Motley Lawsuit

Recently, I have heard about several music artists/bands that have ended ties with long-time managers. This is not a new phenomena. Traditionally, if an artist was unsatisfied with a manager, it was considered wise to end the relationship and move on with little publicity. Lately though, I am seeing more and more artists blaming managers for bad career decisions.

This is from a Bretbart article about a lawsuit being filed by Motley Crue against manager Carl Stubner and the big time management company the Sanctuary Group.

The suit claimed beginning in 2005 Stubner and Sanctuary got Lee involved in “bad career moves,” including the short-lived reality TV show “Tommy Lee Goes to College.”

The show was “a ratings disaster” that portrayed Lee as “incoherent, lazy and incompetent,” disruptive in classes and unable to keep a beat in a school marching band, the suit said.

Another failure was “Rock Star: Supernova,” the suit said.

The suit contended the TV shows were part of a “self-serving scheme” to promote Lee’s personal work at the expense of the group because Stubner received a higher commission for solo projects.

O.K., What are the duties of an artist manager? Well, that’s going to differ from artist to artist and is usually spelled out precisely in the management contract. At the core, a manager is nothing more than a consultant. His job is to advise the artist regarding the artist’s career. In other words give career advice.

So, in principle, the lawsuit appears to be ridiculous.

beginning in 2005 Stubner and Sanctuary got Lee involved in “bad career moves,”

Only the artist can make the decision on any career moves. The manager can only advise. I am quite sure that the Sanctuary management agreement does not have any wording like; “Manager will give advice but only good advice”. Even if it did, “good” and “bad” are subjective.

Now, if “Tommy Lee Goes to College” was a “bad” career move, whose fault is that? Here’s where it gets funny. Are these guys prepared to prove, in court, that Tommy Lee isn’t “incoherent, lazy and incompetent”, and if so, that the manager complied with the editors of the show to make him look bad?

As to the “self-serving scheme” part. If Stubner was getting a higher commission for Lee’s solo work, that means that Lee was his priority not the band. There was probably somebody else at Sanctuary that was working on behalf of the band as his or her main focus and that Stubner and the other agent were splitting commissions’ in some way.

The old school thinking was that if an artist made public his discontent with a manager, even if it was justisfied, then the artist would be put in a bad light because, it would appear that the artist was unable to make competent decisions.

Now we have the artists not only wanting to not be held accountable for their own decisions but also blaming a consultant for those decisions as a means to repair image.

Fire your manager, it’s the new rehab.