 January 12, 2006
Interviewed by: Susan Johnson
Steve Chapman was first known to the world as Al Stewart’s
drummer and in the mid 80s he started managing Al’s touring
business. With that experience, he started his own artist
management company. Thirteen musicians are signed to Chapman
Management: Rick Braun, Richard Elliott, Al Stewart, Peter
White, Jeff Golub, Jeff Lorber, Marc Antoine, Paul Brown, Steve
Cole, David Benoit, Kyle Eastwood, Gerald Albright, and Down
to the Bone. Steve works with Rick, Richard, Al, Marc,
Steve, Jeff Golub and Peter and Ron Moss handles the others.
SmoothViews (SV): You started your career
as a drummer/percussionist for Al Stewart and were in a group
named The Pandas? I read that you got Poco back together
for their Legends tour? Tell us a little about your
early career.
Steve Chapman (SC): I was really a drummer
and I just happened to play percussion on an Al Stewart Live
record called Indian Summer in 1981. That
was just a brief interlude and then for a minute I went out
with him playing live in, I think it was ’84 or ’85,
playing a bit of percussion but then I went back to playing
drums with him. At the time it was sort of an unplugged
thing when I played percussion. My first recording band
was called Pandamonium. Spelled like Panda… like
that. I went through a whole slew of bands in England
and then started touring the States with Leo Sayer and then
Al Stewart. When I finally moved here at the end of 1977,
Poco had kind of disbanded and I hooked up with Rusty Young,
Paul Cotton and an English bass player named Charlie Harrison
and we were going to form a band called the Cotton Young Band. We
started rehearsing and recording and ABC, Poco’s record
label at the time, wanted one more Poco record. So we
just did the Poco record and abandoned the Cotton Young thing
and just carried on as Poco.
I started playing drums in school. When
I was 15, we had a little band in school called the Fables. I
used to promote dances and stuff. I would put Fables
in as the opening act and rent a church hall and hire a headliner… it
was always in the blood. When I left school, I was like
16 or 17; I got a job at a music publisher called Essex Music,
where my sister was working. They were a big pop music
publisher of the day and David Platz, the owner, funded a whole
series of independent producers… Denny Cordell, Gus
Dudgeon, Don Paul. Denny was producing the Move, Procol
Harem, Joe Cocker, acts like that and Gus Dudgeon was producing
Elton John. They
published Pink Floyd, David Bowie, The Who, Rolling Stones… so
I got to meet all these characters. I was there two years. I
started off as the office boy/errand boy. Then I started
running the music library and then I started running the acetate
cutting room where we made demos. Back then, you made them
on an acetate, you know… to pitch a song to somebody else
that you were trying to get a cover on… it was pre-cassette
tape, so you’d either send it out on a reel-to-reel tape
or an acetate. So I’d be in the cutting room making
these acetates and also recording people and copying tapes. Like
Pete Townsend would come in with some home demos from The
Who Sell Out album and I’d put them onto
acetate so they could be sent out to different people. Bowie
came in and I recorded Bowie there on a couple of open reel-to-reels,
just guitar and voice and stuff. I did that for about
six months and then got into record promotion and while I was
doing that… actually, when I first went there I had joined
a band called Pandamonium because this kid, Bob Ponton, was also
working there at the time and they needed a drummer. Then
when that fell apart, one of the bands that Denny Cordell was
producing was called JuniorsEyes and their drummer
had just left to join some other band. They asked if I’d
like to come and play with them and I joined them and so for
about three or four months I was still working doing record promotion
and playing with this band. That just got to be too much,
so I had to decide whether to commit full-time to music or stay
in the business. There was no choice! I had to be
a musician! (laughs) So I sort of became a professional,
as it were, when I was 18. And that lasted all the way
up until I went into management in my late 30s or something. Julia’s
Eyes put a record out. Denny started producing it and
then Tony Visconti ended up finishing it off. Tony had
just come from New York and then he went on to produce T Rex
and Bowie and all this other stuff. We were on Denny’s
label called Regal Zonophone in England and A&M in the States.
So
I was already somewhat grounded in [in the business side of music],
especially in the publishing area. All through
my musician years, I always had a keen understanding of the organizational
side and how the deals were made.
SV: How did you end up as Al’s tour
manager?
SC: I went out with him playing percussion,
this kind of unplugged thing, and at the time he didn’t
have anyone. He had no manager and had no one to do the
tour management stuff. I just came in and picked up the
tour management stuff. So I was playing in the band
and being tour manager and that kind of segued into being his
manager. I think for about a year or year-and-a-half,
I would still play in the band with him and manage him. Then,
getting close to the end of the 80s, I took on some other clients
and I just didn’t have time. So I would hire another
drummer to go on the European tours. I just did a few
shows over here. The last show I played with him was
in 1989 and I didn’t pick up a drum stick until about
a year ago. I’m going to band practice tonight
with Chris Desmond, who actually produced a couple of Al Stewart
albums, and a couple of other guys… ones a movie guy
and the other is in the wine business. We try and play
every week, usually ends up being twice a month. I really
have no desire to go play shows. It’s strictly
for fun.
SV: Why did you make the switch from Al’s
manager and drummer to starting your own company and when
did that happen?
SC: It was just one of those things. It
was an organic thing, really. I’d signed Al to
a record label called Enigma and they had a small jazz department
called Intima. Richard Elliott was signed to it and Exchange
and Fatburger and a band called Windows. One of the principals
of Windows was Skipper Wise and he was a good friend of Peter
White’s. They were neighbors and Skipper knew
that I was working with Enigma, so he asked me if I’d
be their manager. So I got involved with them. This
was in the early days of what was called NAC, New Adult Contemporary,
which morphed into smooth jazz in the mid-90s. So I started
working with Skip, representing Windows and then he did some
solo stuff. At the same time, Peter wanted to do a record
so we started shopping a deal for Peter White and finally got
him his licensing deal with Chase Music Group. Then
I was working with Al, Peter and Windows and I had another… Tom
Borton, and a singer-songwriter, Ian Matthews, and it just
kind of grew organically and I didn’t have time to be
on the road anymore as a musician with Al.
Then it grew going
into the early 90s and after I stopped working with Tom and
Windows, I really pared it down to just Ian, Al, and Peter. And
I was just going to pretty much concentrate on bringing on
some new singer-songwriters. Then Jim Snowden,
who was running Mesa/Blue Moon, kept bugging me about this guy,
Rick Braun. I went to see him and I thought he was great! If
I remember right, Skipper and I went to see him and I thought, “Yeah,
this guy is amazing!” So I took Rick on and then
after about a year, that started taking off. Then Richard
Elliott came on board and by that point, Peter White’s
career had really taken off. So it was great. We
had Peter White, Richard Elliott, Rick Braun. So I said, “Well,
I’m not going to fight this anymore.” You know
what I mean? This is great. It works. Then
Marc Antoine came on board and then I started hiring staff. Then
later on Ron Moss came on as a manager and so it just kind of
grew from there. Now we have six people working here and
the record company!
SV: Why did you decide to relocate from England
to Los Angeles and manage contemporary jazz musicians?
SC: It was in late ’77. Everything… most
of what I was doing, musician-wise, was over here. It
was pretty slim pickings over in England. I was coming
up on 30 and England always had this very healthy R&B/Country
Rock thing that was popular in the States. But going
towards the end of 70s, the whole punk thing was taking off
major in England. I was totally into Country Rock and
had no desire to be in a punk band. I enjoyed the vibe,
but it wasn’t my thing. Myself and a whole bunch
of guys… a couple of my contemporaries and others moved
to LA, New York, and San Francisco. I was here about
two months and got hired for the Poco thing and I just ended
up staying.
SV: What criteria do you look for when signing
a new artist to Chapman Management?
SC: This is true whether it’s
an instrumentalist or a vocalist or whatever, you ideally want
them to be great songwriters. They’ve got to have
a unique signature as an artist. Something that sets
them apart from any other vocalist, in style… this is
especially the case with instrumentalists because it’s
much harder to identify the different instrumentalists, so
they’ve all got to have a unique style. They’ve
got to have a charisma and be able to perform… be great
performers… or if you find a diamond in the rough, you
can work with them and help them become a really strong performer. That’s
really about it. It’s really an instinct thing,
you know. We get bombarded with demos here and at the
record company even more and there’s a lot of stuff that
isn’t that great. There’s only a handful
of stuff that really sits out from the pack. For instance,
Peter White. When we first started talking about doing
a solo record, Peter is an extremely accomplished keyboard
player and plays a lot of instruments. So his vision
of a solo record was to do maybe a keyboard thing here, an
organ thing here, an acoustic guitar there, an electric guitar
there, and I said, “Look. You really need to focus
and narrow it down to one thing you can do best. The
thing that most identifies you is your nylon string guitar.” And
all that Al Stewart stuff that he did. He played three
notes and you knew it was Peter White. So he, almost
reluctantly, agreed to do that. And he tried it and it
really worked. Peter White. That’s what he
does. And now, Peter gets up on stage and plays like
three notes or six notes and that’s Peter White. You
know who it is. Richard Elliott has that tone and phrasing. He
leans his head back and blows a couple of notes and it’s
Richard Elliott. Rick Braun plays four notes on the trumpet
and you know it’s Rick Braun. There’s no
question about it. I think you have to have that identifiable
hook. As a vocalist, you don’t have to be a great
singer necessarily, but you have to have a personality in your
voice that makes you unique and sets you apart from the pack. I
mean, Al Stewart, love or hate his voice, he’s Al Stewart. Know
what I mean? Bob Dylan, Neil Young, all of these great
guitarists have these amazing, unique personality voices. I
think that’s really the key. Having the uniqueness
and style.
SV: What is one of the toughest challenges
for you as a business owner in the music industry?
SC: Just keeping up with the changes
and the way business is done. That’s the biggest
challenge. And keep forging ahead and always trying to
keep one step ahead of the pack. Ideally, if you could
be a leader and not a follower, which is what you strive for
and hopefully you do that and get it right, half the time! (laughs)
SV: How has satellite radio and downloading
affected the artists you manage?
SC: The downloading thing is going to
affect… it is affecting it somewhat, but [in the future]
it is going to affect it in a major way. We’re
all seeing first-hand with ARTizen because we actually get
those numbers and statements directly from… we go through
an organization called IODA, which is an independent company
that collects royalties from iTunes and all the other services. Right
now, iTunes accounts for 92% of our downloads on Elliott and
Braun. And it’s starting to become a real revenue
stream. And it will only grow and grow and grow, as
probably CD sales erode. So it’s going to become
major and, at some point, will become the delivery system. I
don’t think CDs will ever go away completely, but I think
so many people, especially as you get more advanced and evolved
home entertainment centers… I don’t know how long
that will be… five years, maybe ten years… maybe
you’ll see CES this time out. The whole buzz is
integrated home entertainment systems, whether it’s a
Microsoft thing or an Apple thing or Yahoo or Google. Everyone
is trying to get into that game because that’s going
to be the ultimate delivery system for all music that’s
coming into the house, all movies coming into the house, all
TV, all cable… it’s all going to be integrated
into some sort of centralized delivery system. At that
point, when these things come into your house and if you want
to burn CDs from that, whether it is a DVD of a movie or a
CD, you can do that. Then you can use that in your car
or office or wherever else you want to go. Even with
the iPod, all of my music is now in my computer and on my iPod. I’m
gradually moving all of my CD collection in there and some
of my vinyl’s are actually in there. So that’s
where I think it’s all going in terms of downloads.
Satellite
radio, I think, is absolutely wonderful. I have
XM and I just re-subscribed to it. When Steve Stiles was
running “Watercolors” (contemporary jazz channel)… Steve
went to XM from WNUA in Chicago and now he’s back at WNUA… he
gave me a subscription to XM and put a player in my car because
they were trying to convert people in the early days and I always
loved it. The jazz channel is brilliant. They had
a singer/songwriter channel called The Loft and Steve’s
Watercolors was terrific. Satellite radio is a lot more
pure and they can take chances programming-wise. Hopefully
they’ll stay on track with that, you know. As with
any of this stuff, when it becomes successful, maybe it will
become corrupted and they’ll start putting commercials
on it, too. Hopefully not! Right now, I think it’s
terrific. Has it had an impact on people? Well, certainly
for music lovers. You’re exposed to more new music,
which is a great thing.
In the record industry, period, all CD
sales are down. I
think in jazz, they’re possibly more down, proportionately
perhaps, for a number of reasons. One of the reasons is
that a lot of the major accounts… Tower, Virgin, Borders,
Barnes and Noble… maybe back a few years ago they would
have gotten in their initial order of CDs and they would have
kept those CDs in for a year until they turned. Now, a
lot of accounts, if those CDs haven’t turned in 90 days,
they just send them back. They’re not keeping the
amount of stock that they used to. I think that’s
certainly hurt our corner because being an adult audience, you
know, they don’t rush out and buy a new CD. And
smooth jazz is, in some ways, a lifestyle music and there’s
a lot of music out there, so maybe you have to keep striving
when you make these records to do something different and give
people a reason why they should buy your new album. Once
you’ve done 10 albums, it’s like people already have
a body of your work so they’re going to listen to that
for years and years, so you’ve got to change it up each
time to give them a reason to get the new disc.
SV: You are involved in the new record label,
ARTizen, with musicians Rick Braun and Richard Elliott and
music attorney and owner of A-Train Management, Al Evers. What
would you like to accomplish with your own label that a larger
label might not?
SC: We want to make a home for artists. I
mean, certainly for the partners. That was part of the
motivation… where we have a little more control and
we aren’t at the whim of major labels and how decisions
are made at a corporate level. Rick had gone through
a couple of traumatic things. First, at Mesa/Blue Moon
when it was sold to Atlantic and we were left up in the air
for awhile before it was all sorted out. Then after that
deal was up, he went to Warner and Warner was fantastic! All
of the sudden, the marketplace changes and corporate just decides,
oh they don’t want Warner Jazz anymore, so you have in
the space of two years, what was arguably the most vital jazz
department of any major label and it’s just disbanded. After
having been through that a couple of times, and then Ron Goldstein
of Verve announced that they wouldn’t be signing any
new smooth jazz or jazz or whatever… so it was just
a question of wanting to have more control over it and provide
a stable environment for the artists we sign.
Now, having said
that, we have the same business challenges that the major labels
have. We have to make a profit or
at least break even. So, we’ve got to be making records
and selling them and be smart with our marketing money and promotion
money and recording budgets and all of that. There’s
no free lunch, as it were.
SV: Has ARTizen signed any new artists?
SC: We just signed Shilts of Down to
the Bone and Rick is producing him. The record should
be finished by mid-February for, hopefully, a mid-May release. Then
we’re going to do a Peter White “Best of” from
his early catalog later in the year. Then we’re
talking with a number of other people about some catalog pieces. And
we’re going to be releasing Sessions into
mainstream retail probably in May as well. There’s
been talk about maybe Richard doing a Sessions, sort of “Best
of” live. We’re still in the discussion stages,
but it’s possible that Rick Braun and Richard Elliott
will do a Duets record.
SV: What do you think is the future of contemporary
jazz and how can you prepare to face the changes?
SC: It’s really hard to say. The
music… there’s always had a common theme through
the whole contemporary jazz thing, going back to mid-80s until
now. So it’s been around for 20 years and I think
that they’ll always be a loyal listener base for it. There
will always be the festival circuit and all of that. Whether
it will ever get back to the glory days of the mid-90s, I have
no idea. Could another style of instrumental contemporary
jazz sort of morph out of what it is now? Almost certainly. Now,
what that is. I don’t know. Everyone is sort
of looking at that and going, “Where’s it going
next?” The whole chill thing… that could
be direction that could take off. As of yet, it hasn’t
really. It’ll be hybrids. There’s a
lot of interesting stuff coming out of England. A lot
of funk stuff in the vein of Icognito, who forged that path
awhile ago. I don’t know. These things usually
happen organically. Like with New Age… how that
just developed. And the whole R&B-based smooth jazz
thing just sort of developed out of what was loosely termed
fusion, melodic fusion, or whatever. So it’s really
hard to say what it is. What hybrid or style will be
next. But certainly for the thing to stay alive, it
has to change. That’s a given. You look at
different styles of music throughout the decades and country
music has come and gone a few times. Country rock was
really strong in the 70s and then fizzled out in the 80s with
the coming of punk and New Age and now that music sounds weird. And
then you have the high hair movement and pop rock in the 80s
and then grunge comes along in the 90s and it’s huge
and lasts five or six year movement. There’s always
different kinds of movement. And hip-hop. Who would
have thought hip-hop would still be with us 20 years later? And
that elements of hip-hop have been incorporated into smooth
jazz? Major! People are always borrowing from
each other and being inspired by different sources. You
never know where the next hybrid will come from. Almost
everything seems to have been done. You go back to pop
music in the 60s, the very simple… Beatles, bass, drums,
guitars and then it’s gone every which way into different
levels of sophistication. What is new? Usually
now, it’s just a hybrid or a style. I don’t
have a crystal ball to know what will be the new big thing. But
great songs always endure. And great vocals and great
instrumental always endure. Things that connect with
peoples hearts. It’s a very visceral thing.
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