It may be all too easy these days for the hardened cynic to see the music world as an alienating, amoral, biasly conservative industry run by corporate sharks who have little to no understanding – or actual passionate interest- in real music. Solely in it to see how many units can be shifted and how much money they can effectively squeeze out of artist and consumer alike.
It’s certainly a relief then, to meet authorities out in the field who just aren’t like that. At this year’s South By Southwest Festival, Live4ever was lucky enough to catch up with veteran music mogul, manager and promoter Michael Chugg whilst he was showcasing some of his new signings – these including J.P Hoe, Lime Cordiale, Sidney York, The Griswolds, The Creases and The Parade Of Lights – to soak up a bit of his wit and wisdom and find out what keeps him going after all these years.
“I love entertaining people,”
Michael tells us. “And the greatest thrill for me is to stand on the side of the stage and watch Coldplay in front of 60,000 people having the time of their lives. That’s what it’s all about. Or going to a show of young bands and watching twenty people having a good time – it’s about entertainment. It’s about watching bands connect with their audiences, it’s about believing in something and being right.”
On March 14th 1964 – at the tender age of fifteen – Chugg, a keen amateur cyclist, organised his first dance in his home town of Launchesten, Tasmania for three hundred members of the local cycling club. The gig made a profit of 80 dollars and sparked off an interest that saw him go on to manage local outfits such as The Chevrons and arrange performances by visiting acts including Bobbie and Laurie and The Easy Beats. Since that time things have, to say the least, epically snow balled, with Chugg relocating to Melbourne in 1967 and working for the Australian Musicians Booking Agency before moving again to co-run the Sydney Office of Consolidated Rock Agency and then the SunRise Agency in 1972.
Across his career he has handled bands and artists from English New Wave acts such as Squeeze, Reckless Eric and The Police, through to Guns ‘N’ Roses, AC/DC, Pearl Jam and psychedelic young guns Temples amongst many ,many others.
“Ah well, it’s still all about great songs, whether it’s hip hop or folk or rock. It’s still all about the songs. It’s always been about the songs for me,” Chugg continues. “And right now, in the last five years or so, it’s probably been the most exciting time of that whole fifty years.”
His belief in good music has, though, seemed like complete (and initially expensive) madness, on occasion sometimes receiving more than a little eyebrow raising from those around him. “I remember back in the 90s I was in a company called Frontier Touring, one of the big Australian touring companies. We started in ’79 and, in the late 90s, did a band from England who had one hit single and the tour lost 40,000 dollars. The financial director of the company gave me so much shit for a long time over that band…They were called Radiohead, and I’ve toured them three times since and we sell 100,000 tickets in 6 minutes, so it’s all about growth and growing with young bands.”
While others of his age are readily considering retirement, it doesn’t look like Chugg is going to be throwing in the towel just yet, especially as he doesn’t see his job as work but as something he simply loves doing. Others might have their shed, or a garden, or a loft-wide train-set or an old car, but for Chugg it is music and seeking out young bands. “Sometimes you get a bit bored with it,” he says. “But my wife and I have a place in Puhket where I hang out occasionally. I’ve just been to New York for two days; that’s like a bit of a break. I was in London for a week, seeing all my old mates – and looking at bands, it’s what I do.”
Indeed, at the end of 2005 he launched Chugg Entertainment (initially Michael Chugg Entertainment), which made a marked profit and at the start of 2014 the enterprise expanded by launching subsidiary record label Chugg Music in the US, with distribution through Super D/Alliance-and Sydney based MGM.
It must be noted that Chug talks almost incessantly – and with ripe enthusiasm – about the bands on his books, which include six-piece Sheppard and Sydney outfit Lime Cordiale, whom he hopes will be headlining the main stage at Glastonbury someday. Chugg is like a kid obsessed with the next best thing, firing off all manner of encouraging facts and figures about how these bands, and notable others on his roster, have been beginning to make waves in Australia as well as America and European provinces, and all with the rigour of a man half his age. He is eager to extol the virtues of college radio, something that, even in these Internet saturated days, Chugg sees as an important arena from which to garner interest. A sturdy platform that won’t necessarily make as much money when compared to mainstream stations, but still an important area to utilise and expose talent to hungry, appreciative and music savvy listeners.
Universal statistics may point towards trends that suggest older generations have a healthy distrust of the Internet, but for Michael Chugg it is definitely the way forward. He claims not to have listened to vinyl (the preserve of many an elder gent) for decades even though, in light of retro nostalgia, he does see it having credentials.
“With the Internet, young bands are being able to come through quickly and make their own records” he tells Live4ever. “They’re no longer sort of tied to the whims of major record companies who think they know better. But it’s been great the last couple of years. We’ve been doing a lot of young bands, managing and recording them, letting them have their head basically. Just fine tuning them and helping them with A&R. We do a lot of young bands right from the bottom and hopefully they grow and we grow with them.”
In 1998, he was awarded membership of The Order Of Australia for service to music and the performing arts, particularly in relation to the promotion of Australian Artists, and fundraising for youth and children’s charities. Thus it seems that, for Chugg, the youth are everything; those who are going to take up the mantle when, as he puts it, he or others like him, ‘eventually fucking fall apart and can’t carry on’.
When not globe-trotting, plugging and managing new bands, and enjoying the music, Chugg is busy working for good causes, such as organising the ‘WaveAid’ concert in Sydney in 2005 – a charity event for the victims of the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004. He also gives talks to young people, and tells each of them: “If you believe in something and keep banging your head against the fucking wall, the wall will fall down.” A mantra that, over the course of his career, has aided the bull-headed approach that has made him the success he is today – as an entertainer, entrepreneur, manager, promoter and all round good-hearted maverick.
Before wrapping up, Live4ever had to ask him about the title of his 2011 autobiography, Hey You In The Black T-Shirt’ – The Real Story Of Touring Some Of The World’s Biggest Acts. With a hoarse giggle Chugg takes up the story:
“The black t-shirt thing comes up because, many years ago in 1991, we were doing a show in Sydney out at a race way called Eastern Creek with Guns ‘N’ Roses and we couldn’t see the gates. We were down the hill, on the stage and security on the gate said, ‘Here they come’ and on the top of the hill there’s about 20,000 kids running. I got up on the microphone and went, ‘Hey, you in the black tee shirt, stop fucking running’ – and the entire 20,000 looked at each other and had a bit of a giggle.
That’s how that started.”
