MBW’s World’s Best Managers collection profiles the perfect artist managers within the international enterprise. Chris Woltman is the long-serving supervisor of Twenty One Pilots, one of many largest various rock bands of the final 15 years. He talks about breaking the band, staying on the prime, constructing a roster at his Element1 administration firm, and launching a brand new label, ARRO. World’s Best Managers is supported by Centtrip, a specialist in clever treasury, funds and international change – created with the music trade and its wants in thoughts.
Chris Woltman takes a name from his artist.
It’s 2015 and Woltman’s administration purchasers, Twenty One Pilots, are the most well liked band on the planet, having fun with an enormous breakthrough hit with Pressured Out, taken from their fourth album, Blurryface. The music is No.2 on the US Scorching 100, it’s all around the radio, it’s going gangbusters on this new-fangled factor known as streaming and it’s a Prime 10 hit around the globe. Which is why Tyler Joseph, again in his Ohio hometown of Columbus, is looking.
“In all places I am going, I hear my voice,” says the considerably bewildered frontman.
Some managers might need pushed for the band to squeeze final each drop from this second. However Woltman – safe within the information that he had already helped construct the band to enviornment degree earlier than Pressured Out’s ubiquity – selected a unique path.
“It was an fascinating second,” says Woltman, with trademark laidback, deadpan cool. “Like, perhaps the technique right here is to not push and push and push, however to close it down. At that time, there was sufficient music out there, so the fanbase that was coming in needed to dig deeper. It actually helped to unfold the success of all that music. There might need been a little bit of magic in that second.”
And magic moments have been a specialty for Twenty One Pilots – and Woltman’s Element1 administration company – ever since. Regardless of rock’s points with gaining traction within the streaming age, TOP have persistently remained one of many largest attracts within the style.
Their Clancy tour, which concluded its most up-to-date leg with two spectacular sold-out dates at London’s cavernous O2 Area in Could, shifted over 1.1m tickets throughout a run that included the band’s first stadium headline present in South America, in addition to big gigs throughout North America, Europe and Australasia. One other tour kicks off in North America in September.
The Clancy album went Prime 3 on each side of the Atlantic and around the globe, wonderful a couple of billion streams, whereas the follow-up, the band’s eighth album Breach, is due in September. Lead single, The Contract, has already racked up greater than 20 million streams on Spotify alone.
It’s an old-school story of long-term artist improvement and slowburn success, and Woltman’s personal path to the highest has been the same story of fixed incremental upwards momentum.
Though now primarily based in California, Woltman – like his most well-known expenses – hails from Ohio. Certainly, he began his profession selling exhibits at Columbus’ legendary 1,700-capacity Newport Music Corridor, the very venue that TOP as soon as dreamed of promoting out (a feat they managed in 2011).
From there, he moved into the label world, first as a school rep for Sony, then in more and more senior roles at Columbia Information. Clive Davis headhunted him for J Information and he finally turned SVP of Rock for RCA, working with the likes of Foo Fighters, The Strokes and Kings Of Leon.
However, with the broader recorded music enterprise burying its head within the sand over the post-Napster hunch, he noticed the potential for digital music and left Sony, establishing Element1, initially as a label and administration firm, earlier than concentrating on administration from 2011. In addition to TOP, Element1 now additionally takes care of platinum-selling rapper NF, rising rockers The Band Camino and numerous different artists, songwriters and producers.
“Ensuring all the pieces is marching to the beat of the identical drum is a tremendous problem day by day. But it surely’s thrilling…”
Woltman can be making a return to the label enterprise with ARRO, co-founded by him and Joseph. They’ve partnered with Atlantic on Balu Brigada, the opening act on Twenty One Pilots’ world tour, who’ve scored a No.1 US various airplay hit with So Chilly.
“It’s excruciatingly exhausting work!” Woltman laughs as he contemplates his rising roster. “Ensuring all the pieces is marching to the beat of the identical drum is a tremendous problem day by day. But it surely’s thrilling…”
There’s an enormous yr forward for all of Woltman’s purchasers. However earlier than all that, he sits down with MBW to speak AI, A&R and TOP’s lengthy street to the highest…
WHAT’S THE SECRET TO MANAGING A SUCCESSFUL ROCK BAND IN 2025?
Within the final 15 years, the power for brand new bands to have success has confirmed to be an enormous problem. That’s what makes it that rather more fulfilling, to take a look at it and say, ‘Wow, one way or the other we’ve been capable of thread the needle’.
However the extra issues change, the extra they keep the identical. On this trade, in case your imaginative and prescient is for long-term, sustainable careers, what it’s at all times been about continues to be what it’s all about: make nice our bodies of labor – an actual document not only a single – get out on the street and actually perceive and keep dedicated to the thought of what group and fandom could be on your model proposition. It isn’t about making an enormous break for a TikTok second – if that comes, that’s nice, nevertheless it’s an additive.
Take a look at Twenty One Pilots and NF. You don’t get 14 years right into a profession by skipping any steps. For those who skip steps on years one, two or three, you’re most likely going to place your online business in danger. Even in case you can take the bounce, you don’t. It’s a whole lot of self-discipline!
WAS THAT DIFFICULT TO STICK TO WHEN TWENTY ONE PILOTS HAD A MASSIVE HIT WITH STRESSED OUT?
I couldn’t be extra happy with the truth that, after they had been thrust into the zeitgeist of widespread tradition, we didn’t even actually observe that up. Within the US, earlier than Pressured Out turned successful, we had been already on an enviornment run that was 72% offered out. I like to put that on the market; for individuals who actually perceive what which means, it’s a ‘Wow!’ statistic.
In Europe at that stage, the fellows had been at 5,000 or 6,000 tickets all over the place and we had been capable of trip via the success of all that. We did one thing actually fascinating popping out of that section: we shut all of it down, the web site went darkish, the fellows got here offline, we went darkish for a yr. There was a philosophy behind that as nicely, as a result of there was all of the success earlier than there was all of the success.
DID YOU ALWAYS EXPECT TOP WOULD BE THIS BIG?
The brief reply is sure, however there’s extra to it than that. Early on with the fellows it was a dialog about, ‘Do you wish to be the most important band on the planet or one of the crucial essential bands on the planet?’ And it was at all times [the latter].
The thought being that changing into one of the crucial essential bands on the planet would result in a long-term profession and to a world fanbase that was as passionate as this fanbase has now confirmed to be.
I don’t wish to sound like, ‘Oh, we knew 14 years later it was going to be as huge as this’ – you don’t know that. However after I look again, everyone exhibiting up day by day and placing all their effort into it, gave a way of confidence that this was going to be one thing actually particular.
HOW IMPORTANT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE AT LABELS WHEN IT CAME TO BECOMING A MANAGER?
Being within the label world for these years has confirmed to be invaluable in the case of forming my philosophy. I used to be actually lucky to work for folks at Columbia Information particularly, who gave me an opportunity to place a few of these philosophies in play and construct careers alongside the way in which.
Even working in live performance promotion, I used to be uncovered to issues like settlements, load-in and catering – no matter it was, I noticed all of it on the bottom and in actual time. As I moved throughout to the label facet, I touched on so many alternative classes of what it takes to run a enterprise.
On the time, I don’t assume I knew it, however I look again and assume, ‘How fortunate was I that individuals would share what they do and permit me a deep dive into their view on it?’ It led to a profession which went via radio promotion, distribution, advertising and marketing, A&R and even just a little little bit of finance – it put me in the perfect place to have as a lot information as I probably may.
To say it was invaluable and that it fashioned the pillars of all the pieces that has helped me alongside the way in which, is an under-statement.
WHY DID YOU LEAVE THE LABEL WORLD?
I’m not going to name it a crystal ball imaginative and prescient, however I’d gotten to the purpose the place administration at all times intrigued me; the thought of sitting inside the heart of an artist’s profession and dealing with the stakeholders that really have a hand on the wheel was at all times intriguing.
There was an period when a whole lot of a supervisor’s job was simply to get an artist signed to a significant label after which let the most important label do no matter they had been going to do. However whenever you get to the early 2000s, the recorded sector was cratering on each degree. That they had not, as an trade, seemed down the street to see what their function may very well be or needs to be.
Administration has taken on a higher performance; you sit inside the core of the model and you’re employed together with your brokers, your promoter companions, your label and music publishing companions, and others inside the totality of the enterprise.
And, most significantly, a supervisor’s job at its very core is to be the final guard on the gate for the artists that they work with by way of their artwork. That’s a reasonably deep duty; it’s important to be sure you shield that, as a result of that’s crucial piece of the puzzle.
MANY MAJOR LABELS ARE RESTRUCTURING: DO YOU WORRY THEY’RE STEPPING AWAY FROM ARTIST DEVELOPMENT?
Properly, they’ve stepped away from it. The distribution half is now so vital for brand new artist signings, it has modified the economics of a label.
We’re within the midst of this financial restructuring relative to what an artist place is and what the artist will get out of a document. The times of the 14-point royalty full of all types of recoupables is winding down. Which goes so as to add an extra problem: if the upside for a label is no longer as vital because it was previously, then how does all of this heavy lifting play itself via and what does it take to do this?
“artist and administration need to set the tempo and need to be ready to re-invest of their careers as a result of, in the end, it’s their profession.”
There are some labels that do perceive the significance of constructing a profession. Does it imply that you may’t have fast hits and there aren’t artists and songs that come and go? No. However that, coupled with a dedication to artist improvement, in the end makes essentially the most sturdy roster on the planet.
However artist and administration need to set the tempo and need to be ready to re-invest of their careers as a result of, in the end, it’s their profession.
SO, DO ARTISTS STILL NEED LABELS?
Sure. As a result of there’s one thing in regards to the magic of a label, whether or not that could be a conventional label set-up or a distribution mannequin. Nonetheless it defines itself, whenever you rise up to the beginning line and also you hit go, the thought of with the ability to corral a world associate and the extent of communication and push that goes into that… There’s large worth in that second.
The flip facet of that’s, you’ll be able to’t depend on the label to fund your online business and drive these core ideas of creating nice information, getting out on the street and touring and constructing a group.
There are very outlined items of the puzzle that labels do and nonetheless do very nicely. After which there are issues that labels don’t do very nicely and that’s the place you’ll want to be sure you’re doing them.
IT’S BEEN A TOUGH FEW YEARS FOR ROCK MUSIC. IS IT COMING BACK NOW?
Some individuals are arguing that the pendulum is swinging again as a result of, whereas hip-hop was so dominant, now you’re taking a look at nation, which is working all around the globe, together with components of the world the place it by no means labored previously.
So hopefully the pendulum goes to swing again – I take a look at TOP’s streaming numbers each week, and the numbers are large.
On this tour, Tyler does this factor on the music Trip, the place he brings a fan up they usually get to sing a part of the hook with him out on the B-stage. Each single one of many youngsters he has introduced up wasn’t born when the primary Twenty One Pilots document got here out. However there they’re with the masks or the make-up, the yellow tape or the pink tape. At 12, 13 or 14, they’re the subsequent era of fandom. It’s fascinating to see that.
TWENTY ONE PILOTS ARE A BIG STREAMING SUCCESS. BUT DO THEY MAKE ENOUGH MONEY FROM STREAMING?
No. Once you take a look at the economics of streaming and what an artist brings to the desk, feeling the artist deserves extra of that income is a legitimate argument to proceed to have. Whether or not it’s the platform or the label or whoever, all of it begins with what these artists do. Music is the lifeblood of all of it.
“On the recorded facet, the economics are clearly shifting, so it will likely be fascinating to see the place it lands within the subsequent couple of years.”
On the recorded facet, the economics of that world are clearly shifting, so it will likely be fascinating to see the place it lands within the subsequent couple of years. These economics are altering for the betterment of the artists and that’s going to show to be invaluable.
Any means you chop it, it begins with the people who find themselves making these songs and have that imaginative and prescient and see these songs via. Ensuring that they’re compensated correctly is an on-going quest. We’re in the course of that sea change nevertheless it’s shifting in the appropriate path.
DO YOU WORRY ABOUT WHAT AI WILL DO TO ARTISTS’ CAREERS?
I’m not frightened. The emotion of an incredible music, an artist delivering that nice music in a studio, writing lyrics which can be in regards to the human situation after which getting out on the street and delivering that have each evening… These issues nonetheless require extraordinarily proficient folks.
They’ll press a button and it may sound like Twenty One Pilots, nevertheless it’s not. Whether or not it’s a wonderful line or an enormous hole between with the ability to press that button and sound like [an artist] versus sitting down, writing these lyrics, entering into the studio, struggling via how these lyrics, the melody and the manufacturing come collectively within the studio – these issues nonetheless maintain true.
THERE ARE STILL A LOT OF ACQUISITIONS HAPPENING IN THE BUSINESS. HAVE YOU HAD ANY OFFERS FOR ELEMENT1?
Sure. I can’t say I’m not in any respect, however the thought of with the ability to run your online business the way you wish to run it, even in case you’re concerned in a partnership, is vital.
I wish to run the place I’m at independently. I’ve acquired some partnerships which can be a part of it, however I run my enterprise how I run my enterprise and that half is nice, so I’m proud of the place it’s at.
HOW BIG DO YOU WANT YOUR NEW LABEL TO BE?
When the potential to signal one thing feels proper, then we are going to. And there are such a lot of shifting components within the thought of one thing feeling proper.
There’s no mad rush to go on the market and have this huge roster. If an artist comes alongside tomorrow that matches into the entire image, then we’d be in that dialog. It’s not that dissimilar to how the roster has developed on the administration facet – it would come when it comes.
