Part 3 - Create your circle. What goes round comes round. A cliché I admit, but it’s true. The music industry is bizarre. Frankly, there are no criteria for being involved within it. Whilst that’s quite liberating and there are some very cool people, to find them you wade through all sorts of inadequacies, ruthlessness, disloyalty and poor, poor communication. But it doesn’t take much to be cool to everyone, whatever the role, level or profile. Goodwill and humility goes a long, long way.
A little AC/DC story ‘When I was kid I met the guys from AC/DC. They were staying in a small hotel in the heart of the UK countryside preparing for the Donnington Festival. No one knew they were there. But a mate of my sister worked at the place. She had no idea who they were. But mentioned she was sure they had said they were in a band called AC/DC. I cold-called asking to speak to Brian Johnson. He came to the phone. I nearly passed out. But he was cool and simply invited me round. When I took out my programmes for them to sign, the hotel staff ( they obviously held them in great affection), were astonished to see that they ’played music abroad’. They’d been there for weeks and had never made a big deal about their stature. Brian Johnson, Malcolm and Angus just laughed. They invited my mate and me back for dinner with the crew later in the week. They were curious, humble and treated us with a genuine respect. I got the sense that’s how they treated everyone. It was for me a huge lesson.
