SEYMORE STEIN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID QUANTICK

Seymore Stein - is a legend in the Music business.  Best known for signing Madonna, he remains today one of the most influential fast moving corporate execs to date.

Landing in the airport in the early 60’s and you don’t use the word ‘Exit’, so it says ‘Way Out’ and I said this place is fantastic!  That is my first memory.

How has the music industry changed since the post people’s era?

It’s changed a lot.  The Beatles really put English music on the world stage for the first time.  When I was a kid growing up in America there were more hits coming from Germany, France - a lot of big instrumental hits and Edith Piaf, - and there were at least 3 or 4 big international hits coming from Italy, Spain, etc…  It was the Beatles and everything they brought with them which put England on the stage musically.  As an industry we’ve seen better times [than now] but I think things will get better and I hope they will…

Do you think it’s the greed or technology that’s caused major changes in the music industry of late?

I don’t send my own emails, I’m just learning.  I’m really not very technical, I’m just a music guy.  But I don’t think it’s all that recent - it’s been happening for a very long time.  In the beginning there were 3 great record companies, one of them was English, you would know them as EMI but it’s original name was the Gramophone company.  And in America there was Columbia which was the Columbia phonograph company and the biggest of all was Victor, or the label which became RCA Victor and their name was the Victor talking machine company.  They all made phonographs, that’s what they did.  They made records too.  They controlled everything the hardware and the software.  And somewhere in the 50’s when music business became a big business and records really came through the roof they didn’t care about making the hardware, I didn’t even think about it.  I thought things were better because the components and everything that came after that were better but I think that this has been building up for a long time.  That’s my opinion.  I’m not an expert,  I feel that we’ve been losing it for over 60 years.

Do you feel the music industry is fighting with rearguard action or it’ll be able to cope and change?

It has to be, music isn’t a luxury (in this country music used to have a luxury tax), but it’s a necessity and we need it.  I think most of you in this room couldn’t live without it.

Presumably you couldn’t live without music…?

Um, it’d be hard! I love music, it’s in my blood.  I started when I was very young.  I went up to billboard when I was about 13years old and wanted to learn everything about the music business.  I started going through all the band volumes going back to the 40’s and the 30’s trying to learn.  It was actually not the right time to be doing that as the music business was changing, Rock and Roll was coming in and Tin Pan Ally was going out.  A year later they offered me a job while in school.  I met all my great mentors at Billboard, Paul Ackerman [Influential editor of Billboard from 1965 – 1973 overseeing the birth of Rock and Roll], Jerry Wexler [music journalist turned producer who coined the term ‘Rhythm & Blues’ and Sid Nathan [King Records].  He would often take me, twice to Cincinnatti over the summer vacation to really learn the music business.  My parents really wanted to see this guy who was obducting me!  I come from a vary ordinary middle class family and Sid Nathan said to my dad [cue Seymour doing a gravely voiced impression] “Do you have a lot of money?” – and he was asking my dad if he had enough money to buy me a newspaper round so I could deliver newspapers.  He said “Your son is hopeless, he’s got schlack in his veins.”  That being what they used to make records out of, out of schlack.  “If you don’t let him learn about the music business he’s gonna wind up with his head in the papers” – [jokes] I can just see myself outside selling the Big Issue [audience laughs].  But y’know, I’d have a hard time without music, it’s not just the music, but chasing it all over the world.  I love it and have done it all my life.

There’s a big gap between how I consume music and what you’ve done with music. What was the appeal?

Everything that went with it.  When I decided I wanted to be in the music business I didn’t know what the music business was or did that’s why I went up to Billboard as a kid, starry eyed…  
Having spent my life in it I think it’s a life well spent for me and wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s been an adventure and would hope that someone my age or older would look to doing it for 50 years on or for longer.  That’s why I look to the future to places like India, China, Russia and smaller places like Turkey and Indonesia for various reasons. They have rising middle classes, India, where I spent the most time has the worlds largest English speaking daily Newspaper, the Times of India, which has been going since 1824 and is more read than the New York Times, London Times etc... it’s number one.  In addition there are 30 or 40 other English language dailies.  There are over 300m middle class people and they love music.  China is another, and Russia. There are more millionaires and billionaires there than Europe and America put together.  We remember Russia as a place where people used to steal music, and they probably still do, China too, but they don’t have to anymore but that doesn’t mean that people won’t and don’t, but both these markets are both worth pursuing I think it’s the future, it’s what saved the Tobacco business from going out of business! And if they can peddle their poison we should be able to sell music…

What attracts you to an artist or band if you want to sign them?

In Real Estate they say it’s location location location, I say it’s songs songs songs.  I say everything else counts, certainly musicianship, stage presence, one thing I never went along with that comes and goes in England which is matching fashion with music.  I never got that.  I think basically it’s the songs.

Which artists have stood out in your own career?

Aside from the ones on my own label they were the artists I heard when I was around 13 years old.  I mean then others came along, number one I’d say Fat’s Domino, Chuck Berry, James Brown, who I was lucky enough to work with him for a number of years when I was at King Records.  The original Drifters, Clive McFadden, Ben E King and all the Doo-wop name bands like the 5 Saturns, the Flamingos, the Oreos, people you’ve probably never heard of but that’s what was going on when I was a kid.  That’s what shaped my life.  The first British English record I thought would be massive here in America was Joe Brown and the Brothers and a song called Picture of You.  I love Buddy Holly and he sounded like an English Buddy Holly, I loved that record and was on Pie, one of the biggest Independent labels. [continues talking about early English Rock n Roll stars such as Cliff Richard and the Shadows, Hank Marvin etc..]

Because the Beatles were such a tidal wave, that period of English Rock n Roll has been put on the bookshelf…

Unfortunately Johnny Kid and the Pirates - people don’t remember [them].  Some of the best bands which covered all the American hits are… [not remembered].

One of the things that fascinates me about you opposed to other music industry figures is your love of people you mention as diverse as James Brown, Joe Brown and you like a lot of people in the music industry worked and grew up with those sounds and yet when punk and new wave came along, and later dance music they said this isn’t rock and roll and dismissed it whereas you tuned into these people…

I also liked Edith Piaf from France, I like Oprah Hazzard from Italy. In America RnB was Rhythm and Blues and country and western, and pop which became rock n roll y’know.  With all the categories, all they do is split things up.  Really there is good music, and there is bad music.  One of my favourite songs is a Chinese song in the Mandarin language.  It goes all the way back to when I was a kid and I can only listen to the music that my older sister would play.  Great music hopefully will find a way to find a way to the top.  It’s not always the case and is getting harder and harder.

What’s your process of you hearing a band such as the Ramones to getting them on your label?

The Ramones happened so fast.  Almost as fast as their music. I heard about them, I arranged to go see them [but] I was sick and I couldn’t go. My ex wife went to see them and came back raving,  I had the flu.  I had them in a demo studio the next day and needed them for 15 minutes and in 15 minutes they sang 18 songs.  We spent the rest of the time negotiating the deal and signed a couple of days later… Around the same time I heard about the Talking Heads. in fact there many proponents were two of the Ramones who said you’ve gotta see the Talking Heads.  I’d been wanting to see them but I’d been over here so much that I kept missing them and they’d spent a lot of time up at Rhode Island.  I got back from England, and with the Ramones being managed by my ex wife they knew my every move so they called me and said “We’ve got some new songs we want you to hear live”, and I went down to CBGB’s the next day, and the opening act was a band I was supposed to have seen a few times and they were called the Shirts and unbeknown to me they’d gotten another gig and the opening band was the Talking Heads.  I was standing outside, and it was mid November, and all of a sudden I hear ‘Love goes to Buildings on Fire’ and the music just picked me up. I can’t recall anything like this in my life.  It sucked me into the room and when they’d finished their set I ran up on onstage and they were a 3 piece, with no crew or nothing and I was helping them down with the equipment and they said “Why don’t you come up tomorrow at 2, and they were living in a loft the 3 of them, and I did. I wanted to sign them then and there and I signed them 11 1/2 months’ later, 1st November the following year.  Boy were they worth waiting for!  I hear a lot of the Talking Heads in a lot of bands I see today.  

Is there anyone in history you’ve actively disliked and wouldn’t have wanted to have made it in the music business?

No, never with an artist.  In a sad way comparing artists to people that do what most of us to in the business is like comparing a human life with a dog.  I don’t mean it in a bad way, but it’s short.  Sure Madonna has been around 25 years and so has Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and a lot of other people but not that many compared to all the people you’ve known and seen.  I could never have any animosity towards an artists.  There are certain people along the way who have made it hard for me but I’ve no regrets.

What would you say to someone starting out in the music business now?

It’s very hard, I really don’t believe I would have made it if I wasn’t exposed to so many mentors and it’s hard to find them.  There’s like a great divide so it’s hard for young people to get close to them. In another way if you really and truly believe in something then don’t let anybody talk you out of it. I got hat email and threats when I signed the Ramones.  Miles Copeland had 2 bands on Sire who were very important to us in our early days, one being Renaissance and I had this Dutch band called Focus…There was 10 years before the Ramones...  When I signed the Ramones he said if you don’t drop this band immediately I’m suing you to get my artists of the label...

...People thought I was crazy when I signed Madonna saying “Why do you wanna f**k up your label!?” And I sure fucked it up good… [laughs].  But if I wasn’t there then someone else would have [signed her]...

You say that but with all due respect to Madonna when she first came along early singles did OK but at the time people thought ‘this is some New York fad’…

Well England was one of the last countries to come on board for Madonna but it’s her biggest market in the world right now and has been for the last 15 years and proportionally she sells the most amount of records in the world here.  The first place outside of America was France, and then Germany… [goes on to suggest it may have been the people at Warners who held back on Madonna in the UK at first].

What first attracted you to Madonna?

It was a DJ who I really liked that I followed round from club to club and who played all kinds of music that I loved.  He came to me and wanted to be more than a DJ and I gave him some remixes to do and what he wanted to be was a producer, and I said that nobody would accept him as he had no track record.  I gave him some money, about $18k to make 6 demos and the 3rd thing he brought me was Madonna…  And I was in hospital at the time when he brought the demo to me and I ended up signing Madonna right there in the hospital.  When she was inducted into the hall of fame this year she said “I got to meet this guy with tubes all coming out of him…”!

[Goes on to talk about how he wanted to focus the talk on England as we’ve ‘all heard the Madonna story’ and talks about preferring the British side of the industry)

Is there really a difference between the British and American attitudes?

I think that the British attitude is like the American attitude was when I was a kid.  You could see a band and things happen much faster here and they used to happen much faster here also.  I can remember walking down the street with George Goldman and he saw a band on the sidewalk and 2 days later they were in the studio and 2 weeks later their record was out.  They don’t happen that quickly over here but they do happen a lot quicker than the do in the United States.  There’s so much great music here but I love doing A&R here, it’s great.

What’s your Future?

I don’t know.  As long as I continue to do this I will.  I don’t wanna overstay my time, a number of people have done that but I think I’ll realise that or someone will tell me!  I don’t like the fact it’s difficult to give artists enough time as they deserve to be successful, but there’s still more things right than there are wrong so I’m very happy to stick where I am…

Transcribed/ written by Matt Garitty