Wolf Alice manager Stephen Taverner has forecast a resurgence for guitar music, telling Music Week that the band are about to “open a lot of doors for new artists to come through”.
With The Clearing, Wolf Alice’s fourth album and first since their high profile move to Columbia out this week, we can bring you an exclusive in depth conversation with the band’s longtime manager, who spoke alongside them and their new team in our September cover feature.
In 2021, Wolf Alice secured their first ever No.1 album with Blue Weekend in what was the biggest opening week for a British group so far that year. According to Midweek charts flashes, they are now on course for a second No.1 with The Clearing.
With their first Top 75 single already secured on this new campaign in Bloom Baby Bloom, and international expansion a prime target, Wolf Alice are hurtling towards a UK arena run later this year. Even though things are showing no sign of slowing down at any point in the near future, Taverner took the time to guide Music Week through the new campaign, as well as talking management, new music, the issues facing artists right now and more.
How has the experience been with Columbia so far?
“The set-up has been great so far, everything’s amplified, everything’s bigger, which is what we want. The people are amazing, they love music, which is great. You can sit and talk about music all day long, which is brilliant and that’s from the top down. There’s no one sitting in an ivory tower over there. They’re all getting their hands dirty, which I love. I think there’s a perception of people that major labels don’t get their hands dirty at the top, but they absolutely do. I think maybe in yesteryear that wasn’t the case, but these days, everyone gets involved. Everyone’s excited and everyone wants to win.”
Jason Iley told us he was blown away the first time he heard the album…
“Yeah, he was visibly moved. It is a very special album, there’s no getting away from that. They can’t come along very often, these kinds of albums. I don’t think we even had all the final mixes, so he heard a very early version of it. But he got it straight away, it was nice, and to hear him talking about it and hearing his favourite tracks, just on one listen he was picking his favourite tracks and moments in the songs, lyrics. He was totally into it.”
What about the first time you heard these songs, can you talk about that?
“They didn’t send me demos, they said, ‘we want to play it live.’ So I went to their rehearsal room and sat in the middle of them. They were set up in a circle, and they played me all the songs live. It was fucking mind blowing if I’m being honest. I sat there, going, ‘Wow’. They wanted to make these songs work live, if they sounded great live, then they were worth recording.”
Did you expect them to make a record like this?
“They’re very ambitious as a band, they work so hard, so hard. I mean, across the first three albums those guys worked their backsides off to get to where they are in terms of touring and making sure they were crossing all the T’s and dotting all the I’s, they’re detailed like that, which I love them for. And so with this one, you know, they had signed to a major label, and they wanted to make a big sounding record, a crossover record. Every one of their albums sounds a little bit different, so in that respect, it’s a natural progression for them to do something a little bit different. They definitely fully intended to make a big sounding record.”
When they played me all the songs from The Clearing live, it was mind blowing if I’m being honest
Stephen Taverner, Easy City Management
Where will this album take its place in the music ecosystem?
“Well, I personally feel like we’re entering a new phase, not even a new phase, it’s an old phase coming back, where guitar music is coming back into fashion again. All the demos we get at my company are all from kids with guitars, it’s really interesting to me. Maybe they’re hearing their parents’ record collection, their siblings’ record collection and it’s inspiring them. I’d like to think that people want emotion again. We’ve had years of scrolling on TikTok and wacky videos and influencer stuff, and I’d like to think it’s because people are now wanting to feel that emotion in songs again. I feel like we’re really well positioned to be at the front of that globally. I think Wolf Alice are going to open up a lot of doors for these new artists to come through.”
We spoke to the band about the realities of life as a musician, do you have many conversations like that together?
“Joff [Oddie, guitarist] and I talk a lot about it. He’s heavily involved in the FAC, I’m in the MMF and I see it from the manager’s side, obviously. A lot of younger managers talk to me and say, ‘I’ve got this amazing artist, we can’t make any money from touring, I can’t even afford a rehearsal studio, have you got any advice?’ And it’s so hard, for these young guys and girls, and there’s no ecosystem. There used to be an ecosystem, be it the Fortress Studios in Old Street or whatever, cheap, rough and ready. That has disappeared.”
Is there any light at the end of the tunnel?
“There’s a fund for artists to apply for funding so they can tour in the UK, which is great, and there’s the £1 levy, I think that’s great. But where’s the government? I think the export side of the music industry from the UK is massive, we really punch above our weight, massively. We need the government to be supporting that as well, certainly at grassroots level. They do come in occasionally at a high level, but at a grassroots level where artists are struggling even to get in a rehearsal room, I’d love them to be more involved. And then the streaming debate is an ongoing one. Look, I understand how a business model works for a corporation, or even an independent label or a distribution company, I get it. I guess it’s just a shame it’s not a little bit more level, the playing field. I will say that Sony has been more progressive than anyone on that front. I mean, Rob Stringer in particular, he’s been very progressive, Jason’s been very progressive.”
What do you mean specifically?
“I’m pretty sure Rob was the first person to zero the unrecouped balances by an artist, which is amazing, and a bold move, I think, from a company like that. So, I’m hoping that everyone else will look at what Sony are doing and do the same. There’s an ecosystem that we all need to survive in, and that starts at a grassroots level, and that’s obviously where Wolf Alice came from, and most of the artists I’ve worked with came from. We need to protect that, and that’s how we punch above our weight, we find things, we develop things, we grow them, and we cross them over internationally and sell them around the world. That’s huge and it should be protected and cherished.”
Are there any more Wolf Alice projects in the works that will speak to these issues?
“Well, there’s the £1 levy. We’re doing that on our arena arena tour. Ellie talks a lot about, you know, ‘how do we support younger artists with rehearsal rooms?’ I mean, we all live in Seven Sisters and there are a few rehearsal rooms, a few studios, but they’re a bit pricey. So finding something that’s affordable for these younger artists, community-minded, probably. If the local council got involved, amazing. But Ellie does talk about that quite a bit. I know the guys are fully supportive of that as well. It’s that grassroots stuff that we need to really focus on, I feel. Because that’s where the superstars come from, ultimately.”
It’s not like it was in the ’90s, where it was f***ing crazy, you know, people were just screaming at each other to have hits
Stephen Taverner, Easy City Management
In terms of the pastoral side of management, what support do you think artists need in terms of mental and physical health?
“It’s very important to me personally. I built in a week off for everybody, in fact, before the album came out, you know, because we’re in this campaign, it’s intensive and I need people to have some space. When I say people, I mean the band and everyone around them. That’s very important to me and it’s very important to the band as well. Record companies as well, I check in with people all the time. I check in with people at Sony, see how they’re doing. Because it’s intensive, a lot of pressure. It’s not like it was in the ’90s, where it was just fucking crazy, you know, people were just screaming at each other to have hits. It’s not like that anymore, thank God. And also, post-Covid, I think people realise that, actually, we are living in a world here where we’ve got families, we’ve got friends. It’s our health, and maybe we should just focus on that a little bit more rather than just screaming at each other to have hits. I think people are a lot more mindful of that now, which is a very good thing.”
Back to the campaign for the new record, how did you want to shape it from the outset?
“We’ve been away for a long time, I think it was three years. Times change, people get into different music. Obviously our diehard fans are still going to be there, but we wanted to appeal to a much wider audience. And there’s a hell of a lot of noise out there, so if you can come back with a strong, compelling image and an incredible song and set it up so that you can reach the widest audience possible… I think that’s what we did and the label executed that perfectly with Bloom Baby Bloom.”
What are your targets for The Clearing?
“Mainland Europe is a big one. We’ve done okay there over the years, but it’s never really got above 1,000-cap venues. Now we’re going into arena territory, which is fantastic. And the media are embracing the band in every territory around the EU. That’s an important part of what we want to do with this record. America is obviously a very important part of it, and a lot of the US tour dates have sold out already. We’ve never had that before. We could have actually added additional dates, but we decided to hold it back and come back again into bigger venues. Australia and New Zealand’s always been great for us, but we want to take things up another level there as well, and Asia… I could talk about the whole world!”
Have you had a chance to take stock of how far Wolf Alice have come amidst the rush of the new campaign?
“At Glastonbury, watching them at the back of the stage. I got quite emotional, because I was thinking about exactly that, how far they’d come. Looking out of that crowd, just thinking about all of the hard work that they’ve put in over the years and everything that they’ve been through, and then here we are, and the sun was going down, and it was just a very magical moment. I really feel like you should never forget what you’ve come from. Don’t ever forget that because they’ll keep you grounded and it’ll be a nice reminder every now and again. It’s very easy to get a bit carried away with all this crazy stuff that goes on in our industry. But a nice little reminder every now and again just brings you back to earth, which is important, not just for artists, but for people in the industry as well.”
Finally, what would you say the Wolf Alice story tells us?
“Stay true to yourself and don’t rush. It’s difficult, some people do these deals where they put pressure on themselves right at the beginning, say it’s a big advance, and they have to deliver, sell so many records to recoup that advance. So don’t put pressure on yourselves right at the beginning. Give yourself a chance to grow. They were in their early twenties when I started working with them, you’re still developing and growing as a person, especially creatively. And your songwriting will subtly change and your outlook on life will subtly change. So give yourself room to grow and develop as an artist, if you can. That’s important and that’s what I try to do with all of our artists.”
PHOTO: Rachel Fleminger Hudson