Stephen ‘Tav’ Taverner, founder, East City Management
Last month, Stephen ‘Tav’ Taverner was presented with the Managers’ Manager honour at the 2025 Artist & Manager Awards. Here, the East City Management founder reflects on his career guiding artists such as Ash, Alt-J and Wolf Alice, as well as late-night bouts of nausea... INTERVIEW: JAMES HANLEY
I’d never been awarded anything until recently... “So it was nice to receive the AMAs’ Managers’ Manager Award from my peers. It’s partly my fault, because I tend to not put myself up for things, but it felt like the managers in the room were pleased for me. Managers, traditionally, have been like islands, but the great thing about the Music Managers Forum is that it’s brought all of us together. We all communicate together now, and we’re much better for it.”
I’ve never believed in traditional marketing… “Keo, a band I’ve been developing for two years, were complaining to me that they couldn’t get any streams on Spotify and weren’t really selling any tickets, so I was like, ‘Okay, let’s find another place for people to find your music – let’s put it on SoundCloud and focus on that.’ We deleted their Spotify profile and their music was only available on SoundCloud for all of last year. There was no big campaign, we just pushed it out. SoundCloud is a very useful tool for development because that link is so easily shareable. And when people found it, they started sharing. It only works, obviously, if the music is amazing, but when people discover music in that way, it resonates. With The Ting Tings, I put out That’s Not My Name on MySpace and watched it catch fire. Alt-J worked even better – we did a year on SoundCloud with three songs and by the end of that first year, we’d had almost 200,000 downloads.”
I never thought a late-night vomiting episode would be a definitive career moment... “But I have so many stories about Ash’s Sick Party, the hidden track at the end of 1977. We were in Wales when we recorded it. Late one night, the guitar tech Leif Bodnarchuk started being violently ill. The producer Owen Morris was in the corridor when Leif was throwing up and I think it was his crazy idea to stick the microphone out there and capture it all. Soon after the record was finished, we signed to Warner Bros in LA and I was there with the head of radio promotions. We listened to the album in his car and I’d completely forgotten about Sick Party. So we get to the end of the album and, of course, it comes on and he had to pull the car over, he felt so queasy. That happened to a lot of people because it’s so real. It makes me feel a bit queasy, too!”
I’ll never forget the mud at Glastonbury in 1997… “Ash played on the Other Stage and then there was torrential rain. Back then, Glastonbury didn’t have a lot of infrastructure, so no artist could get on or off site.
98 | Music Week
Our tour bus was sinking in the mud and we were trapped. Steve Winwood was supposed to be headlining the Pyramid, but he couldn’t get on site, so Michael Eavis came to me and asked if Ash could stay and play again. He took me behind what was the one and only beer tent backstage and we negotiated a new fee – a donation for charity – and they went on and headlined. It was magical. It was chucking down with rain, but it was a beautiful moment. They absolutely went for it and people were going nuts.”
I cried during Wolf Alice’s set this year… “I fucking love that band. We have been on a 12-year journey and, at times, it’s been tough. But to see them walk out on stage at Glastonbury to that huge crowd, and then watch them blow everyone away as the sun was going down, was just phenomenal. I could feel it on the side of the stage, so that’s why I got emotional that day, but I wasn’t alone. The first time I saw them play might have been King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow. I think there were two other people in the room, and they were new, but had undeniable presence. And now look at them, just fucking incredible.”
I’ve seen the ‘death of guitar music’ about four times in my career… “Starting with the Stock Aitken Waterman era, where they said it was all over for guitars. But it always comes back, because seeing people physically playing instruments is far more engaging than swiping through videos. I feel like the younger generation have been starved of something emotional for quite some time, so all the new guitar bands coming through are resonating.”
The art of management is… “Perception, positioning and timing. Focus on that for all of the artists that you manage. It’s relevant from when they’re coming out with a demo, to trying to sell tickets in a stadium. And don’t follow the rules. It’s music, it’s emotional. I’ve really struggled to follow rules over my career.”
“The first time I saw Wolf Alice, I think there were two other people in the room... And now look at them – just f**king incredible”
Stephen Taverner, East City Management
musicweek.com
Lone wolf: Manager Stephen Taverner guided
Wolf Alice to No.1 this year with The Clearing
PHOTO: Bex Redwood
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