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12.12.14 Music Week 17
is be able to go to a new artist and say, “We can provide a really great, differentiated service and proposition in each of those areas.” When we’re working with an artist, we’re bringing something different and we can create genuine opportunities and provide a different way of seeing things. Some artists we work with just on one arm,
some two and some all three. Bear’s Den is one example, we’re their label, publisher and London promoter. When that’s working, it really sings, because you’re sitting around a planning table, and on the label side, we’re saying, “Here’s our rollout plan, here’s a media plan”. On the live side, Maz is saying, “We’re going to go on sale here, can we do a bundle?” It’s a very dynamic, commercial conversation. It makes for a powerful concoction, especially when you’re launching new bands and it’s all about being hands-on and in the trenches.
Do you have any plans to move into management? JE: There are moments when you’re working with artists, especially new ones, and it feels like some of the stuff you do is management, certainly strategically. It’s not something we haven’t talked about, but from our point of view, I can’t see it happening any time in the near future. Partly because you get into slightly difficult territory with some of that stuff, and Communion was set up by artists, so a lot of what we do is trying to see things from that artist perspective. We believe it’s important for an artist to have a strong voice, completely on their side, and making sure they’re pushing the boundaries with the companies they work with. I think the other thing is that lots of the managers we work with are just brilliant people. When you’re working with a great manager, it’s having another person on the team, another strong voice and set of eyes. Working with external agents means it’s not just us sitting in a box in our world.
When it comes to breaking a new band, what’s more important between releases and live? MT: If you look at bands like Catfish And The Bottlemen and Mumford & Sons, who cut their teeth by gigging, playing hundreds of shows a year, and you build that fan base nationally as well as just in London, it’s truly something that you can see. A lot of bands struggle to do that now, because of expense, and it’s hard work. I don’t think bands do it enough, but there’s always that fine line of over- playing, and doing it too much. It’s a tricky one.
JE: It’s easy to say on paper, “Go out and play every night of the week”. It’s got to be the right band with the right attitude. Catfish And The Bottlemen are 21-year-olds, they’ve been a band since they were 16. They’ve been playing gigs since then. So what happens is that when they have the media moment, which for them has been Radio 1 support, and you get that bubble of elevation to a wider audience, you have this amazing foundation of people in the UK who at some point have seen a Catfish And The Bottlemen show. They’re ahead of where you’d expect a band whose debut album went Top 10 to be. There’s no substitute for it; it’s not right for
every band though. For certain artists, you need to build the culture around them differently. It might make more sense to exist online with a bit of mystery, or to sit slightly behind a curtain of presentation. But for bands like Catfish, where it’s about connection and singing along, there’s no substitute. Live and Radio 1 support, working in
Wild animals: Two records Communion has released this year, Islands by Bear’s Den and Catfish And The Bottlemen’s debut album, The Balcony
“Communion was set up by artists, so a lot of what we do is trying to see things from that artist perspective” JAMIE EMSELL, COMMUNION
parallel, are perhaps the most powerful combination you can have in the UK at the moment for launching and breaking a band.
Speaking of radio, can you talk about the XFM show? MT: I used to listen to XFM when I was a kid, so it’s quite a big thing for me as well as our brand. It’s a two-hour weekly show on Sunday nights, 7-9pm. I play lots of XFM classics, but also loads of new music from around the world. Generally, there’s an interview with a band that we like; I’ve had Warpaint and Ben Howard on, as well as bands with only a couple of hundred Facebook Likes. Radio can be quite hard for new bands to get on to, especially if you’re not very ‘radio-friendly’.
Do you keep a balance of Communion acts? MT: It’s free rein really.
JE: We have a few bits that fall in the cracks between [live, label and management]. Our weekly mailer is not exclusively Communion acts; we’ll have a download of the week, our favourite video going around... It’s on the basis that that’s how we are in the office. We don’t just sit around talking about our own bands, we talk about music. Our digital and editorial channels are opportunities to share that. It increases our validity when we talk about our own artists, and the radio show is a great extension of that, because it allows Maz to talk like a music fan, but it’s also a great tool for us to give some of our artists their first spin, and introduce them to XFM which is a really influential station.
Are there any acts that you’ve ended up working with after giving them coverage? JE: Certainly on the mailer.
MT: Remember Dustin Tebbutt? I got a link from a friend of mine, asking if I’d heard this track. I played it on the XFM show, put it on the mail-out on a Wednesday, then two days later it got its first Radio 1 play. Now we promote him in London.
JE: The A&R funnel on the label and publishing sides is smaller; we’ve put out four full-length albums this year on the label side, with a small publishing roster of five or six writers. But on the live side, there’s more scope. Maz is a really important part of reaching out and connecting with
artists. He’ll put something in the mailer, then offer to put the band on the club night; it’s an easy, low- pressure way for us to work with a band, and see them play in a supportive environment. It can lead to a headline show, which can lead to a relationship where we’re working with them in other ways.
Is there anything you’re looking to achieve before Communion reaches the ten-year milestone? MT: I’d like to do The O2.
JE: Going into next year, it feels like it’s us arriving and saying: “We’ve got the toolkit now”. We’re a strong standalone publishing proposition, we’ve got Kobalt as our partner. On the label side, we’ve got our distribution set-up with Universal that allows us to do a range of things. On live, we do up to 15 shows a week in London; we have the ability to execute arena-level shows and we’ve got a couple of artists who are beginning to get to that level. I’m more excited about 2015 than any year since I joined. The next wave of artists are ones we can really wrap our arms around.
Do you sell more digitally or physically? JE: It varies by artists. Versus the market, I think we skew digitally. We do a lot of special vinyl product, but in limited runs. So it’s more about nice, high-value, fan-targeted propositions rather than a ship of physical stuff. What’s also interesting is, within digital, the skew of streaming versus downloads. Bear’s Den are a band that massively over-index on streaming. Their total Spotify streams are in the region of 15 million. A song called Sophie, which is on their first EP, has had five million streams. If I knew why that was, I would be rolling it out with everything else. But it’s something about them and their fan base.
Do you also do anything in sync? JE: Licensing and sync are a big part of our business, and are only going to grow. The landscape is interesting; the US is richer territory for a lot of our music, because of the television over there. We’ve had a lot of success with US TV placements. In the UK, there’s big opportunities, but a lot of the TV stuff is more about promo and advertising. We’re really proactive; as a label and a publisher, you’ve got to be, it has to be a big part of your value for an artist. The rewards are significant, and there’s a lot of benefits in terms of exposure. It’s a really important part of the revenue pie for
a label and an artist. We want to make sure we can sit down with an artist and say we’re scrapping for those opportunities. We’re making sure that when we take a band on tour in America, we’re throwing in visits to agents and supervisors.
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