LONDON (CelebityAccess) – The management firm Raw Power has formed a label joint venture with EMI Records. The company has teamed with the major label on the Funhouse partnership to help push heavy music further into the mainstream. It will include acts on the Raw Power roster and bands represented by other management companies, MusicWeek has revealed.
Raw Power has had huge successes over the past 16 years with major rock acts, including Bullet For My Valentine and Bring Me The Horizon, with 11.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Now the company is forging ahead in partnership with EMI Records. Manchester-based rockers The Blinders have been unveiled as the Funhouse’s first signing.
“In the last four or five years, we’ve broadened our roster, and we saw The Blinders as something a little different,” said Raw Power CEO and founder Craig Jennings. “We picked them up pre-pandemic, and then this opportunity came along with EMI at the end of last year. We started talking to EMI co-president Rebecca Allen and managing director Clive Cawley about setting up a new alternative rock label that we would A&R. We thought The Blinders would be a perfect fit.”
“EMI was experiencing an upturn in streaming across its roster, particularly in rock, and was looking to enhance its A&R structure,” he explained. “We’ve always had a label wing to what we do, and it just so happened that we were looking to find a new partner, and it was a bit of a meeting of minds. EMI is a fantastic label, and we’ve got core skills in the rock market. So we’re hoping we’ll end up with a pretty great JV.”
Raw Power has previously operated its Search And Destroy label with a joint venture with Universal’s Spinefarm Records. The imprint remains with Spinefarm and will continue to release music by acts including Atreyu and While She Sleeps.
“We’re a management company, but that has always involved finding acts at a very early level, developing their careers, and becoming, if you like, the de facto A&R person,” he told Music Week. “Artist development is the core of what we do, even our biggest acts like Bring Me The Horizon and Bullet For My Valentine were new bands when we took them on. The entire ethos of what we’re trying to achieve is for Raw Power to bring its artist development expertise to a company like EMI, source bands at the start of their careers, and develop them into international global propositions.”
Craig Jennings expects to add to the Funhouse roster before the year.
“The target is to look at maybe two or three acts a year,” he revealed. “They’re not necessarily going to be acts that we manage. We like being A&R to some acts with strong managers we know and get on with, so we will be spreading our net to the wider rock community.”
“In terms of streaming, guitar music has been a little bit neglected,” he told Music Week. “And Raw Power has a perfect vision for developing new and exciting artists. They came up with the name Funhouse, which I love, and the first act they brought to us was The Blinders, who I saw at The Social and thought were fucking incredible. Funhouse will be an additional A&R resource for us at EMI. They will bring the talent and the marketing, and we’ll do the rest. I think Craig, Matt, and Don are amazing, so they’re not going to bring in acts they know we won’t be interested in. It will give EMI another arrow in our quiver, so to speak.”
In other significant developments, Raw Power has opened a Japan office in Tokyo, keeping with a broader plan for international expansion. The new office is in addition to its London and Los Angeles headquarters.
