Ten Years Of Select Music: "It's Not Cruelty, It's Just Business"

Select Music’s Stephen Wade recalls finding it difficult to attract big name acts when he started his fledgling company ten years ago.

The owner and booking agent of the Australian music talent company found it tough but didn’t feel anyone was playing dirty.

“It’s not cruelty, it’s just business – in the music industry when you’re at that level, and you’ve got a hot new act, it’s very rare that you’re going to go with an agency that doesn’t have any connections and very few name artists under their credit.”

As his agency gears up to celebrate its tenth anniversary next week, Wade sat down with theMusic to chat about the past decade’s highs and lows.

From humble beginnings, Select now boasts a string of high calibre talent including San Cisco, Boy & Bear, Rufus, Seth Sentry and more.

He chops the success down to the team having to go out to gigs, meeting artists and literally getting their name out there when they first started.

“We weren’t in a position to compete with any of the established agencies and subsequently we developed some relationships and we started working with some acts.”

A young musician by the name of Josh Pyke happened to meet the Select team and shortly after signing, released the track Middle Of The Hill which blew up in the country and subsequently went to #19 on the triple j Top 100 list for 2005.

Around the same time another of Select’s acts, rock band Something With Numbers also had a hit, with the very popular Apple Of The Eye (Lay Me Down).

“The thing was that all the acts we were working on were all independent at the time” he says of the surprise success.

“None of these acts were on the big agencies radars…at that time there wasn’t a bunch of other up and comer type agencies. We just hustled – we went out to gigs and we got online and were trying to pick things that we thought had potential so if we hung in there, things might happen.”

It wasn’t as easy as it sounds though, as Wade concedes that many of his artists left to join bigger agencies after experience success.

“We learnt a shit load in the early days” he says of the departed acts which he didn’t name. “We just weren’t ready for that. You learn in the music industry that it’s a tough game.”

However, the past five years has seen Select experience some massive wins, building up a name for themselves to the point where artists are approaching them, rather than the other way around.

And while he is looking forward to celebrate ten years of the company, Wade insists that the biggest highlights of the last decade are his clients’ wins, rather than his own.

“This year’s triple j Hottest 100 – 14 of our artists were in and the year before we had 12.”

He says it always brings a smile to his face when he sees one his artists pack out venues – especially when those venues are some of the country’s most popular.

“The first artist that we had that could play at the Enmore was a huge buzz for us” (Josh Pyke) Wade says.

 “Now we have 15 artists who play at the Enmore” he adds triumphantly.

It’s fair to say that Australian music has been getting a lot more exposure overseas in recent memory and Wade claims the biggest difference for him now is dealing with overseas commitments with his artists.

“Last year Boy & Bear did 180 shows which is just fucking outrageous – not a huge amount of those were in Australia they were predominantly in America and Europe.”

With ten years of working with copious amounts of different artists under his belt, it’s no surprise that Wade has seen and been involved in some outrageous scenarios, the most notable one he remembers with a chuckle.

“I have been knocked out with a telephone by one of the guys from Something With Numbers” he recalls.

It was the night of the ARIAS where the band were nominated for Best Breakthrough Artist and at the hotel after the show, Wade got involved in a friendly wrestle with lead singer Jake Grigg in the hotel room when one of the other band members decided to take a photo of them.

“He thought it would be funny as I was wrestling with the lead singer, to get the phone and put it to someone’s ear to take a photo but as he did it, the lead singer pushed me back and as he pulled the phone out he’s smashed me across the head with it – I was out for maybe 30 seconds” he laughs.

Looking forward to the future and where music is moving towards, Wade admits that the most obvious genre of dance/electro is a “real mover” however he has been impressed with the surge of talented new female songwriters.

“JOY and Montaigne and Montgomery, Courtney Barnett of course” he rattles off among more, “that’s been really great to see in the last couple of years”.

And what are his thoughts on the country’s most successful female singer in Sia?

“It’s funny, one of my mates who is not in the industry had one of her first albums when she was still based in Adelaide – and I didn’t get it back then” he admits.

“If someone said to me back then she will be the artist she is now, it’d be hard to believe such enormous success. Not because she wasn’t talented, you just don’t know what that artist is going to come up with next.”

“She’s incredible with what she does” he adds.

One genre he believes is seriously stagnant at the moment in music is rock.

“Rock bands just seem like a sub-niche now” he claims.

“Ten years ago Jet, Wolfmother, The Vines…were around the world - outside of Violent Soho – it doesn’t seem like there’s a big wave of that coming.”

He cites the internet as the best tool to discover new music and that will only continue to happen in the current digital era.

“The old model for all of us was that the radio predominantly dictated what we listened to” he explains.

“I you didn’t hear something there, you’d have to be really passionate…where as now you can spend two hours on You Tube and have your ten favourite acts.”

So who should we keep an eye on then coming through the industry?

“Tkay Maizda seems like there is just enormous potential” he says of the Zimbabwe-born-Australian based songstress.

“Other acts like Japanese Wallpaper, (17-year-old Melbourne singer) incredibly gifted that’s doing great and still in high school”

“He’s got to finish high school and then really focus on his career.”

Select Music will celebrate the milestone next week in Sydney, joined by all who made the company possible.

“We’re intensely proud that we’ve built the music agency that we have and that we’ve been able to enjoy the successes we have with our artists” he concludes.

From all of the team at theMusic here’s to another ten years!