As a music industry mogul and founder of I.R.S. Records, Miles Copeland prided himself on making deals that were easy to say “yes” to. With a mixture of shrewd business skills, swagger, good taste and great timing, Miles signed or managed some of the most popular bands of the 1980's, including R.E.M., The Go-Go's, and The Police. After getting his start booking little-known British bands in the early 1970's and nearly going bankrupt after a failed tour, Miles eased back into the business by promoting punk groups—who didn’t care that he was broke. He then landed one of the most important deals of his career by convincing A&M Records to take a chance on The Police (whose drummer, Stewart Copeland, was Miles' brother). After I.R.S. dissolved in the mid 1990's, Miles remained a force in entertainment, launching new labels, branching out into world music, and managing Sting’s career until 2001.  

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I knew that I wouldn't be seen by the top guy, but I went to the guy, the guy that signs the artists, you know.

So I went in and I said, look, I have nothing to recommend this group.

I've got nothing, except I've got a great record.

And here's the deal I'm gonna make with you.

Just pay me the highest royalty A&M pays if it sells.

If it doesn't sell, no skin off your nose, no skin off my nose.

Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

I'm Guy Raz and on the show today, how Miles Copeland helped rejuvenate rock and roll by taking a chance on unknown artists, founding a record label, and bringing us the Police, the Go-Go's, R.E.M., and many more.

Every single day, somewhere between 20 and 60 thousand songs get uploaded to Spotify.

That is an ocean of music being put out every day, more music than at any other time in human history.

And it means that for most artists, it's almost impossible to make money on selling music alone.

You've got to turn your band into a business.

Live touring, merch sales, maybe a Patreon or a band campsite, brand partnerships, whatever it takes.

And if you're a record label, Streaming services, like Spotify, pay a fraction of a cent every time someone plays your music, which means unless your artist is Drake or Taylor Swift, it's pretty hard to make the kind of profits you used to make from record sales.

But in the 1980s, running a record label was almost like printing money.

Because if you could sign an obscure artist for next to nothing and figure out how to get their music played on the radio, you could make a lot of money from selling records.

And it really only took 1 good band to make it work.

And for Miles Copeland, that band was the police.

It just so happened that his small record label was starting to get some traction in the late 1970s.

Right around the time Miles' brother Stuart, a drummer, met a singer named Sting.

And it was 1 song in particular, you know the 1, go ahead, sing it, it was that song that Sting and Stuart played for Miles that convinced him that the police were destined for something big.

And you will hear that story in this episode.

If you listened to FM radio or watched MTV in the 1980s, It was impossible to avoid hearing the artists on Miles' label, IRS Records.

He would go on to sign the Go-Go's, R.E.M., the Stranglers, Fine Young Cannibals, Oingo Boingo, the Bangles, and many other bands that would come to define the decade.

And what made Miles Copeland particularly successful was his instinct for good music.

But the story of how he became a record label mogul really happened by accident.

After college, Miles had considered following in his father's footsteps and maybe joining the CIA.

His dad, also named Miles Copeland, was at 1 point the CIA station chief in Damascus.

And Miles grew up in Beirut, Lebanon at the height of the Cold War, the oldest of 4 kids, including the aforementioned Stuart and another brother, Ian, who would go on to become a prominent music promoter in the U.S.

As a teenager, Miles attended the American School in Beirut.

And just like any American teen in the 1950s and 60s, he was glued to the music on the radio.

Well, I would listen to the BBC, you know, I would listen to the Voice of America.

I would, every time my father went back to the United States, I would say to him, you know, walk into a record store and buy the top records.

And what do you remember I mean this is the late 50s early 60s what do you remember listening to?

Jerry Lee Lewis, Great Balls of Fire, you know Little Richard, The Big Bopper, Elvis Presley had been a big deal when I had just left America, but later on it would be what was going on in San Francisco and, you know, the Doors and Jefferson Airplane and all those sort of bands, you know.

But after that, you came back to Lebanon, to Beirut, to do a master's degree at the American University there, I guess, in economics.

And the story I read is that while you were a student there, you started to promote some concerts on campus.

Like, what did you, how did, what were you doing and how'd you get into that?

Well, it actually was a series of accidents, that had really no plan involved.

My little brother, Stuart, had decided he wanted to be a drummer.

And he had got himself a drum kit, and as it happens, there was a local group at the high school called the Wichita Vortex Sutra.

And they lost their drummer who went back to America for Christmas.

And so they went to Stewart and said, well, we've lost our drummer, will you sit in and drum with us?

So obviously, Stewart invited me to the show, and he was some silly little club, you know, and I went with a friend of mine and, you know, Stuart was up there drumming and I thought, there's my brother who's actually in a band.

So all of a sudden the music business, the distance between me thinking that there is a chasm between me, the kid listening to music, and the music business itself, that chasm sort of disappeared.

And as it happened, later on the group comes to see me and says, look, would you help us?

We've got a gig at the university so I said well what the hell you know it was literally that it was Wow it was 1 of these moments where as you just say well I got nothing better to do so okay sure I'll do

it you went to help arrange the concert for them on the campus of the American University?

Well, I went to help organize the sort of show.

They had this idea that, well, we wanna have the kind of a psychedelic happening.

We've been reading about this thing that's going on in San Francisco.

Of course it had nothing to do with what was going on in San Francisco.

I mean, there were no drugs, for instance, but it was a big success.

So then the group came to me and said, well, you've got to come and help us on all the other shows we're doing.

Well, there weren't very many, but the word sort of got out that I was, you know, helping.

And then I was approached by a promoter who was importing groups from England.

Yeah, the group that was brought in by this promoter was a group, an English group, called Rupert's People.

And the next thing I knew I was helping him with his show, you know, he sort of sold them as from London, you know.

So, So from what I understand, you graduated I think in 69, and I guess around that time, your family actually moved to London, right?

And I guess there was this band, this band called Rupert's People, right, that you'd worked with before, and what, they got back in touch with you and said, hey, we need a manager, can you help us out?

Well, Rupert's People had had a single that went top 30, You know, but at the time that I was seeing them they all had jobs, you know They were not a professional band.

A lot of them didn't even have equipment So it was you know, they said they wanted me to manage them and I said, well, I don't know anything and they said well We'll show you Well, the first gig they took me to was to a club near my parents' house and I happened to meet a group who later became Wishbone Ash who really became my first management artist.

Rupert's people sort of faded into the background because they really weren't a professional group yet.

They were hoping that I was some sort of rich American who might finance them.

And I think that's why they asked me to manage them.

So that kind of fizzled out, but you went on to, to be involved in this group, Wishbone Ash, which was a massive group, a prog rock group, right?

They never really had a revival in the U.S.

Well they were I would say they were moderately successful.

They weren't as big as, let's say, Jethro Tull or 10 Years After or some of these big bands, but they were successful enough that people know who they were.

And I learned a lot from them and they learned a lot from me.

Basically, it was a learning experience because I knew nothing about the music business.

That was a big deal for British artists, really, because the whole idea of, you know, oh, wow, we're gonna play America, you know, that's the big game.

The fact that I was an American kind of opened the doors I think and a lot of the groups that I was starting to work with were thinking well I could take them to America which was their big dream.

So at this point you're clearly, I mean this is the early 70s, you're clearly now in this business.

And you're starting to think, okay what does this mean?

I mean what was your, were you thinking, alright I'll be a manager, I'll manage bands?

Or were you thinking, did you start to think, well, maybe I should really think bigger about what I want to do in this industry?

Well, I, I kind of went with the flow and I think a lot of people do that.

I think, you know, to sit back and say, well, I'm going to do this, this, and it.

Maybe some people plot out their lives, but do they really know what they're going to do?

I then picked up the Climax Blues Band, and Renaissance, and Curbed Air, and Caravan, and Al Stewart.

And did I know when I had signed Wishbone Ash in the beginning that I was going to end up managing 5 acts, you know?

And 1 thing led to another, led to another, led to another.

I mean, what did it mean to manage a band?

I mean, you were managing their finances, you were managing their booking schedule, and presumably these bands weren't making a whole lot of money at the time.

Yeah, I booked the shows, I was the publicist, I even helped them carry their equipment.

I was forced to learn every aspect of the business.

And I think 1 of the advantages that I had was I had an American accent.

So when I'd call up a club, you know, it'd be, hi, my name is Miles Copeland.

I've got this new band to book, you know, and they would not be quite so sure as to who this guy was.

Well maybe he's somebody important, you know.

Whereas if I was some British person, you know, hello, I'm Miles Copeland, I got this group.

They'd think, oh yeah, yeah, this guy's from Birmingham, yeah, he's a schmuck.

But they assumed that maybe I did know something.

So they would listen you know and then I would basically sell them a group.

things I read about something you did early on in your career and I don't know how you did this was you started an industry trade magazine called College Event.

This was basically like a phone, it was like a listing of all the artists touring, who their agents were, what their booking fees were, and apparently nothing like this existed.

But I guess also, you would write positive glowing articles about your artists that you represented in this magazine except your name was nowhere to be found in this magazine.

So no 1 knew that Miles Copeland was behind this magazine yet you were promoting your own bands in the magazine.

Well I learned very quickly you know okay 1 of the major jobs is to let the world know that your artist exists.

Well, the reality is when you're starting off with an artist in England, you literally had to only reach the people that booked the acts, which was probably 2 to 300 people maximum.

So I said, well if I have a magazine, all I have to do is send out 200 copies to 200 people and if they have booked the act then you know I've done my job of marketing.

It doesn't need to be fancy and flashy, but it's got to have credibility so I found a 1 of the University kids that at University College London who actually books groups and said to him hey how'd you like to be the editor of a magazine and he thought well cool so I now had the credibility of a guy that actually books acts as the editor of the magazine So basically the magazine started off with a couple of mimeographed pages, and it had reviews of my artist, plus others, of course.

But I would have great reviews of Wishbone Ash in it, you know, of course.

So, and actually the magazine kind of took off because unbeknownst to me, there was literally nothing like it.

So a lot of the agents and everybody began to take advantage of it because now they could advertise for, you know, 52 cents and reach who they wanted to reach, whereas the act and the record companies were busy spending fortunes in the big magazines.

So it was definitely 1 of the ways in the beginning that I used to let people know the act existed.

So you are managing these bands and I guess in 75 you organize this, you launch this like multi-band tour of European festivals.

This is called Star Trekkin 75 and It had Soft Machine and Lou Reed was part of it, but apparently it did not go as planned.

Well, the idea of the tour was if you could associate your up-and-coming artists with bigger names, then people would assume your artists were bigger than they really were.

So my idea was to say, well, if I could have John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra and I can have Lou Reed and I can have you know these big names and then have my acts on the same bill with them, my acts will appear to be bigger.

And I got the bands together and off we went.

What was the first city that you went to?

I can't even remember where the first show was.

And you had all your bands, Lou Reed, John McLaughlin's group, Soft Machine, ready to go, ready to perform.

Yeah, well, I had different groups I had in different countries.

Like Lou Reed was very big in Spain, so I made sure that he was booked for the Spanish show.

The headliners would fluctuate based on who was big in that marketplace, but my acts were always there.

Little did I know that he had left the agency.

And I was getting kind of worried at 1 point because I was waiting, saying, well, you know, we need to know when Lou Reed is showing up in Spain because we let him meet him at the airport and all that, you know.

So I contacted the agency in America and of course no response and something's wrong here.

And then I finally found Lou Reed in New Zealand.

I realized at that point that now I was really in trouble.

Lou Reed was not going to show up in Spain, which of course meant that the promoter then took advantage of me and said, well, you know, your headliner hasn't shown up.

So therefore I'm going to pay you half the money.

And that wasn't enough to cover all our costs.

You had to pay transportation fees and all of the venue fees and the artist fees.

So I mean, to say the least, you lost a lot of money.

I lost not only a lot of money, I lost everything.

I lost every penny I had plus money I didn't have and I could not pay Wishbone Ash and some of the bands that I was working with and I said I had to say look I'm sorry but this whole thing has become a complete disaster and I don't have the money to pay you, but I feel so bad about it, I will resign.

So this is 75, you're 31 years old, you're bankrupt at this point, completely bankrupt.

I'm on the verge of bankruptcy, and I went to all the people I owed money to and I said, look, if you bankrupt me, you know what's gonna happen.

You know, it'll go to the courts and you'll end up with 1 penny for every pound that you're owed, if that.

But if you give me a couple of years, I'll give you 50% of what I owe you.

So I did not actually go bankrupt, but I was on the verge.

Oh, it was, and a lot of people wrote me off.

A lot of people said well that's it Miles Culpins finished.

Well I couldn't really think about it because the reality is what am I gonna do now?

I knew the music business which was an asset I just didn't have any money.

Why don't we come back in just a moment how Miles went from the verge of bankruptcy to just a few years later managing and recording some of the biggest bands in the world.

I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.

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So it's around 1976 and Miles Copeland is in London starting over after losing all of his money.

And fortunately for him, right around the same time, there's a new movement in the music scene where the bands couldn't really care less if he was broke.

The fact that you didn't have any money meant nothing to Billy Idol, you know, the Generation X, or to Susie and the Banshees, or to any of these bands.

What they wanted was somebody who could call up the various clubs and knew the music business and could help them get a foot in the door.

I had no money, but I had the experience.

So you could book some of these bands into clubs because you had the connections.

I mean, how did you identify or how did they find you?

Well, as it happened, my old time partner who I first started into business with had an office in a place called Dryden Chambers off Oxford Street in London.

So when I basically had fallen into hard times and given up my fancy offices and all of that, I called him up and said, look, do you have room?

So it just so happened that in that same building, there was Malcolm McLaren and the Sex Pistols.

So I was reading in the newspapers about all these bands that the music business literally had written off and said well they can't play their instruments it's a fad so I read that you know the Sex Pistols couldn't get a gig well I said well you know let me call up some of the people I know.

So I'd call up 1 of the clubs and I'd say, well you book the Sex Pistols.

And a lot of people said, well okay, if the price is right, I'll do it.

So I'd go back up, I'd go up to Malcolm and say, well I've been reading that you can't book a show.

And he would look at me and go oh what dates are they and then he would tell me no he can't do them so I'd go back downstairs and I call the clubs and say well look those dates don't work and I go back up to Malcolm and say look I can you do these and he started yelling at me don't you understand I get more press saying the band can't get a gig.

And I said, well, by the way, I know you're going to scream at me, but I did book 1 show in Holland.

So I went with the Sex Pistols to Holland.

So I became the first promoter to do a European date with the Sex Pistols.

Well that gave me huge credibility among the punk world.

So all of a sudden, Billy Idol, the whole lot, they all were at my door saying, well you book my group.

And that's really how I got into the punk world because I was the only person who actually would call up some of these places and book the groups.

And these groups, the whole rationale of the punk world was you don't need a lot of equipment, You don't need a lot of roadies.

You don't need a lot, you know, it was really minimalist The problem was a lot of the groups were so disorganized.

They couldn't get to themselves to shows, you know, so I would book Generation X let's say in Birmingham.

We can't make the show because, can't find a van.

Well, my brother Stewart had also become enamored with this whole idea of the punk world where it's minimalist, very few people.

So I'd call up Stewart and say, look, I got this gig for Generation X, but they can't make it to Birmingham.

So The Police ended up being a fill-in act for a lot of the punk groups.

So this is an important pivotal moment in your life and career and also your brother Stuart's life and career which is he co-founds this band called the police with this guy named Sting and eventually a guitarist named Andy Summers.

When you first saw them play and you met Sting, you know, this is

he's your brother, he's a drummer, turns out that he would become 1 of the greatest drummers in rock and roll.

Were you like, Oh my God, this guy Sting is an amazing vocalist and front man.

It was again, another situation where you're going with the flow.

Basically, you know, Stuart was not a punk.

You know, he knew a lot more than 3 chords.

You know, most punks had trouble finding 3 chords.

So Sting was intellectual, but he didn't know what he was gonna do with life and Stewart had talked him into this punk group And he'd read the newspapers too.

So he figured well, what the hell, you know Stewart didn't co-found the group.

It was his idea He came up with the name and he said, well, the minimum I can get away with is 3 people.

Henry Padovani, who later became a great player, you know.

So basically, I didn't realize that there was something special there in the beginning.

I mean, I remember him walking on a stage once saying, well, we call ourselves a punk group, which means we sing banal lyrics and we're full of crap, or something to that effect.

And I was thinking, cringing to myself, thinking, sting, for Christ's sake, don't say that.

But it wasn't until I had heard Roxanne that I realized that there was something really special there.

So I guess there was a really important turning point.

The police were a band that you were certainly, it was your brother's band, you were promoting them, managing them, but you're also booking gigs for much bigger acts at that time, like Blondie, right?

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I.R.S. Records: Miles Copeland