Darcus Beese with Niall Stokes at Music Cork

Niall: Good evening, it is a great privilege to be here today and to sit down and talk to one of the most important and influential figures in the entire record industry. So, we’ll get straight down to business: Darcus, there’s a strong intellectual aspect to your background. You’re related to CLR James, who was a major literary figure in Trinidad. Was it important to you at growing up, that you had that background?

Darcus: With the benefit of hindsight, yes, very much so. You’re built on your upbringing and on the DNA of your genes, the history and the legacy. My great-uncle CLR James and my dad Darcus Howe both had something to do with my outlook on life, absolutely.

And there was a strong political element in that, your father was broadcaster writer, editor, civil rights campaigner, and he edited Race Today. So were you conscious of that issue…

I was literally brought up in the struggle. I was born in 1969; a young black boy walking down the street in London back in the day wasn’t easy. I found most of my childhood was going to demonstrations. My mom and dad were in the Black Panthers. So, I was in the struggle and very much on the demonstrations. There’s pictures of me at the front of the demos holding placards from five, six, seven and onwards. I was born into the struggle, that’s very much part of my outlook.

I actually met your father; Hot Press brought Linton Kwesi Johnson to Dublin, to do a poetry reading. Your father came with him; I think he was writing about it. He was a larger than life sort of character.

Yes, very much so. I mean…I don’t know…he was my father. He never really believed in beating his children, he believed in questioning his children. And I was asking for the strap, I was like dad, just leave it out! So I was engaged from an early age.

And were you aware of reggae music, Bob Marley?

That’s what I grew up with. The household was very much a Caribbean household. So reggae and soul was the order of the day. I remember Linton very early on, as well. His first gigs were that poet–dub–reggae thing, so the soundtrack for me growing up was reggae and calypso music.

Were you aware, at that stage, of the label that a lot of this music was being released on?

Yeah, funnily enough, (that'as) the label that I actually work for now! I actually remember it, crystal clear, from my parents’ record collection. It was a staple part of their record collection and I clearly remember the palm tree, so yeah.

So, Island Records was a big factor from early on?

I remember Front Line Records, more than the Island Records, because Linton was on that label. I was very much aware of the fist around the barbed wire logo. More than I was about the Island logo. That resonated more with me. I don’t know why, but yeah.

You didn’t do the academic thing? Why was that?

I wasn’t really interested in further education. I loved music, I danced – I tap danced. I was very much into the arts, more than I was into education. So I was never going to go onto further education. I was actually going to go be a PE teacher, but again, I didn’t get the qualification, so I left school at sixteen.

And can you explain to us the connection between hairdressing and music?

When I was washing hair, I worked up in the West End with a breed of clientele that I hadn’t met before, and they were from the music industry. I remember meeting this young man called Gordon Charlton who at the time had signed a band called Bros. I don’t know if anyone remembers, but they were huge. I asked him what he did, and he said, “I’m an A&R person.” I said, “Well, what the fuck does that mean?” And he said, “I sign bands” and I said, “Who’ve you signed?” and he said “Bros.” I was like, "Fucking hell!" They were the biggest thing in the world at that point.
So, then I was looking at this guy like he must have the most amazing job in the world. And then I met another guy, a black guy called Lincoln Elias who was probably the only black A&R person at that time in the music industry. He had signed Terence Trent D’arby and I wanted to be him. That’s when my understanding of the music industry began. That’s when I went, “Oh, so this piece of vinyl – it was vinyl at the time – this piece of vinyl that I have (you went to Woolworth’s back then), there’s a process in this. Now I want to understand that process." That’s when I fell in love with the idea of getting in to the music industry. So hairdressing, which is a creative industry, helped me to be in and around the right people to network with.

Okay, so you joined Island records, allegedly, as a tea boy.

Yes, that’s what they called me. Now you would call it an intern. You would call it a paid internship. So yeah, probably the stuff that I got paid to do, you wouldn’t dream of asking an intern to do now. So I brought the dry cleaning in. Not a glorified intern, a glorified dogsbody. But I made an amazing cup of tea.

Chris Blackwell was the founder of Island Records – did he make an impression on you? I know he wouldn’t have been there an awful lot, but he was in and out of the office.

I started at Island when it was still independent. I started in ’88, so a couple years before Polygram bought Island. I was sitting in a room we had called the War Room. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those films where they’re in the war room, conducting the wars. We had this massive whiteboard that had a ladder that you could slide up and down and my job was to fill in what radio plays the bands had that day, what DJs on Radio 1 had played the band, and I had to keep this board. It was massive, I mean, it was the size of this window. It was huge.
One day I was up the ladder and there was a hush that went around the War Room. I looked down and it was Chris Blackwell coming into the room. They all had their heads down, like, “Shit, Chris is here, let’s look like we’re working.” I was seventeen at the time and I just jumped off the ladder like, “Oh, Chris Blackwell!” and he was like, “Yes.” I said, “My name’s Darcus and I run your promotions,” and he’s like, “Where’s promotions?” I pointed, and he’s like, “I thought that was Stiff Records.” Stiff Records hadn’t existed for about 15 years. That’s how infrequently he was in the building, but I took advantage of when he did come in. About three or four months later, Chris was taking all the A&R people to France for the day and I got a call saying, “Chris wants you to go and fly off to France with everyone else.” That was my kind of thing, where, if I put myself in front of these people, I can get a reaction. It might not be good, but I can get a reaction. I made a point to always make sure to put myself on people’s radar. Not leaving the room unless I introduced myself. Now, I could have been the most annoying person around at that point, but…

You worked as an A&R director, can you describe that job?

Well, I was an A&R manager, and you kind of have to go through the years and learn what it is to be an A&R person. So you start as a scout, then you become an A&R manager, and then you become a senior A&R manager. Then, hopefully you get the chance to be rewarded as the director of A&R. At that stage you have to become less selfish, because – as an A&R person – I was selfish as fuck. I only cared about me, myself and my acts. When you become director of A&R, then you have to give a fuck about other peoples’ acts, and you have to give a fuck about them. You become a bit of an HR person. As well as trying to find the balance between being a bit selfish for yourself and your acts, you also have to manage the other people in the department and give them help on their acts as well. You start to become a bit more of a father figure in the department, which I didn’t like.

You didn’t like it?

No.

Why not?

Because I was a selfish A&R person. But then you learn, like all good fathers do, to nurture and bring through the young A&R people, and the artists as well. And then I started enjoying it.

Had you got a strong sense of the kind of acts that Island Records should be signing?

Yes, because I had joined Island when it was still independent. The type of acts that it signed were very left-of-centre and I found them very able to bring these acts into the mainstream. Not all of them – a lot of it was still about culture. So working there from such a young age and then being responsible for its legacy and not wanting to be the person to break it, I had a picture of myself with Chris Blackwell on the wall. That tells me that nothing is gonna change in terms of how he managed it and what his vision for Island was, and the vision that trickled down from him to other people that ran the company before. So, when I took on the mantle, I co-ran it with another guy named Ted, who now runs another okay label (laughs) called Universal. We ran it together. Our thing was, “let’s not break what Island stands for.” A lot of what it stands for is culture, but it also has to be about commerce. The thing that I struggled with initially – when we went from being an independent to Polygram buying us, and us becoming a major – was that we were too small to be an independent, so we had to become a major. It was making that jump to being a major and making that jump to care about the commerce more than the culture that I struggled with. That was hard at the beginning and Island floundered for a few years before it started getting back on the right track. Island started sixty years ago, and I don’t think the type of acts that it brings to market have changed very much. But, it had to keep up with modern times, changing times.

Can you tell us about signing Amy Winehouse? How did that happen?

Again, there’ve been quite a few panels (in Music Cork) about how the artists are brought through and how they come to market. This was long before the internet and Google and being able to search for and being able to find things quite quickly. People talk about the development process: Amy was signed to a publishing company – publishing companies have always signed acts before they have record deals and Amy was one of those people. So, while I can credit signing her to a record label, there was a guy called Guy Moot who had signed her to publishing a year earlier and who, along with her management, had her under lock and key. They were actually doing the right thing. They were trying to develop Amy’s sound and there was a handful of songwriters that were tasked with helping Amy discover what that was.

What was their brief?

That group of songwriters were told, in no uncertain terms, that you don’t tell anybody who you’re working with. I had a meeting with a manager who came to pitch the wares of his producers/writers, and he was playing all this shit on a CD – actually it was a cassette. All of a sudden this girl came on singing and I was like, “Who’s that?” He said, “I can’t tell you, but my boy’s a producer. You wanna talk about my boy?” I said, ”No! I want to talk about this girl.” He said he couldn’t talk about her. I asked, “What do you mean?” and he told me, “We’ve been employed by the managment company to help develop her, so I can’t talk about it.” At that stage I just thought, “OK, I’ll fuck off then,” and I literally had to go on this mission – without the internet – to find this girl. I had to find this voice. It sounds romantic and stuff, but seriously, I had to go and find her. It took weeks and months of asking around, and finally I found out who the manager was.
So, there’s this young kid – if you’ve seen the film Amy – there’s this young kid, Nick Shymansky, and I found out that he was the manager, but he wouldn’t return any of my phone calls. This went on for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Your detective work paid off in the end?

Finally, I found out that he worked at 19 Management which was in a place called Battersea in London. I called another manager in the building and I said, “Can I come and see you?” So, I went up to see this other guy, another manager called Pete Evans, and then I said, “Actually, Pete, it’s not you I’ve come to see. Where’s Nick Shymansky?” He showed me and I went down I knocked on the door. I didn’t wait to be asked in, I just walked straight in. Nick Shymansky just looked at me and he’s like, “Oh fuck! Shit!” And on the floor was this young girl, surrounded by photocopies of a tattoo she had – a feather on her forearm. They were looking for some imagery that they could relate to Amy. She was sitting there surrounded by all these photocopies and I asked, “Is that Amy?” She turned around and I said, “My name’s Darcus. I work at Island Records and I’ve been trying to find you.” She was so matter of fact about it and really didn’t give two shits. I remember going back to my then boss and saying, “I’ve just met Amy.” He’d heard the music and was completely blown away by it. I said, “I met her and she just doesn’t give a fuck, but I want to sign her.” That was the process. We were up against other labels, but thank God, we won the deal.

She was a great singer and a great songwriter, but how important was the look, which made her stand out immediately?

Well, again, when we were talking earlier about an artist’s vision. I don’t think anybody has a clarity of vision at the start. They might have some ideas for how they think it is, and they might have some really strong ideas. Amy, first and foremost, would have called herself a jazz act. She was a jazz singer. She wouldn't call her self a pop singer; she would call herself a jazz singer. That was the strong idea that she had about herself. The look that you talk about – the beehive, the eyeliner – that came much later. When performing, she wouldn't have been seen near a trainer. She was all about Jimmy Choo high heel shoes and she would never have been seen in a Reebok. Cut to Back To Black and she was wearing Reeboks and she had this big high beehive. Her idea for herself – musically and look wise – was a developing thing. Amy’s look developed as she developed and as she developed her music. What she thought it was at the beginning, and then what actually came out four or five years later, was her developing what she thought she was.

Is there a sense, now, that people are trying to complete the package too early and are trying to go to record companies with an attitude of “We know everything about the way we want to be and the way we want to look and the way we want to sound – now are you willing to buy in?” Is that what's happening at the moment?

People always do it. People always believe that they are greatness and sometimes we fall for it, or sometimes we wish it. Sometimes we want that to be the case and greatness comes over a period of time. You start at the bottom of the narrative of how you get from point A to point B, to then get to point C and think, “If I fuck this up, I’m back to point A.” To pick yourself up and go again, that’s a process. I think people walk into companies saying, “Oh look, I’ve got it!” and for the most part, for 99% of the time, they don’t. It has to play out.

To turn that question around then, do you think it’s better for people to go in with an understanding that the A&R guys are going to help them to get to where they need to be?

It’s a form of mentoring, you know, especially if the artist is young, and the managers are young. Everybody wants to come in and say, “We know it all.” People don’t want to look stupid in a room and don’t want to look like they don’t know what they are doing, so they all wing it and act overconfident and sometimes that can get people into hot water. It’s about a team of people allowing each other to be mentored and helping each other through the process of what should be a long, hard process to get a career. We live in an ‘I want it now’ smash and grab culture. What is it to be here in 5 years time? In 10 years time? Everyone can have a hit, everyone can have a monumental first album, and its all good, its all feeling good and everyone is high–fiving. Then the second album comes around and if you have taken all the goodness off the table with the first album, where do you go with the second album? Now that’s not a one size fits all, its different strokes for different folks. In the main I want to be working with people in 5 years and 10 years. I want to be working on the third, fourth and fifth albums.

From an Irish point of view, U2 is the biggest Irish act that was ever signed by Island –where do they sit in your version of what Island is?

Oh, they are Island. There’s Bob and there’s U2. I’ve had the joy of being in the inner sanctum and seeing how it works and there’s a reason why they know how it works. There’s a reason why | say that about them, that they are Island as must as U2, because they have been there most of the time and they have bankrolled Island. Island was an Independent. It was just about to go down the drain and they said, “Don’t pay us our royalties this year. I want to save my company.” That’s who they are. They are as important to the company as Chris Blackwell is, to me.

They started well with Boy and they then famously made a hames of things with October, where the album was rushed and unfinished. Do you think that they would get to make a third album in the modern world?

It depends what label they were on. With Island? Absolutely, but I totally understand what you mean. If you’re actually serious about what it takes to have really great amazing global acts that stand the test of time, then it should all come together on album three. We have a band called Catfish and the Bottlemen and their first album did really well. If they had a couple of songs on the radio or better songs on the record, we could have taken it all off the table on album one, but they had a very clear version of themselves. They didn't want that radio record and they actually shied away from records that sounded too pop. If it sounded too pop, then they took it off the record and I was like, “Oh we’ll do that on album two then,” and album two came and it was exactly same thing, the same mantra as the first album. So, I was hoping it would all come together on album three, in terms of the global breakthrough. It’s horses for courses. I like a roster that has stuff that you want quick and fast, that you can ping off in the microwave like a pop tart. Then you also want something that is more slow roasted in the Aga, that you want to stew and you want it to marinate. While it’s stewing you can take some of the microwave food and keep going until the good stuff is ready. When the good stuff is ready, then you can bring it out to the table. That’s the proper soul food that’s satisfying and that sits in your stomach and lets you feel like you’ve have had a good meal, that you don’t have to eat again for a while. That’s how I compare music to food (laughs).

You also had major success with Florence and the Machine, so what was it about Florence?

Again, to be clear: I don’t want to sound like I signed all these bands. There is a team of people – A&R people and marketing people and radio people – that support us, and Florence was in a situation then with Ben Mortimer, who took me to see her supporting a band called the Ting Tings. I remember, it was a really shit gig. She was bashing pots and pans. She literally had pots and pans on the stage and was bouncing off the speaker stacks. It was a complete shambles, but in the midst of it you could see that there a potential star there. I remember, Ben said, ‘What do you think?’ and I said ‘I haven't got a fucking clue! But she looks like she could be a star.’ So then you have to back the process, and luckily enough the process paid off.

You signed Taio Cruz – were you were involved in the creative shift, from the R&B of Departure to the poppier sound of Rock Star?

It’s about having a mixed roster and as much as it is about that culture of bringing acts slowly through, again I needed some of that microwave food. That microwave food tastes good! Taio was that and we had made the first album which did ok, it was a gold record and he was probably the inception of us owning the pop R’n’B, because that’s very much an American thing. I remember Taio called me from America and said “I’ve been writing with this dude called Dr Luke” – this was just after having a massive hit with ‘Break Your Heart’, and he said “I‘ve got this tune.” He sent me the chorus and it was dynamite, it was a hit chorus. He ended up finishing it off and it was a Number 1 around the world It was my first American Number 1 and that was the kickstart of the UK’s pop R'n'B resurgence. I’d like to think I was part and parcel responsible, but we were just there at the right time and Taio went on to sell something stupid like 30 million singles.

And how did you respond then when the third album didn't do so well?

There are certain genres that don't stand up too well in that regard and it starts happening in pop R&B because, part of it was to do with Apple. iTunes let you download songs from an album. They’ve un-tethered the songs from the record, which allows people to say “Fuck the album, I’ll just take the single,” and that kind of happened around the time of the Taio Cruz album. He was huge at the time, he had sold 30million singles and we thought we’re going to clean up on the third album. When the 3rd album came out it just pfft – and that led to the first understanding, even before Spotify, that there is a certain business that is driven by the hit song and in that world people don't necessarily want the album. Spotify has crystallised that now, but it was in the makings around that time, that habit started to take hold.

You achieved what has been called a bit of a coup by signing the young Norwegian star Sigrid, so tell us about how that happened?

That happened, because young Annie – where’s Annie? There she is! – Annie Christiansen is the main A&R person at Island Records. She’s responsible for Mumford coming in the door, responsible for Ben Howard coming through the door, responsible for Hozier coming through the door, with Mark Crossingham, where’s Mark? Respect to Mark! She gave me Singrid. I’d like to say I was at a gig and I discovered this girl singing, but she played me Sigrid. The song was called ‘Don't Kill My Vibe’, and I responded like I did to Mark when he played me Hozier’s ‘Take Me To Church’. There are some songs where you just go, "Who the fuck is this?‘Where are they from? Where do they live?" It was like, “Jump on a plane and get to them now!” Whether it was flying here for Hozier, or flying to Bergen for Sigrid – just go and get in the heat of competition.
Where’s Willy? Willy (Ryan) looks after us in the deal so it’s cool. You’re in the heat of the deal and the other labels are trying to kill you, they’re trying to piss all over your name, your credibility and authenticity. So you have to go out of the gates and luckily management and lawyer were very respectful and understanding. If you ever cop stuff, it never ends up in a good place, it becomes about the deal and not about the people. It becomes about the zeroes but not about the strategy. You can do a million pound deal, but what kind of stress does that put on the economics? When it came to Sigrid, you had people in the mix that cared about what happened the day after the deal was signed. You’re high-fiving about the deal and then it’s ‘’What next?’. If you’re in a situation where the lawyers and managers care about what happens next, then you’re in a good place with the deal.

Amy Winehouse was a desperate tragedy and it must have been quite tough for you personally. Looking back, do you think there was a moment, as a record company, or as a record company person, that you might have done more?

All the time, all the time. I think it has made me super sensitive now to our artists, having a bad day or having a cough… “Are you alright? Are you ok?” Again, it was mentioned here earlier how you forget about the fragility of people’s minds, artists or people in the workplace. You do need to give a shit about that, whether it is the artist or people in the workplace – they can have serious problems, be it depression or addiction. You just have to be a bit more sensitive to it and a bit more understanding. People have parents and outside support systems around them, but I do think that there was room to maybe have done more. Listen, if we thought this in hindsight… we did try really hard, but if someone doesn’t want to be helped you can’t help them. My thing, why I felt a bit of guilt, was because the best place for her to be was in the studio. Look, you can do drugs in the studio, you can get fucked up in the studio and that’s what happened. Then you say, “Well let’s send her away” – and we sent her away to the West Indies, and she did lots of drugs in the West Indies. We had her put into rehab, The Priory, and she got drugs into The Priory. So, whatever you do, however you do it, unless that person wants to be helped then you're not going to be able to help them. You still look back and you have your pangs of guilt.
Now I just threaten to pull the plug on stuff. I have no issue on just pulling the plug, until you get help – and I have had to have a couple of those conversations with managers and a couple of artists, where I am super sensitive to that now. As much as I'm the President of a record company, I also do a lot of HR, and a lot of therapy sessions.

Sure.

I hope I answered that ok.

I wonder did it make you feel: I really don't want to go through that terrible experience again, working with someone who ended up making the worst decisions possible.

Well yes, at some point you have to say, “I don't want to be a part of this.” Whether you’re pulling the plug on a relationship, or pulling the plug on a contract, I don't think there should be any hesitation about how you handle that kind of situation. I'm only able to talk about it because I've gone through a traumatic experience with an artist. Until you go through it, you don't know how to deal with it, and so I live and I learn. The sad thing for everyone was that it was at the expense of Amy.

On a slightly lighter note, would you be very aware of what is going on in Ireland at any given time?

Yeah, I was. I sort of own a record label over there. I said to my mum today, “I'm going to Cork today,” and she was like, “What have you done?!” I was like, “Cork, not court!” But, yes of course I have to be. I have scouts and I have A&R people that give me the brief of the situation: Mark Crossingham, Universal Ireland, Willie Ryan Management. I've had a long relationship with Ireland. I haven't been here shit loads in relation to how long that relationship has been.

Most of the greatest storytellers and singers come from Ireland. Again, I was having a conversation with Hozier's dad and brother today and I said “What the fuck is it, between the the West Indians and the Irish? How do Irish people and Jamaicans sound the same?” Right? When Jamaicans say: 1 2 tree and the Irish go: 1, 2, tree! Well there's 'No blacks, No dogs, No Irish,’ so there’s that affinity as well. Also, the lilting voice, the storytelling, the love of the lyric, the understanding of the melody: it’s very much an Irish thing, so it translates globally.

Are you aware of the music of black origin, now, that’s happening in Ireland? Rusangano Family and people like that. There’s a very interesting new scene emerging, which you could say represents the new Ireland . There was a time when Philip Lynott was the only black guy in Ireland. Well that ain't so anymore!

No, but in terms of growing up here now? Well you would expect that generation of people growing up here would have their own story to tell – like back in the UK where grime is exploding. But that’s after a decade. It's taken a generation of young kids to grow and master the art and the craft: to have a voice and to know how to use that voice. If that’s happening here, that’s a beautiful thing. Whenever there’s a hybrid thing going on, that gets very exciting, and the hybrid thing is just a mix of culture, and the mixture of sonics – and that becomes how the next generation tells its story. So, I will look into it!

What are you most proud of with what you've done so far in the record business?

I'm proud of... I could go for a whole list of things, but I think the thing I’m most proud of in terms of the music industry is that I, or we – in terms of the people that work at Island – haven't broken it. Island has such a unique legacy that has actually been unbroken for the past 60 years. The label was never put into mothballs, and then pulled out to give to someone to say, “Here, here's a logo, you can run this logo.” It’s been a front-line label for over 50 years and the thing I can say is that I’m really proud that we haven’t broken it.

AUDIENCE Q&A

Ok so we'll throw it up to the floor, has anyone got any questions?

Please God, just one person.... please.

Hi how’s it going? I wanted to ask a question as it was touched on briefly in the previous talk about Stormzy and Skepta and about music that is somewhat braver about social and political commentary. As somebody who is obviously the president of Island records, how do people on your team feel about listening to music that is a bit more open about things like that?

Again, every major record label, even independent record label has their own USP of what makes them – them. I look back historically at what Island records has always done. It signed Linton Kwesi Johnson, who was a dub poet and was very politically charged, up to a couple of years ago when I signed a young fellow called George the Poet, who very much was political. I loved him, yet he didn’t love me, because he asked me to let him go from the label! That doesn't change the initial ambition for what you want your label to stand for, so the conversation with me could be totally different from the conversation you might have with somebody at Colombia, or Parlophone. My upbringing means that I have a totally different outlook to a white middle class man running a record label. I was brought up in the struggle. I'm a black man, running a label that has a varied roster and I always say to people, whether its staff or whether its artist, “What do you stand for?” And some artists go “Well I don’t fucking know”, and I just want to hear it and that's cool. Some artists can answer it, and some artists get asked that question and say, “I get why you're asking me that question, I’ll come back to you.” and then they go away and figure it out. It's very much about what you stand for and, as an artist in a sea of people not saying anything – especially with what’s going on in the world now and how fucked up the world is and how hard it is for the youth coming through. Where is the next Sex Pistols, where is the next Nirvana? People say bands have stopped, but if a Kurt Cobain came along he would definitely change the course of people’s perception of bands. I remember when I signed Mumford, that was the band against the backdrop of bands not getting signed, and what he was saying was very spiritual if you listen to Mumford's lyrics, they're very spiritual. It’s very much about what you stand for and what label you end up signing to. Does that label understand you enough not to touch a hair on your head, and to just go out there and let you be you? If you want to sign, and be somebody else, I say go sign to another label. If you want to sign and become the best version of you, come to Island.

*applause*

Hi, how are you? Thanks so much for speaking to us. Sorry to put you on the spot here, but a couple of us down the back are singer-songwriters, and a manger outside, we would love to steal you for like a 10-minute chat after this? 5 minutes?

I met one of you earlier on....

Did you?

And I gave you my email address, but I’ll see you after for a couple of minutes.

Yeah? There you go! Thank you!

Yeah that's great, thank you.

Are you conscious of possibly breaking Islands legacy, doesn't that temper your propensity to take risks?

No you have to take risks, it depends on what floats your boat and what you want to get up in the morning and do. Some people just go, “Well I want to have a hit,” and that’s cool. There’re some people that go, “I want to move the needle, I want to be part of how culture changes,” and that’s beautiful, and I love to be in business with both those kinds of people. But, the excitement and the passion comes when people take a chance, when people have the passion to take a chance and take a risk. I mean, I couldn’t have told you in a million years that ???? were going to sell millions of records. I couldn’t have told you that Amy was going to go on to be the most iconic female singer of her generation. I couldn’t have predicted Ben Howard, I couldn’t have told you what Hozier was going to do. All I could say was, “Fuck, this music’s amazing! How do we bring this to market?” The only time I could tell you that was when I heard Tyler Cruise’s ‘Dynamite’ and Jessie J’s ‘Price Tag’. You do think, “That’s a hit record.” My son told me that was a hit record, so there’s not much genius there. It’s that moment when you hear something and you go, “Oh shit, this is amazing!” and you go, “How the hell did that happen?” That’s what I’m aiming for, and hopefully that’s what the majority of us are aiming for.
50:19

Niall: 2 more questions

So Darcus I've a question. Clearly you're leading a company in this business which is brutal to say the least. You can't be afraid to fail. So can you talk about one of your biggest failures, what you learned from it and how *cut off from laughing and clapping*

Biggest misses or biggest failures?

Doesn't matter, either one..

Again, I'm gonna say it for the room, Annie. Half the industry… this kinda goes back to what you said about Gaga. We used to run a competition that was kinda like battle of the bands wasn't it? Don't cover your face Annie! *laughs* We used to run this thing called Battle of theBbands and a young red head guy won it *laughs*. You thought I was gonna say Ed Sheeran didn't you? I was talking about Newton Falkner. Nah, it was Ed. It was, and he won the competition and the person or the band that won the competition was gonna get a singles deal. He won it and he didn't want the singles deal. So I was like "Who the fuck is this dude?" Annie.. *laughs* and the rest is fuckin' history! * laughs* But again, ya know, the only way I'd stop Annie from killing me is cause Annie took me to see Ed. I remember going to see a hip hop concert, a rap concert in town, and it was this kid called Devlin and I remember walking in and the crowd was going nuts but no one was rapping – someone was singing. It was at Koko in London it was packed, people going nuts, and as I walked through the crowd I was thinking, “Who are they going nuts at?” and there he was. It was Ed on stage, and I was like "Aw fuck, shit!" *laughs*. If we had signed Ed… you know we tried to sign Rag N Bone Man and I remember listening to ‘Human’ when it was a hit on the radio. He co-wrote the song with a guy named Jamie Hartman, and I could not tell you if I signed Rag N Bone Man that I would've put him together with Jamie Hartman to create ‘Human’. So again, we could've signed Ed and made a completely fucking raw record. There's a lot of stuff that we end up missing, just as Rob missed Gaga *laughs*. You just hope that you're successful in other places so that you can go, “Yeah we missed that, but we got this.” It still hurts *laughs*. I think we live in an industry where we work on a high percentage of failure, and that's why I don't get caught up in the "We're gonna go sell millions of records." I always think that we're one step away from oblivion and you should recognise that. The failures are failures and if you don't learn from it and come around again with another act or with another strategy to make that failure okay, you’re done. There are as many failures as there are successes. There are a lot of bodies buried in my garden *laughs* and under my sofa.

Okay one final question before we finish.

It was just basically what you advise a new songwriter at this stage? There's a room full of songwriters in here and I know there's lots of talents and I just wondered what you would say to the young artist, what’s your advice?

Songwriting is a craft, and like anything you just have to become really good at it and beyond really good at it you have to become great at it. Some people just think that you're alive, and over a period of six months or eight months of the year something's gonna happen. When people that have actually got it and tell you the story, the story's always a struggle and the story's like "I had to have rhino skin." You also have to have a high bar for yourself and understand that you're in a town full of people, in a city full of people… in a world full of people! And a lot of them want to be songwriters. So, you can only try and be as good as you can be. Understand what good is, and then understand what amazing is, because some people just get caught up in good. “Ah this is amazing," no it's not, it's good. "This is amazing," no, it’s okay. When you hear something amazing you kinda go, "Fuck that's amazing." Stop using the overplayed words of "This is amazing." Understand the bar and try to understand what it is that make songs travel. Not just hit songs, but songs that resonate on the first lyrics or with the first line, or the first verse, the story. You know, people like to talk about hit songs. A lot of acts that I've had success with have had a different kind of hit song, where it's not about whether it gets to number one, it's about "does it resonate and does it help sell the artist proposition.” Trust me, nowadays you can have a hit song on Spotify, but try and sell a ticket. People talk about 60 million streams? You'll sell 10 tickets, right? So, it's important whether you're a songwriter or an artist, what is the benchmark? how do I get better at my craft? Because when I get better at my craft, I will get a reaction, and when I get a reaction what is that reaction? It's about the craft. When you talk about great songwriters and they tell you their story, there's a whole narrative, there's the highs and the lows. There's the unanswered calls, there's the ordinary songs and then all of a sudden you write one song and the heavens open, Gabriel trumpet's out. And you’ll sit in a room with people going "Oh my God" and you'll never know it. Because usually you’ll know someone who says “That's an amazing song,” and you’ll go "Is it really?" "No seriously, that is amazing!" It's about always getting the feedback. Some of the feedback you might not like, but at some point someone will go "Woah, woah, woah! Stop everything, that's amazing!" and those are the kind of moments that you have to understand. How long are you songwriting for?

Four years or so.

The Struggle is real. You talk to most people and they’ll tell you that those are the breaks. You can come to four years and think, “I’ll go get a proper job.” If you just stick in one more day then maybe that phone would ring. Some people draw the line in the sand too early. It’s about how tough your skin is and whether you understand what it is to be great.

Thank you very much for your talk. You’ve spoken a lot about storytelling and as a person who has gone from the bottom of the ladder to the top in this industry, what’s a story that brings a smile to your face.

There was a period of time where I was working and thinking, “What’s next?” All I cared about was being an A&R person and being successful with really great artists. Then, one day, you never think it will happen to you, but the chairman of the company comes to you and says, “I’d like you to run the company.” You kind of look at him and start to throw up all over him… (laughs) … and he says you’re going to need a president and a co–president. I asked could we be MDs? President’s a bit high–falluting. He said, “No, you’re president.” I remember walking out the building and phoning my mom and her going, “What!?” That was my reaction that was in my head too. But, that would have had to be one of the proudest days of my life. So, thank you for putting a smile on my face.