Arts: Government Support

Lord Jones of Cheltenham Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Earl for initiating this debate. He is a true champion of the arts and I agreed with every word he said. I also thank my good friend Robert Henrit, who many—including the late John Lennon—regard to be the greatest drummer of the rock and roll era. He has given me valuable advice on how things used to be and how they have changed for the current generation.

The music industry is in trouble, simply because, by and large, the general public do not want to pay for music. The knock-on effect is that musicians and entertainers do not earn enough to keep going. People cannot afford to go to shows as they used to because of ticket prices, so they cherry-pick and do not expect to pay for music in a pub. Therefore, publicans do not want to pay for music at all, so you cannot blame young bands for doing gigs for nothing. This lack of bums on seats has meant that venues and some theatres are being forced to go dark for some of the week, or, worse still, to close completely.

It is now possible to make records on relatively unsophisticated laptop computers in a bedroom without the need to visit an expensive recording studio. This has meant, as we have heard, that our famous and cherished recording studios have been forced to close. It has also helped to devalue our music, because a band can make a record for the price of a few cups of coffee, not pay out as much as £100,000, as the Beatles did. The band does not need to get that money back any more, so if they are offered a pittance for their product they might as well just accept it.

Downloads have also devalued music. I understand that Pharrell Williams had 43 million plays of his record “Happy” but he earned and received only $2,700, because the going rate was less than $0.001 per download. Songwriters today are often paid pennies for successful tracks. As a result, for example, Nashville has lost more than 80% of its songwriters since 2000. The great British songwriter Russ Ballard tells me that his first royalties—I think it was for Hot Chocolate’s recording of his “So You Win Again”—resulted in a cheque for $99,000. He was very disappointed that it was not for £1,000 more, but he bought a house with it anyway. How times have changed.

Another issue that worries musicians, indeed artists across the entire sector—we have heard about it already—is Brexit. According to the Creative Industries Federation, 96% of its members support remaining in the EU. This is Gibraltarian proportions. The issue that exercises them most is freedom of movement. Robert Henrit described it to me thus: “In pre-EU days you needed permission to take away the livelihoods of the indigenous musical population in foreign countries—close neighbours or otherwise. If you were young and going to Germany in the early 1960s to play a minimum of nine shows a night—like the Beatles, me and countless others—and you were underage, you had to report to Bow Street magistrates’ court to formalise the affair. After the dreaded Brexit, what will be the situation regarding taking away jobs from the French, Germans or Italians? Will we be expected to pay a premium on our vehicle and other insurance policies every time we go there, as we were forced to do before we were in the EU?”.

Henrit goes on to say: “We musicians were simply too young and healthy prior to the EU, so never gave a thought to taking out insurance to cover our wellbeing. But what will happen to us now with the E111 card after we have been cast adrift from mainland Europe?”.

Henrit also talks about the trouble and hassle of crossing national borders. “Being musicians, we often ran late, and this trouble could take the form of prolonged interrogation and intense scrutiny of paperwork, to slow us up even more. Even though we were obliged to invest in a carnet in those days, if customs officers were feeling particularly malicious they would order us to unload our drums, amplifiers, guitars, Hammond organs and even stage suits, sometimes into the snow, as they ticked off the contents listed on that form. If they really did not like you they would dismantle the amplifiers or drums to bite-size pieces and leave you to put the equipment back together at your leisure. Oh how we laughed at their subtle sense of humour. The carnet was simply a list of the equipment you were exporting out of the UK, including drumsticks, and everything needed to be imported back within a year or there would be trouble. Fines would be levied and lots of duty would be payable. The carnet wasn’t exactly free and worse still you couldn’t easily add to it if you broke any of your instruments while you were away. The Who’s road crew must have had a difficult time since, for a while, it seems the band’s raison d’être was breaking as much equipment as possible. Speaking of fiscal issues, in those halcyon days it was easily possible to be taxed in the country we were working in and then again on the now considerably depleted ‘net’ earnings once we got home”.

Robert Henrit summarised the situation by saying, “It was something of a nightmare before we joined the EU. It was bliss after we joined. And I have a sneaking suspicion it will be a much more expensive nightmare after we leave”. So will the Government please address the issue of freedom of movement for our artists and their equipment?

Another of Russ Ballard’s songs, the anthem “God Gave Rock and Roll to You”, contains the words:

“If you wanna be a singer or play guitar

Man you’ve gotta sweat or you won’t get far”.

Somehow we need to get over to young people that the raison d’être for a musician is not making lots of money quickly, as Simon Cowell and his “The X Factor” friends would have us believe; it is about being in it for the long haul and enjoying it for as long as possible. Perhaps the Government could ask—and indeed remunerate—experienced musicians like Robert Henrit to go into schools and introduce youngsters to the real nuts and bolts of music.