My name’s Andy Bibey.
I’ve been working in music for the last 15, 20 years or so. my background really is, uh, a mix of artist management.
I’ve kind of managed artists on and off throughout my whole career, but I’ve also been, worked across record labels, worked across touring, live, uh, and plenty of other things in between. So kind  of a bit of a wide berth of experience, mainly on the business side. You know, I’ve never really been a writer or an artist, so I’ve definitely come from the other side of the industry  as opposed to a lot of huge songwriters.
so here’s just a little bit of a little bit of background. so this is a bunch of artists that, sorry, I’ve got a screen by here, so if I’m pointing over here, it’s only ’cause I’m looking at the screen that I’m looking at. but yeah, so my, uh, uh, here we’ve got a, just a big bunch of kind of records I’ve worked on in various different guises. So there’s some artists here I’ve managed such as, uh, Axel Flovent, which is the top left.
uh, worked at the bottom two artists here, Coco and am my last artists I’ve worked on in the last few years. and just an array of kind of, uh, other projects and artists I’ve worked on as a, uh, label manager, head of international at record label, distribution and  things like that. But anyway, that’s a little bit about me, but we’re here really to talk about  what a manager is and what does a manager do.
So  I think there’s quite a lot of  people who  expect a manager to be the person who does everything  after they kind of come on board. So I’m just gonna kind of rattle through this a little bit, which is, I  move these. See, so let’s start in the middle here with the artist. The artist. I would say the, the best description I’d say is kind of the head of the company.
The artist is the boss and in charge of everything. however the manager  sits just outside of that,  they’re the quarterback. So I’d say in a world where  the artist is the person who runs a company, the manager is probably the COO or the person who is there to direct  the traffic, help grow the business in all different areas and guises of the music industry.
So I’d say if the artist is a sun,  the manager is kind of the person with a magnifying glass trying to direct that kind of intense  hotspot onto all kind of areas of the music industry. And I think that’s a really  good way of kind of shining, you know, they’re there really driving these little hot pockets for you as an artist  or writer or producer.
but they’re there to  really kind of put some weight and some time and some effort and some light into the music industry for you. So  for example,  you and you and the artist, the artist and the manager, your team, that’s you in the middle and everyone else is basically outside it. So  as a manager,  here’s a few  things really that,  and we’ll talk through it.
Hang on. Have I got one more? I’ve got one more. There we go. so I’ll start kind of in the, in the top left here. So  as a manager, I’m just gonna kind of talk you through my experience as a manager dealing with each of these areas of the industry. I think it’s probably an easier way to  get a bit of insight into what I would do or have done as an artist manager over the last few years.
so starting with the songs, ’cause that’s why we’re all here, right, is we get a song as a manager and  it’s our job to  monetize it, to try and make as much money  or get as much attention as possible from the song. So we would really go two  seconds, there we go. we would really be  looking to find a publishing deal. That would probably be one of the first things we try and do along the journey, especially in the early stages or, you know, having the publishing side sorted.
we would try and reach out to publishers or writers or sync agents, but mainly like, let’s look at the publisher or the writer. You know, our job is to try and connect our artists with other artists and other writers and really try and grow the  song pool that we have. So  if I’m going into a project with an artist early doors,  I just want to build a real, real massive collection of songs.
I want a catalog of  hundreds and hundreds of songs if I can, because that means when we are working, we’ve got this constant flow of traffic and new music and exciting things to keep kind of pointing people in the right direction. so, you know, working with artists and artist writers  and then obviously on the publishing side, the sync thing is massive, but I’ll kind of touch on that a little bit later. on the recording side, and again, kind of task as a manager really is to try and secure a  record deal or, uh, some kind of, uh, deal or recording contract kind of along the way for our artists.
So  the starting point would be for us to be playing music to a and r people, kind of growing, growing that, uh, we would be kind of sharing music here, there and everywhere across the industry.
You know, we would try and be and, and you know, with the intention of really trying to get the artists a record deal once we have the record deal, you know, kind of good, good willing part of this conversation. but once we have the record deal, our job really is to deal with the record label, to work with them, but from the artist’s side to really try and secure as much support and effort and energy from the record label that we possibly can.
You know, I think it’s quite a difficult thing when you are a brand new act and you sign to a major record label and you know, I’ve worked with a few of these over the years where you as the manager sign a deal. It could be a kind of nominal size deal or it could be a big deal in terms of money,  but your job is to really try and be banging on the door of the record label to get as much care and time and attention put into your artist  much more  than any of the other 15, 20 projects that they’re working on who are also signed to the label at the same time.
Yeah, there’s quite a lot going on. You know, at any one point a record, especially a major might have 20, 30 releases on the release schedule. So if you are a new developing act,  you are fighting for space and time with the heads of these companies and the  PR people, the marketing people, you know, you are really there to be a kind of creative direction and drive your artists’  creative vision out into the record label.
In turn the record label tend to turn around and uh, suggest lots of terrible things and then you kind of, uh, being at war there for quite a long time. But, uh, your job as a manager is really to be, uh, protecting the artist  and be fighting the fight. You know, I think, in a lot of early kind of  stages as a, as a manager, I mean in my background as a manager, I started managing acts when I was  in university, had zero experience and I was probably there more just an enthusiastic  fan of an act  of the act really more than I was there for experience.
But I was the cheerleader and I was out there shouting and screaming to the music industry to anyone I knew and heard and had seen. And  my job was really the managers just to try and get as much attention we could  in with the band straight away.
And, you know, we secured a small record deal in those early stages. The first thing we did actually was, uh, find a booking agent. So this is a live a band who wanted to play a lot of live shows over the year. So we kind of went knocking on the door meeting as many booking agents as we could until we secured one.  And then we worked with promoters and really tried to grow the band’s live reputation. And we sent them out on tour for  six months of the year for a couple of years and they were, they played hundreds of shows and really tried to build a live career with this act.
And, you know, it was my  first kind of deal, I suppose I did, was finding the booking agent for this band. And that felt like a real kind of  first step I suppose for on the management ladder for me, what I think you can find in these stages as well is  if you are a new act and you are developing and  you are looking for a manager, sometimes someone like that, uh, an enthusiastic young  student,  someone who’s more committed maybe than they have the skillset,  having them on your team in the early stages is kind of quite helpful because you’ve got someone who’s really going in  with who wants to fight your corner.
I think finding champions in this industry is quite a big, Â big thing. And the more champions you can get on board with artists is, Â especially at an early stage, is vital really.
