Brian: So how's the airplay on the 
record (Go My Way)?

​

Derek: Right now, it's pretty good. We've 
got mostly the second and third level of stations playing the record. It's not the major cities, it's the smaller cities that are 
playing the record. Which is why Robin is coming back in October to do some West coast major cities in conjuction with radio, which is a ploy to get major airplay in those 
cities and get a test on the record. If we get the airplay and the record doesn't sell, then this is a record just for the fans. If we get the airplay and it does start selling to the non-traditional Trower fan, then we can go forward and really work on trying to revitalize the airplay on Robin Trower.

​

Brian: So what if this ends up being 
a record just for the fans, what do 
you see the next step being?

​

Derek: Well the next step I've got in my head (is) a guitar-based shed tour for next summer, where Robin and two or maybe even three other guitar artists will get together and tour in the sheds for the summer... 
these indoor/outdoor arena things that they have, which are great venues for whole families to go. We're seeing a wider spectrum of audience than we've seen for awhile on this tour. There are more women 
in evidence, which is great. And there are more younger people in evidence. It's not just the 45 year old male in a 1974 Robin Trower t-shirt. We've got some other 
people this time.

​

Brian: Yeah, I've noticed that too in 
the shows I've been to lately. There 
was a mixture of the old-time 
Trower fans as well as some women 
and younger people.

​

Derek: I think there's something going on that's bringing them... I have a standard line when I'm doing my promotions, that I believe that Robin has crossed the line from 
has-been to legend. And so there are more people that are interested. He's survived and he's playing better now than he played in the Seventies.

​

Brian: Yeah, I agree.

​

Derek: My 28-year old niece was at the show last night, and she came up to me and said "I can't believe how good this guy is. How come I've never heard of him?"

​

Brian: I asked Robin a similar 
question yesterday when I talked to 
him, just to get his take on why he 
thinks his music isn't more popular. 
His answer was that he's always 
been a person for the music, and 
not for the commercial value of the 
music. It's more important that he 
do what he thinks is best, and 
that's... rarely the commercial 
thing. So it sounds like because of 
his integrity and his artistic values, 
that's why he's not more popular.

​

Derek: That's very true, because Robin follows his own muse. And that's why we made the V-12 record jump, because nobody else was going to put up any money to allow him to do what he wanted to do.

What goes on with record companies is that they have these people called A & R people who come in and try to guide the artist 
toward a more commercial expression of his music. And this doesn't work with Robin. I mean, it takes a very long time... he *will* 
listen to other people's views, but it takes a long time for him to integrate those views into what he's doing. Or those parts of other people's views that he will accept. 
He'll integrate them into his overall music view, but that takes alot of time. And these A & R guys, basically they're in their twenties 
and to them, you know, three days is a long of time. That's why it's taken us over a year to make this record. Actually, almost two years since Livvy and Robin started 
working on it. Because it's taken that long to get a focus on what the music really is, and what's the best thing for the music. Including having a new singer. And including having Robin try Richard on four or five other songs where it didn't work... where Robin's vocals were definitely superior to Richard's. So we've done alot of work to get to this record, but it *is* a great 
record and we're just going to keep on working it, to try to get it to as many people as possible. Right now I'm working on getting the record released in Europe. And hopefully in February or March of next year, 
there will be a European tour, which 
Robin hasn't done for ten years. So there are alot of things to be done.

​

Brian: I bet all the European Trower 
fans will be really glad to hear that, 
because we've gotten several 
emails to the effect of "When are 
you going to be in the UK?" or "I 
saw you in Sweden in '75. When are 
you coming back?" That sort of 
thing, you know?

​

Derek: Well the big problem is that Robin has always been able to make a living in the US because he's had consistent radio airplay. He is gunshy about the European 
continent because there's never been radio until very recently, and it was never kind to the kind of music that Robin plays. It's very 
pop-oriented. But there is a demand now. I'm getting positive feedback from the people that I'm talking to about putting together a tour. Even if we do half a dozen dates in the UK to start off with -- putting that together, so that it will, in fact, not 
cost Robin money out of his pocket. And then we'll open up another market. The European market is more difficult to crack than the American market because it's so diverse, but the European territories 
are much more loyal to an artist, in 
general, than the US is. Robin has a loyal core base of fans, but it's a pretty small core base here. If we had done as much work in Europe, it would be a bigger base of fans. In 
the European music market, it's much more diverse, as I've said. There are more different groups of people who get together to go to music. You don't have just the 
sleeved and pierced guys going to see alternative music like you do here. Even some of the older people are welcome at an alternative concert in Europe. Which is not the case here.

 

Brian: Derek, I've wondered about 
the origin of the name V-12 Records.

​

Derek: Robin Trower is a Jaguar car fan.

​

Brian: That's kinda what I thought.

​

Derek: The V-12 is the most powerful and most sophisticated motor that there is. So we transferred that from the motor to our record company. That's where it came from. He actually owned a Jag V-12 for awhile.

​

Brian: Speaking of V-12, how has 
the transition of Go My Way from 
V-12 to Aezra records been going?

​

Derek: We still produced the record. And in the rest of the world, it will probably be on V-12... V-12 really is just a vehicle for allowing Robin to express himself the way he wants to express himself. When I made this deal with Aezra for this particular 
record -- I did so because I don't have the finance to compete in todays world of promotion to get the record on the radio -- and Aezra came up and said well, you've taken all the risk in the amount of money 
that's been used to produce the record -- to actually make the record -- we'll take the risk of the promotion money. Which is 
considerably more than the money needed to make a record. So they're going to do that. I'm now working with two or three different people in the UK to try and make a deal for the UK, and I sincerely hope that 
V-12 will disappear. It would be my greatest joy to not have a record company. I don't like to run a record company. If there were a group of people who were as enthusiastic 
about Robin's music and who would allow him to do what he does as opposed to get him to make other kinds of records.

​

Brian: Let's say that Go My Way 
turns out to be a monstrous hit. Do 
you see Robin going to a bigger 
recording company again?

​

Derek: No. No. I see Robin staying with a small company that will let him do what he wants to do and then will give the records the time to develop. Robin Trower is not a 
pop artist. But most of the major record companies are run as "pop" companies. And they give you indow of six to ten weeks, and if your record is not on the charts and 
selling lots of product by that amount of time, they drop the record entirely and tell you to go away... and make another record. 
When I made this deal with Aezra, they committed in advance that they would work on no less than two songs off of the album, and if there were money out of the budget 
we agreed upon, they would work a third, if it were possible. Even if the first two didn't happen. And we're already talking now... I mean we've only had Too Much Joy on the radio for about five weeks and we're already planning the second single and what we're going to do with it. We've got multiple choices based upon on how strong Too Much Joy gets to be. So I know that they're 
for real and that they're going to promote the record. I talked to Robin last night, and we mentioned the fact about another ecord, and he threw his hands into the air and 
said "Don't even talk to me about another record! I don't have an idea in my head for another song!" So, that's at least 2002 before we're going to start on that next record. So we're a long ways off yet.

​

Brian: To satisfy my own curiosity, 
can you tell me what you're typical 
day is like. For instance, as I sit 
here, I see a very large briefcase, 
cell phone, Palm Pilot... the whole 
works.

​

Derek: I don't actually *do* anything.

​

Brian: That's a helluva job. Where 
do I sign up?

​

Derek: I am not responsible for doing 
anything. I'm responsible for getting a whole lot of other people to do *their* jobs for my artists.

​

Brian: Which I'm sure is a whole lot 
harder than any other job.

​

Derek: It is! Really what I am is an 
information broker. My mentor, the person who taught me the most about this busines (is) a gentleman by the name of Frank Barcelona. I always pictured him as a giant 
spider, sitting in the middle of a web of information. That was how he made his business work, and that's the way I look at my business. I'm an honest information broker. What I do is when I have a piece of positive information from one of my clients, I disseminate it as widely as I possibly 
can. So, when something is happening, like the record Too Much Joy was happening in Charlotte, NC and we were getting solid requests and they put it up to Number 10 on their chart, so for one whole day all 
I did was call other people and tell 
them this particular piece of informaition. And collect from them what they were doing, and how we could start this together.

The thing I love about being a manager is that no two days are ever the same. And no two weeks are ever the same. Because 
whatever is going on in the street, I have to try and magnify and make it for the best of my clients' advantage. And also, if there's 
nothing going on, I have the opportunity to say "Well, I don't have to work today, so I'll go grab my family and go to the beach." The 
difficult thing is is that my family doesn't understand that when I'm working, I have no time for them. And when I'm not working, I have *all* the time for them. But I cannot pick which is going to be which. If this record takes off, I could be in heavy work mode for as much as eight or ten months at a time. And it's 24/7/365 when I'm working. I'm working in Europe where it's eight hours ahead of me when I'm in LA. I'm working in Australia and Japan which is eighteen hours 
the other way. So, I'm picking my way through all these information minefields, and trying to get the work done. The great joy is that I can do what I do from any place that's got two phone lines and a fax 
machine and a computer hookup. Now that I've got a wireless modem, I don't even need a computer hookup. That's pretty cool.

​

Brian: Do you have a separate 
office? Or do you work from home?

​

Derek: I work out of my home. I have trimmed my business. I was divorced five years ago, and at the time of my divorce I made a conscious decision that I must trim 
my business and trim the hours I was working in the business in order to spend some time with my children, because they were growing up and I was going to lose them otherwise. The consequence of that 
is that I dumped the office. I work out of my house... I have a separate office, obviously, but I work out of my house I keep the 
overhead low so that I don't have to make decisions based on money. I can make decisions based upon my clients' careers.

​

Brian: That sounds like the perfect 
scenario for a client like Robin.

​

Derek: Yes. That's the only way it could work for Robin. He and I have a non-traditional management relationship on the financial side. Because if I were to take a tandard 20% right off the top of everything he does, there'd be nothing left for him. And we've discussed this over and over again. If at some point, he starts earning mega-dollars again, then maybe we can go back to that 
kind of an arrangement. Again, this 
business is such a business of individuals, that although there are standard procedures, they don't really apply. Particularly for Robin who has always found his own way.

So, I don't have a standard day. Right now, with the tour stopping, I'm a little bit at a loss because during the tour time, I'm in a frenzy of communication and making sure 
that everybody is focused on the one thing. Now I've got to book another tour, and that's a slow process at the beginning. It's like this flywheel... it slowly get's faster and faster and faster. And then it spins back down again. And I was expecting to have some time with my children at the end of August and into September because I thought this tour would have wound 
down and that we would be just Working radio. But now we've got 
another tour to book, so it's going to be...

​

Brian: It never ends, does it?

​

Derek: But that's great. You know. The only problem is that I have two other clients and they are not at all happy about the focus that I've given to working on this record over the last three or four months. And I 
may well lose one of them because of it.

​

Brian: That's too bad.

​

Derek: Too bad for them.

​

Brian: I do have a question that I almost forgot about. I want to get your opinion how you see the culmination of music and music 
production with the power of the Internet.

​

Derek: I have no idea! I'm the person who said that CDs would never happen, because no one would invest in the new hardware. 
That the vinyl record was so entrenced in everybody's collections that there was no way in the world they were going to spring for this incredibly expensive, and rather cold sounding, new technology. So asking me to forecast, or even to say whether it's going to be a positive part, I don't know. All I do know is that at the moment, it's a 
conduit for theives.

​

Brian: That's a great lead in to my 
next question. Napster: Good or 
Bad?

​

Derek: BAD! Entirely 100% bad. Pandering to and encouraging the immorality of the children who have been educated by the State. A song is owned. The copyright is valuable. There's a reason for copyright. 
Copyright is being violated daily by these people, and they are being encouraged to violate copyright. As I heared on an interesting financial radio program the other day, as kids violate this copyright and steal from the artist, the supply of good future 
music will dry up, because nobody can afford to make music and give it away. Robin has been doing this -- he's been in this business for forty years -- and can barely make a living now. If the Napser-ites want 
to steal his music and not pay him for his CDs, he won't be able to make any more music. He'll have to drive a bus or do (some other line of work). And, by their theiving, they will be denying the rest of the world 
the joy of Robin's music. But they don't understand that. A standard reply from a Napster-ite is "These guys can afford it because they're making millions." I don't believe that it's any more moral to steal a dollar from a millionaire than it is to steal a 
dollar from a homeless person. It's still theft. For the college students to say that music is too expensive, and so they think that gives them the right to steal it. I wonder if that 
means that if they feel that if a Porsche is too expensive they should be able to walk into the store and just drive a Porsche off the lot.

​

Brian: Maybe a closer to home 
example would be walking into a 
record store and putting a CD in 
your pocket and walking out of the 
store with it.

​

Derek: Nobody would (actually) do those things, but they *will* steal the music because trading files on the Internet is now considered to be OK.

​

Brian: Because it's so easy. The 
technology is there... so it's possible 
that anyone can do this. But it's...

​

Derek: It's not moral. It's not right. And ultimately, it will drive those people who's living is marginal...out of the business... The small amount of money that Robin actually makes from record sales is the difference 
for him between being able to ive comfortably and being able to live on a scratchy kind of basis. And if these people take away that earning, then he's not left with any opportunity to make a living. And for me as a financier, why would I put 
up a hundred thousand dollars to make a record if I'm supposedly just throwing that hundred thousand dollars out to all these theives and they're never going to pay me. It's not going to happen. It can't happen. Even though recording techniques and recording equipment is much cheaper and much more effective than it ever has been, the people who make really great records should be paid for their efforts. And the people that invest in them should be paid for their efforts.

There's this whole thing going on 
where the government is suing the major record companies for price fixing on the cost of CDs. I don't see them suing the car companies for price fixing on the cost of cars, because they know that this 
multi-billion car industry would turn 
around and say "Hey listen, this is not acceptable." They're making an end play. They're not suing the movie companies. I don't see the movie houses competing on ticket prices. I see movie prices very high. 
Usually two tickets to a movie is greater than the cost of a CD, and all you get out of that is two hours of entertainment, whereas with a 
CD, you can get a lifetime of entertainment. So for people to say that CDs are overpriced -- that they can't afford them -- they're just 
being stupid.

 

Brian: I agree. A music CD seems 
like a great value.

​

Derek: The guy that took over one of the major distrubution companies did an analysis of the costs of entertainment items, and found that the CD was at the very top of the price/value curve -- that you got far more value for what you spent on a CD than you did on a movie ticket or on a video game. Video games... sixty or seventy bucks for a video game. Nobody complains about that -- although they rip those off too! It seems to be topsy turvy to me. And the problem that we have is that biggest disseminator of music -- the people that 
advertise our music and get the music out to the people -- is radio. And, ever since I've been in this business, I have listened to disc 
jockeys saying that music should be free.

​

Brian: I don't understand the 
rationale. You know, there's music 
right now that's free. It's called Muzak.

​

Derek: Right! And who wants to listen to it? And it's also a case of these highly paid disc jockeys telling us that everybody else should be working for free so they can continue to make their large salaries and get all the extra perks. I mean, it's a little foolish. And for people to say that CDs should be free so the artist can make the money on he concerts, there aren't that many artists that can perform live. There are far more artists that can make great records than there are who can actually go out there and do it live.

​

Brian: But it's always seemed that 
the concerts are really only 
happening to promote the 
recordings anyway.

​

Derek: Absolutely. Although when you get to a Britney Spears level or N'Sync or Backstreet Boys level, concerts are very very big money makers.

​

Brian: Yeah, but for how long. 
Those artists... how long are they 
going to last?

​

Derek: Right. They don't last very long.

​

Brian: Yeah, then need to be 
investing their money pretty well 
now.

​

Derek: Yeah. They don't have a career. Again, that's where I feel that my skills are an old paradigm. I'm a "career-building" manager. My whole training has been to work with an artist to get the most long term value out of the music that they 
produce...

Brian: Well, Derek, speaking for all 
the Robin Trower fans, thank you 
for all the effort you put forth to 
keep Robin's career going, so we 
can continue to enjoy his music.

​

Derek: I thank you. It's sometimes difficult to justify spending the amount of time, energy and effort on somebody who is one of the 
greatest guitarists in the world and yet has always followed his own path without any thought to commerciality at all. No, that is not quite true. When he *has* thought 
about commerciality, the albums he has produced have always been the ones he dislikes. It's a paradox.