Miles Copeland's life in the music business
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 29 July 2021
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Lessons from nearly fifty years producing and managing bands, with industry veteran Miles Copeland III. From brilliantly promoting his brother's band The Police, to founding a record label for all the misfits in the industry: the Buzzcocks, the Cramps, The Go Go's, R.E.M., The Bangles, and many more; the American-born, Lebanon-raised record executive, and now the author of the memoir 'Two Steps Forward, One Step Back', tells the BBC's Ed Butler how he built his empire with music nobody else wanted.
Producer: Frey Lindsay.
(Picture: Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers and Sting from The Police at the A&M offices after signing a record deal. Their manager, Miles Copeland is 3rd from left. Picture credit: Richard E. Aaron/Redferns via Getty Images.)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi there, welcome to Business Daily. I'm Ed Butler. Today it's all about the man who helped |
| 0:09.1 | launch this band and a whole host of others onto the global stage. |
| 0:17.9 | Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red night. I went to the head of ANR and I said, look, here's the deal. |
| 0:27.8 | I'm giving you this record for free. |
| 0:30.6 | There's no risk. |
| 0:32.2 | Miles Copeland, the groundbreaking manager of the police, REM, the bangles, squeeze, the go-goes. |
| 0:39.1 | The list goes on. |
| 0:39.9 | Today we learn about his career in international music, |
| 0:42.8 | the business lessons he's learned, |
| 0:44.8 | right here on Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:52.6 | I keep getting people saying to me, you've got to write a book, you've got to write a book. |
| 0:55.9 | Well, I started writing, thinking that in my life, even though it was mainly music business, |
| 1:02.0 | there were a lot of lessons that could be applied to, you know, any sort of business, really. |
| 1:06.8 | And that might be more valuable and more interesting than just some sort of memoir. |
| 1:11.4 | Well, lucky for us, Miles Copeland has written a book. |
| 1:14.8 | It's called Two Step Forward, One Step Back, |
| 1:17.1 | and it tells of his journey to become one of the most influential figures |
| 1:20.7 | in British and American popular music. |
| 1:23.0 | The eldest son of a celebrated American spy, |
| 1:26.2 | he didn't have everything his own way. |
| 1:28.7 | Stumbling into music management with minor British bands in the 1970s, it took a financially |
| 1:34.0 | disastrous music tour where the lead act dropped out last minute to propel him into becoming |
... |
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