Welcome to the Jazz Shapers Podcast from Mishcon de Reya. What you are about to hear was originally broadcast on Jazz FM, however, the music has been cut due to rights issues.
Elliot Moss
Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guests today for this very special extended Jazz Shapers are legendary musician, producer and Eurythmics Co-Founder, Dave Stewart and serial entrepreneur and investor, Dominic Joseph, Co-Founders of Rare Entity, a venture builder dedicated to creating game changing ventures that shape culture and protect artists and creators. With an acclaimed career spanning more than 4 decades and over a 100 million albums sales worldwide, Dave Stewarts work as half of the ‘80’s synth pop-duo, Eurythmics was followed by solo albums and collaborations with musical royalty such as – here we go – Tom Petty, Mick Jagger, Stevie Nicks, Gwen Stefani and Quincy Jones to name but a few. While also working across musical theatre and film and building production studio, Dave Stewart Entertainment and members club, The Hospital Club, a haunt of mine in a constant drive to create. Dominic Joseph, a former professional drummer signed to Polydor Universal and touring internationally with artists including Blondie, A-hah and Fatboy Slim is a former Jazz Shaper’s guest, that’s the best bit of his CV in 2015, and the Co-Founder and former CEO of Captify, a global search intelligence platform serving brands including Apple, Disney, Adidas and Microsoft before being sold in a 9 figure deal back in 2021. Together with Co-Founder Richard Britton, Dave and Dominic launched Rare in 2025, aiming to, as they say, take rare ideas and intellectual property and the people who carry them and give these ventures the structures they need to live and endure. The right collaborators, the right technology, the right way to reach an audience.
So it’s unusual for me to have a famous musician, quite a famous musician in the house, Mr Dave Stewart and Dominic Joseph, famous entrepreneur from way back who got in touch with me recently. It’s fabulous to have you here, thank you.
Dave Stewart
Thanks.
Elliot Moss
Music and business.
Dave Stewart
Mm hmm.
Elliot Moss
Talk to me about that Dave?
Dave Stewart
Well I remember, um, Damien, I think one of his first huge books, he had about 3 pages called art and commerce.
Elliot Moss
Damien Hirst we’re talking about?
Dave Stewart
Yeah Damien Hirst, yeah. And the pictures were, one was a hammer and a peach and the other one, I don’t want to say what it was but basically it involve Vaseline and a cucumber and somebody’s butt. It’s like, you know, art and commerce colliding. It’s always been a problem. I mean music’s been selling everything since the dawn of advertising. The first sort of record that was ever put down on a 78 player, first sort of music or song was Algernon’s Simply Awfully Good at Algebra and it was a music hall song and we recorded it with Malcolm McLaren years later. That’s a whole other story. Because he wanted to be like a dance beat but it was in three four time and like I can’t explain it, even the line Algernon’s Simply Awfully Good at Algebra but anyway, uh, yeah they, they only recorded that because they realised, um, they had some speeches on 78 records, you know, but then they realised well maybe music might sell more of our things we’ve invented. So they were just trying to sell the gramophone.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dave Stewart
And, you know, Steve Jobs came along, you know, 60, 70 years later whatever. Same thing, hey I can solve your problem here with all of the, because the internet has created this, you know, file swapping, sharing. He said, yeah I’ve got this thing, you see the iPod and then Apple Music, you know, then the record companies were, oh my god you’ve saved us, thanks. And then I’ll take 30% of everything off the top but he didn’t want to sell music, he wanted to sell iPods, then iPhones and you know what I mean so, as I said, it’s always been used in a way to sell other things.
Elliot Moss
But for you, Dave Stewart, what’s interesting I find and we’re chatting here, is because you to me are agnostic about what ideas are about. Whether it’s an idea and it’s for the creation of something called a piece of music.
Dave Stewart
Mm hmm.
Elliot Moss
Or whether it’s a venture called The Hospital Club or Dave Stewart Entertainment.
Dave Stewart
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Elliot Moss
Or what it might be. And so it feels like you don’t make the distinction?
Dave Stewart
Mm.
Elliot Moss
Between the act of creation.
Dave Stewart
Well…
Elliot Moss
Whether, whether one thing is the pure and I’ve read, you know, there is no distinction between Dave Stewart and music, I’m the same thing. But actually Dave Stewart does other things and does it with Dom and does with a number of collaborators.
Dave Stewart
But, but you see in a way music is the intel inside, so as I said earlier, you know, it’s been used to sell everything.
Elliot Moss
Yep.
Dave Stewart
But within the world that we’re creating with This is Rare.com, you know, most things somewhere in it have music in it but we are really about flipping everything upside down so the IP creator or the person with the fantastic concept, idea that just not quite sure how to get it off the ground but we then go and say, okay well we’ll, we’ll sort of take that IP, I mean they’re still the owners of their thing and then it’s discussed amongst a lot of us at Rare, mm, how do we actually help make this happen and then there’s layers beneath. But at the top is the creator and the IP and then the layers that are all, okay well let’s look at this practically like if it’s a, has to be a building with a theatre in it or perhaps we can make a theatre inside a building or all of that stuff and then underneath that there’s all the technology, you know, which obviously in today’s day and age, if you don’t have all of that sorted out you’re screwed anyway so.
Elliot Moss
Yeah, I’m looking at Dominic now because I’m with Dave Stewart and, uh, Dominic Joseph. They’re the Founders of This is Very Rare Entity, we’re talking about where you are seeing the world in a different way, upside down.
Dave Stewart
Mm hmm.
Elliot Moss
Thinking about artists and creators actually having some agency, having some control of the future but also picking things that are inherently interesting and different in this mad world that we live in. Dave was talking earlier Dominic about the, kind of the idea of Rare and we started to allude to the, the bits that make it work. Just talk to me a little bit about the mechanics of, so we’ve got, you know, if you go on to the site and it is, it’s really cool. Talk to me about one or two of the examples of Planet Fans and Sonic Spheres and a couple of others to just explain how this machine is going to work going forward?
Dom Joseph
Yeah well I mean when we met Dave for the first time we really kind of, we were struck by Dave’s sense of purpose of his view on, on the music industry and the creative industry and really kind of had been a long running mission of his to, I think, re-set the, uh, the value chain and, and that was something that we also were particularly interested in. So we have, we have one of our Rare Entities is a company called Planet Fans which is a business that enables music artists to directly have a relationship with their fans without it going through the never ending chain of, of intermediary companies and of course those intermediary companies all they do is create inflation of pricing, there’s bots that go in, ticket prices go crazy and actually there’s a great example, this particular entity because the artist itself is also not in control of its own fans which is a very typical thing from the music industry where almost that, music artists have been kind of, because they are so creatively involved in what they do, they almost never seen themselves as a business or a brand.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dom Joseph
Like in, like in any other industry and actually many of these companies have just taken advantage of that. So that’s led to this, you know, how can, how can a music artist and one of the biggest bands in the world for example, not have any clue who its customers are when the brand equity between a music artist and his fans is way stronger than a typical brand, for example.
Elliot Moss
And can I ask, just, just jumping back to, to my childhood Dave and the Eurythmics. Did you have a sense of who was listening and who loved you?
Dave Stewart
Uh, no of course that’s always been kept under wraps because when he’s talking about Planet Fans, you know, for instance, Mumford & Sons, you know, they might have sold, you know, 100 million dollars’ worth of tickets on a tour and they didn’t, had no idea who bought the tickets right. With Planet Fans now they know everybody who bought the tickets so they can actually, oh these are the people that like us, you know. So, uh, back, way before the internet and everything and way before…
Elliot Moss
When we were young.
Dave Stewart
…I’m old, so I’m 73 so I am staying in a hotel right now in Soho where when I was like 16½, 17 I slept in the car park that it was built on, on a blanket so, you know, as Dom says, you know, signing a record deal or whatever, you’re just like whatever I’ll sign this, you know. And, uh, but back then, you know, it was on paper and you only found out like years later, what, hang on, that means that…
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dave Stewart
…that means that.
Elliot Moss
So this puts this from, take the Planet Fans thing, this puts…
Dom Joseph
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
…the artist back with some sense of control and connection.
Dom Joseph
Yeah they are able now engage with those fans outside of just a show, they’re able to have many different ways that they can have that relationship and, and I think that’s just a good example of the disruption that’s happening across the industry now as, uh, you just have to think about a young social media driven music artists. Those, they’re pretty business savvy now. They know their, uh, the detail behind the mechanism to get themselves out there and understand who their fans and audiences are so there’s definitely a paradigm shift but the industry is still quite resistant to change because there’s a lot of jobs…
Elliot Moss
Well it’s vested interest, right.
Dom Joseph
…there’s a lot of margin.
Elliot Moss
People have got massive…
Dom Joseph
Exactly.
Elliot Moss
…reasons why you don’t want that to happen. And we’re going to pause there for a moment and when we come back I want to ask you about another of the Rare Entities, the creations that you are supporting. Sonic Sphere, the immersive experience which looks absolutely fantastic. Much more from Dave Stewart and Dom Joseph in a couple of minutes.
My guests today are musician, producer and Eurythmics Co-Founder, Dave Stewart and serial entrepreneur and investor, Dom Joseph. Dave and Dom are Co-Founders of Rare Entity, a venture builder dedicated to creating game changing ventures that shape culture and protect artists and creators. Let’s jump to Sonic Sphere, another of the projects you’re supporting because I looked at that and Stu, producer and I were, noodling about the listening rooms in Japan and I had the founder of Spirit and on Paul Noble, you may know him, last year. And I am like, I’m fascinated by the notion of almost reinventing what sound experience can be. So just tell me a little bit more about that one?
Dom Joseph
Well Sonic Sphere, so at Rare we are not just doing technologies that help rebalance the system, we’re also building, building amazing projects and, um, there is a trend at the moment for immersive experiences. People want to be part of something, going to something that gives a different type of experience and there’s, there’s obviously a huge amount of visual stimulation going on in the world. You’ve obviously got the new Sphere in Vegas that people all talk about. So this is almost a, almost a slightly different concept to where actually the vis, there is a visual side to it but it is primarily about just how this amazing 3D, you know 360 audio spatial experience, um, and it’s quite a magical thing. It’s been, Sonic Sphere has been the centre piece at Burning Man which is where it really, uh, got a lot of attention. Then it’s been a huge build in, in New York in The Shed and this piece of architecture when you walk into it you, you really, um, it really expands your consciousness and, and there’s something about not only hearing sound coming from hundreds of speakers from all angles which is typically, none of us have ever, you know, experienced this before. It’s quite an unusual feeling, um, but also doing that in a space with a couple of hundred people who are feeling that at the same time.
Elliot Moss
Yeah, it’s that connective experience.
Dom Joseph
Is, is really part of it. Exactly.
Elliot Moss
It’s like watching a great movie in, in a cinema…
Dom Joseph
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
…rather than being on your own.
Dave Stewart
And that’s actually what everything we’re doing is about, the collective experience, you know, so…
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dave Stewart
…the other original things that are in our folder. Okay, so the world is like people in their bedroom, on screens or bombarded with information, they don’t know whether it’s real or not or whatever and we’re like, when people come together and have a shared experience and, you know, I’m mad about football as well, so you’re in the crowd, you think, okay so somebody’s about to score a goal. Either side, it doesn’t matter, the whole crowd goes, oooooooh.
Elliot Moss
Yeah it’s that energy you seek.
Dave Stewart
There’s no chatter going on about, oh did I lock the back door or this or that, it’s just like, oooooh. And you can feel that energy and all of a sudden everybody’s mind is opened up slightly, you know, like a space happens and everybody knows that’s an amazing feeling, you know, and same thing when you’re playing in a concert and you just start, boom, beginning of Sweet Dreams or whatever, you just see the whole audience go, ooooh, like. So that’s really usually the two things, sport and music that create that experience and the audience they love being there because everything else is so complicated, on purpose a lot of the time, and for a second things are simplified to a musical experience or a sport that you’re obsessed with and, uh, the brain has all these words ready to answer things, you know. Your brain is like so this machine that is like since you were a kid at school, stock answers are put in your brain, da, da, da, da, da. And not many people have the chance to just, hang on a minute, lie on their back in Sonic Sphere or wherever it is…
Elliot Moss
Mm.
Dave Stewart
…and your brain goes, oh!
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dave Stewart
Hang on a minute.
Elliot Moss
I’m going to hold it there because that is, I mean it literally we’re talking about being human and what it means to be human.
Dave Stewart
Yeah, exactly.
Elliot Moss
Which I absolutely love, um, stay with me for much more and I had goose bumps by the way when you were talking about that. I’m thinking I want to be back at the football match. I’m an Arsenal fan for the record.
Dave Stewart
Yeah well.
Elliot Moss
I know, I know. We won’t have a fight Dave it’s okay.
Dave Stewart
I was at the stadium when it happened but…
Elliot Moss
But it, we will come back to, um, my Business Shapers today. It’s Dave Stewart and Dom Jones and we are talking about the Rare Entity, Rare Entity and all the things that are happening for them. Much more from them in a few minutes.
My guests today are musician, producer and Eurythmics Co-Founder, Dave Stewart and as I’m saying it I’ve got a smile on my face, nice things happen today. And serial entrepreneur and investor, Dom Joseph, very happy to see you as well Dom just to be clear. Dave and Dom are Co-Founders of Rare Entity, a venture builder dedicated to creating game changing ventures that shape culture and protect artists and creators. The key word in that for me, Dave, is creating and the art of creation which all of us when we’ve done it in our own ways and I think everything is creative in its own sense.
Dave Stewart
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
You touched something magical and you, you feel differently, your brain relaxes, the receptors are open.
Dave Stewart
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
And it, it feels different, life feels different. Just talk to me about how over the years you’ve worked with different people and where that magic has happened?
Dave Stewart
Mm, yeah well very early on, oh god, I’m so old so, very early on.
Elliot Moss
You’re not. Very early on in the beginning of time.
Dave Stewart
My mind exploded when I was 14, before that I never listened to music at all, I just wanted to play for Sunderland, not Arsenal, I’m sorry everybody but, Sunderland, Sunderland, Sunderland and, uh, I played, you know, for three teams on a Saturday and played under the street lights and then some kid broke my knee in three places and I thought it was the end of the world. I’ll cut the story short but basically this record arrived through the post and I was stuck in the house, my mum had left my dad. My brother had gone to college and my dad was depressed and, you know, like grey sky, horizontal rain hitting the window and the postman brought in a box and my cousin had somehow got to Memphis, he was like 9 years older. He’s still there. But, um, in that, in that box was Levi corduroy jeans - never seen them before in my life. Under that there was two records. My dad had made a homemade record player, I put on this Blues album, Robert Johnson and I went into a kind of trance and when I woke up, I said, it might be music I don’t know and I went in the kitchen and put on the radio, boom, 1966, King, Beatles, Rolling Stones, everything came out and I realised the connection between that blues record and what the Stones were doing. And, you know, my head exploded so cutting, you know, jumping forward 20 years or whatever, I’ve really been obsessed with blues and R&B and Stax and soul music and everything, you know, I was even learning gavots and Pavanes that you play on a loop, you know, all music, classical music, didn’t matter what. So when Annie and I met, obviously she’d studied at the Royal Academy of Music, between us it was like we could do anything basically.
Elliot Moss
You were just introduced by a friend is that, is that what it was?
Dave Stewart
Yeah, um, I don’t want to go too down that because each story is like some mad episode.
Elliot Moss
It’s a rabbit hole, yeah.
Dave Stewart
Yeah, yeah. I was going to talk about jamming actually.
Elliot Moss
Yeah let’s do that.
Dave Stewart
Um, so people I’ve played with and jammed with have, everybody now written songs with all different kinds of people in the pop music world but I’ve never reached out to anybody to write a song with them. It just all happened in some natural sort of vortex, I don’t know how so.
Elliot Moss
Do you know though, if you, if you had to, if you had a theory on it about why people have just sort of gravitated towards you, lots and really diverse artists. You’re not talking about, oh yeah, he’s the fella that only plays with the blues… it’s not like that. What, if you had to be not you for a minute, looking and going, well objectively why do people like jamming with Dave Stewart?
Dave Stewart
Mm. Um, I think I’m not sort of judgemental or I’m kind of open. I don’t care if something works out or it doesn’t work out. I’m just into the experiment, whatever it is and…
Elliot Moss
Is that true from a business point of view, Dom?
Dom Joseph
I mean it’s, it’s incredible…
Elliot Moss
About how it is to work with Dave?
Dom Joseph
…working with Dave because we were talking about earlier, about that feeling, that creative feeling which is often suppressed in the world of business because creativity and capital and the way that business, that, that corporations see creativity is, is almost bottom of the food chain. Um, creativity is more common than people think but it’s suppressed by the system and it’s incredible to work with someone like Dave because this is one of, you know, one of the true taste makers of our lives, you know, the soundtrack of our lives but also many other things as well and not just music. Um, and Dave’s got himself into a position in life where he can be a proper creative 24/7 and this week alone, the last two weeks he’s been here in London with us, um, doing meetings every day and, and Hannah and, and Dave have written six songs I think whilst they’ve been here. Um, so just constantly being creative and, you know, that’s, that’s liberating to be around because most people don’t realise that’s, that’s what you can do.
Elliot Moss
But can I ask you, because this is obviously, you’ve said taste maker and I think that’s exactly right. The distinction between what’s good and what’s not when someone is so open to pretty much everything. How, how, when you watch Dave in action going well there’re 12 ideas and…
Dom Joseph
Well I mean, Dave’s…
Elliot Moss
…how do you know, how does he know it’s that one? Without, without being…
Dom Joseph
…Dave’s… you’ll know when it’s not one because Dave will just sort of subtly walk off.
Elliot Moss
Right.
Dave Stewart
Yeah, yeah.
Elliot Moss
So you do, because obviously, you know, in the world of being open…
Dom Joseph
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
…you still have to at some point go, no it’s that, it’s Sweet Dreams, it’s not Banana Bubbles.
Davie Stewart
Yeah, yeah.
Elliot Moss
You just have to know but how do you know, Dave?
Dave Stewart
Um, well, let’s go back to jamming. So there’s a business book written by John Keogh, Harvard business guy, uh, called ‘Jamming’. He’s actually talking about jamming and how important it is in business as well to allow people to join in and talk and, you know, and in jamming, you know, I’ve jammed with, I’m great friends with Bootsey Collins so Bootsey Collins, me, Jerome, Big Foot Bailey, Bernie Morell, this is part of Funkadelic basically in Jimmy Hendrix’s studio, you know, you don’t say anything. You know, when you’re jamming you can’t stop everybody, we’re going to play F sharp now. You know?
Elliot Moss
Yeah. It doesn’t work like that.
Dave Stewart
Everybody’s going on. So I also like a shoal of fish, right. So in business if you have, luckily I’ve found with Dom and Richard and the Rare team, we’re like a shoal of fish going along like that. And, uh, that becomes very powerful, you know, for the audience or a business you’re creating or whatever. If everybody’s on the same page, but everybody’s allowed to say so within Rare you see, we have people who can come in and sort of critique what we’re suggesting.
Elliot Moss
Yeah, yeah, I really like that. It’s clearly a rather fruitful connection between you and a shoal of fish. I like that too. Fame, Dave.
Dave Stewart
Mm.
Elliot Moss
Funny old thing.
Dave Stewart
Great song.
Elliot Moss
Yeah but…
Dave Stewart
When you get here in the limo.
Elliot Moss
There is that but the actual concept for you, you being pretty famous in most places in the world. Is it a curse? Does it matter? Do you just deal with it? What’s your relationship like with that thing called people actually knowing who you are versus the purity of just being you and doing your thing?
Dave Stewart
Mm. Well I don’t wander around thinking, oh I’m famous, you know. I never even think about it. I don’t when we come out the hotels, everyone and somebody goes, can you sign this or take a picture of this. Oh, you know, okay fine. But, um, I tend to communicate all the time with everybody, if I’ve got a cab driver switched to talk, hi how are you doing? Where are you from, blah, blah, blah. You know, no matter where I am I just don’t think about that, I’m just like, so I have to say, it’s like nothing has changed really, you know, as I said earlier, I was sleeping in the car park at the hotel I’m now sleeping at. But when I go out to the coffee shop, a Bar Italia which…
Elliot Moss
One of my favourites.
Dave Stewart
…in the early ‘80’s I was there every day and now I’m there nearly every day and, uh, it hasn’t changed, the floor’s the same.
Elliot Moss
Tiramisu still brilliant.
Dave Stewart
Exactly, a panini with a… and, um, me and Hannah go there and have like perfect cortado and so they, again, you know, I’ve known all the people for ages and, hi Dave, how are you doing? It’s only sometimes that some places you go in, that’s why I avoid a lot, you know, invited to a dinner with lots of people I don’t know because I’ll get cornered.
Elliot Moss
Yeah
Dave Stewart
And like, you know, so yeah, so Here Comes The Rain Again, like, da, da, da, like you know, yeah okay. That was like 40 years ago whatever it was, you know. Um, and also big fancy swanky do’s.
Elliot Moss
Mm.
Dave Stewart
I never go to them, you know, uh, you know, the, even the Grammys, you know. I think the only time Annie and I went, it was quite good because, uh, Annie was like hiding, she was dressing us, bit like an Elvis kind of guy came on. I’ll never forget, John Denver was the sort of MC or whatever. We weren’t big yet but we were going up the charts with Sweet Dreams and he’d seen us in rehearsals and Annie was, you know, normal, not dressed as a man and, um, we had, you know, the backing singers with the B52’s and we had Brother’s Johnson on. It was like amazing. And we came on and we did Sweet Dreams and Annie came swaggering out with her suit and the whole audience were just like… In fact they had to turn up canned applause at the end. When we actually finished doing it, there wasn’t like, people going hooray, people were just, what’s happened?
Elliot Moss
Gobsmacked.
Dave Stewart
Yeah because there’s somebody coming out singing like Annie but is like a, it was perfectly done, you know, tiny bits of hair blowing on to grooves that looked absolutely was perfect. And afterwards we came back stage and, uh, we were falling about laughing like, and of course, uh, there was lots of press about it but we were in this little reception after with our manager, Gary Kurfirst who managed the B52’s, Talking Heads and this guy comes up, a big guy and we didn’t know who he was and he goes, hey have you guys got a manager? And we were about to say, yeah. And he says, get rid of him. We were like, what? And then he said, I can get you like 6 months in Vegas, da, da, da. And it was Colonel Tom Parker who managed Elvis Presley and ripped him off…
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dave Stewart
…blind and our manager was like, oh my god. And we said, who was that? And he go’s, you’ve no idea.
Elliot Moss
Yeah, yeah.
Dave Stewart
He couldn’t believe it.
Elliot Moss
Can, can I ask you a question about, so, so Dom from your point of view with these, the talent you’ve got coming through much of which is young. Is fame part of the, I mean you managing people that go from obscurity to fame and it’s obviously early days now. But is that something you’re thinking about or do you leave that to somebody else?
Dom Joseph
Uh, honestly it doesn’t ever even cross our, our minds. I mean, um, it’s only actually been, you know, walking, sometimes walking the streets with Dave for example that, that it even reminds me of the fact that he’s…
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dom Joseph
…because we don’t, we’re not in that environment.
Elliot Moss
But for the artists you’ve got and the acts that are going to come through in terms of helping them as they develop?
Dom Joseph
Yeah they’re not. Yeah we, we, it’s business at the end of the day. Everybody that is on that path they have a purpose, they have a thing that they’re creating and that’s what we’re tapping into really. We’re not, we’re not sort of engaged in, you know, to us, things like fame is much more to do with fan engagement for example, like how, how does that artist engage it’s fans in the right way that adds value to both sides of that equation. So we’re, we’re looking at it in a totally different lens to, you know, I guess the average, you know, the average listener or, or fan. Um, for us it’s all part of the, it’s all part of the business mechanism that, that we are creating.
Elliot Moss
And…
Dave Stewart
Yeah, I think when we talk about artists, we’re not talking about like, oh managing a singer and trying to make them a big famous singer. No we’re talking about entities and creative people who’ve got like a concept for…
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dave Stewart
…maybe making some Shakespearian work in a different way or whatever and, you know, all sorts of things, you know, I won’t even go into it because. But how do we make so that people would love to come and be part of that experience and witness and see that…
Elliot Moss
Mm.
Dave Stewart
…now it could have music in it, it could have film in it, it could have all sorts of different… and it might be out of somewhere. A kid in Liverpool in his bedroom sends, hey I write songs and this and that and, I work with unknown people all the time, right. Sort of young artists and always have done. You know, if I’d sort of heard say Jake Bugg, when he first came out or whatever and he’s got his whole thing going on and he’s singing and he’s determined, there might be an artist where you go, actually we could help build a world around this to allow them, because, you know, it’s pointless for them just like, throwing their music up on DSP’s.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dave Stewart
You know, it’s like for a start you’re not going to make a living and two, how is anybody going to hear it amongst the noise of everything and the AI artists and the fact that the DSP’s are slightly manipulated by labels and everything. So, um, yeah it’s a tricky world for those, uh, new…
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dave Stewart
…young artists and, uh, well everybody really. What I’ve always thought and I’ve been banging on about this since 2001. All the artists should have their own world and their own streaming.
Elliot Moss
Mm.
Dave Stewart
Why are they, why are they…
Elliot Moss
Why are you using somebody else’s platform. Yeah.
Dave Stewart
Yeah, I mean you can make it work now and you can have your own streaming platform and, and play locally and, you know, slowly build up a following.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dave Stewart
But then be able to earn from your own…
Elliot Moss
Yeah. Your own universe.
Dave Stewart
…studio without all this food chain of nonsense, you know.
Elliot Moss
Yeah. Dave, over the years you’ve obviously worked with a lot of people.
Dave Stewart
Mm hmm.
Elliot Moss
And I imagine musicians, creative people trust more creative people, very, you know, not easily but there’s a trust that’s built. With business people over the years that you’ve worked with who are, whether they’re your managers and label, whatever it might be, accountants, lawyers. Is it harder to trust them because you think they might have a, an agenda which is different to yours or do you just go on what you see and what you, what you experience?
Dave Stewart
Well it depends what kind of business but you see, I don’t want to confuse people but you see, I do talks, public speaking to huge businesses, you know, about creativity but I also spent 2 years working with Visa in 2006, not for Visa, I mean understanding why artists, you know, get these like, non transparent, like, don’t understand their payment system and Jenny Vandenberg who help build VisaNet could make it all work in like, you know, she spent ages doing it from 1.7 seconds to 1.4 seconds. When you go in the shop with the card, the guy gives you the sweater you bought in Milan even though your bank accounts in New York or London or whatever, it doesn’t matter. Boom, okay have the sweater. Trust, you know. And I’m like, oh how did you do that? And I showed them how we got paid in the music industry for instance, it looks like a London tube map, you know, it’s all jumbled up. And I remember the CEO, Christopher Rodriguez, he, uh, he looked at it for a while and he said, that could have only been done on purpose.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dave Stewart
Nobody in their right mind would make something so complicated.
Elliot Moss
Complicated. Yes.
Dave Stewart
So, um, see, so when I’m in the room, in the boardroom with people like that or boardrooms with various people, it makes no difference, they don’t think, what does he know, he’s a musician. No, if they’re open they’re like, jamming as well.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dave Stewart
And obviously some companies would like to help but then there’s this block. Because you see, the giant corporate hit, obviously like you said, they’ve obviously done that on purpose.
Elliot Moss
Yes.
Dave Stewart
So anybody who comes in and goes, well that will be easy to fix that, like, we’ve, you know, we can, payment systems all over the world.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dave Stewart
Yeah thanks very much, goodbye.
Elliot Moss
And so, right so there’s obviously there’s this spectrum, there’s a spectrum…
Dave Stewart
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
…where you can and you can’t necessarily trust. Just on the, and on the jamming thing, uh, Dom from, from your point of view. Just talk to me a little bit about what it’s like to work with someone who is experienced, let’s say, has a little bit of, um, has a few miles on the clock when it comes to an incredibly prodigious creative output. How is it working with someone like that? Because my, sometimes people go, oh famous musician must be a primadonna, right? Not so?
Dom Joseph
It’s, it’s the exact opposite. I think, um, when you work with somebody like Dave, uh, firstly we, we work incredibly closely together so we spend every day, um, talking through everything. Um, and we have a, a necessary role with each other. It’s difficult to, for anybody to, to match what Dave does in terms of the way he thinks, he’s a very unique, um, visionary and creative. And we represent more of the operational side. So the combination of the two sides is what really makes it work because actually often the creative side can be a little bit isolated and then those ideas don’t really go anywhere.
Elliot Moss
Absolutely.
Dom Joseph
So it’s actually the, sort of marriage of the two opinions.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dom Joseph
Um, and my background really comes from, really I built a tech company, right, so, um…
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dom Joseph
…but there’s a lot of operational excellence that came in with, in building that company, uh, ranging from having a, you know, solid spine of financial discipline through to how you then actually make everything happen in alignment across all the different outputs, bringing the right people in when you need them etcetera. So…
Elliot Moss
So you’re kind of the chief of making it happen?
Dom Joseph
Well I mean…
Dave Stewart
Yeah he is.
Elliot Moss
If you’re the sort of chief of here’s some ideas?
Dave Stewart
Yeah, that’s why when I first, I think we were first talking about it, it’s like an upside down company.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dave Stewart
So, you know, often talk about an example, I think it was Tim Burton was telling me, trying to make Edward Scissorhands, right? So, the film companies as soon as he was like, he realised he meant, you know, Johnny Depp’s hands would be scissors, they were like, uuuuh.
Elliot Moss
That’s not going to work.
Dave Stewart
And then he ended going, yeah it’s a love story and his hands are scissors.
Elliot Moss
(laughs). Just hid it. Yeah.
Dave Stewart
But you see, it’s a bit like that, you know, when you’re with the wrong people in the room, you know what I mean, like if you’re with a company, whoever it is, a film company or a music company or whatever, if they already think, uh oh, he’s creative, it must be bonkers, better sort of hurry up and finish this meeting…
Elliot Moss
Mm.
Dave Stewart
Because he could be a crazy person, right. But all the really creative people that I’ve ever met, you could say they’re a crazy person, you know, look at the artists going back through time, you know, like from Mozart to, you know, Picasso to Van Gogh to whoever. What’s left in the world after everybody, all the men have run around annihilating people and everything. The only things we have are like so, paintings, sculptures…
Elliot Moss
Music.
Dave Stewart
…music, uh, you know, plays, poetry. So culture really is the most important thing for humanity and to be treated like, oh that’s just something else, da, da, da. We’ll get on with the real stuff. Yeah get on with the real stuff and run around killing people, great. All artists I know that I’ve worked with, are completely not thinking in that way, they’re thinking they want to make something beautiful. Even if it was like, you know, George 34.32, when he was alive, lovely man, playing with, working away in his little studio. Well it wasn’t really a studio, it was like mad and he gives me this, um, it looks like an instrument from Thailand. He’s goes, you play that. I’m like, okay and, uh, you know, he’s just trying to make something really powerful that’s meaningful and yeah you could look at any creative person, George Harrison who spent years, he lived in my house and he created a band with Dylan and everybody round my house, in my back garden. You could look at all of them and say, yeah they’re all crazy, you know. No, they’re all like really beautiful people trying to say really powerful things. And at the moment, I notice a lot of younger people are starting to listen to Bob Dylan’s lyrics from like 1964 or whatever and gone, god he was saying all this back then. He was telling everybody this is what’s happening, you know, and so were, you know, great writers, obviously George Orwell and people like that. They’re all trying to sort of explain to people, um, by the way.
Elliot Moss
By the way.
Dave Stewart
You’re being sort of like, lead down this terrible road by this horrible person and I’m just singing about it, like the Troubadors. Often the King or whoever it was would, get the Troubador in here, I mean, what’s he’s singing? Chop his head off, you know, um, they were walking round like in the streets singing to the people, you know, the King is something, blah, blah, blah. Get rid of him. And it’s always been like that.
Elliot Moss
Yeah. Unfortunately it’s not changed. Final chat is going to be coming up with Dave Stewart and Dom Joseph, they are my Business Shapers today.
Dave Stewart
I thought that would be the final chat.
Elliot Moss
Yeah after that. There’s no more. We’re going to, that’s the end of Dave’s show, you can’t hear him again here on Jazz FM or anywhere else in the UK or even in America. They’re going to be back very shortly.
Just before I let you two disappear into more cortados and Café bar Italia, I’m pretty jealous, um, Dom there’s something I read about that Dave talks often about attitude and gratitude. It’s just like that is if you think about being a human for a bit of time on the planet, actually if you’ve got a good attitude and you’re kind and you’re generous and you have lots of gratitude which is, you know what, you never take it for granted, that, whatever that is. Tell me about how that’s informing the way that this business in that you work because obviously you came from a different world. You two are now together. Is there a difference, are you thinking about that?
Dom Joseph
This business that we’ve created is by far the most fun, um, enjoyable experience of my career and I think it’s because we’re kind of doing things that we’re passionate about but also flexing our understanding of how to make it also a commercial entity. So you’re kind of getting both sides of, of the equation which is, you know, for me personally is really a sweet spot. Um, but the other part to it as you were just saying there, is who you’re doing it with. We’re, we are, I went from having a large company before with people and, and you become quite disengaged from, well you end up with, uh, very high pressure scenario and sort of layers of management and all that kind of stuff. What we’re creating here is we, we really want to have a very small team of people that bring different, you know, things to the equation and we all just get on great. I mean we get on really, we are all really good friends and just have a great time and that’s kind of, we, we keep saying to ourselves, we’re keeping it like that because…
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Dom Joseph
…your output levels when you actually, when you get on that well are just extraordinary. You are, because you then communicate so thoroughly you’re like, my business partner Rich who I spend, you know, every, uh, I must speak to him 10, 12 times a day because we just have such a natural chemistry, like you and Rich as well.
Dave Stewart
Mm hmm.
Dom Joseph
You know we’re able to just, you are able to just pick up the phone any minute, debrief. Every time we have a meeting, we’ll call each other up…
Elliot Moss
It’s all iterative, you’re just going.
Dom Joseph
Yeah and it’s so fluid.
Dave Stewart
10.00 at night, yeah, yeah what about this. One thing I want to say about business and about us being in a, inverted comma’s, business, right is most businesses if I were to draw it as a little drawing, I would say it’s a giant circle and everything else is little, so it was inside it. I always look at life and music and business like it’s like a little solar system and everybody is joined together like molecules, do you know what I mean? And all of them are thriving and existing alongside each other and there might be a central one where everybody checks in but I look at everything like forming a band.
Elliot Moss
Mm.
Dave Stewart
And I’ll be the little, one of the centres in the galaxy of stuff, this is the band. Ah let’s get a trumpet player, um, this person’s a great sort of visual artist…
Elliot Moss
Mm.
Dave Stewart
…to do a backdrop or, and, you know, eventually you’ve got a little team like we have now but even when you have a band that does reasonably well and you have the same road crew and the same people working together and a lovely girl that does the lighting and then so on and you are a little team you know. And if you think about it, you know, people think, oh yeah they’re crazy all these people. Moving from one place to the next with all of that stuff and setting it all up for the next night; lights, PA systems, everything and, you know, just boom, boom, boom, turning up, band plays and everything. That’s a hell of an operation.
Elliot Moss
It’s a thing.
Dave Stewart
It’s a thing, you know. And a thing that I was going to say is in the ’80’s we would tour the world. There was no cell phones, there was no internet, anything. But we were playing Australia, Japan, Germany, France, America, didn’t miss a gig, turned up on time. The audience bought their ticket, turned up on time, the lights worked, the PA system worked. One time in Paris, I mean, went on stage in this very famous theatre where Edith Piaf sang. I hit the first cord and all the power went off, so I got an acoustic guitar, you know, got some torches and things and Annie sang without any PA and I played acoustic guitar for about 20 minutes and it all came back on again.
Elliot Moss
They loved it I bet.
Dave Stewart
And there’s something you know, that an artist, you know, ploughing through all these conditions, you know, to actually deliver.
Elliot Moss
Just to express themselves.
Dave Stewart
Yeah, you know, to deliver and I think audiences when they’re watching it, that’s why they get lost in the thing.
Elliot Moss
Mm.
Dave Stewart
Because if the artist really is expressing themselves completely, the audience gets lost in it whether it was Nirvana or whether it’s like, you know.
Elliot Moss
Yeah. Well look, I mean you’re, you’re doing it, you’re looking like you’re creating a platform where you are going to enable artists and experiences to do just that for the audiences.
Dave Stewart
Yeah enabling.
Elliot Moss
And it’s brilliant. It’s brilliant. It’s been fab, thank you so much for reaching out Dom as they say on the other side of the pond. Dave Stewart it’s been quite nice meeting you.
Dave Stewart
Oh thanks very much.
Elliot Moss
Quite a privilege actually and to have this…
Dave Stewart
… meeting you, yeah, yeah.
Elliot Moss
Even though I’m a gooner. Um, just before I let you go what is your song choice…
Dave Stewart
Yeah that’s…
Elliot Moss
…I know but we can’t, I can’t, that’s not, I didn’t chose that Dave, you don’t choose your parents, you don’t choose your football club.
Dave Stewart
I know, I know.
Elliot Moss
It’s not my fault. Come on Arsenal. Um, just before I let you go.
Dave Stewart
My son’s an Arsenal supporter.
Elliot Moss
There you go, you see he’s got taste, Dave. He’s got taste. What’s your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Dave Stewart
Alright, well sitting here with us all the time, uh, works with me, um, in many different guises but you know, a great keyboard player and when I’m touring, MD, I’ve got an all-female band of extraordinary musicians and then Hannah Koppenburg is with me here. I think…
Elliot Moss
Hello Hannah. There she is.
Dave Stewart
…and, uh, you know, one time I was going, you know, why don’t we just make like this kind of jazz type of album. So we started writing it and then, oh we really like this and then we’re going, oh, you know, we decided this needs, you know, trumpets and trombone and then those guys, amazing guys play at Ronnie Scott’s and just we made this jazz album and then in a way it’s describing the business we’re talking about. The title of the album and the track that I chose is called Cloud Walking, right. None of the other tracks really have singing on it or anything like that but the title of the album it was hammering home that okay, it’s to get out of the way of yourself and cloud walking or whatever, you know. I just imagined that, you know, this track, you put the music on, at first you hear a refrain but then the guys, you know, from, the players just right solo here and boom, one take. Solo trombone, one take and that’s how we did it and literally go live playing and the whole album, I love it and when I’m having my one martini, I either play blues records or we put on this album, Cloud Walking.
Elliot Moss
That was Cloud Walking by Dave Stewart and Hannah Koppenburg, the song choice of my rather brilliant Business Shapers, Dave Stewart and Dom Joseph. The big themes and there were quite a few big themes for me were, jamming, the power of jamming and riffing whether you’re in music or in business, it’s the same thing; unexpected, brilliant things happen. Music and business as a solar system, Dave’s view of life that everything everywhere is connected and that somehow or other you’ve got to work out what those connections are and how you bring them to life. The view that artists are seen as crazy when in reality great artists are just creators, they make beautiful and meaningful things. And finally, and I love this, the drive to support others because Dave himself knows the power that that brings to anything. Great stuff. That’s it from me and Jazz Shapers, have a lovely weekend.
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