12 Music Week 07.12.12 THE BIG INTERVIEW SCOTTRODGER
So your relationship with Modest is still healthy and happy, even though you’ve inherited their X Factor contract?
Richard Griffiths
RIGHT Overall control: Quest are working with Arcade Fire on their new album. The band are currently in the studio with James Murphy and Markus Dravs
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“Richard’s a great friend and someone I truly respect. But I’ve got better acts than he has and he knows it... although he’s way richer than I’ll ever be!” SCOTT RODGER, QUEST
Completely. Richard [Griffiths, pictured above] was the first person to congratulate me. I came really close to working with Richard and Harry about 10 years ago when they were at The Firm. Richard left BMG and became executive chairman at The Firm when it had several hundred employees. He approached me to work with him in the UK, and then just when it was all about to happen he called me up and said: ‘I’m out.’ Richard’s a great friend and someone I truly respect. But I’ve got better acts than he has and he knows it... although he’s way richer than I’ll ever be! [Laughs]
How are you going to run X Factor differently than it has been previously? We are definitely doing it differently to Modest, and the way the records will be made is completely different. The A&R approach, the release approach – we’re not going to be waiting until the winner releases in August or September next year. We’re going to change the tempo. We’re going to make people like James Arthur’s record and no-one
would have thought we’d do what we’re going to do with it. The A&R input that Caroline’s put together – the writers and what have you – it’s all really being put on a plate.
BELOW Noah’s A&R: Quest handled the entire A&R process for the new Noah & The Whale album
When your acts are recording songs, where does the A&R function of Quest end and that of their label begin? We completely A&R’d the new Noah & The Whale record [Scott points through the glass of his office and waves to Charlie from the band]. We booked the studios, we put the budgets together, we brought the right engineers in, we were included in the writing process… right down to going to the supermarket and buying them dinner when they’re writing somewhere random in Essex. We collaborate with the record companies, but they know we’re not going to mess up.
Do you A&R albums from start to finish? Completely. With the new Beady Eye record (see box, opposite), that’s us A&R’ing a record almost entirely, with hardly any record company involvement whatsoever. We’re also working on the Arcade Fire record right now. They’re in with James Murphy on three or so songs, plus Markus Dravs who is a long-time collaborator. They write too many songs – that’s a good problem to have. There’s around 35 songs with Arcade Fire, two albums’-worth for sure.
Your Montreal office effectively teamed up with a distributor in the territory to become a semi-label for Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs. How did that work? Canada’s a small territory, but we’ve still done 200,000 albums with [The Suburbs] there. The population’s 25 million and normally you do around 25% of what you’d do in the States, so that’s
pretty close. We had a great distributor there when we were on Merge, but Merge had no office there so we thought, ‘We can do this.’ We took it off Merge, then hired independent radio [pluggers], independent PR and went straight with a distributor who told us they’d buy the ads and retail campaign and just deduct the cost. We looked at how much we were spending per unit sold, just as we would in the UK with a label. It worked: we made a healthy, if not life-changing profit. It was a No.1 album and we’re almost triple-platinum.
What’s your general view of 360 deals? We represent Lykke Li and Noah & The Whale and they’re the only two acts of ours that have 360 components [with their labels]. We didn’t do those deals, we inherited them. I understand that 360 deals are a good revenue stream for record companies, but I don’t yet feel that the labels are efficient enough to be able to contribute and justify them. It’s a bit unfair. The only argument to justify them is the label
marketing money used to develop acts and the risk taken on an advance. I do think everyone should share if they contribute – if you had the most incredible touring department, tour marketing department or merchandising department, that would show you know how to do [live]. We’ve just had this exact thing with [a
president] at [a major label] and a band. Creatively it’s amazing, he’s a great guy to make records with. Then his business affairs exec calls and says: ‘We want 15% of the website, 15% of all branding, 15% of all net touring profits…’ It’s just like: ‘No. We have branding, licensing and sponsorship departments in the US. If you bring us something, you can take a share. If you don’t and we do a Nike deal, we’re not giving you any of that money.’ They let [their 360 demands] go in
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