What do artists like G Flip, Emma Louise, Sycco, and Flume have in common? Outside of being some of Australia’s most iconic musicians, they are represented by talent agency Future Classic.
For almost 20 years, the Sydney and Los Angeles based teams have been on the lookout for unique voices and sounds. The journey has paid off in quite an impressive way, with their artists gaining recognition for the Grammy Awards and ARIA Music Awards.
Looking ahead, Future Classic are looking to throw the ultimate three-day celebration with some fun guests.
We had the chance to speak with Nathan McLay and Jay Ryves, who are both Future Classic co-founders and partners in life, and we discussed the beginnings of their talent agency, their approach to finding musicians and some of their proudest moments in the industry.
In their humble beginnings of 2004, Nathan came from a musical background while Jay was involved in visual arts, giving them the creative space and freedom to start their new venture.
“I had some demos of Australian artists and one of the international distributors that worked with the company that I worked for at the time (Inertia) had asked if we'd be interested in setting up a label, putting them out into the world,” says McLay.
“We started organising photo shoots and making videos and sort of just getting into the process of realising some of these projects.”
Ryves also described how McLay played covers at parties and venues as a DJ, creating a specific brand with flyers and programs.
“That evolved into touring some of our friends and artists that we'd travel with a lot, mostly to Germany in those days,” says Ryves. “We'd bring these artists out, show them Australia and then also give them music from some locals artists to take back while encouraging them to play that at their shows, and from there, the next step was making records.”
While initially starting in Sydney, the team has since expanded to Los Angeles to create a community hub for their artists and managers that were consistently travelling back and forth between Australia and America.
Across 2015 to 2017, the team partnered with Dropbox to finance an office space and two recording studios by the LA river. The co-founders cited Chad Gillard as an integral part of running the LA side of Future Classic, alongside Ed Scholl and Harry White as part of their core team for a decade.
The biggest question that anyone would have for a talent agency founder, or founders in the case of Future Classic, is what they look for in a rising talent. As McLay explains, it’s always been the same process of finding the diamond in the rough.
“We like people that aren’t necessarily raising their hand and saying, ‘pick me,’ they have to have some element of greatness and brilliance to them, but maybe haven't been celebrated by a very wide audience,” says McLay. “We work with those artists to keep them doing exactly what they've done that attracted us to them.
“Our job is to add any value to their world to try and bring their art to a wider audience.”
When describing how they find unique voices, both Australian and internationally, the co-founders mentioned how despite the game changing over the years, they still like to see an artist perform and engage with their audiences.
They also note an old school meeting is an important part of gauging how the artist fits with their team. “It really requires it to be a mutual meeting point in finding where the artist is and where they are in their journey," says McLay.
“There are times where artists that we start a relationship with get to that point where both us and them realise we’ve gone as far as makes sense for their journey.”
The duo described Future Classic’s genre and vision for their musical roster to be quite diverse, ranging from electronic to pop and even folk. “Some of our artists are self-sufficient on the music side and don't need a lot of support, but sometimes, they have no idea about the visual side of their projects and vice versa,” says Ryves.
“Some of them are more fully formed and have a real aesthetic sensibility, might just need some additional support with who can bring their dreams to life, but they also need a lot more A&R support.”
“If an artist is able to articulate what they're looking to do and how they're planning to do it, then it gives us and then all the people we engage around the artist a lot more of an understanding of where they’re going,” adds McLay.
“They’ll sometimes change direction and decide that they don't want to do the thing they did last cycle because it's not interesting to them anymore, or they're particularly interested in a new sound or narrative.”
McLay and Ryves also mentioned how their team always offer suggestions for new artists, whilst also receiving tracks from potential up-and-coming talent.
“Future Classic has been built by such a large group of people over the years that often start as interns and then stick around for several years and then go on their journey,” says McLay.
“What's cool is that the newer team members bring in all kinds of music, and I want to hear stuff that I have never heard before, it's a pretty exciting experience.”
“The good thing about being small is the market changes so rapidly in music, we've been able to mix it up when we need to,” adds Ryves.
Looking ahead to February 27th, Future Classic plans to celebrate their 20 year anniversary with a special one-night show at the City Recital Hall in their home city of Sydney.
Utilising the Hall’s iconic auditorium, the event will consist of hours of music, dancing, and discovery, honouring their strong sense of community, innovation and creativity.
McLay and Ryves hint at the unique vibe of the upcoming event, making it sound like they’re bringing everything back to a full circle of their humble beginnings, performing as DJs in underground nightclubs.
“The idea is to kind of make it feel a bit like a mini festival type of sense that there'll be three different stages set up in the space,” says McLay. “We'll have people performing on some really tiny stages when they should be playing in bigger rooms.
“We'll put some unique pairings together, and some of the artists are creating some special things for the night. Hopefully, it should just feel a bit like a special moment that everyone will get to enjoy.”
FC20 will include performances from Emma Louise (whose performance will feature music from a new album), a Sycco, Touch Sensitive with the full band, Paula Tape, Nikki Nair, Panama, Tentendo, Future Classic DJs and surprise guests, both locally and bigger names.
Tickets to Future Classic’s FC20 event are on sale now.
This piece of content has been assisted by the Australian Government through Music Australia and Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body
