Manage Me!

Kenny Kerner

The decision to actively pursue a personal manager will be the most difficult and most important career decision an artist will make. There's just no avoiding it—at one point you will have to turn your career over to a professional manager who has experience and connections in the music industry and charge him with the responsibilities of furthering and developing your career in this complex industry.

Here are some topics for both potential managers and artists to consider:

I have been a personal manager for some 40 years and can tell you that no two artist-manager relationships are the same-just as no two management contracts are the same. It is therefore imperative that you, the readers, write in to this column with questions about YOUR artist-manager relationship so we can get them answered.

It is almost impossible to define the responsibilities of a manager. To me, a manager is everything to an artist. He stands beside the artist through thick and thin, for better or worse, and defends that artist and the artist's craft to all who challenge it and to all non-believers.

A personal manager is, at all times, a friend, confidant, babysitter, psychologist, career-planner, psychiatrist, deal-maker, and just about everything else you can think of if it involves the artist's life and career.

That's right, I said life. Because when I decide to manage an artist/band, I must first take control of their lives and put them in order. How can an artist be an artist if he has no place to live or food to eat? What can he possibly create when his mind is filled with paying bills and personal problems? You cannot dismiss the reality of life from the creation of art. Use the pain of life to mold the art but enable that artist to live a life that allows him to create.

A manager must be able to work through any and all problems that his artist encounters at any time of the day or night. At no time during my management career have I ever managed more than one artist at a time. It was impossible for me because of the way I manage.

With 40 years of industry experience, I immerse myself totally into the artist's life and career and help with songwriting, arrangements, live performances, image, personal affairs, touring, publicity, recording, merchandising and all other avenues of the artists career. There are some incredibly important managers out there who only make deals and do not involve themselves in the day-to-day affairs of an act. And that's cool—if the artist agrees.

My area of specialization is finding new, young bands/artists with almost no experience. Bands or singers that are hungry and will do anything to make it—acts that are not jaded by rejection and years of frustration. Then, over a period of time, I work with them and program accurate industry information into their collective minds readying them for a pro career. I show up at rehearsals, discuss what the band wears on stage, approve all photos, etc.

Admittedly, most bands do not relish the thought of having a manager/dictator run their lives. Many do.

So you see, we have come to the end of "Manage Me!" column and we're still not locked into the definition of a manager. Here's a final thought:
All of the members of an artist's Pro-Team (attorney, business manager, agent and personal manager), have some kind of certification, training or schooling (law degree, state certificate, accounting degree/CPA) with the exception of the personal manager—the one person directly responsible for the career of the artist.

For the cost of business cards, YOU can represent yourself as a personal manager! Pretty frightening, don't ya think? Me, too.