Brit Beat: Bring Me the Horizon’s Manager Talks Band’s Surprise Return and Supersized Streaming Success
Rock music and streaming have rarely been a successful combination – but the surprise release of British metal stars Bring Me the Horizon’s new album, “Post Human: Nex Gen”, is bucking that trend.
Craig Jennings, CEO of the band’s management company, Raw Power Management, saw the album rack up over 70 million worldwide streams in its first week of availability, landing at No.5 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart, despite the lack of a physical release. Jennings predicts it will pass 100 million streams by the middle of its second chart week. (Read Variety‘s recent interview with Bring Me the Horizon frontman Oli Sykes here.)
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“This is a band that streams harder than any other rock band in the world,” Jennings claims. “We’re doubling what the last album [2020’s “Post Human: Survival Horror”] did in terms of streaming – all the results are going to be much stronger, so it’s very encouraging.”
Jennings, who co-manages the band with Raw Power’s U.S. head Matt Ash, admits the band’s request to rush-release the album straight after its completion gave “everybody on my team and the key people at RCA/Sony a complete heart attack,” he laughs, but adds the campaign came together very quickly.
“In a parallel world, [frontman] Oli Sykes would have probably just put it out on his Instagram account,” Jennings says. “While record companies always want as much time as possible to set records up. We came to a compromise and said, ‘Give us three to four weeks.’
“And fair play to Sony, everyone’s come together really well,” he continues. “This is very much a worldwide act and the numbers everywhere – in America, Germany, Japan and Australia – are all outdoing the last album.”
The physical release will follow on September 27. The album was completed after the departure of keyboard player and producer Jordan Fish, who was widely credited with assisting the band’s move into more accessible musical territory.
“Jordan’s a genius and he contributed a lot,” says Jennings. “But Oli’s learned a lot as well, and his own songwriting’s come along so much. At the end of the day, he was making music before Jordan came along, and he’ll be making music for a lot longer in the future, as will the rest of the band. It’s onwards and upwards.”
Jennings predicts a shorter wait for the next BMTH album while, unusually, the band completed much of its touring – including sold-out arena runs in the U.K. and Australia – before the album came out. Jennings says they were happy to “rewrite the rulebook” as there is such huge demand to see the band live. BMTH plays its debut stadium headline show in Sao Paolo, Brazil in November and, with over 35,000 tickets already sold for that date, Jennings is hoping it will be the first of many.
“We don’t have any ceiling on where we think we can take the band – and the guys feel that way as well,” he says. “We’ve got a perfect storm: a fanbase that have stuck with the band through thick and thin, and a lot of young people coming up who hear the music on the internet. There’s still plenty of growth to go and we’ve got plans for the next few years that will prove that.”
Meanwhile, Raw Power has had some changes of its own, after ATC Management – home to the likes of Nick Cave and PJ Harvey – bought a controlling interest in the company. The Raw Power team will now move into ATC’s HQ in Camden, North London. Jennings remains as Raw Power CEO and praises ATC bosses Brian Message, Adam Driscoll and Ric Salmon as “really good people.”
“Going in with somebody more alternative felt like a good direction for us to go in,” says Jennings. “The idea is that it creates more opportunities for all our artists – hopefully, it’s going to be a classic case of one plus one equals three.”
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Also enjoying huge touring success – albeit in a very different genre – are veteran U.K. boy band Take That.
The group has sold over 700,000 tickets for its current run of 41 dates at a variety of arenas and stadiums – the biggest-selling tour by a U.K. artist this year.
“It’s a real testament to their drive and ambition,” Take That manager Chris Dempsey, managing director of YMU Music, tells Variety. “They’ve got a great catalog of hits and an incredibly dedicated fanbase, but they constantly stride forward. They’re actually playing seven or eight songs from the new album on this tour and that speaks to their forward-thinking nature.”
The band has also broken records on this tour for the number of career shows played at London’s O2 Arena and Manchester’s AO Arena – although it was not originally scheduled to play the latter. Take That were forced to move five shows from the new Co-op Live venue after it failed to open on schedule following a series of technical problems, as documented in last month’s Brit Beat.
“It was a very stressful few days,” admits Dempsey. “It was all hands to the pump in terms of moving to the AO Arena, and big thanks to them for stepping in. We’ve got a long history and relationship with them – and in some ways it was nice to get back in there and break that record.”
Co-op Live has now finally opened and the band will play its final two Manchester shows there later this month, with Dempsey believing the storm over the botched opening will eventually pass.
“Any new venue opening, particularly at that scale, is always going to encounter challenges and problems,” he says. “I’m sure they’d be the first people to look at it and say they’d do some things differently. But these things happen.
“It was crazy that [Take That moving shows] was headline news,” he adds. “Those BBC news alerts are usually reserved for the death of a monarch! Sometimes you have to have a bit of perspective and say, ‘It’s a band switching venues in the same week in the same city and everyone’s still going to see the show.’”
Take That have traditionally concentrated their touring in the U.K. and Ireland, but this tour sees them also take on multiple dates across Europe, including their own “The Greatest Weekend” festival in Malta in October.
Dates in Australia and Asia (where the band’s 2006 single “Patience” has been enjoying a viral moment on social media) are scheduled, while Dempsey hopes they will also make a long-awaited return to playing live in America. The band had a solitary Top 10 U.S. hit, “Back for Good”, in the ‘90s, although latest album, “This Life”, has a notably more American sound.
“We’ve looked at it and we want to do it,” Dempsey says. “We’ve got offers and options, but the timing is really important. There’s keen interest from promoters in Vegas [for a residency]. The band would love to do something like that. If you think about their show and how it could potentially work on those stages, it’s a no-brainer.”
Meanwhile, YMU is also under new ownership, having been acquired by Permira Credit earlier this year, although Dempsey says it remains very much business-as-usual.
“I’m just focused on building a really strong and interesting music division,” he says. “The ownership side of it doesn’t really affect me too much; obviously there were some rumblings in the press last year, which was challenging, but I just keep focused on what I can affect. We’re in a good space at the moment and we’re having a great year.”
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Country music also continues to be a surprisingly hot ticket in the U.K. this summer – with Morgan Wallen and Shania Twain both due to headline American Express Presents BST Hyde Park festival in London this summer.
But one man who definitely isn’t taken aback by the genre’s crossover is Bob Harris. The veteran broadcaster and Country to Country Festival (C2C) host recently celebrated 25 years as presenter of “The Country Show” on BBC Radio 2 with a special program featuring glowing tributes from the likes of Keith Urban, Tim McGraw and Lady A.
When the show began, it was one of only a very few country shows on the U.K.’s airwaves, whereas now there are enough networks dedicated to the genre to sustain a U.K. country airplay chart. Meanwhile, data from the Official Charts Company shows sales and streams of the genre surging 67% year-on-year.
“It took a while,” Harris says with a grin. “Lots of pennies had to drop into their slots, but gradually they did and now we’re sitting on the fastest growing music genre in Britain. That’s amazing.
“Record companies want to see a genre that’s pumping out records, getting into the charts and making some money – and we’ve reached that point,” he adds. “Everybody’s talking about country music. Now, Beyoncé has taken it over that line and I can’t see how it can do anything other than get bigger and bigger.”
Harris’ show has proved a key influence on the growth of country this side of the Atlantic, being the first to play the likes of Kacey Musgraves, Taylor Swift and Luke Combs, although – in typical self-deprecating fashion – he tells Variety he was simply in the right place at the right time.
“I was really fortunate,” he says. “Before I first went out there, a lot of the big country music stars of the day didn’t see the virtue in taking their music to the U.K. It was inconvenient, expensive and there wasn’t a huge market.
“But that insularity was beginning to crack,” he adds. “My program played a role in pushing the door ajar to create a platform so that the Brad Paisleys and Keith Urbans of this world could come over and find an audience when they got here.”
Harris also praises Milly Olykan, former co-promoter of C2C (which launched in 2013) and now VP of international relations & development at the Country Music Association, for her “huge role” in growing the genre’s U.K. presence.
“We both just want to do the best for the music,” he says. “I’ve watched C2C grow from a quiet start. The older protectionists began to disappear, a younger, much more energy-driven audience began to take their place and I realized the baton was being handed over to a new generation: younger people who’d found country and loved the fact that it was real music.”
C2C has since expanded to a multi-day, multi-site event, and provided a launchpad for Britain to become a year-round destination for touring country artists. But Harris would still like to see further commitment from the genre’s powerbase.
“I would say to Nashville, take a chance on the UK,” he says. “The community is established here now, and it loves the music. One of the things that characterize the reaction from the American artists who come here is, how very clear it is that the UK fans go deep into the music.
“That’s really worth emphasizing to Nashville; the love for the music exists here in a very deep way to encourage Music City to point as many artists in our direction as they can.”
And, when they come, Harris hopes to be here to welcome them to his show for a long time yet. In a remarkable career, he has been broadcasting on the BBC for over 50 years, but says he has no plans to retire any time soon.
“There’s no question in my mind that I’ll ever stop enjoying it, because this my lifeblood,” he says. “I love it so much and I feel very blessed to still be in a situation, physically and mentally, where I’m able to do it and where what I do is appreciated.
“I’ll be very willing to carry on for as long as Radio 2 still want me and so long as the programs still sound good,” he adds. “I wouldn’t like to outstay my welcome but, if I can, I’ll be doing C2C next year and carrying on with the program. So, all I can say about that is, long may it continue!”
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