Jon Paul Davis of Conan and Sarah Sampson of Black Frog Management Group in New Zealand, have formed a new management services brand, Blackskull Services. Jon is a former HR Manager and owns several businesses including Black Bow Records, SkyHammer Studio, and Chariot Band Logistics. Blackskull is already working with a number of high profile acts, including Bast, King Witch, and Slomatics, whom Davis said recently in an interview with Ghost Cult is the best doom band in the world right now.
Jon comments:
“We present a useful, modern and flexible service for people in the music industry and feel that our academic knowledge complements our real world current experience. These assets, coupled with a keen business brain and an eye for detail, mean that any band that engages with us gets a very strong set of business skills, skills that maybe didn’t exist in your band beforehand.”
“I’ve been actively involved in the management of Conan since day one. Over time I have gained great experience of the ups and downs of band life, from the perspective of being in an active band. I’ve been actively involved in negotiating record contracts, joining and leaving booking agency rosters, negotiating festival bookings, handling disputes, managing a busy merchandising operation, handling logistics, as well as writing and recording and releasing music.”
“We aim to be useful to both bands who need help at the beginning, and bands who need it when they get too big and can’t juggle everything anymore. We take each band as they come and assess what they have, before suggesting what they can do and working on a plan for how to do it.” This consultation is essential, and it can lead to taking over some of the band’s functions (e.g. merch management, label negotiation, ticket allocation) but only where the band needs help. “If your merch runs well, then great, keep it going and we’ll support you in other ways. If your label isn’t working for you, then let us help you renegotiate a deal or move you elsewhere.”
“We aim to be useful to both bands who need help at the beginning, and bands who need it when they get too big and can’t juggle everything anymore. We take each band as they come and assess what they have, before suggesting what they can do and working on a plan for how to do it.” This consultation is essential, and it can lead to taking over some of the band’s functions (e.g. merch management, label negotiation, ticket allocation) but only where the band needs help. “If your merch runs well, then great, keep it going and we’ll support you in other ways. If your label isn’t working for you, then let us help you renegotiate a deal or move you elsewhere.”
“Now we see a much bigger need for proper, formal, no nonsense advice for bands and we are excited to see the difference we make to our clients. No band is too ‘small’ for us, we want to help everyone enjoy their time as a band or musician. Blackskull doesn’t just ‘manage’ a band’s business dealings, it will also be on hand for simple consultation and advice giving.”
Check out Ghost Cult’s interview with Jon where he discusses his other businesses here.
Blackskull Management can be found at their website here: (https://www.weareblackskull.com/)