Artist Manager Politics—Building The Dream

Like frontier scouts taking early American settlers west, the artist manager must navigate his/her clients’ careers through the tangled opportunities that have become today’s entertainment industry. The digital era has given rise to a robust grid involving print, TV, radio, social networks, marketing and so much more. It has also lowered many barriers to entry. Recording music no longer requires astronomical budgets; an artist’s Facebook page is free. New young talents are getting discovered on YouTube singing into a cell phone in their bedroom. And yet, sometimes the old cliches still ring true—the more things change the more they stay the same. Country artists reaching for the brass ring of mainstream success still must walk many of the same trails traveled by the artists that came before them.

To get some firsthand perspective MusicRow spoke with the heads of two fast developing new management companies, Marion Kraft Owner of Shopkeeper Management and Jason Owen, Owner of Sandbox Entertainment. The two have many things in common: they each worked for larger firms before deciding to form their own company, they are both recent additions to the CMA Board of Directors and they both quickly built rosters with high profile, successful clients. Their comments below prove they have another trait in common, they are fiercely loyal and protective of their artists.

MR: Is being a manager what you expected?
Marion Kraft: There are a lot of misconceptions about what managers do. I was lucky because I came into the management world by default. I worked as a stylist and an artist assistant. I was able to go on tour and experience many different angles of what people do, so by the time I became a day-to-day manager with a band, I mostly knew what was expected.

Jason Owen: Coming from the label side and recently getting into management, I had no clue about exactly what was required. Sitting in my label chair I’d think, why is this manager taking so long to call us back with an answer? I felt like it should have been easier for them—until I stepped into this role, and started to see it from their side.

Jason Owen with client Shania Twain. Photo: Jonathan Frazier

MR: How picky are you about who you choose to work with?
Marion: I only sign clients that can sing. [laughs] I have to feel something. When you are a smaller outfit you only have limited time to succeed. Something I learned while being a day-to-day manager for bigger companies is that the more clients you have, the less focus you can put on individual people. With large rosters you establish a favorite and start spending more time on that person. When I went on my own, I had only one client—Miranda Lambert. We forged a close working relationship. Miranda trusts me to sort through details, but at the end of the day she decides her own career and is very active and involved in what she wants to do. But back to choosing artists, of course everyone is picky, but the good news is everyone has different tastes.

Jason: Both manager and artist should be picky because they’ll be working together 24/7. It’s like a shotgun wedding—short on the engagement and long on the marriage. It’s about a relationship. It’s about a belief and trust in each other to get the job done. Sometimes you have to follow your gut and take the leap and see where it takes you. In other cases, it’s like any relationship, it just takes time and work.

Marion: Ideally, I like my clients to write their own music and record other people’s songs too which keeps them tied into the songwriter’s community which is important. If they have a message and can say it a certain way then we truly discover who this artist is. That revelation is important for fans to connect with the artist and feel like they aren’t being sold smoke and mirrors. I want to be part of building careers for artists that matter. They may not matter to everyone, but they do to me and hopefully to enough people to build their dreams into a career.

Jason: It’s the artist and managers responsibility to grow the brand from the beginning even if it is a new baby act. You start to see where your tentacles lie and how to build the brand in the right way.

MR: Are artist’s careers like pieces on a chess board that need to be orchestrated?
Marion: If there was a formula everyone would use it and all artists would be successful. We don’t create the brand, we enhance it. Each person comes with their own special identity—musically, performance wise and looks wise. You’ve been given some raw diamond. I don’t like to manufacture around it, I like to foster it. See what surfaces naturally, allow the true spirit of that person to come out and then help develop it. When artists are a little younger you also get to be part of assisting in their development as a human. Within two years you will know if it is something important for our format or any format or not.

Jason: I have plans for each artist, but it’s one thing to create and another to execute. It’s just as important to allow the career process to evolve. Often we guide the trip by maneuvering around obstacles and adjusting to life. I’m a quick-thinking problem solver. That’s my biggest tool set, I guess. That and my awesome staff. Our jobs as managers in large part are about the bigger picture, but it’s often the tiny details that we deal with. Handling those details is all about problem solving and doing it fast.

Marion Kraft with clients Chris Young, Miranda Lambert and Josh Kelley.

MR: Jason you have a diverse roster. How do you stay focused on what to do for each of them?
Jason: I currently represent three artists. Shania Twain is already an established brand and obviously a superstar. She’s been gone for a long time and now is coming back in a big way. For her it’s about bringing the brand back out front. To do this we created a TV docu-series for OWN, a book and her Las Vegas residency. Our goal with all of these new areas for Shania is to tie them to new music. With Little Big Town, the key to moving this exceptionally talented group forward is to expose them to as many people as possible. They’ve had some great radio hits and mind blowing performances on the road. The work ahead is mostly about guiding their process and keeping everything filtered through the eye of the brand, and engaging opportunities that will deliver the most exposure. My third client, Casey James is a brand new artist—a fresh slate, in the studio. From the American Idol perspective, his TV experience offers a chance to start working from an established fan base. But it’s simply icing on the cake, Casey is very talented and fans will flock to his music anyway. Marion has dealt with the same situation—both Miranda and Chris Young came from music competition shows. She’s used those platforms to her artists’ advantage, but not as the focal point of their brand and it has worked exceptionally well.

MR: Not long ago the label was the bank and provided the tons of cash necessary for career building. They had all the leverage. Today?
Marion: Record labels today are partners. There is none of this unequal sense about it. Perhaps in the ’80s and ’90s when labels were running things everyone needed to be close to the money to make things happen. But labels realized now they needed better artist access and working closer with managers was the way to achieve that. The manager best understands what their artist is willing to do. There are pros and cons for working with and/or without label support. But the labels I deal with offer a really good support system for me. With baby or developing acts it’s about educating people. There are many talented artists that can sing. Our job is to lift our artist out from the crowd. My chances are pretty good with a big record label since I get maybe 100 people talking about the artist right away. I look at them as an extension of my staff, but I don’t have to pay their salaries. Are there  certain artists that aren’t going to get label deals that should have a career? Yes, and they will find other career avenues. I am especially excited about this time we live in. You can make music, videos, etc. inexpensively. But regardless, you truly have to have talent to get to the next level. When artists realize how much work it takes to make their dreams come true, it quickly eliminates the posers. With radio, Internet, TV there are so many places that need to be worked.

MR: Are there boundaries or off limit times between artists and managers?
Marion: It’s like any relationship, almost a marriage with your office wife or husband. No, I don’t get calls a 3 a.m. Do I get calls at midnight? Sometimes, but it is usually something important. It’s about common sense and if you sign an artist that has some, you’re better off.

Jason: I do get calls at 3 a.m. sometimes, because I have an artist that lives in Switzerland so we have to deal with time zones, but I don’t have rules. Luckily I have clients that won’t call at those late hours unless it’s urgent.

MR: How far will you inject yourself if you believe your artist is making a bad decision? Can you do it without creating bad feelings?
Marion: Artists hire you because they trust you and you develop a track record working together. Ultimately, you’d try to stop them from bad choices, but I’ve never had that sort of problem with any of my clients. We never seem to be arguing about do this or don’t do it. They know they have the final say so it’s more like a conversation and we lay things out. Then, if necessary we deal with any repercussions it generates. But I really don’t have any crazy horror stories.

Jason: Yes, it comes down to mutual trust. If I take something to an artist and they say, “No,” very rarely will I come back and ask again unless I really feel it’s important.

Marion: Miranda has one rule, it’s very simple. If I ask her for something that I know she probably doesn’t want to do, she understands I wouldn’t take it to her if I didn’t think it was absolutely important. So she looks at me and says, “You really think it is important for me to do this?” If I say, “Yes,” then she says, “OK.” It’s important to give artists the freedom of realizing that not everything is a career changing moment. Considering the workload we put on them, it’s also important to build a private life for them. Chris Young told me when we started working together, “I don’t need any down time, I work all the time.” I still built in some time off for him because everyone needs to feel refreshed and start over. Recently Chris said to me, “You know I’m really looking forward to those ten days.” So we are their career guidance counselors, and a little bit their mother, father and best friend. But I’m a big believer in having a 10% buffer where you want to know they are happy, but not the inner workings of what goes on. That’s what their friends and family are for. Protecting their privacy helps them trust you with their careers.

MR: With Facebook, Twitter and photo phones everywhere, can a superstar artist have a private life?
Jason: Yes, they can have privacy. Shania made the decision to speak publicly about some events in her life. She wrote the book. She has been extremely private for her entire life, but reached a point where she wanted to tell the story in her words. And there is something freeing about that. She had nothing to prove, but wanted to set it out so it never had to be asked again and we won’t discuss it again after this run. It was a hard decision to make. Hard for me to let it go because I have been with her for ten years maintaining that privacy. But as we went through this journey together and specifically within the press in the last few weeks it freed me as well.

Marion: One reason why our clients trust us with their business is because we protect them and keep their world private. But sometimes we purposely pull out a certain piece of that life and publicize it—in a controlled manner, like Jason did with Shania. For example, with Miranda’s wedding we didn’t want 50 people taking pictures of the bride and posting them. Instead we gave up 12 images that both Miranda and Blake felt good about.

MR: What about picking partners and partnerships?
Marion: Birds of a feather flock together. Miranda and I have worked together the longest of all my clients. We wanted to develop a team that felt like family, people we care about. The youngest in our group has been with us over four years. For a road crew with 15-20 people that’s a good track record. In our world privacy and confidentiality are very important and I attract people that understand that concept. If you are drawn to this, add something valuable, and are real, we are going to let you in to become part of the team.

MR: What’s a day in the life like for you?
Marion: You make plans but it’s never what you thought it was going to be. Physical fitness is an important day starter, then I usually talk to the agents to see what is going on. I don’t tour with my artists, but when a record comes out or there’s a TV performance, I go. Any photo shoots I cover. When something may alter the brand in any way I want to be there to help avert anything that may go sideways. Someone needs to be there that can make a decision on the spot.

Jason: I do my note taking at night. I lay in bed, turn the TV off and my head just spins thinking of everything that is on my plate over the next few days plus potential ideas. I like to handwrite in a notebook. In the morning I also start at the gym then go into the office to return calls, emails, etc. Then there are artist planning meetings. Lately, I’ve been doing more traveling than when I was at Universal.

MR: What are your favorite tools?
Marion: People. If you have an established artist that everyone wants a piece of then the phone rings and you just answer it. If you have a baby act, then you are the one dialing. And that’s why in the end people are your tools because the country format is so supportive. We are all so proud of our artists, format and our fans. So we help one another and let each other’s baby acts tour along with our bigger acts. I’m very proud to be part of the country format in this community because it is awesome. Anyone you call that you need something from, they may not be able to do it for you, but they are going to give it their best shot.

Jason: That’s it. I have a lot of great relationships with people I like to bounce ideas off. For example, I share offices with Clarence Spalding and sometimes look to him for advice or an opinion. I do the same with Luke Lewis. Sometimes having fresh eyes on something that’s got you feeling boxed in is key. The community side among managers is terrific.

Marion: Sometimes it is as simple as asking, “I’m filling a position, you have in your company, what is the salary range?” We all have separate companies, but it is nice to have some consistency. And we’re lucky to have a group of experienced managers we can call like Clarence and Doc McGhee for example.

MR: Is management a good way to get rich quick?
Marion: If you are in it for the money it’s not the right job for you. Be there for the passion and because you can bring business sense, industry experience and creativity. It’s left brain and right brain. You must be detail oriented, have an overview, be able to plan short term and adjust quickly. I never came into the music industry for the money. I was just hoping to make a living at it.

Jason: I’d been with Universal Music for 9 years. I thought about management and was approached by acts from time to time, but I wasn’t ready. Then in my last year, Shania asked me to manage her. I couldn’t say no. During my tenure at UMG I handled her marketing and all of her publicity. The opportunity just felt right and I knew I could be successful. I’d come to a point in my career at the label where it was time to decide if I wanted to continue working for a large company or step out on my own. It was an incredibly hard decision to make for all the reasons you would think, but for me the hardest part of that decision was leaving my long time friend and mentor, Luke Lewis. He was incredibly supportive of me throughout my years at UMG and the support has not stopped since I left. It was also hard leaving the incredible staff of friends that make up UMG. I quickly learned that setting up a new business is not easy. It makes you appreciate all the little things that a large company handles for you, like IT, phones, payroll, etc. But when it’s all set up it gives you pride to say to yourself, “I did this.”