, they gave me six months to have a hit and paid me £3,000 for the year.
Who’s to blame for that lack of passion in the modern music industry? Easy. Lawyers and accountants. You cannot analyse what makes a hit record. If you try and shave the numbers you end up backing only the winners – and therefore the focus becomes going with big TV shows, promotions, records that have been hits before and formats that have been hit before. You won’t shake the box. And if you don’t shake the box, you won’t have excitement.
Why did Stock, Aitken and Waterman switch into your songwriting phase rather than just staying in the record industry? Necessity. The songs we were being offered were just not good enough. Mike and Matt literally said: “We can do better than this.” We were being offered such garbage. It’s the same reason you end up with your own record company: no one would buy Kylie. It was like: “Okay, we’ll put it out ourselves, then.”
There was an element of hoodwinking with Roadblock. What did it teach you about the industry and the media? It’s as relevant now as when we made it. People listen to music with their eyes and not their ears. People look at the package. Packaging is a problem for me – and people will think it strange for me to say that. But people miss the fact that we didn’t package anything. We never put Rick Astley in his Next suit – Rick Astley did that. We never dreamt up Kylie and Jason – they did. We were the most amateur marketeers the record industry had ever known. But the public loved us, because there was
FROM TOP Hit Factory’s production line: Matt Stock, Mike Aitken and Pete Waterman at the height of their success; Kylie and Jason’s doe-eyed allure; and that looks suspiciously like a Next suit Rick Astley is wearing to us...
Donna’s voice off and give them their money back. Ahmet called me and said: “No, no, no. You don’t want to do this.” He wouldn’t let me, so he put it out on Atlantic. There was a man who understood what we were about.
What are your memories of Donna Summer? Fantastic. She was one of the most exceptionally talented people, but she was also very truthful and honest. On day one, she warned us she was difficult to work with. I’ve got no problem when someone tells you like that – it’s great. At least you know the rules. True to form, it was exactly how she said. When you work with Donna, you’re on Donna Time.
“We never put Rick Astley in his Next suit – Rick Astley did that. We never dreamt up Kylie and Jason – they did. We were the most amateur marketeers the record industry had ever known” PETE WATERMAN
an honesty about it. When we broke Rick Astley, there were about three of us in the company. At 15 million record sales, we were still working out how to pay the rent. I was trying to convince the bank manager we were making money.
Who’s the best record executive you’ve ever worked with? Ahmet Ertegun. Without question. He came into my office at PWL right at the height of it all. He came with Rob Dickins and we played them a bunch of stuff. We were quite a rickety building and there was no gloss. He rang me later on to ask if he could come back to sit in reception for another hour and have a cup of tea because it reminded him of what the proper record business was like. I went out with him that night to Brown’s and he
was amazing. He said: “Don’t ever change what you do. I regret that the record industry changed for me when I went corporate. But what you guys are doing is exactly what we were doing when we started Atlantic.” When we did the Donna Summer record, we did it for Geffen. They didn’t like it, so I said I’d take
You famously played a role in reality music TV’s birth as a judge on Pop Idol – and then quit one series later in a rage. What’s your take on Simon Cowell and the way the format has evolved? I’m still best mates with Simon, because we spent so much time together pre-Pop Idol. I don’t watch those shows today – and it would be wrong of me to criticise Simon. But all of the shows have lost the music element. I tried to watch The Voice. I thought the whole concept was appalling. Music is very special, and how you can have a music show without music baffles me: it’s about the story and how the judges react – and you can almost predict what they’re going to say. When we started filming the very first series [of Pop Idol], it was obvious the show wasn’t working. I remember saying to Simon [Fuller] and Simon [Cowell]: “Guys, we wouldn’t do this in a real record company. We’d chuck this lot out! We’ve got to say: ‘Get out of here!’” Pop Idol worked because it was brutally honest.
Isn’t the whole music industry less purely about just ‘music’ today, though? Music doesn’t sell as much as when I was first in the industry, but that’s possibly because people don’t want it as much. We’ve got the technology right, the problem is the choice is less than it was. We haven’t got the young Turks out there trying to shake the tree, with lots of young record companies trying to make a name for themselves. I don’t want to be controversial and say we’ve got to be careful with monopolies and how many record companies there are. But you need a strong independent sector.
The Universal/EMI deal has just been approved in New Zealand – all eyes are on the EC and US… Was there really any doubt? But the bigger question is: what do we do when Sony is up for sale? What constitutes a monopoly now? 50%? 60%? 70%? And it’s not just the record industry – radio’s the same. When do we say: “That’s a monopoly and it’s not good for the customer.”
You say you’ve been “so lucky”. What’s your overall take on your career? I’ve witnessed some amazing moments. I was there the night Jeff Lynne met Roy Wood and formed ELO. I’ve had a charmed bloody life. And I’ve enjoyed every minute.
www.musicweek.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60