Kill Your Friends

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A couple of words of advice for all

you hopefuls out there in unsigned bands.

F*** off.

Seriously, your parents are right.

You may as well spend

your guitar-string money on lottery tickets.

Your chances will be much the same.

You see, there's one thing you have

to understand about the music industry.

We have no obligation to make art.

We have no obligation

to make political statements.

We have no obligation to make good records.

We have an obligation to make money.

I mean, do these look like the shoes of someone

who gives a f*** Velvet Underground?

Now, in order to make money,

we may sometimes have to make art.

We may sometimes have

to make political statements.

Sometimes we may even have

to make good records.

Our record company receives half

a million demos a year.

We sign just ten of them.

And who makes these choices?

Who is responsible

for dividing the wheat from the chaff

and providing the soundtrack

to your short life on this planet?

Us, the elite, the chosen few,

the best of the best.

The A&R men.

Roger, why do you have a copy

of the f***ing Menswear album?

I looked into signing them a couple of years ago.

There's some good tunes on that.

It's four o'clock in the morning.

My colleague Roger and

I are brainstorming producer ideas.

How about Mike Hedges?

No. I find some of his mixes a bit middly.

- Middly?

- You know, too much...

Not enough top or, you know, bottom end.

What about the guy who produced

London Calling? What's his name?

- Guy Stevens?

- Yeah.

He'd be great.

There is a problem, however.

What? Is he a wanker?

I don't know. He died in 1981.

What's happening with the Rage album?

F*** knows.

It's all gone Colonel Kurtz.

The crazy bastard's up river, beyond the law.

Been in a residential studio for six months

now at a thousand quid a day

and David hasn't heard a f***ing note yet.

- David worried?

- He wants to be.

What's he done this past year?

Signed a proper load of f***ing turkeys.

This new Rage album wants

to make ABBA's Greatest Hits

sound like Sonic f***ing Youth

or he's finished.

F***ing nasty.

If he goes, they might offer you his job.

What, Head of A&R?

They might offer it to you.

No. No, you've got...

...you know, seniority.

Right, I'll get the drinks in.

Last year, 1996,

the turnover of the British music industry

passed the billion-pound mark for the first time.

Aceed!

Boom times.

But there's always competition.

Imagine you're standing on wafer-thin ice.

Beneath your feet you can see sharks circling,

terrible sharks

with hypodermic syringes for teeth.

These are your colleagues, your friends.

Roger and I both have to live

with an uncomfortable statistic:

at some point in the coming year,

one of us will probably be fired.

I have no intention of it being me.

I'm a bear!

I'm a dancing bear!

Hey, bear, bear. Bear, eat CDs!

What you got, bear?

What you got? Seal?

Bear eat Seal. Yeah.

Bear. Bear.

Bear tired. Bear tired. Oh, bear.

So here's what I do.

I listen to music, bands, singers, songwriters,

and decide which ones have

a good chance of commercial success.

I then arrange for them

to be recorded in a sympathetic manner

and then we, the record company,

sell them to you, the general public.

That's A&R, artiste and repertoire.

Simple, eh?

Get f***ed.

You wouldn't last ten minutes.

'In every age, men are born who,

in their hearts,

in the black of their blood, are warriors,

but for most of us,

there are no longer wars to fight.'

Morning.

'What must they do, these men?'

- Steven Stelfox's office.

- Steven there?

- No, I'm afraid he's not.

- OK, I'll call back later.

OK. Bye.

Did you listen to that EP I gave you?

Swedish band, The Lazies?

- I think they're really...

- Christ, I hate bands.

- Unfortunate career choice.

- Anyhow, it's on my pile.

Rebecca...

- You look nice today.

- Thank you, Steven.

- Darren's here.

- Hey, boss.

Check this out.

Jeez.

That's limited edition.

Well, I hope they limited it

to their immediate f***ing family.

Christ.

Look at this.

18-year-old sensation Ellie Crush

nominated for three Brits.

Crush's A&R Manager, Tony Parker Hall,

says, 'We've spent two years developing Ellie.'

'The nominations reflect her talent and

all the hard work everyone at the label has put in.'

Christ.

The bastard's magnanimous no less.

There's a lot of interest in that band.

Do me a favour.

F***ing Oasis rock up,

a couple of manc car thieves

with a Beatles songbook,

and now we all have to go finding an indie band?

Look, you haven't been here long,

Darren, so remember this.

Real people don't care about indie bands.

Real people put stone cladding and new

PVC double glazing on their council houses.

They buy four albums a year and

they want to hear all the f***ing words,

and there are billions of the c*nts.

So, come on, you're the scout.

Scout some proper hits.

Yeah.

- They're rough, but they could develop.

- Yeah, like a f***ing tumour.

Darren, what is the meaning of life?

Sign good bands.

Make records you're proud of.

F*** me.

Morning.

F***ing great night, eh?

State of me when I woke up. Jesus.

I'll see you in business affairs.

Oi, come on.

Meetings.

Nothing important ever

got decided in a meeting.

What they are very good for, however,

is stitching up,

humiliating and belittling people.

Fat boy here you already know.

We also have Derek Sommers

Managing Director.

Given that our MD's idea of fun is

paying a couple of Bethnal Green rent boys

to kick the sh*t out of him,

it's no surprise that sadism and aggression

are values our company encourages and rewards.

James Trellick, Head of Legal and

Business Affairs Ruthless, amoral, top bloke.

David Schneider, Head of A&R.

Technically my boss, for now.

Ross, Head of Marketing.

Would double-end his own mother

with Satan to put a record in the top 10.

Rob Hastings, Indie type,

the guy who put the um and ah in A&R.

Nikki, Head of International.

I have no sexual interest in Nikki,

so, in a way, she doesn't exist.

And taking minutes, Katy, Trellick's PA.

Doable.

Hey, how come

I didn't get my Music Week yet?

Because you don't work in the music industry.

Okey-dokey, boys and girls

Eyes down for a full house.

You all have a copy of

the agenda in front of you.

David, where are we with the Rage album?

Well, yeah, he's mixing,

so we're not far away now.

Tour's booked.

Steven and I are gonna meet up with him

in Cannes next week to go over the budget.

Got a lot of territories asking for a release date.

How's the record sounding, David?

Well, you know what he's like, Derek,

you know, plays his cards close to his chest.

- Do we have a single?

- Not yet, no.

You know, as you know, it's... sometimes

you can't rush the creative process, you know.

David, as head of this label,

I don't think I'm being unreasonable

in asking to hear some music

from an act in which we have

a considerable financial investment.

We're currently?

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