Plan to help 'self-harming' acts

Record companies should be given more power to help artists struggling with personal problems such as drug addiction, according to one long time industry manager.

Marc Marot, CEO of Sports Entertainment Group UK and ex-boss of Island Records, is heading up a group calling for an extra clause to be put into artists' contracts that would "act as a safety net".

The idea would help people who develop personal issues such as addiction and depression.

The clause would allow record companies to intervene when a big name has serious issues, similar to those suffered by Amy Winehouse and Michael Jackson, that could affect their performance.

He said: "The industry has no safety net for artists, or executives, who fall off the wagon and find themselves in trouble."

Mixed reaction

The clause would strengthen labels' positions when it comes to pressuring those artists struggling with "genuine problems" into seeking help.

Reaction to the suggestion from artists has been mixed with many musicians saying they'd prefer to sort any problems out themselves.

The Invisible were nominated for this year's Mercury Music Prize

Dave Okumu from 2009 Mercury Prize-nominated band The Invisible said: "If I were presented with a contract which contained a clause allowing the record label to intervene in the event of 'personal troubles' I would be naturally suspicious.

"I find it hard to accept the idea that record companies are equipped to define what constitutes 'personal troubles' in a way that would reflect the best interests of the artist."

However, others are in agreement that breaching a contract should have consequences.

Joseph Mount is from Metronomy: "Your Pete Dohertys and Amy Winehouses - people would love the opportunities that those people get.

"When Amy Winehouse went off the rails she should have been dropped. It would have been a pretty big gesture if the label had said, 'We do not condone drugs use or bad performances'.

"It's irresponsible to let someone get like that. In any other profession hopefully your employer would be responsible enough to help you, otherwise you'd just get fired."

'Lighting fires'

Marot admitted that some of the blame for the problems artists endure does lie with the pressures applied by record labels themselves.

"We light fires underneath them [artists] and we just fuel the fire with endless promotion.

"We ought to look again at some of the clauses that would allow a record company or an artist manager to open up a possibility of suspending a contract which would then remove a fire that's causing the stress for the artist."

However Marot, who signed artists such as Pulp, Tricky and PJ Harvey when he was boss of Island Records, rejected claims that this would shackle artists' behaviour.

"We're certainly not trying to take the rock 'n' roll out of the music industry," he said. "This is about people who have genuinely slipped into depression, anorexia, drug abuse - any number of self-harming areas of which there are just legions of stories.

"As an industry, the music industry is pathetic compared to other industries.

"Would there be a record company that would take advantage of an artist that would smoke a little bit of spliff or something just to put them into a position of power and put them into suspension? Of course, it's not there for that."

Marc Marot is putting his safety net into his contracts from now on and wants the rest of the business to do the same.

He added: "We've weakened the record company contracts so much that they don't have very much teeth if an artist isn't capable of performing, or they go AWOL or they're so out of it they're not able to promote it or whatever.

"So there's a lot of support from across the industry."