‘WE PAID £24,000 TO TOUR THE US BUT TAYLOR COMES HERE FOR FREE!’: HOW AMERICA IS CRIPPLING UK ACTS
Last month, a stellar line-up took to the stage at the Cruel World Festival in Los Angeles, where American fans had paid between £200 and £2400 to fill their Doc Marten boots with quintessentially British music from bands and artists including Duran Duran, Simple Minds, Gary Numan, The Stranglers and Heaven 17.
“What a line-up! Are you excited?” I asked the Stranglers’ bass guitarist, punk veteran Jean-Jacques Burnel. “No I’m f—ing not! F— the Americans. I’ve toured there since the 70s but we probably won’t bother going again. It’s just getting too difficult. We’ve all had to traipse down to the US embassy in London to grovel in for visas. Again. And they keep putting the prices up. We’ve had to fork out 24 grand before we can even get on a f–––––– plane.”
Crikey.
Sil Willcox, his manager for 40 years, calmly explained: “It now costs twice as much to take a band to the States as it did in 2019. The USA is becoming more protectionist. Something needs to be done.”
Willcox outlined the routine. “Whether you’re a roadie or the lead singer, you have to petition for a work permit/visa in person at the US embassy. And, whereas visas used to last a whole year, artists now have to reapply with every visit. They tell you there’s a four-month backlog, so you pay for the premium accelerated service to be on the safe side. Hence [why it cost] £24,000 for a party of eight – the four band members plus three crew and tour manager. And then our own government slaps 20 per cent VAT on top of that. What’s more, UK artists have to pay US federal and state taxes (as well as tax back in the UK), so a further £8000 is needed to hire a US tax advisor who can ensure they don’t get taxed instantly on gross fees in the US.”
Glenn Gregory of Heaven 17 faced his worst experience in March 2020, when it “only cost” £17,000. “The band had all been and got our papers but our tour manager Marc went along one Monday morning and took a ticket for the queue. He was number 44. Then all hell let loose. Alarms were going off, the building was being locked down. So was the whole country! Marc didn’t get his visa and none of us got to the US – or our money back!” The only reason he agreed to Cruel World, adds Gregory, is that “we’ve managed to book us a gig in San Francisco the following night and will break even.”
Gary Numan reveals that back in the day, artists still lost money on touring, but their record sales made up for it. “I was losing £20,000 a night on touring but I was shifting loads of albums and making masses of money on those. The gigs promoted record sales.”
Today, however, streaming has decimated income from record sales. So, says Numan, “If I don’t do live stuff my annual income is down 75 per cent. You’ve got to tour”.
He continues: “I now live in LA. When the three British guys in my band come to join me we pay about £3000 for each of them to enter the US. The visa used to be for a whole year. But now they insist you re-apply each visit, so it doesn’t pay to do one-off shows and when I was asked to play Cruel World again I said ‘No!’ But then they upped their offer so it did cover costs.”
And don’t imagine it would be any easier if we were still in the EU. Bertrand Burgalat is a French musician and producer who tells me it was much easier 20 years ago. “On landing in the US, we’d split up before joining the passport queue. If asked why we were carrying guitars we’d just say “Oh I might jam on a beach.” We never bothered with any paperwork, now every immigration officer has a computer in front of them.”
Getting into France for US musicians, however, is a different story. “Taylor Swift is being welcomed into the EU with open arms. For free!”
But do we really need to shed a tear for rock stars just because they’re having to fork out the cost of, say, yet another flashy motorbike?
Well, yes. In 2022, the music industry contributed £6.7 billion to the UK economy, generated £4 billion in exports and accounted for 210,000 jobs. And it’s been a valuable soft power ever since the Beatles first landed in America in February 1964. After one appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show they instantly became the best-known band in America, returning later that year for a 25-city US tour to be greeted by 9,000 hysterical girls at San Francisco airport.
Today’s UK artists such as Adele, Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles and Coldplay have had dozens of albums reach Number One on both sides of the pond. Only the US exports more music than us – and their population is over five times bigger. But still, with only seven acts ever having sold more than a quarter of a billion albums each, just three are American. And four are British.
British music is adored all over the world. Across Africa, I’ve found record shops full of posters of our pop stars. And only by the power of the pen was I waved into Zambia as soon as the border guard spied my BBC “Steve Wright in the Afternoon” biro at Victoria Falls. Another time, in a dusty Louisiana backwater bar, I was asked to dance by the local chief of police. When he found out where I was from, his only line of enquiry was “Do you know the Beatles? Man, they turned this town on its head.”
UK Music, the umbrella body for our music industry, told me that “UK music punches above its weight internationally; helps improve our reputation abroad; is a key national asset that brings social and economic benefits to the UK. Consequently over half of people [in a recent survey] feel that the Government should be doing more to support musicians and to ensure they can work abroad. We have been lobbying the government for years to do just that by negotiating with the USA.”
The government hasn’t always been so reluctant to support pop’s potential. During Beatlemania, Harold Wilson, the PM with a pipe, recognised that not only did topping the Billboard Charts bring in big bucks, but it could also improve Britain’s dreary post-war image and boost tourism. So he wasted no time in jumping on the bandwagon, posing for photos with the Fab Four, showering them with awards and even taking to the stage at the Cavern Club to say “Cheers to the Merseybeat and pop in general”.
Then in May 1997, the new Labour prime minister Tony Blair was indeed The People’s Pop Fan, plying the biggest players in BritPop – Oasis, Blur and Pulp – with praise and prosecco at Number 10.
His successor Gordon Brown claimed to admire the Arctic Monkeys. And then along came Smiths superfan David Cameron. At least they backed British music. Nowadays, it’s as if Number 10 doesn’t know it’s Aerosmith from its Elbow. Only last week, Rishi Sunak revealed some of his favourite artists to be Luke Combs, Lainey Wilson and Chris Stapleton – all American country stars.
He is also a self-confessed Swifty, and will soon be heading to Wembley to watch US pop titan Taylor Swift, whose 15 UK stadium dates this summer will earn her $500 million. Yes but how much will she have to pay to enter the UK?
According to lawyer Gillian McCall of Richmond Chambers Covent Garden, who specialises in assisting artists coming to perform here, so long as “the engagements for which the individual is paid will take place within the first 30 days of their arrival, and their total time in the UK will last less than six months, US nationals need not pay a penny”. Right. So nothing.
Better tell Burnel.
“How much? F——g hell! “ Spluttered my punk pal. “Hardly a level f——g playing field is it?!”
“It’s OK for us. We’ve sold millions of albums. But it’s all too much for young emerging bands trying to break into the US nowadays. What’s going to happen to them? To British music? It’s about time our government showed support and did something to help.”
OK. Any message for the incumbent government after Fourth of July?
“US/UK, special relationship? My arse!”
2024-06-04T08:31:30Z dg43tfdfdgfd