ATC and Raw Power Management have revealed their unified battle plan after joining forces earlier this year.
ATC announced a majority investment in Raw Power back in May in a deal that brought together the two management businesses under one roof.
Speaking in the latest issue of Music Week, ATC’s Brian Message and Raw Power’s Craig Jennings explained why the alliance made sense.
“I’ve got so much admiration for everything ATC have done, and we loved all their artists, ATC Live and the businesses around it,” said Jennings. “Of all the people that we’d spoken to over the years – and we’d spoken to quite a few – this was one where straight away I was like, ‘We’ve got to make this happen, this is perfect.’
“I know what our people are like and I sensed it was the same with Brian: really good people, no egos."
Message, who told the industry "we're open for business", said the appreciation was mutual, praising Jennings as "a very generous and spirited guy".
"That makes it very easy because there’s a feeling of wanting to collaborate and make it work,” he added. “We’re talking to some managers now about potentially joining us and we’re doing it together.
"We are looking to expand the manager base, much like we’re looking to expand the agent base as well.”
A key for us is to really grow this business but with really strong people around the acts as well, so it never feels too big
Craig Jennings
Jennings discussed his ambitions for the combined company.
“We want to build a roster, but we also want managers coming in who are in control of their artists, strong managers in their own right," he said. "A key for us is to really grow this business but with really strong people around the acts as well, so it never feels too big.
ATC Management, which is part of the independently-owned ATC Group, represents more than 60 artists, composers and producers, including Nick Cave, The Smile, PJ Harvey, Yaeji, The Hives, Sleaford Mods, Johnny Marr, Black Country, New Road, Kelela, Isobel Waller-Bridge and Kwes.
Raw Power meanwhile, which was founded by Jennings in 2006, represents rock artists including Bring Me The Horizon, Bullet For My Valentine, The Mars Volta, The Damned, You Me At Six, Don Broco, Heartworms, Kid Kapichi, The Chisel and Refused.
"Both companies can retain their identity," said Jennings. "I look at everything ATC does in both live and management, and there’s a lot of my favourite artists in there – Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, The Smile, Sleaford Mods – all that stuff is fantastic. We’re bringing something slightly different, but I think it’s a really fascinating partnership.
"An obvious thing we could have done is go somewhere where there’s a lot of rock acts but we’ve been trying to manoeuvre away from that for a while. We want to be a company that can be nimble around various genres. It’s interesting the way that Bring Me The Horizon have evolved over the years and I think we, as a company, have evolved in tandem.
"At the moment, Jordan Adetunji is Top 30 in the US – Dan Jenkins is the senior manager on that project – doing all these massive hip-hop and R&B shows across America, and it’s blowing up on US radio. It shows me that we can do anything we want to do here.”
I think our collective experience and the fact this deal has happened will help bring a diversity of genres into ATC
Brian Message
Message suggested diversifying ATC's roster would be a key area of focus.
“We’re not really in the pop area and it would be nice for us to talk to people in that space," he said. "I think our collective experience and the fact this deal has happened will help bring a diversity of genres into ATC. I’ll be gobsmacked if that doesn’t happen in the next few years.”
The partnership has seen Raw Power’s UK team, including Jennings and commercial director Don Jenkins, relocate to ATC Management’s London HQ. It is also “mirrored in the US” with the merging of both companies’ Los Angeles-based operations. Message and Jennings elaborated on their plans in the US and elsewhere.
“What’s great for both of us is that we’ve got the establishments in New York and Los Angeles to bolt on," noted Message. "To have [Raw Power US president] Matt Ash and what Bring Me The Horizon do in America gives us a bit more credibility and weight across the American challenge. We’re always looking to drive more business there.
“We definitely want to push forward with more managers. We have a partnership deal on [booking agency] ATC Live with a company called Arrival and that’s been working pretty well now for the past 18 months, so we’re continuing to make that work.
"On the American front as well, we acquired Sandbag last year to have some distribution capability, not just in merchandise but also in physical goods, digital and so forth. They have an American business that does very well, so we want to grow that capability – that’s definitely a priority for us.”
Japan is another area of interest for Jennings.
“We’ve got a guy called Rew Kubayashi in Japan who’s been doing a lot for us and I think we’re going to utilise Rew across the company more," he said. "There’s a lot of things we do in Japan that have been instrumental in a lot of the recent stuff that has been going on with Bring Me The Horizon, which is huge, and Brian’s got Thom Yorke going there doing a load of stuff. Having someone there might be something we can build on; we see this as a global thing.”
Subscribers can read the full Music Week Interview with Jennings and Message here.
