Inside the business school rewriting the music industry

No regulations are set up to protect musicians from ‘abuse and misuse’, so Matt Errington decided to set up The School of Music Business. He talks to Martin Friel

It took nearly 15 years for Matt Errington and Dan Sayer to see their dream realised

The idea that the music industry is exploitative, idly devouring the hopes, dreams and incomes of vulnerable artists, is nothing new. From the first recordings, the industry has provided a steady supply of tales of exploitation, theft and abuse – and despite the digital revolution threatening to rip the whole structure apart, it seems little has changed.

In 2018, British singer and songwriter Rebecca Ferguson set up a petition calling for government regulation of the music industry to end what she described as the abuse and misuse of musicians.

Although that regulation has not materialised, the industry retains that reputation for exploitation. But both the perception and reality of how the industry operates may already have started to change as graduates from The School of Music Business (SMB) enter the fray.

“We’ve all heard of the stories of an exploitative industry but that is not the image and experience I have,” says Matt Errington, co-founder of the London-based school.

Set up in 2016 by Matt, a former music journalist and artist manager, and Dan Sayer (musician, manager and entrepreneur), the school’s mission is to “inspire, educate and empower the music industry professionals of today and tomorrow”.

The approach to teaching is a sharp departure from existing three-year degree programmes, with courses covering everything from music marketing to publishing to artist management – and artist boot camps conducted in the evenings, daytimes and at weekends. This is not only to work around the existing schedules of students (who are both new to the industry and existing professionals), but to ensure that the school can secure the teaching talents of working industry professionals.

Errington argues that such is the pace of change, having tutors who are active in today’s industry is crucial if the education is going to have any practical merit. He is clearly fascinated by music but it is not a frustrated desire to be on stage that drives him – it seems it’s the string-pulling behind the scenes that keeps drawing him. When interviewing musicians as a journalist, he was intrigued by how they got where they did and, specifically, the managers who helped get them there.

“I was fascinated, why they did it and what was motivating them because it wasn’t fame and often not fortune,” he says. So, via an ill-fated music magazine launch, Errington moved into artist management but he found it a hard learning curve and, worse, the sharpness and trajectory of that curve kept on changing.

“The influence of record labels was decreasing but the work of the manager was increasing, and they were often charged with a lot of the responsibilities that the label used to have,” he says.

Management is not just about managing the business life of an artist. It is also about looking at the health and wellbeing of an artist, which is what we spend a lot of time instilling in students. They have to be their allies, and artists really need allies in this industry

“I saw how things were changing and how there wasn’t much in terms of training and education and mentorship available to support professionals with those changes.”

And so, the idea of SMB was born. It took nearly 15 years to see that dream realised, but now that it has been Errington is focused on making sure that artists have the support they need to survive in today’s industry, with or without a manager.

Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of students at the school – those who are or aspire to be artists and those who are existing managers or want to be one.

“Management is not just about managing the business life of an artist. It is also about looking at the health and wellbeing of an artist, which is what we spend a lot of time instilling in students.

“They have to be their allies, and artists really need allies in this industry.”

This idea of managers as artist allies and supporters seems to be at odds with the way they have traditionally been perceived. It is perhaps because Errington was and still is an artist manager that this perception grates with him so much, but he is determined to cultivate this ethos in his students.

“I do want all the people that leave to be passionate about supporting artists, to maintain at the forefront of their mind that the reason they are there, the only way they are going to make any money, is because of music and the people that make it,” he says.

Of course, not everyone in the industry is going to go through his school gates, which is why there is an equal focus on giving artists the skills and knowledge they need to manage the fast-changing and ever-demanding world of music. And to help them protect themselves.

“If musicians are coming to do a course, they are doing it because they want the skills, the tools and the techniques to be able to take advantage of the industry and all it has to offer rather than be taken advantage of by the industry. That is a really sensible approach,” he says.

It’s hard to resist the idea that the school is churning out a generation of “militant” musicians and managers, armed with the knowledge to hold their own against those who would seek to exploit them; the idea that the industry is about to be changed by a new breed of artists and managers.

Although not willing to indulge in that level of hyperbole, Errington is on a mission to not just change the perception of the industry but to professionalise those within it.

“The pace of change brings challenges, but it also brings huge opportunity, provided those opportunities are taken by really skilled, passionate, enthusiastic professionals,” he says.

“That is what SMB is doing – we are providing exactly those kinds of people.”