All posts tagged dew-process

  • Qweekend story: ‘The Grass Is Greener: Paul Piticco’, July 2014

    A story for the July 19 issue of Qweekend magazine; a profile of Australian music entrepreneur Paul Piticco. The full story appears below.

    The Grass Is Greener

    Paul Piticco struck success while managing Powderfinger and now oversees an empire that stretches beyond music into events and hospitality

    Qweekend story by Andrew McMillen: 'The Grass Is Greener: Paul Piticco', July 2014. Photograph by Russell Shakespeare

    by Andrew McMillen / Portrait photograph by Russell Shakespeare

    ++

    Five of the men who walk out onto Brisbane Riverstage on this warm Saturday night are well-known to the 10,000 fans in attendance, as together they have written some of Australia’s most popular songs. Between encores, though, another bloke in a grey suit with short black hair makes an appearance. Drummer Jon Coghill playfully wipes a towel across the stranger’s forehead. The band’s frontman approaches the microphone. “Ladies and gents, we have to introduce the virtual sixth member of Powderfinger: this is our manager,” says Bernard Fanning, gesturing to the man who is now copping a good-natured head-rub from guitarist Ian Haug. “He’s been our manager for the whole time. His name’s Paul Piticco. Put your hands together.”

    The crowd obliges. After he gives a few quick bows to the hill and to each of the bandmembers, Piticco waves and jogs back to the side of stage, seemingly embarrassed at such public attention.

    It’s 13 November, 2010, the night of Powderfinger’s final performance, a hometown send-off for the Brisbane quintet crowning a 34-date national tour that sold more than 300,000 tickets and grossed $30 million. After a final encore performance of ‘These Days’ and a group bow, Powderfinger ends its career on a high.

    The band’s achievements are remarkable. Among them, more than 2.5 million albums sold in Australia alone, 18 ARIA awards, five consecutive ARIA No 1 album debuts, and twice topping Triple J’s annual Hottest 100 music poll. Behind their artistry was the business brain of Paul “Teaks” Piticco, a self-taught entrepreneur whose beginning as the wet-behind-the-ears manager of a little-known Brisbane rock band expanded into successful stakes in music festivals, touring and publicity, two independent record labels and a recent foray into the restaurant business.

    As he tells it, Piticco’s achievements can be attributed to persistence, enthusiasm and a willingness to have a go. “That philosophy that you’re only as good as the last thing you do is something that I’ve always subscribed to,” he says. “That’s how you do great work: by being really interested, and by giving a shit about the outcome. I certainly don’t want to die wondering.”

    It wasn’t always thus, according to Coghill, the last member to join Powderfinger, completing the quintet’s line-up in late 1991. In the 2011 band biography, Footprints, the drummer recalled his first impressions of the men with whom he’d spend the next two decades: “They were just these potheads who used to sit around the lounge smoking,” he said. “And Teaks was the ringleader … I remember that night [we met] he showed me this massive marijuana plant he had in the back yard. It was four metres high and two metres wide. I think before Teaks was the manager of the band, he was the manager of the lounge room and the bong.”

    ++

    An only child born to Sernando and Carmel at the Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital on March 7, 1969, Paul Anthony Piticco grew up in the inner-west Brisbane suburb of Paddington and attended Petrie Terrace State School. He loved school because it was his first chance to measure himself against others. “Maybe that was the germination of my competitive streak,” he says with a smile.

    His father had emigrated to Australia from Italy at age 19, carrying only a suitcase and $10. He cut cane in North Queensland, bought a house in Brisbane and started a construction business. Piticco says Sernando advised his son to “figure your own shit out” and learn from his mistakes. Carmel – who worked part-time jobs in nursing and education – encouraged Paul to spring out of bed in the morning, follow his dreams and do what makes him smile.

    His parents’ record collection was “diabolical”, so it wasn’t until he started at Kelvin Grove State High in Brisbane’s inner north-west that Piticco’s musical horizons expanded. When KISS played at Lang Park (now Suncorp Stadium) in 1980, he snuck down Ranley Grove onto Given Terrace and watched them through the fence. It was the first time Piticco made a connection between hearing a song on the radio and tens of thousands of fans going to see a band play live in a stadium. He was enthralled, and started buying cassettes and vinyl – David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Dire Straits – while learning guitar and saxophone, both of which he failed to practise. At 15, he’d take a square of cardboard to Queen Street Mall and attempt to breakdance while dressed in baggy pants. This phase soon passed – as Piticco puts it, “The world moved on, and I moved with it.”

    It was during his first job, as a paperboy selling the Telegraph, that Piticco established his work ethic. He determined how to achieve the maximum return with the smallest effort by catching customers at the former Arnott’s biscuit factory on Coronation Drive when shifts were crossing over. A regular clientele earned the ten-year-old hefty tips for his value-adding personal touches, such as handing over the paper with the sports page or the horoscopes facing up, ready to read.

    In his mid-teens, Piticco worked weekend nights at the 24-hour Windmill Cafe on Petrie Terrace, where he learned how to be patient with intoxicated people, which he notes has “come in handy working in bars, venues and festivals in the years to come”. He completed Year 10 at Kelvin Grove High but dropped out part way into the following year. “My passion for study declined rapidly,” he says, after he discovered smoking and drinking.

    In his late teens, Piticco tried working part-time for his father and uncle’s construction business. It didn’t take. “I didn’t want to work a manual job, grinding it out in the sun like my dad. I knew that I wanted something different; I just didn’t know what it was yet.” It was around this time that he discovered cannabis. “There was a fair degree of overlap between my pot-smoking days and my lost years,” he says. “It just heightened all my senses in terms of listening to music and having a good time. In a stereotypical way, it was a countercultural way to rebel as a late teen.”

    At the time, Piticco worked as a steel sales representative for Boral and lived in a share house in the western suburb of Indooroopilly. One night, he and housemate Ian Haug went for a drive, and the guitarist asked his friend whether he’d be interested in managing Powderfinger as Haug had grown tired of juggling his band’s business interests and writing music.

    “He knew nothing about the music industry; we gave him an opportunity because we could see something in him,” says Haug. “We needed a ‘bad cop’, and he was a good bad cop. We didn’t want to be the ones ringing up bikers saying ‘pay us our money’. He had to be the tough guy. And Piticco’s a pretty tough name.”

    Qweekend story by Andrew McMillen: 'The Grass Is Greener: Paul Piticco', July 2014. Photograph of Powderfinger in 1991; Piticco is third from left.Bassist John Collins saw it another way: “We thought, if he could sell steel, he could sell rock.” With the assistance of a lawyer, the band drew up a management contract which determined that everything outside of the actual music-making would be split six ways. “After that contract lapsed, we worked with him without a contract for most of our career,” says Haug. “Probably in retrospect it wasn’t a wise business decision for the band, but he did a good job for us.”

    It took years before the band started seeing any real money for their efforts. “As a manager, you’re only ever as good as your band,” Piticco says. “Your fates are hitched in a fiscal sense.” As Powderfinger’s star ascended, the six men named on the contract came into good money following years of low-income toil. “Money was always much more important to Paul than the rest of us,” says singer Bernard Fanning. “We were always surprised by the fact that we actually earned a living and made money out of being musicians. Paul has always liked the idea of money, and the potential of it, rather than the actual act of splashing out and buying a fancy bottle of champagne.”

    Haug suggests Piticco didn’t change much throughout the band’s two-decade career. “He’s just loaded now, whereas he used to be flat broke,” he laughs. The entrepreneur reinvested his earnings into the industry, forming an artist management company, Secret Service. His independent record label, Dew Process, was established in 2002 and has released popular albums by international acts such as Mumford & Sons, The Hives and London Grammar as well as Australian artists The Living End, Sarah Blasko and, of course, Bernard Fanning. Album sales still account for the majority of the label’s income. In 2012, Piticco established another record label, Create/Control, which in effect turns the old business model on its head by partnering with acts to distribute and market music they’ve funded and recorded themselves.

    In conjunction with Powderfinger’s longtime booking agent, Jessica Ducrou, he established Splendour In The Grass, an annual multi-day music festival – being staged at North Byron Parklands next weekend – sidestepping the competitive summer circuit. All 27,500 tickets to this year’s event, headlined by Outkast, Lily Allen and Two Door Cinema Club, were sold within hours of going on sale. “Paul and I have done all sorts of glamorous jobs – directing traffic, picking up garbage,” says Ducrou, 44. “He’s really positive, he mucks in. He has no airs and graces. He’ll do whatever is required.” The pair’s Secret Sounds touring company has also invested in The Falls Festival, traditionally a southern (Tasmania and Victoria) camping event which debuted in Byron Bay in late 2013.

    Critics point out that a handful of Piticco’s acts inevitably appear on Splendour’s bill each year, a tradition that stretches back to the first event in 2001, headlined by Powderfinger. “Why wouldn’t you book yourself?” asks Patience Hodgson, singer of Piticco-managed Brisbane pop band The Grates. “Paul doesn’t take any commission when we play Splendour, and that’s to lower his invested interest.”

    If such criticisms are laid at Piticco’s feet, so be it. He’s happy to wear the tar and feathers if it means his artists stay squeaky clean. “If people hate him, but love the band, he totally understands that’s fine,” says Hodgson. “He’s not trying to protect himself; the band always comes first. If he’s offered a gig and thinks we should be paid more money, he asks. I really appreciate that, because I could never do that for myself; I wouldn’t want to seem like a dick or be rude. Paul is happy to ask, and if people say no, he doesn’t feel shame.”

    ++

    Piticco has one favourite album – DeadSexy by little-known Rhode Island (US) alternative rock band Scarce – and two favourite songs: ‘Heroes’ by David Bowie and ‘The Funeral’ by Seattle rock act Band of Horses, who he has booked to play Splendour twice. His favourite Powderfinger album is 1998’s Internationalist. When asked to name a favourite song, he deliberates for two minutes. “The one that makes me feel and think most positively about the band is ‘Sunsets’,” he replies, referring to a single from 2003’s Vulture Street album. “Amongst all those anthems that they wrote, that one, to me, sounds and feels like Australian music at that time. It definitely pulls at my heartstrings.”

    Qweekend story by Andrew McMillen: 'The Grass Is Greener: Paul Piticco', July 2014. Photograph by Russell ShakespeareAt 45, Piticco is showing no signs of slowing down. In 2014, he seems to have his fingers in more pies than ever before. “There’s a good balance between Paul being a serious, effective entrepreneur and knowing how to switch off and have fun, and not take things too seriously,” says Ducrou. For his 40th birthday, Piticco booked an AC/DC tribute band to play at the property near Mount Warning in northern NSW where he lives with his partner of 15 years, Lisa Wickbold, and their children Phoebe, 7, Ivy, 5, and Darby, 3.

    It takes considerable drive and intensity to create record labels, music festivals, national tours and artistic careers out of thin air, especially when based outside of the traditional Australian music business seats of power in Sydney and Melbourne. For Piticco and Powderfinger, moving south never appealed. “We were regularly encouraged to leave by labels, agents, promoters and other bands; ‘Come down here, it’ll be better, there are more opportunities!’” he says. “Brisbane had value to us. It wasn’t just more affordable, it provided a framework and an emotional base. Our social networks were here. It’s something we’ve always been proud of, this city. There was never any doubt. I’m glad we stayed.”

    The sun sets over the Brisbane skyline on a recent cool evening as we sit at a table in South Bank restaurant Popolo, which Piticco co-founded in late 2011 with restaurateur Andrew Baturo and Denis Sheahan, Powderfinger’s former tour manager. Its name is Italian for people, in reference to the menu’s inclination towards shared dishes. While we talk, plates are laid out in quick succession. It’s far too much food for two men; Piticco jokes that his children will have some interesting leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch.

    In addition to Popolo, Piticco co-owns a stake in CBD venue The Gresham Bar, which opened late last year. This left turn into the hospitality industry has been on the cards for years. “The chef is the artist, the restaurateur is the producer,” Piticco says. “The chef serves up his works; the producer critiques them, works out which ones are going to be the hits, which ones will pad out the menu. Instead of listening, you taste. The ambience is the marketing and packaging – the visual representation – but the real thing that makes a successful restaurant is the food. It’s just as it is in the music industry: a lot of bad bands have an image, but the songs are really the meat of the proposition.”

    Observing the detritus of a fine meal, Piticco sums up his life so far in simple terms. “I’ve always had this theory that stems from my mum,” he says. “Whether you’re a chimney sweep, a brain surgeon or a band manager, if you’re good at what you do, the rest takes care of itself. I just like having the opportunity to make a living out of music, for myself and others, and along the way make a whole bunch of people happy by enriching their lives in some way. And to get paid for it? That’s fucking awesome!

    Splendour In The Grass, July 25-27, North Byron Parklands, Byron Bay. splendourinthegrass.com 

  • Mess+Noise story: ‘Splendour 2010: Your Questions Answered’, August 2010

    A transcribed public Q+A for Mess+Noise.

    Splendour 2010: Your Questions Answered

    Splendour In The Grass 2010. Photo by Justin Edwards for Mess+NoiseWhat does it take to run one of Australia’s largest festivals? At a public forum on day one of last weekend’s Splendour In The Grass, co-founders Paul Piticco and Jessica Ducrou gave punters a unique insight into how they pull it off. Transcription by ANDREW MCMILLEN. Photos by JUSTIN EDWARDS.

    How did Splendour come about in the first place? Why did it happen?

    Paul: We got together on the idea of “we should do a little festival”. Boutique, start out small, something different. A camping event. We came to the conclusion that it was probably best to avoid the competition and summer traffic, and do it somewhere that people would like to escape to in the winter. And that was Byron Bay. That was 10 years ago.

    What’s your vision for the future of Splendour?

    Jess: Part of the reason for our move to Woodford is that it’s allowed us to steer the festival in a direction that’s quite different from Belongil Fields, and much closer to our vision, which is a camping festival. Ideally, we’d like to camp everyone on-site. The format this year is that gates open at 4pm on Thursday and don’t close until 12pm [on Monday]. You’re creating a city; your own experience. We weren’t able to do that at Belongil Fields, as we didn’t have the space to do it. It’s pretty satisfying being here now, and seeing where the festival has come, 10 years down the track.

    Read the full article on Mess+Noise.

    However! What’s published on M+N is an abridged version of what took place on the day. My editor cut around 2,000 words for brevity and clarity. For posterity, I’ve included the full 50 minute, 6,000 word transcript below.

    Splendour 2010: Public Q+A

    A new addition to the Splendour In The Grass program in 2010 was the Forum component, which hosted several events across the weekend. First up, though, at 10am on Friday was a Q+A session with the event co-founders, Paul Piticco and Jessica Ducrou. ANDREW MCMILLEN was there to capture the session, and ask a couple of questions. Monique Schafter from ABC’s Hungry Beast was the Q+A’s MC.

    Monique: I’ll ask the first question, just to get us rolling. This is the tenth year of Splendour In The Grass; how did Splendour come about in the first place? Why did it happen?

    Paul: Well, Jessica started out in the music industry as a booking agent, and I was a manager. We shared bands; I managed them, and she was the booking agent. How we modelled our business was pretty much a strategy where agents and managers in a lot of other countries use concert promoters to put on their bands’ shows. For a lot of Australian acts, we cut that link out, and the agent and manager take on the responsibility of promoting shows. So Jess and I already had that relationship, but Jess was also in business with another guy doing the Homebake festival. So Jess had that festival experience which I didn’t have, and the other side of our business we got working together on was promoting Aussie bands, essentially, and we got together on the idea of “we should so a little festival”. Boutique, start out small, something different. A camping event. We came to the conclusion that it was probably best to avoid the competition and summer traffic, and do it somewhere that people would like to escape to in the winter. And that was Byron Bay. That was ten years ago.

    Monique: It’s certainly grown a lot in the last ten years. What’s your vision for the future of Splendour?

    Jess: Part of the reason for our move to Woodford is that it’s allowed us to steer the festival in a direction that’s quite different from Belongil Fields, and much closer to our vision. Which is a camping festival. Ideally we’d like to camp everyone on-site. The format this year is that gates open at 4pm on Thursday and don’t close until 12pm [on Monday]. You’re creating a city; your own experience. We weren’t able to do that at Belongil Fields, as we didn’t have the space to do it. It’s pretty satisfying being here now, and seeing where the festival has come, ten years down the track.

    Paul: Jess and I have had this ambition: we are fans, and have been patrons of the great festivals of the world. The Glastonburys, the Coachellas, and so many great camping events around the world. We didn’t really think that Australia had one. Our aspirations are to build an event that’s of that global standard. Something that Australia can hold up as its globally-recognised festival. That’s another thing that we’re aiming to get to, and we think we get a little closer every year.

    [Audience questions begin]

    Q: I’m wondering about the numbers. What capacity did you have ten years ago, and now, is it like a ‘big Australia’ policy? Or do you have a good level of people now? Have you felt at any stage during the ten years that, “Oh shit, that was a bit big that time.”

    Paul: The first year was 7,500. There was a little bit of a joke among the international agents and booking community. When we were starting out, not everybody knew us, but they were like, “Oh, you’re the festival that sold out, but still lost money!” [laughs] That’s what happened in year one, because we weren’t very good at budgeting, obviously. We sold all our tickets and went, “Shit, we don’t have enough money to pay bills.” It started out at 7,500, and I think I’ll let Jess take the second part of the question.

    Jess: I guess there’s a financial reality that what we’re hoping to present costs money. All of the different areas that we’ve brought to this particular site cost money. The only way we can afford to pay for that is through ticket sales. But there has to be a good balance between economics and an experience for those coming to the show. There’s certainly been times at Belongil Fields where we’ve had crowd flow issues, and a general sense from people that there’s too many people at the show. We’ve tried to re-assess that in the following years. We might try and tighten up our guestlist, and try and open up more space. So there’s ways to do that. It’s very difficult once you set a precedent, in terms of what you’re doing with a festival, to move the costs backwards. The reality is, the show will suffer if you start reeling in the costs.

    Q: So you can only get bigger?

    Jess: No, but I’d have to say our vision in the long-term is to develop a program. And by developing the program, you’ll have to pay for it, so there’ll be more people. I think that the festival really is at about 50% of where we see it, and I don’t mean that in terms of capacity, but in terms of what we want to present. We want to have different musical genres. We’d like it to appeal to people between the ages of six to 60. We’ve started upgrading the kids area; we want there to be a kids festival. All of that costs money.

    Paul: To touch on it, too, a lot of people primarily come here for the four or five particular acts, but it is this, [the forum] that we’re doing right now. This isn’t a revenue raiser. This isn’t something that takes money out of your pocket. These are the kinds of thing that we see increasing the vitality of the event, like Jess said. If you’re a parent, or will hopefully one day have the pleasure to be, we’ll have a giants kids area. That’s something we want to grow. We want to grow the forum; this is the first year we’ve had it. We’ll watch this over the weekend and if it’s great, we’ll grow it. These things cost; a lot of people work this show 300 days of the year. For your three days of enjoyment, there’s 300 days of wages to pay. We try to keep that fine balance between expanding the vision, but maintaining the amount of people we need – and the ticket price – to keep it relevant.

    Q: How many thousand do you have this year?

    Paul and Jess [simultaneously]: 32.

    Q: Is that about what you’re comfortable with? What about 40,000 [next year]?

    Paul: It’s hard. We don’t know. It’s one of those things where, usually, Jess and I will sit down, have an argument over a vision, then we’ll work back form the vision until we hit a budget. Sometimes those things get shot down; sometimes we go, “You know, that’s doable.” So just saying an arbitrary figure – “will you have 40,000 next year?” – is irrelevant, because we don’t know what we’re going to add, or what we’re going to expand.

    Jess: We also need to see this show happening here for a few days, to have an opinion on how well this space can cope with what we’ve done this year. It’s definitely an intention for us to keep it intimate. That’s one great thing about this site, with all its different areas, to a degree there’s intimacy there. At the same time, you need a space to present the big acts, so that everyone can see them if they want to. We don’t know what we’ll do next year. We’re just going to try and get through this weekend.

    Paul: We’ll likely be here next year. For 2012, we’re not sure yet.

    Q: I’m Lou, and I’m from Melbourne. I’d like to know a bit more about why you’ve come to Woodford from Byron this year. Why did you move; what are some of the politics behind it?

    Jess: There were two reasons for the move. This venue gave us the opportunity to present the show in a format that we wanted. In Byron, there’s currently not anywhere we can do that. And we also had the instant support of Bill Hauritz, the director of the Woodford Folk Festival, and the council, which was very appealing. And the other reason for the move was in reaction to a draft events policy that Byron Council were creating, which was going to limit the size, length and location of events [in Byron]. We were already feeling like we’d outgrown Belongil, and we really wanted to present some new areas for the show. It was more about survival.

    Paul: Space was one of the primary concerns. Returning to the previous question about having an expansive vision, we simply ran out of room at Belongil Fields.

    Q: I’m Gus from Perth. This is my first year at Splendour. We actually did a road trip from Byron, which is quite amusing, because it was the original home. I’ve got two questions. Paul, are you a perfectionist? If so, how do you deal with all of the stress that’s involved with running a function of this size?

    Paul: I would say that we’re both very driven to detail. Jess has a different set of criteria to me, but the visual image of the festival is definitely more her bag. The attention to detail and the level of perfection that goes into that, as you know when you look around, that’s where that goes. How do I deal with stress? I’ve got a pretty stressful job. I run a record label [Dew Process], I do this, and I manage bands. Between all that, I just… let it go over. I just do what I an, and try not to freak out too much. Occasionally I fail, and have a meltdown, but generally I just make a list, try to smile through it, tick boxes and plow through. Otherwise, I don’t really know. Take multivitamins, they’re very good for you.

    Gus: The second question leads in from the first. This is more of a gossipy questions. You don’t have to name any names, but obviously when you’ve got so many people that are a part of this event, you’re going to get let down. Is there any good goss you can hit us with about people who’ve absolutely left you floundering, where you’ve just gone “never again”?

    Paul: We were very disappointing with Jane’s Addiction not showing [in 2009]. We caught Whitley with a golf buggy out on the main road. He was very drunk. I don’t think we’ve ever been let down catastrophically by anyone. Let’s just say that there’s almost too many to mention. You add 30,000-odd people, a thousand artists, three days of drinking, fun and food, and people do silly things. Nothing immediately comes to mind. I’ll come back to you if I think of anything.

    Gus: On a more positive and less gossipy note, what are some of the bands that stand out as highlights?

    Paul: Was it two years ago that Band Of Horses first played? [Audience confirms] When they played ‘Funeral’, that was probably the highlight and the lowlight for one particular song at the festival. I was so moved and emotional, I started to well up. That was the highlight, obviously. The lowlight was watching a lot of the road crew looking at me, going “what the hell is he crying about?” I was just standing there, crying. That was a great moment.

    I was very proud the first time that Coldplay played [in 2003]. That was a coup for us, considering the size of festival we were at the time. The Grates have always had great sets here, I’ve always enjoy watching them.

    Jess: The Flaming Lips last year was pretty awesome. Sigur Rós [in 2008] was a very left-field performance. We took a bit of a risk by putting them so high up the bill, on the main stage, as not a lot of people know their stuff. But it was such a phenomenal moment. I felt very proud of us; we did something that’s less obvious. I’m a huge fan of TV On The Radio, so I thought their main stage performance [in 2006] was a knock-out. And unfortunately, the one band I wanted to see two years ago was Band Of Horses, and I didn’t get to see one song. So I’m hoping that there are three or four bands that I’ll get to see this year, and that I won’t get dragged off to, you know, check out some portaloos overflowing somewhere and actually get to watch some bands.

    Actually, I know a pretty funny experience. Brian Wilson…

    Paul: [laughs] Oh yeah, this is good.

    Jess: Brian Wilson played Splendour [in 2006] and I was smoking cigarettes at the time. I was standing side of stage. I’d had a drink. I was with my partner, we were chatting away. All of a sudden the side of stage crowd parted, and started looking at us. Brian Wilson pointed at me and said, “You are smoking. Stop smoking. I’m going to stop playing if you don’t stop smoking.” The whole 15,000 people in the tent were looking at me; I didn’t know what was going on.

    Paul: I thought he was joking. I thought it was part of his banter, the old man jokey rant. But after about 20 seconds we realised, no, he was waiting for her to stub it out. [laughs]

    Jess: And he just didn’t let it go for the whole set. I actually had to leave the side of stage. I couldn’t watch any more of the performance. I was quite traumatised by it.

    Paul: Oh, another really proud moment for us. We’re also the concert promoter for Bloc Party in Australia. From their first tour, we’ve done all their shows, not just at Splendour but around the country. That’s one that we’ve really used for the festival. We’ve really brought them up – well, they write amazing music and have huge amounts of fans and hits, so it’s not all our doing – but how they’re perceived in the live arena. [Australia] is one of the biggest per-capita live markets in the world for them. So that’s something else we’re both pretty proud of, and a band we both love immensely.

    Jess: Oh, watching The Vines play when they were our mystery band [in 2006]. I do all the agenting for The Vine. It’s been a long road; there are highs and lows, lots of cancellations along the way. [In 2006] they hadn’t played in a long time, and we were a bit anxious about how they were going to be. Craig [Nicholls, The Vines singer] doesn’t handle pressure very well. But it was fantastic watching them play, and pull off a great show.

    Paul: [With The Vines] it’s always going to be a spectacle, one way or the other. Either an amazing show, or it’s not.

    Q: Epic line-up this year. How do you decide who plays, and who doesn’t?

    Paul: We fight, short answer. Like brother and sister, cats and dogs sometimes. Because we have a pot of money, right. It’s like this: put you and your best friend in a room, and you go, “OK, we’ve got this much money to spend on the ultimate line-up,” and then you start arguing. So it goes back and forth, and through attrition we agree on things. Sometimes one of us gets lucky over the other, because we both want something and my option’s not available, or Jess’ is, and I go “well, we’ll have to take that then.”

    Jess: But in saying that, there’s a lot that we agree on.

    Paul: Yeah, we do. We ultimately agree.

    Q: Who wanted what this year?

    Paul: Let’s see. The Strokes have been on our list forever. So have The Pixies, but they’d just been here [in Australia], so we agreed on that. Temper Trap I erred Jess toward, a little bit; maybe the other way around for Florence [+ The Machine]. LCD [Soundsystem], Jess was a slam dunk, I didn’t even bother. That was definitely something she was big on.

    Jess: We really put a concerted effort in. We started booking the line-up about six months before we announced the show.

    Paul: In October/November last year, we were making lists, and negotiating deals overseas. Before Christmas this year we’ll be overseas again, probably making two or three trips around LA, New York and London, booking talent for next year.

    Jess: So to buy a band, you should go and sit in the agent’s office, and see what they’ve got available. Often what they’ve got available is based on whether they’ve got a new record coming out. So there’s that, but there’s also a hitlist which, for instance, The Flaming Lips, The Strokes and Pixies are probably three that have always been on the list and we don’t care if there’s a new record or not, we just want them to play.

    Paul: There’s quite a few still on the list. But we won’t tell you who they are.

    Q: Band Of Horses were on everybody’s lips last year after their set. It was a little bit of a surprise, I don’t think everybody expected that going in. To hazard a guess, have you got any idea of who might be on everybody’s lips after these three days? Someone who’s a little less obvious, maybe?

    Paul: Well, there’s a lot of bands on that are huge, but not everybody’s seen. Like Mumford [& Sons] and Florence, not everybody caught when they first toured because they were quite small, so I think they’ll be pretty big.

    Jess: Personally, I think Surfer Blood are worth checking out. After The Strokes, I’m most excited about seeing Alberta Cross, who’re on Paul’s label. Yeasayer. The Magic Numbers…

    Paul: I saw Band Of Skulls at SXSW this year, and that was a thing for me. I think they’ll do really well in this country. Their sideshows in Sydney and Melbourne have sold out. There’s a real buzz in the live community about them. They’ll go on to be a bigger band, so I’d make sure people saw them.

    Q: Out of your budget, how much money do you have to fork out for your headline acts, like say The Strokes, or The Pixies?

    Paul: We can’t really say the specific fee, but it would be safe to say that the line-up of talent for the show is in the multi, multi millions of dollars. Just to give you some idea, it’s our biggest cost – and believe me, tents, fences, staff, they don’t come cheap – but still, talent is… We spent a lot of money on the line-up. For us, it’s [the] core of what we do. We probably could have taken 10 bands off this bill and substituted them out with cheaper options, but it’s not in our style. We start out with a utopian line-up, and we try to make it affordable for us.

    Jess: To give you some perspective, we set a budget to spend on bands. This year, we spent $1.5 million over that budget. And I mean, that money has to come from somewhere, so we were just really intent on creating the best line-up that we could.

    Paul: The feedback that we’ve got on the line-up has been immense, this year. It’s pretty gratifying, too, because we were moving site, we had a history in Byron Bay… It really felt to us that the line-up was so strong that everybody was going to come with us [to Woodford]. And you did, which is great. But part of the thinking, too, was that it was our tenth birthday and we were in a new location, and we wanted to make it a special year. It was worth every penny. Well, we haven’t seen it all yet, but we’re hoping it’s worth every penny.

    Q: G’day, I’m Melissa. I’m wondering with the change in location, what – if any – support you guys got from the Queensland Folk Federation?

    Jess: Well Bill Hauritz, the director of the Queensland Folk Federation, has been a friend for many, many years, and just a fantastic supporter of the arts in general. When we were in this quandary about how we could develop the festival, and also feeling frustrated by the Byron Council’s draft events policy, Woodford physically is exactly the property we’d like to be on. Knowing Bill, we just rang him and said, “This is a kind of crazy question, but are you interested in having us?” And the timing for them; if we’d asked the year before, they wouldn’t have been ready to accommodate us. Bill, Amanda and all the people who work on the Woodford Folk Festival have moved heaven and earth to welcome us here. They’ve been so incredibly supportive. They’ve been really integral to allowing us, and not trying to restrict what it is that we wanted to present. And allowing us to stick a yacht in the dam [‘Ibeefa’] and running with us on some of the crazy ideas we come up with.

    Q: Are there other events that you get inspiration from, or model your event on?

    Jess: Plagiarism’s rife.

    Paul: I went to Burning Man [held in the Black Rock Desert, Navada] a couple of years ago, and their arts program is off the hook. I had ideas from that. Jess travelled to Glastonbury, Coachella…even little ones, not just big ones. See something that works! Go, “Hey, wow, great idea. Look at that! A mobile lemonade stand for people who’re standing in the queue,” or whatever it might be that you think is a good idea.

    Jess: Then you go and take photos of it, and come back, and try and call it your own. [laughs]

    Paul: To go back to the Band Of Horses questions, I’ve just been having a look at the line-up. Delphic, I think could have a really big set. Also, Two Door Cinema Club are amazing. The Drums, amazing live. Frightened Rabbit. LCD. Oh, and early reports – because we’re the promoter of Foals, who’ve done shows in Adelaide and Melbourne in the last few days – which went crazy. Nuts. They all sold out, so you’ll have to check out Foals as well.

    Q: Just regarding what you were just saying about good ideas. I thought the whole exchanging a used can for a dollar off a drink was a really good idea. Was it just costs that made you rethink that?

    Paul: I’ll explain what it was, then I’ll let Jess answer why we’re not doing it this year, because that’s the easy part and she’ll have the hard part. What happened in the past was that we put a $1 surcharge on a drink item, so if it was $6, you paid $7 for it, but there was inherent value, then, of the dollar in a can. So if you returned the can to a recycling station, you’d get a $1 drink ticket back. So you could technically accumulate 10 or 15 cans, and go get enough money to pick up a couple of drinks. That was the system, and it did keep the site very clean.

    Jess: This site is quite complicated for us. We were really stretching our resources just trying to accommodate such a large amount of people in the campgrounds. That [can system] is quite complicated. It has so many ramifications beyond putting a cost on the drink ticket, which is everything from staffing it t, to making it work for people. And also, while it’s a great initiative, a lot of people object to even the idea that their drink seems a dollar more expensive. They can’t wrap their head around the fact that it’s only paid once, and they can actually get it back in the long-term. So we went, “look, let’s just try to get the show right,” and then hopefully we’ll look at all of those issues and we’ll try and do it next year. We certainly haven’t let it go, we’ve just put it on ice for a while.

    Paul: And just to elaborate a little bit on that, too. Once again, consumer sentiment might have been guys drinking beer going, “well, a beer is a dollar extra,” but we’re not bringing that money in any more. We’ve had to divert a lot of money, obviously, into an increased cleaning bill. Everything gets recycled, regardless of whether you guys were picking it up and getting a bargain, or a cleaner’s picking it up, it’s all going to be recycled. But it was just a change of the balance, to see if we could make more people satisfied by not having a more expensive drink. The reality was, the majority were paying for the minority to pick up the cans. Which could work, but I guess maybe the majority weren’t satisfied with paying additional money for their drinks.

    Q: Just with the mid-strength alcohol laws in Queensland, how’s that been?

    Jess: You know, it’s incredibly disappointing. We went to inordinate lengths to meet with licensing to try and beg and plead to get full-strength. It’s not something we’ve had to do before. The reality is that we’re in Queensland, and to a degree, we have to toe the line with what licensing want to give us. That said, we’ve had some really great wins, like at the wine bar, you can buy a bottle of wine, and we’ve been able to operate quite late hours, as well. In many ways, we’re running longer hours than we were at Belongil Fields. But yeah, it’s a pain in the arse.

    Q: Many of the ideas that come into the festival, are a lot of them the Splendour team’s ‘brain children’, or do a lot of outside people who want to run cool stuff come to you?

    Paul: Both, I think, is the answer. Under us, and predominately under Jess, there’s a raft of event managers – partners, almost – across all different areas: environmental stuff, décor, theming, running different areas. They all bring IP to the mix, and how it can be improved. They’re all fairly proactive. We get pitched all the time. We do have resources that we offer back out to the community, and we have artists pitch to us. Those kind of things come from outsiders. But we also have funding with which we deliberately engage other artists, which Jess might want to talk about.

    Jess: I just want to go back to our managers. A lot of them are very involved in the show. They come up with some awesome ideas. One of them is the boat in the dam [‘Ibeefa’], which started out as, “How about we do a piss-take on Ibiza and make it as cheesy as we possibly can?” And we’re all like, “Yeah! Let’s embrace it, let’s create this little world.” A lot of the things around the site are ideas that people have come to us with, and we’ve developed them. I think that’s why we have such a great team, because everyone really feels like they can bring things into fruition. It’s certainly not Paul and I sitting here, coming up with everything. There’s a lot of people contributing.

    On the artwork front, we’re constantly fielding ideas, whether they come through our website, or people who know people associated with the event. If some of those ideas are good, we’ll embrace it. It does get to the point now, though, where our program is so complicated that we physically can’t do everything, so we’re going to have to work out a way to keep engaging in those ideas, and to develop them. Which just means more people to organise it, really.

    Paul: Do you want to talk about [the arts program] Splendid?

    Jess: We were spending quite a lot of money on our arts program, for many years. We had this great bloke, Steven Alderton, who’s the director of the Lismore Regional Gallery and a bit of a mover and shaker in the arts world. He saw what we were doing and approached the Australia Council, and said “These guys are sinking truckloads of money into the arts, we should collaborate with and fund them for a couple of years”. So what came out of that is we’re spending $150,000, and they’re spending $450,000 and counting to present three years of collaborations in this artist workshop. There are three on site this year, I don’t know if you guys have seen them. There’s the [giant inflatable] ‘up yours’ hand; there’s the ‘best time ever’, which is a stairwell and sundial up on the hill; and ‘where the party’s at’, which is a balloon installation. We still fund other aspects of the arts program.

    Paul: So those joint arts projects are also a way to bring up to Splendour, that we’ve funded jointly with your taxpayers’ dollars, through the Australia Council, and then also those works get to be seen by people not necessarily at Splendour. They can tour those works to other festivals around Australia, or around the world. So there’s a program that’s internal, then there’s a kind of, if you want, a ‘give back’ aspect to it, where those works can go on and have lives, and have other people enjoy them.
    Q: I’ve heard the Government is going to invest some money into developing the site. I just wondered what kind of plans there are.

    Jess: Are you talking about the $3 million that was announced yesterday?

    Q: Yeah, I heard it on the news.

    Jess: So if the Labor government win the next federal election, they’ve pledged to give $3 million to Woodfordia, to help upgrade their site. I can’t really speak on behalf of Woodfordia, because the money’s going to them, not to us. But from what I read in the press release, it would go towards putting in more permanent toilets, showers, upgrading roads, sewerage and power. All those kind of things that you guys don’t really notice, that make it much easier to run events. So let’s hope the Labor government wins, and Woodford will be a better site.

    Q: Hi there, my name’s Ros. Can you please let us know what’s happening with the site you guys purchased outside of Byron? Where are things at there? Is that under the Byron Shire Council still?

    Paul: We have a property – 620-odd acres – at Yelgun, as some people know. We bought that property after some consultation with the Byron Shire Council. As we went through the approvals process, I think the Byron Shire Council changed their opinion, potentially, about the viability of it. We went through the Land and Environment Court, and there was a zoning issue with some land that made the Council’s approval null and void. It got a little sticky at that point, going forward, and got to be a bit of a political hot potato, wouldn’t you say, in Byron Bay?

    Jess: I guess we lost the support of Council when there were a very vocal minority who were opposed to us being at that particular site. I think if you break it down, their objections are really based on that they don’t want to live next door to it. I can completely understand; who would want to live next door to a festival site?

    Paul: These people might, the festival-goers.

    Jess: We have had the support of Byron Council, and they did approve our trial event, and then we lost over a technicality in court. Since then, the [NSW] state government took on the application and they realised the potential that [Splendour] and other events could bring to that particular region, and so our application for an events venue is about to be lodged with state government in the next week. We’ve spent years putting it together, and a lot of time working on everything from the ecology, to traffic, to noise; it’s a fantastic project, and that will then sit with the Department of Planning for probably six months, and we’ll get a response then as to whether they’ll let us operate back in Byron.

    Q: I came in a little late. Just wondering, are you guys here again next year?

    Paul: We think so.

    Q: Hi guys, Andrew from Mess+Noise. I want to ask you about Brisbane sideshows. Aside from Goldfrapp, and more recently The Pixies, it seems that Brisbane tends to miss out on sideshows. Why is that, and do you see that changing in the future?

    Paul: The why is that generally most of the Splendour audience comes from Brisbane, so to keep the exclusivity of our event, we will often not announce sideshows. One of things that we’ve found in the past, also, is that due to Brisbane being a smaller city than some of the others, the ticket trends for bands who did do sideshows were pretty bad. Brisbane could be, for certain acts, quite risky. So it was a combination of making sure that, for the Brisbane market, Splendour was seen as an exclusive opportunity to see those bands, and also a way of taking out a certain element of risk. Will it change in the future? I don’t see it changing radically. A couple of bands did it because they were under exceptional circumstances, so we permitted it. Our policy to this date, is to not [allow Brisbane sideshows].

    Like many countries. I know a lot of acts who go and play Glastonbury, or V Fest in the UK, those are their only UK shows, full stop. They don’t play any other cities at all. I know it frustrates music fans in Brisbane, but it’s a slippery slope if we start doing shows in Brisbane, then you’ll probably start off a chain reaction of people who, when Splendour goes on sale, waiting to see which sideshows are announced before they buy a ticket, and then Splendour might not sell out. It’s a chain reaction that we’re probably not too game to experiment with at this point.

    Andrew: Have you considered a contractual clause wherein, if Splendour does sell out, then you can announce sideshows?

    Paul: Yes, but then people learn to expect that.

    Jess: We have done some Brisbane sideshows, but they just don’t work. The reality is that we’ve lost money on every single show we’ve done in Brisbane, because the majority of people come to Splendour. I think if there was a huge demand, and shows were selling out, we would probably run with it. The reality is that there’s just not [a demand].

    Paul: The Pixies playing at The Zoo, that would sell out in a heartbeat. They wanted that as a warm-up date, to physically grace the stage before they hit the big stage. I don’t even know if Goldfrapp has sold out; they’re playing The Tivoli. If it hasn’t, that would be an indicator as to what we’re trying to explain.

    Q: Looking at the timetable, at a clash like Foals and Yeasayer at the same time, is there a reason you do that so early in the day?

    Paul: You know, can I just say that if that bothers you, we’d switch it out, but then it’d bother someone else. We can’t make everybody happy with scheduling. It’s just a fact. We needed LCD Soundsystem to be in the Mix Up Tent at the same time as whoever in the main Amphitheatre, so that we don’t have 35,000 people trying to get into the Amphitheatre at the one time. It’s a safety responsibility.

    Jess: It’s just a reality of a festival. You’re going to have overlaps, unfortunately. We really try and keep each act in mind when we’re placing them, and also, some can only play on a certain days because they’re got international obligations. So suddenly you’ve got acts of the same size that you need to put on.

    Paul: We have bands that fly out tomorrow [Saturday] to go and play Fuji Rock in Japan on Sunday, so those bands all have to be on the Friday. As Jess said, if they’re of a similar size and they need to be off-site tonight a certain time, we don’t really have much choice.

    Q: My name’s Calvin, I’m one of the Splendid artists. I came a bit late, but what’s your reasons for not making this a touring festival? It’s obviously one of the best organised festivals going around. Why have you chosen not to tour it?

    Jess: Because it takes us a year to organise this show. Turning it into a touring festival would mean that we’d have to stretch our resources to different cities. I’d rather make this the biggest, the best, the most fabulous experience, [rather] than water it down to make five or six [events] around the place. Also, I’ve been doing events for a long time, and Paul as well, and I just don’t have the energy to do that many shows. It’s fucking exhausting.

    Paul: Can I just add: this is untourable. It’s just not tourable. Jess has been on-site for three weeks, I’ve been here for two weeks. There’s people doing works out here, prepping, weeks and weeks in advance. I mean, it’s a mini-city. We have a police station, we have a fire brigade base here, we have a couple of ambulances. We have 38 electricians, 22 plumbers. It’s a city. It’s a little town. You just can’t tour little towns.

    Monique: To finish up, what inspired you to introduce the Forum element to Splendour this year?

    Jess: I just wanted for all the fun things out there, for there to be some kind of serious platform at the show, and an opportunity; even for us to be here, to be able to answer the questions that must drive you nuts, like the question about timetable clashes, which must shit you up the wall. To have the opportunity to answer those kind of questions is great. We’re trying to have a bit more of a dialogue, rather than people just coming here, having a drink and seeing some bands, if we can extend that experience for them, to talk about it; that’s why we’re here, and why [the Forum] is of interest to us. And if there’s 100 or 200 people sitting here, listening to what we’ve got to say, that’s a success to us. That’s worth persisting with.

    Paul: Absolutely.

  • The Music Network story: ‘Viral Video Epidemic’, October 2009

    Here’s an article on viral videos I wrote for The Music Network in late August 2009.

    Viral Video Epidemic

    Music videos that achieve so-called ‘viral’ spread via word-of-mouth referrals are one of the biggest components of the social web – over half of the most-viewed YouTube videos of all time are music-related. In recent weeks, the ‘JK Wedding Video‘ showed that the inclusion of a particular song can boost sales significantly, as in the case of Chris Brown’s ‘Forever’. Years ago, Australian band The Sick Puppies found the same thing when their song was included in Juan Mann’s 2006 clip ‘Free Hugs Campaign‘, which is still the #1 viewed video of all time.

    Andrew McMillen investigates two tales of recent Australian viral video success: one a signed act, one unsigned.

    Blame Ringo – ‘Garble Arch’

    Abbey Road, London, early one February morning. Dozens of vehicles are bound for dozens of destinations, but not before the daily crowd of tourists continually hold up traffic to re-enact that famous image from The Beatles’ final studio album. Footage is alternately fast-forwarded and slowed to normal speed as group after group step over the crossing’s well-trodden white lines, while Blame Ringo’s wistful indie pop provides the soundtrack to a mesmerising display of human imitation and reminiscence.

    Brisbane indie pop band Blame RingoReleased in February 2009, Brisbane’s Blame Ringo [pictured right] found a worldwide audience with their hastily-filmed video for ‘Garble Arch’; subtitled ‘A Day In The Life Of Abbey Road’. Though starring none of the band members and – aside from the name – thematically distant from The Beatles’ work, nearly 400,000 pairs of eyes and ears across the world have absorbed the band’s creation. At what cost?

    “The budget was $100, which covered the express post and mates-rates wages,” reveals Blame Ringo singer/guitarist Pete Kilroy. “A mate of ours was staying near Abbey Road, so I asked him to record people crossing for a couple of hours. He express posted the tapes, and since I’m a film editor by trade, I just edited it myself.”

    When asked why he thinks the video became such a hit, Kilroy explains that they tapped into an indelible element of The Beatles’ folklore. “The love for The Beatles can’t be matched, and on a world scale, probably will never be matched. Besides that, when you watch the video, you think, “Look at all these tools. Who do they think they are?”, but your next thought is, “Man, I wish I was there doing that!” It sort of shows human nature.”

    Six months on, are the Brisbane four-piece still feeling the effects of the video? Kilroy is optimistic: “The video really opened some doors, as it got us album distribution. It made people interested, whereas with any kind of traditional advertising, it’s hard to get people to buy your record, to see your show; to give you their time. Creating something that people can identify with – while acting as an advertisement for our music – fast-forwarded our career around 6-12 months. But there’s no point dwelling in the past. The video will sit on YouTube and keep ticking over for years and years. We get fan mail from across the world, and that’s really cool because you’d never reach those people otherwise.”

    What advice would Kilroy give other bands attempting to follow that kind of viral video trajectory? “I was a film student and all they ever told us was that it’s the idea that counts. Look at ‘Garble Arch’; we’re not even in the film clip. It’s not about us. To release a good clip, it’s about the quality of the idea and creating a concept that people will want to see. It’s important to simply offer something different and unique.”

    Bluejuice – ‘Broken Leg’

    Sydney pop/hip hop band BluejuiceFrom a story of serendipitous viral success to an adventurous, label-funded production: Dew Process signees Bluejuice [pictured left] released their ‘Broken Leg’ video on July 16. The six-minute extended version of the clip finds the band’s two vocalists portraying embittered former jump-rope champions in a mockumentary format, before the parody gives way to a choreographed World Skipping Championship Final battle between the five band members (‘Team Bluejuice’) and a children’s dance troupe (‘Shimmer Extreme’).

    Though the viewer is led to believe that the performance took place before thousands of screaming skipping fans, vocalist Stav Yiannoukas – who plays the fictional character, Spiridon ‘Mr Invisible’ Savvas – reveals that it was filmed at Sydney’s Metro Theatre. Post-production wizardry blended the empty theatre with stock footage of a stadium crowd.

    “The actual day of shooting was reasonably torturous, having trained for six weeks. Being filmed for 12 hours while skipping constantly is incredibly exhausting.”

    Hang on – six weeks’ skipping training? That’s dedication to a music video!

    Yiannoukas confirms: “Three hours a day, three days a week. It was absolutely necessary; we had to commit to the idea. And we also had to get an understanding of how good – or ultimately, how bad – we were going to be at skipping.”

    The band’s dedication has paid off: besides creating a clip that’s both hilarious and memorable, the band have since amassed a combined 55,000 views for the video and its bonus mockumentary off-shoots, in addition to a mid-August triple j award nomination for Australian Music Video Of The Year. Dew Process’ Marketing Manager, Graham Ashton, elaborates on the success.

    “‘Broken Leg’ was different from a lot of our other projects. While we normally work on finessing longer campaigns, we decided to go all-out for a big hit single, and that’s certainly looking like it’s going to happen. So far, it’s sold around 5,000 copies without traditional marketing. It’s all been based on a word-of-mouth online campaign in the lead-up to the song’s release. I won’t disclose the campaign budget, but you’d be surprised at how little it was.”

    Ashton admits that it’s difficult to measure the returns on online marketing campaigns. “Its success can be put down to word-of-mouth, more than anything. Both externally, within the punters’ world, but internally within the music industry. We did a tastemaker mail-out at the time of launch, and the response was fantastic. Another way of measuring its effect is the email database the band has since built, based on the opportunities surrounding this video and the campaign website.”

    Based on the strong responses to the band’s three Sam Bennetts-directed clips – 2007’s ‘Vitriol’ (150,000 views), 2008’s ‘The Reductionist’ (38,000 views) and ‘Broken Leg’ (55,000 combined views) – it’s fair to state that the band are adept at combining an excellent sense of self-deprecating humour with a penchant for creating memorable music videos. When asked how the band plan to top their finest visual achievement thus far, Yiannoukas is cautious: “It’s a difficult task. I think we’ll rip it away from the mockumentary format, as it’s important for us to keep challenging ourselves, and to reinforce that we’re more than that one-dimensional approach. The idea itself is ‘to be confirmed!'”

    Andrew McMillen is an Australian freelance music writer.