519 Magazine - April 2019

The LaSalle Boy Who Grew Up to Become The President of eOne Music
By Dan and April Savoie
We’ve interviewed several international
superstars and famous musicians from every
corner of the world, but none of them was as
fascinating as our conversation with Chris
Taylor, the LaSalle boy who grew up to
became the Global President of the world’s
leading independent record label and music
distributor - eOne Music.
From his humble beginnings at Sandwich
Secondary School to his time at the University
of Windsor, Talyor always felt his future was
going to be one of music advocay,
Throughout the 90s, Taylor fronted the
rock/reggae group One, which was signed to
Virgin Records and toured North America for
five years.
But that wasn’t enough. Taylor founded
Last Gang, an idie music label, publishing
and management company that propelled
artists such as Metric, 1979 and Arkells to
international succecss. And at the same time
founded the law firm Taylor Mitsopulos Klein
Oballa, which represented artists like Drake,
Avril Lavigne, Billy Talent, Three Days Grace
and Gordon Lightfoot.
In 2016 Last Gang merged into eOne and he
became the Global President of eOne Music.
We sat down with him to chat about
Windsor, entertainment law and of course, his
“tingle” for music.
How do you think Windsor and Detroit
shaped you personally and musically?
Living in Windsor is almost like living in a
suburb of Detroit. So you really are inundated
with US media, newspapers, radio and
television. Culturally you end up listening to
a lot less Canadian music then you might if
you lived in Toronto, Montreal, Chilliwack
or something like that. Windsor is a border
town in every sense of the word. I can get to
the heart of downtown Detroit in about 15
minutes from my parents house, growing up.
I think I made it in about 11 minutes one time.
You’re a lawyer by trade. When did you
realize that’s what you wanted to do?
Even in high school, I can remember
wanting to be a lawyer. I remember my
guidance counselor recommending against
it because I didn’t have very good marks.
What really changed it for me was when I
went to University and not really knowing
what I wanted to do. Part of me thought
maybe I’d want to be the Prime Minister of
Canada, because most of the Prime Ministers
were former lawyers. I was part of the NDP
youth on campus at. I ended up taking a job
one summer working at the General Motors
transmission plant and it really it struck me
at that point that I was going to need to get
serious about school if I was ever going to
go to law school. Following the first year of
University, I spent a lot of time in the library.
I really got focused on school work and
ended up getting into law school. I think I
realized at some point if I wanted to be Prime
Minister, I was going to have to learn French
and that wasn’t going to happen anytime
soon.
I fell in love with music and I played in
bands all through high school, University and
even through law school. We ended up putting
a band together that had a number of Windsor
guys in the group: Rob DeMarco and Tim
Lane for example. We started playing shows
up and down the 401, so we played Windsor,
London, Toronto and by the time law school
finished we had a pretty sizable following.
Instead of practicing, we actually went on the
road for pretty much five years straight
with that band from 90 to
95 touring
all over
N o r t h
America,
making records and videos and everything
else.
Do you ever get the desire to get back on
stage?
Not really. I’m a bit of a perfectionist. So
if I was to do that, I want to rehearse for a
month and I don’t have the time for that at
this point. Really my job at eOne is a 24/7 gig
and I’m very dedicated to that. I am passionate
about helping the artists that we represent as
opposed to building my own musical career. I
gave it a really good run and we did it full time
for five years, but its part of my past. I might
get up for karaoke every once in awhile, but
there’s no desire to put the band back together.
You’ve worked with some pretty big
names on the legal side, Does it get more
complicated the bigger they get?
Somewhat. There is more to do. Someone
like Drake is getting multiple phone calls
and multiple offers every day that you have
to weed through and explain to him and his
management, but those are good problems to
have. The phone is always ringing. One part
of my job that is somewhat unique and pretty
proactive is about helping people actually find
record deals. So if you are an artist and you
had amazing demo recordings I would work
with that. Nelly Furtado came to me with four
songs. I was friends with her manager, but she
didn’t have a record label and she didn’t have
a publishing deal. She didn’t have that sort
of infrastructure around her. A regular part of
my routine was going to New York and Los
Angeles and shopping for record deals. So
that was a whole other part of it. And once
you’re able to set that up, then
that it does get busy and it does
get complicated, but that’s
really the fun part.
In the music world, do you
think you’ve contributed
to bettering the music
industry in some way?
That’s a good question.
I do think so. I think I did
play a small part in helping
to introduce Canadian
artists to the world.
Historically, I think a lot
of great talent in Canada
has gotten shipwrecked
particularly before the rise of the digital
world, the internet and everything else.
If you were an artist in Lethbridge, Alberta
and you wanted someone in Australia to hear
your music, you really did need a record
company to help you bridge that gap and
that was a big part of my job - taking really
promising artists from Canada, mainly to the
US market, and trying to get US recording
companies interested in investing in their
careers. We did that with Three Days Grace,
Sum 41, Nelly Furtado, Drake and a whole
bunch over the years.
Now it’s a different dynamic. Someone
like Shawn Mendes or Justin Bieber might
be doing YouTube videos and someone’s
discovering them in the US and contacting
them directly. So lawyers aren’t as much of
a catalyst as they once were. Kids are now
recording in their bedrooms and putting songs
up on SoundCloud, and the second they start
to get a positive reaction, it’s almost like the
whole world knows about them overnight. I
think I played a small part in some of those
artists careers that I mentioned, helping
introduce them to global audiences.
You started Last Gang, which saw careers
of Metric and the Arkells and others rise to
fame. That’s a big transition from law to
record label, publishing and management.
There are some different skills involved for
sure, but there was some crossover as well. It
really stems from my desire and my passion
for artist advocacy. I want to help artists
achieve their dreams and doing that as an
attorney was one way to do that. The impetus
for the label and everything we’ve done there
was to help Metric, that was another group
that I was shopping. I shopped them to dozens
of record labels and couldn’t find anyone to
help us and after about four or five years of
trying to get Metric to second base, I decided
to start the record label myself.
I was going to spend some of my own
money that I’m making on the law firm side
and start a little record label to try and help
this band and that went fairly well and that led
to other signings. There really wasn’t a master
plan, it was almost like a hobby that kind of
got out of control a little bit. Before we knew
it, we had 10 staff and distribution all over the
world. It became its own business onto itself.
You have an eye for talent. Not many
have that ability to see the bigger picture.
So what are some of the things that you
look for when you are scouting?
You know what; it’s changed over the
years. You used to sit in your office with a
150 CDs and listen to them and all the songs.
I’ll listen for melody and lyrics and a point
of view that is distinctive and special. My
old business partner Donald Carlton used
to call it “the tingle” and it really is. It’s
almost instinctive. If I really love something
and respond to something, chances are the
rest of the world is going to love it as well.
Today, there’s a little bit more data analysis
that kicks into it. You are able to see in real
time what the rest of the world is tuned into
and cares about. You try to combine that with
an instinctive eye, in a similar way to “the
tingle”. It’s like a combination of “the tingle”
and the data and helping someone run the next
three laps around the track with the resources
in the platform that we have here. That’s it in
a nutshell I think.
Do the musicians need to do anything
to grab your attention for you to get that
tingle?
It helps if the music comes in the door with
a good team. So, if there’s an established
manager that we’ve had some success with
before that we like working with, that could
be helpful. You’re getting up on the radar
by sort of proving your concept a little bit
independently. It could be a video that’s done
well or some SoundCloud activity or even
songs that people are releasing independently
on Spotify. Everyone is chasing after the
same thing and there’s a new artist exploding
almost every single day, but you tried to be
selectively from that list and pick the ones that
you think are going to have some longevity
and be great to work with.