When his learning began in 2019, Benjamin Magee never knew that he would direct the company that received it within year a year
Ben told us how exceptional circumstances and exceptional people gave him music management learning like no other
I am the director of New Champion Management, who was previously a champion of sound recordings, where I started as an apprentice.
I gave myself in December or 2019 and rename it as a tribute to the previous director.
How are business?
Every day is very different. Meetings with customers and partners, whether labels, music editors or live reserve agents.
Beyond that, my week is dedicated to exploring new talents and creative sessions with bands. We will see marketing campaigns for their singles; What is aesthetics, what are the messages we are sending?
So why music?
I am more idealistic than a businessman. I come from a fandom place and a passion for Irish music in a part. My dad and my mother were in the local music scene in Belfast during the conflict here.
That type of lifestyle extends very passionate fans and that bleeding me. It really went to the movie Good Vibrations and the good vibrations in Belfast that became something I could do for me.
I did not necessarily get into music to work in administration, but it is where my skills were.
Now I am a super fan of everyone who works. I think that the role of the manager is not only to boost his artist’s career, but also to defend the music that you think it deserves to be heard in a world where it is difficult for independent music.
Hence the name, to ‘defend’ the artists I love, but also for lawyers the industry where I am. I believe in people, I believe in the power of the community and the power of the belief and power of the neighborhood’s talent.
Starting
My first role in the local industry was a journalist. He wanted to give the local bands his first press appointment. But I was never so crazy, fanatic or obsessed with writing music as if listening to her and went to the programs.
I read the magazine Q as the Bible. I felt this is my people. Wheter or not read were successful musicians or sold tick accessories, I simply liked to be close to promoters, photographers, managers, tour managers and Roadies.
But in reality there is not much robust infrastructure in northern Ireland or Belfast. It is largely an individual and private company instead of an ecosystem through the ecosystem.
So why the apprentice?
I was following a head of the local music industry, a guy called Lyndon Stephens. We were friends on Facebook and Instagram.
The guy was the closest we had an industrial leader in Belfast, a private company, a rebel, a soul brother, a techno head, only had one leg around everything and only knew the answer to each question.
He published a reminder for a job application that would be closed the next day. The link brought me to the BPI and Diva Creative Industries Apprenticehip.
And I remember seeing that and thinking: “This is my way. What do you mean? They pay me to be in music? This is amazing, and I will learn from this local legend.”
I had read many of my things. He had covered enough of his artists while working with this incredible list. Ate My interview really brought us well. We argued for an hour about everything I could discuss.
I left the office thinking, I ruined it. I just argued with the boy I want to learn for an hour. But he classifies me three days later and sacrificed my work, which was crazy.
How was it starting?
My first week was a baptism by fire. He had never worked in live music before. I had never worked in recorded music before, and suddenly I began to have these conversations with large companies such as Believe and Live Nation.
They both gave me anxiety and it was all that I always wanted it to be. I felt that it belonged, as it was supposed to be here. I am doing a job that matters.
I’m not just earning a lot of money. I left the bed at 7:00 in the morning to go to work.
Follow?
It is not a happy story. When I started working for him, I discovered that they had given him a diagnosis of cancer years before and initially only received six months to live.
He had defeated that diagnosis and now were three years later. We had all convinced ourselves that it would overcome it. Every time he gets a check, cancer became closer, just although we knew he was going to last.
And just before reaching the tour to North America with an act, he calls me and said: “Yes, he is extended. I will not improve this time.”
He reached a crossroads where Lyndon was going to sell the company or had used us. I was more than scared, I have no idea what to do. I wanted to manage a business, I still don’t want to manage the business.
I was saying: “I will keep it in Belfast, I promise you. I will keep it in Belfast.
“I will take care of the artists who are here. I will take care of the community here, I will look, I will keep it in our house.”
The company sold me for much, much less than it was worth making sure I would not be trapped in debts.
That was on December 11, 2019 and January 10, 2020, he died.
It was crazy because we had planned a farewell concert that night for the label and died the morning of the concert. The whole show was this great trail for him, with all the bands, his biggest clients joined to play.
The next month, Covid hit. I remember entering a moment and there were 110 emails of canceled shows and I just closed my laptop and went home. I couldn’t deal with that.
Where did that leave you?
We greatly survived the skills I learned in the apprentice and the support that the BPI has given me over the years, in addition to the skills that Lyndon taught me in the few months that we were working together.
Before turning it, my hair was much shorter. He had no beard. When I was in charge, I had no time to go to the barbers. It was more about staying above the water and inventing a place for me in the industry.
I wanted to pay will to the legacy of what Lyndon had done for the local industry and the musicians of a place that we both care about.
How are things now?
It’s just one leg for a while. I am a bit lone wolf. I have had short -term apprentices over the years they live with live shows where we pay them for their time and make sure they are not only things, but also skills.
This is how I stayed to work with Lyndon, how they trained me. I am a great kinesthetic apprentice, I learn doing. I like to think that I am a teacher, leader instead of a manager.
I think the scene is in good hands if it is full of children who think they know better than everyone else, you need punk.
I want to get to a place where three or my clients can take home a stable income to aIn a position to face a student in music or business studies at the local university.
Any advice?
Yes, have fun. It needed to be very seriously tasks, particularly when I did in December. But I entered too anxious to learn and not anxious enough to make mistakes, something that any successful business person will tell him is not to fear failure.
Enter with your eyes open. This is not a business for heart weak. But it is not a business for boring people. Be excited, be interested, ask questions and are not afraid to make mistakes.
Ah, and get a counter. He will stop looking at his bank account and ask where he was all his money.
I know I don’t love anything as much as I love this. I would have ended up moving to work in the music industry, which would have made me miserable, or would have stayed and achieved corporate work in the bank and be rigid.
Without my mentor or learning, I would have the confidence to be in charge, to take possession of what I wanted in the industry, the legacy I want to leave and the artists I want to work with.
As if you lived in a razor at all times, your margins are shaving. But what the apprentice taught me, what Lyndon taught me, was that if you are going to live on those margins, you could be in charge.
The long -term objective is to show children that just because it does not come from a rich background, the best neighborhood or the best postal code, it does not work in the arts.
There is a way for you where you do not have to leave your friends or family behind. You don’t have to find your new favorite sandwiches store in London.
