Simon Napier-Bell is one of rock's most legendary managers – not only for the acts he was involved with, but for the people he knew, the scenes he observed, and the wicked wit he used to skewer them all. This interview was done for The Word, July 2006
On a Sunday morning in Kensington, Simon Napier-Bell sits in a big fat armchair and states his position. “I never argue with anyone about the death penalty, their politics, their football team or God. They are the four things that nobody ever changes their minds on, so it’s a waste of time.” He leans forward. “But I’ll take that further. If anyone believes in God, I won’t argue with them about anything. Because they’ve got a defective mind to start with.”
Our man today is both an unapologetic gay and one of London’s wittiest talkers. Barring the flash of atheist fundamentalism he is relaxed and genial, both erudite and gossipy – exactly as you’d hope from the author of those three splendid books. In order, there was You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me, a memoir of the Swinging Sixties, named after a hit he co-wrote for Dusty Springfield. There was Black Vinyl White Powder, a history of the music business with special reference to drugs. And more recently, I’m Coming To Take You To Lunch, an eye-widening account of his time co-managing Wham!.
From The Yardbirds and Marc Bolan to Wham! and Japan, Napier-Bell used his years in pop management to scrutinise the follies of fame. (“What did I learn from Marc Bolan? A couple of sexual perversions, but we won’t go into that.”) Above all he has learned to enjoy the ride, and emerged a world-class bon viveur. In London briefly (he lives mainly in Thailand with his boyfriend), Simon is happily anticipating “one of those Sunday lunches that threatens to put you back to bed at 5pm.” There will be no drugs involved, only the tipple he considers to be Man’s finest achievement: “Wine. People I know who’ve been through every drug, you see them at 40 or 50, they’ve given it all up and come back to wine. It cements people, creates conversation, defuses aggression. Ever since he found wine Man has been pottering around, disappointed that there’s nothing better to discover.”
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“IF YOU WANT GOOD SERVICE, TIP THE WAITER BEFORE YOUR MEAL.”
“But make sure he’s not about to go off duty. If I go to a restaurant and I want to impress friends, I go to the head waiter and ask him who’ll be serving us. I call him over and say, Here’s ten pounds, please serve us nicely. He will presume that he’s going to get another tip at the end so he will serve you exquisitely. But you don’t have to do that. You’ve made a deal up front. Business is better than gifts. If you want something off someone, don’t suggest that they ‘might’ do well if they look after you. Make a deal, not a promise. At the end of the American Wham! tour our backing band had been magnificent. It seemed a good idea to give them a tip, to thank them in some way. So my co-manager Jazz Summers went to see George about this tip and George said, Give them a T-shirt each. Jazz didn’t think that was a very good idea but George was adamant, so Jazz had to go and tell the band they were getting a T-shirt each. He ended up in hospital with a busted nose. The band would have been better to have put up front in their contract: If it’s a successful tour, this is what we want. They would have got it. And Jazz wouldn’t have got a busted nose.”
“NEVER SPEND ANY TIME ON DECISIONS.”
“I’ve always lived on the basis that everything that goes wrong is my fault, and if it goes right, it was luck. It leaves life very relaxed and easy. Most pop stars I’ve worked with, of course, have completely the opposite attitude. Everything that goes right is because they’re a genius and everything that goes wrong is because they have a fuckwit manager. So never worry about decisions. They’ll come to you in a split second and if they don’t, they’re not gonna come.”
“THERE IS NO PURE ART NOWADAYS.”
“There is absolutely no outlet now for purity in art: books won’t get published, pictures will not get hung in galleries. And that is rather good. You have to create something that will have a market. Artists have to understand commerce as never before. The music is not enough: it’s the album, in its sleeve, with its marketing campaign, that is being sold. I don’t say it’s not an art, but the art is a combination of marketing and performance. Artists have to pull out of their arrogant isolation and find ways of connecting with society beyond just the art. Artists are not happy when their art doesn’t sell. George Michael went to war with Sony saying ‘I am a pure artist, I don’t want to promote the record or do videos.’ Well, if you’re an artist go sing in the garden, or for your mother in the kitchen. Why do you want to sell records if you’re just an artist? Being an artist is a cry for help. All artists are very insecure people. They are desperate to get noticed, they are not artists to sit in isolation. They are looking for an audience. They are forced to be commercial, which makes their art, I think, all the better.”
“ARTISTS ARE ALL THE SAME PERSON.”
“They all have the same story. When I first saw Eric Clapton I thought, He isn’t an artist, he’s just a musician. In John Mayall’s band he played with his back to the audience because he was so shy. But as he evolved I saw he was an artist and when you look into his background, he had the missing father, the abusive childhood. They always have an abusive childhood, at least in terms of emotional deprivation, so they have this desperation to succeed, to get love and attention. All the others just drop out, because it’s horrible to be a star. It’s nice to get a good table in a restaurant, but then to have somebody come up to you every 30 seconds throughout the meal, is a nightmare. Yet stars will put up with that. They’re usually charming with new people, but when they’ve taken everything from someone, they have no further use for them. It’s no use getting upset or angry with them. They are what they are. There is a certain psychological damage that runs through every one of them. I guarantee that if you look through their childhoods you’ll find it. What else makes you so desperate to get this applause? So desperate you’ll lead a lousy life?”
“MANAGEMENT ISN’T A LOVE AFFAIR.”
“It isn’t about sticking with somebody through thick and thin. It’s about finding something that is manageable and will bring you rewards for managing it. You’re not there to make bands happy. You’re there to make them successful.”
“GAY SUB-CULTURE SHAPED BRITISH POP”
“Gay managers bridged the gap between record companies and artists. The companies were run by ex-public schoolboys who didn’t know how to deal with this new generation of stroppy, working-class artists. Then along came these managers who were mostly also public school; they could talk beautifully to the record companies yet spent their evenings going to see rough, stroppy kids. They got the trust of both sides, exemplified at first by Larry Parnes. And exactly as he came along National Service finished; prior to that there were no groups. Suddenly groups could stay together, rehearse and become real groups, and they wanted managers. Along came these gay entrepreneurs, and the result five years later was that the biggest groups in the world all had gay managers. And the artists enjoyed it, they found the gay world more interesting than having some middle-aged car salesman telling you what to do. But also in those days the only outlet apart from tiny clubs was variety bills, weekends on the pier, including a juggler, a comedian, a Number 1 pop star. We had Val Doonican on with The Yardbirds. And this taught the artists theatre, professionalism, how to dress up. And as theatre is luvvy-luvvy land, it gave the artists even more tolerance of gay culture. This is why Robbie Williams is so good, he’s a great theatre artist who could have played the London Palladium straight after a juggling act.”
“DRUGS ARE BEHIND EVERYTHING IN POP MUSIC.”
“Without amphetamines we would have stuck with big band music. But there was huge surge of amphetamines on the market when governments released their armies’ pill cache left over from the war. And rock was only country and blues speeded up. Then acid came along and suddenly a single that was three minutes long seemed to last for only half a second; you were floating around and anything less than an album wasn’t worth putting on. Well, an album cost much more than a single, so that re-financed the whole industry. Marijuana had a similar effect. But the next generation of teenagers, five years on, didn’t want that, they wanted to charge around on speed or coke, which brought about that very energetic glam-rock which soon turned into punk. It stopped in the late ’70s when there was a huge flood of cheap heroin from Iran and Iraq, and from that came the Blitz crowd, and that went on until ecstasy which completely changed music again. The difference today is that kids are incredibly knowledgeable and will do all the different drugs on different days of the week.”
“THE SECRET OF SELLING IS NEVER ASK THE PERSON TO SAY YES OR NO.”
“It’s something I learned when I was 18, going from door to door selling magazine subscriptions. The ploy is that so long as you don’t ask them to say Yes or No, you’ll still be there. So I’ve used that all my life: you involve someone in the proposition, and talk at length, slowly bringing them around until they end up putting it to you. This was how I sold Wham! to China. I went 18 times, had lunch with all these ministers and never asked if Wham! could play. I just kept talking around the subject in general terms until I saw a glimmer in their eyes and then I’d get more specific. And finally, at the last meeting, it was ‘You know, if Wham! were to play at the Workers’ Stadium, April 27 would be a marvellous date.’ Next thing they’re sending a telex telling me that Wham! are playing on April 27. And I’ve extended this to artists, who are impossible. They will never do what managers tell them. The only way is to put the idea in their heads as a discussion topic. It’s never any good asking them if they’ll do something, you’ll always get the wrong answer.”
“PEOPLE WILL NOT SEE WHAT THEY DON’T WANT TO BELIEVE.”
“I’ve witnessed this many times. I was about 21 and I met a guy in a gay pub; someone else agreed to lend us his flat, so we went back there, stripped completely naked and were having rampant sex on the floor. Suddenly the door opened. The person who had lent us the flat turned up with the boss of his company, and the boss’s wife. He’d completely forgotten he’d lent us the flat. And to say his boss was horrified… he was beyond anything I can explain. Anyway, the person I was with grabbed his clothes and ran out of the house. I grabbed my clothes, put them on in the next room, then came back in and sat down. I introduced myself and talked about his business, about politics and classical music. And half an hour later this boss did not believe what he’s seen. He’d literally taught himself to believe that I’d come to the flat along with everyone else.”
More about Simon Napier-Bell at www.simonnapierbell.com
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