14 Music Week 21.11.14 PROFILE CATO MUSIC ‘THE SWISS ARMY KNIFE OF TOURING’


In little over a decade, Cato’s gone from a business started in a garage in a suburb on the outskirts of London, to a live music and touring giant, boasting clients ranging from Take That to metal icons Metallica. The company has now set its sights on the United States


LIVE n BY MURRAY STASSEN


C


ato Music managing director Glen Rowe tells Music Week that great people make an amazing company. “That’s what we live by,”


he asserts. “[Cato] has been built out of our love of looking after bands and we want to let record companies, managers, publishers, booking agents, lawyers and everyone else know that we’re really good at what we do.” Rowe’s company has been looking after bands


incredibly well for over a decade and the South West London-based establishment truly exemplifies the notion of a 360-degree live music company. “Its important you come in, you feel at home


and you get everything you want. You’re left alone, but the minute you ask for anything, any help, any assistance, it’s there,” explains general manager Sefton Woodhouse, who, prior to his appointment at Cato was VP of artist relations at EMI for 15 years. “That’s one of the reasons why I’m here,” he adds. “I want to offer that from my artist relations and event management background. We have the whole package.” Rowe adds: “The one phrase that we keep


getting referred to by our clients, is that Cato feels like the Swiss army knife of touring.” Cato really does offer every service a gigging and


touring artist might need, including event and tour production, tour management, a crew agency, back- line and audio hire, equipment storage, rehearsal space and transport (limos, busses, vans, trucks). The Arc, Cato’s facility in South West London, is home to Zildjian and Roland’s own showrooms and artist relations, as well as a fully equipped shop. And after running the Tour Production and Management course at ACM in Guildford, the company has now launched its very own Cato Academy at The Arc, an 11-week course focusing on the touring and production industry. “Music business degrees teach about labels,


promoters and agents but don’t really teach you the physicality of touring itself, going from A to B. It’s a completely different field and that’s why we set up the Cato Academy. We were really looking for some new talent,” explains Cato’s head of operations Matt Russell, who also teaches on the course. “[The company] is almost like eight different


small businesses that make up what Cato is,” says Rowe adding that the multi-faceted nature of Cato was ‘almost strategic’: “We always focused on the real minutiae and really cared about everything, until I thought, ‘This is working very well and it’s making money, let’s bring in the right person to run this and that shares our ethos.’” Cato started, like many other DIY music success


stories, in a garage. “The company started 13 years ago,” explains Rowe. “I started it up out of my garage in Hampton, selling batteries and gaffer tape to Placebo and Muse. When going on tour with bands, I often found that they would have to pay a load of money for really small things. They couldn’t get accounts with suppliers, because one band only needs a certain amount of batteries every now and


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Cato Music: From L-R: head of operations, Matt Russell; general manager, Sefton


Woodhouse; head of


production, Chris Taplin; and managing director and owner, Glen Rowe


“Live is still exploding. There’s a lot more pressure on it cost-wise, but, in terms of the amount of work, we’ve never been busier” CHRIS TAPLIN, HEAD OF PRODUCTION, CATO MUSIC


then. All the bands I toured with in those early days loved it, because they got everything cheaper.” Rowe is himself, for lack of a better description,


a touring veteran, with over 20 years’ experience. He played drums in bands in his youth, and later worked as a drum tech for the Manic Street Preachers and then Muse before ultimately being appointed as their tour manager. Fast forward to 2014 and Rowe is at the helm


of one of the biggest touring companies in the world with a management team that consists of like-minded and equally skilled people, boasting unrivalled knowledge of the live industry as well as extensive label experience. “Glen and I share the same ethos of what makes a really good team,” says Woodhouse. “People that want to have fun and people who want to do their best - that’s the key. “This team knows both sides to the coin and


that’s why we’re so transparent. We can’t lie about our pricing or ability, because every manager or tour manager would know, so we understand what labels and bands want and we can do everything at the right cost, with the right equipment, making sure it’s the very best every time.” Head of production Chris Taplin started


consulting to Cato around three years ago. “The next big step up for me was that they’ve managed to broker a deal with Universal whereby I now consult to them on behalf of Cato,” he adds. “I look after [Universal’s] tour support business and their investment in live music, which is obviously something that’s very important to Cato. It is our lifeblood.


“When I first started looking after budgets for


artists, managers weren’t very interested in them at all. We were just there to promote records, of course now that’s on its head. Now we’re actually what’s being promoted by the record. It’s interesting times. Live is still exploding. There’s a lot more pressure on it cost-wise, but in terms of the amount of work, we’ve never been busier.” Cato’s roster of clients ranges from Metallica


to Kate Bush, Robbie Williams to Kylie, Rihanna, Bastille and Rizzle Kicks. “We are very proud of the bands that come in here,” says Rowe. “Metallica had no budget, they could have gone anywhere. It was quite an honour for them to come in here before Glastonbury.” In addition to the company’s long list of famous


clients, the Grade II listed Cato Mansions is a diverse hub of creative activity. Domino Publishing and Duran Duran have writing studios there and it’s also home to Eagle Rock Publishing and the Youth Production Network. Before Cato moved in, the building was occupied by The Rolling Stones’ management. It’s almost as if a new rock and roll institution is flourishing on the fertile ground left by another. And on the subject of growth, Cato is now


expanding to the United States, where it will be taking its expertise to Los Angeles. “I want to cherry pick all the best things from the UK,” explains Rowe. “We’re going to build four rehearsal studios and a big sound studio, so that bands can come in and rehearse for arena shows in LA and have backline, sound, PA and lighting hire. “It’s taken me eight years of being terrified


of America and the analogy that America is the biggest graveyard of great British companies. I flirted with the idea and employed someone to start it, but I pulled back and thought the only way to do it is to go in big. I’ll levitate over the company and watch it build worldwide and Sefton, Matt and Chris will be Europe based.”


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