While the music is obviously an important component of the music industry (some would even say essential), what really keeps the industry running is people. Each person involved has a specific and important job.
To highlight some of the most important and highly coveted jobs in the music industry and find out just what it takes to get that dream job, as part of an ongoing series Tone Deaf will be speaking to some of the music industry’s biggest and brightest.
To kick things off in a big way, we spoke to the man behind one of Australia’s biggest music festivals, Peter Noble, the director of the one and only Byron Bay Bluesfest, who shared on the past, present, and future of Bluesfest.
Coming Into The Fold
I think probably back then the Port Fairy Folk Festival had been going forever, I can’t remember when that bloody started, and probably the Maleny Festival or what we now call Woodford was probably about three or four years old, I think Big Day Out was one or two years old… there wasn’t an awful lot of festivals.
And certainly there wasn’t any that did what we did. We certainly weren’t the first Bluesfest, but we were the first guys to give it a proper shake.
There’s a very big difference when you come in and you haven’t got a business plan and all the shit you’re supposed to have nowadays and some multi-million dollar backer, we were just guys with other jobs trying to get a certain amount of the music that we liked occurring in Australia. It was kind of that simple.
I’m not even going to tell you how long I’ve been in the business, but let’s just say quite a while. I’d been doing blues and all sorts of music, particularly jazz, but also reggae, I even toured people like Johnny Thunders and The Residents, but the blues was something I always had a passion for.
And here was an opportunity to become involved in an event with someone who’d taken it from a nightclub outdoors, had experienced some challenges, and wanted to give me an opportunity to pay all his debts. It got me partnership. I wish he’d told me all his debts, but anyway, that’s another story.
Early Beginnings
I had experience going back to the ’60s being a professional musician. So I had a good 10 or 12 years doing that first in Australia and then in the US and then in Canada.
And then I was lucky enough to get on the business side where I was booking a nightclub in Portland, Oregon where we were booking everyone from Sun Ra to The Ramones, Television, all sorts of great bands and blues artists like Lightning Hopkins and John Lee Hooker.
[include_post id=”437692″]
So I guess when I came back to Australia at the beginning of the ’80s was that experience which put me just a few steps in front of the local industry. I had experience which people on the ground didn’t have, so I could automatically pick up the phone and start bringing down bands.
My girlfriend got a job at The Basement and basically told the guys down there what I was doing and they basically bankrolled me. I only came back to Australia for a quick holiday and they put the money up and I ended up staying.
A Day In The Life
There’s no such thing as a typical day and that’s what’s good about it. Today, I got up at 6am because I had a meeting with the Minister for the Environment at 7.30am, and because we have major koala studies that we do on my land, I was able to tell him all about it. We’re the only music event site, I believe, that has a registered koala management plan with the department of planning.
What I’m trying to say is that’s not going to happen tomorrow, so there’s no typical day. Typical weekend, I actually got to spend last weekend home, the first in five or six weeks, but before that we were at the Port Fairy festival and before that in the US. It’s always changing and as you get older, I think it’s a good thing to have created a business that challenges you and that you still enjoy.
Down Time
Yeah. I’ll be out of here today within an hour and a half, I’ll be watching TV in two hours. The whole thing about doing what I do is you have to switch off and you don’t let yourself become stressed, because that doesn’t allow you to actually be in control.
I don’t mean that as a control freak, but you can’t lose control, you have to remain cool and calm and collected and be able to deal with what’s come along. So over the next two hours I’ll be checking the ticket sales for 109 shows we’ve got on the road… and we’ll be coming up with ideas about how to bring ’em home.
Motivation
Fear of failure [laughs] I love it, I enjoy it. I’ve been in show business for a long time and it takes a lifetime to get a real feel for how to do it, and then you know what happens? God comes along and knocks you on the head.
It takes you 50, 60 years to learn and all of a sudden you go, “Shit, I’ve only got 10 years left of doing this.” So you might as well enjoy it and go out with your boots on like the bluesmen do.
Keeping It Going
Well, the public is such an integral part. You’re always being aware of how the public is perceiving what you do and people go, “What do you do at Bluesfest?” Well, after a certain time, at 5 or 6pm, there’s only one place you’ll find me and that’s on a stage and I’ve got seven of those bloody things.
I need to know what every band is like, how the public is perceiving them, if they’re blowing people away, which bands I maybe shouldn’t have booked, which ones I put on a smaller stage that should’ve been a bigger stage, you never stop learning. “Oh shit, Bob Dylan’s got a problem!” You know what I mean?
What A Bluesfest Promoter Looks Like
Oh, they’re good-looking like me [laughs] I think there are some gifts that you’ve gotta have and one is you’ve gotta have hears.
[include_post id=”436321″]
If you haven’t got ears for music, that can discern the difference between what’s going to work and what’s not going to work — not that you have to get it right a hundred percent of the time, but certainly the majority of the time — well, that’s fundamental.
You develop it over time, you have to develop those skills. Skills like networking with people, many people, promoters, agents, artists, and develop relationships, build bridges. Then you’ve gotta learn how to market your event and sell your event.
Proudest Moment
I don’t know, I mean I can name what would be weird to other people. Small stuff, like Kacey Chambers playing on a small stage with the family band one year and the next year there she is on stage doing ‘The Captain’.
She’s gone from like nowhere to a major artist in 12 months and the fact that she still comes to Bluesfest ever year, whether she’s playing or not and we hang out. We build up a family… we’re a discovery festival and that’s a lot of what it’s about.
Alternate History
Oh, selling drugs. I don’t know [what I’d be doing if not for Bluesfest]. There’s not a lot else that interests me. I remember when I was really young, my brother, seven or eight years older, buys Little Richard and Fats Domino and stuff like that and that music, which I didn’t realise was all made in one studio, just hit me like a tidal wave.
The Future
I can’t change the fundamentals of the era of the music business I work in. We will ebb and flow. There’ll be times when you get a number of bands breaking through, a couple years back it seemed like every new band had to have a banjo.
But our end of the music business, whether it’s blues at the root through to looking at where that’s led… I don’t think we need to change that much because there’ll always be new artists coming up at our end of the business.
We put our stake down and I think to play Bluesfest these days is pretty prestigious and nobody gets a free pass. The band playing at midday has had to play just as hard as the guy closing.
If you’re interested in becoming a music industry professional, visit www.aim.edu.au to explore the huge range of music industry courses they have to offer.
