Music business advice from Kevin Reynolds Part1

Sound music biz advice from musician and artist manager Kevin Reynolds

Kevin Reynolds is musician and CEO of KRMB Management. In a career spanning over 25 years, he’s worked with the likes of Usher, Take That, Lionel Richie and Phil Collins amongst many others. His management company boasts artists from across Europe. In November 2008, Kevin was selected from over 250 applicants to be one of 20 REACH National Role Models who aim to raise the aspirations and achievements of black boys and young black men.
‘The music industry may be constantly changing but it’s still a minefield out there. As such, I’ve always stressed the importance to black youngsters of being on top of their business game. Only then will you have the tools to build, expand and maintain success.’ Here, Kevin begins a regular spot in Flavour offering valuable inside tips on how to get and stay ahead in an ever-changing music biz.

I’m an MC and I’ve been making tracks for six months. I now want to get some CDs made up and put my stuff online. I’ve been told to get hooked up with the PRS? Who are they and what do they do?
PRS are the UK royalty collection society. It is their job to collect income from all venues in the UK and Radio, TV etc who play artists’ music, whether live or recorded. All venues have to pay a license fee to be able to air music for the public. This income is divided amongst performers and their publishers. They exist to collect and pay royalties to their members when their music is exploited in one of a number of ways – when it is recorded onto any format and distributed to the public, performed or played in public, broadcast or made publicly available online. This is an extremely important income stream for any composer.

The great thing about PRS is that even if an artist has a publishing deal 50% of all income will always come direct to the composer. An example I recently came across was a band that had broken up and left their current record/publishing deal. The publisher was paid £10,000 and the band was also paid directly £10,000. And this was for a very low level average radio play track. Just one song. They also received £35,000 income for one video on low rotation.

I would say to any upcoming artist to join PRS as soon as is possible and make sure you register all your songs and live performances. You can sign up at www.prsformusic.com.

When is the best time to get a manager? What should I expect a manager to do and how much should I pay them?
The two most important people initially in any artist’s life is their lawyer and their manager. For any artist the choice of manager is one of the most major decisions you are ever likely to have to make. There are a lot of sharks out there promising the world and delivering nothing. Be very careful!

Your manager generally should organise your musical and financial life. You can have a separate business manager for your finances if needed.

Some managers get involved in the development of artists, so they would be around from very early on, as they would help the artist find producers, studios, and photographers etc to get to a stage where the music can be presented to a record label.

As a manager I have done this. It’s tough to get a manager these days to cover these costs. I also negotiate contracts with my legal team, sort accountants for the artists, book and make travel arrangements. I recently sorted a new apartment for my artist Ashley Hicklin who has relocated to Germany to work on his album with EMI.

I am the middle man between all the companies that need to make contact with my artists. As a manager, I do what ever is needed to make sure their lives run smoothly and that all of their bills and taxes are paid etc.
You can expect to pay your manager from 15 – 20% of your gross income (that’s before all expenses). No manager should commission you before all costs when it comes to live, so that is 20% NET from live income, as touring is extremely expensive.