Music industry professionals demand change after speaking out about its dark side
Saturday, 23 January 2021
Young music professionals and artists are demanding change in an industry they say is rife with sexual harassment and exploitation.
A months-long Stuff investigation has uncovered allegations by women and non-binary people of harassment by male artists, international acts and executives - and has prompted an extraordinary admission and apology from one of the industry’s best-known names.
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Scott Maclachlan, the man who discovered Lorde at the age of 13 and took her to international superstardom, has admitted years of harmful behaviour and said he was in intensive psychotherapy.
“I do accept the harmful impact of my past behaviour and I try every day to repair the damage and prevent it happening again,” Maclachlan told Stuff.
Maclachlan confirmed he lost his position as Senior Vice President at Warner Australasia and was banned from Warner Music’s Australian offices and gigs, after the company commissioned a sexual harassment investigation in 2018.
A former employee at the Auckland-based management company he founded, Saiko Management, said Maclachlan also sexually harassed and emotionally manipulated her while she worked for him. Maclachlan has admitted her claims are true.
Three years after his business relationship with Lorde ended in 2015, UK-born Maclachlan was plucked from Saiko Management to take the role of Senior Vice President of A&R at Warner Music Australasia. He retained a role at Saiko, but the Warner job - split between Sydney and Auckland - made headlines in the music press.
At the time, Warner Australasia head Niko Nordstrom described Maclachlan as a legend of the music industry.
Within five months, Maclachlan had been banned from the music giant’s Australian offices after an external investigation into a sexual harassment complaint.
Maclachlan was demoted but stayed with the company as an A & R specialist in Auckland. Stuff understands privacy requirements meant few Warner New Zealand employees were told of the investigation, or its outcome.
An email from a Warner executive to Maclachlan in late August 2019, asks the former Senior Vice President not to attend a Sydney gig despite being the manager of one of the acts, “referring to our settlement last year”.
“This show is considered to be Warner (sic) and work related event even though you are in the manager role.”
At the time of the Warner investigation in September 2018, Amy Goldsmith, an employee of Maclachlan’s in his ongoing role at Saiko Management, woke to a text from him in the middle of the night.
“Will you be there whatever?” the text read.
“I’m in really big trouble.”
In the early hours of the morning, he gave Goldsmith his version of the incident at Warner, admitting he had been “very drunk and obviously crossed some boundaries.”
Goldsmith had worked with Maclachlan at Saiko for a number of years, and tells of a “complicated” work relationship.
The two were ostensibly good friends, Goldsmith says, but her boss was ”complex” and was often emotionally manipulative.
Maclachlan told Stuff he deeply regretted his treatment of Goldsmith.
“I regret wholly that intense pressure and responsibility I put on that employee. I was in a very dark place, considered the employee a confidant and was reaching out for help. I, of course, realise that this was not the correct person to reach out to.”
There was also “a lot” of sexual harassment, Goldsmith claimed. “He would insinuate he wanted more (than their professional relationship) he would comment on my body, he would ask whether I wanted to kiss him. Most of the time I just told him to shut up.”
Like most sources Stuff spoke to, Goldsmith said she did not blame Maclachlan alone for behaviour encouraged by industry norms, and said the nature of the workplace (often a bar or venue) played a part in rampant inappropriate behaviour.
“But the problem is really when those in powerful positions take advantage of that, with little to no accountability.
“Our industry relies heavily on networking and connections. We have a culture of sweeping things under the rug, often leaving the burden of change to victims alone. I think a lot of behaviour has gone unchecked because many of us, myself included, accept or downplay it as an ‘industry norm’.
Others told Stuff of their own experiences working in the music industry. Ellie, 33, who works in music marketing, described years of harassment by local and international artists as well as those in management and music media. At a work event, one senior executive told her he had wanted to “f*** the s*** out of you” and that she would have “loved it.”
“I've had local artists.. asking me for threesomes. I’ve had international managers ask me to give them hand jobs. I’ve had a tour manager lock me in a stall in a strip club and try to kiss me.”
When she told a local musician about her experiences, he told her “you’re a label girl, it’s your job”, she said.
Ellie, who asked for her surname to be withheld, said the harassment had been going on “for as long as I’ve been working in music” and that the industry’s small size in New Zealand meant women who wanted to keep their careers knew they couldn’t complain without the fear of losing their jobs.
Representatives of music industry bodies told Stuff they were “shocked and saddened to hear these stories of harm” from music workers.
In answer to questions from Stuff, Maclachlan said he agreed his behaviour had not lived up to ethical standards in existing codes of conduct. He confirmed making comments about employees bodies, and asked them whether they wanted sexual contact with him.
“Yes. Stupid, insensitive and ignorant comments.” Maclachlan told Stuff.
“There’s not a day goes by that I don’t regret the harm I have caused people around me and most importantly the pain and embarrassment I have caused my wife and children. I have to live with that guilt, knowing that people I worked with have also endured pain and stress because of my actions.”
The manager said he was receiving treatment for alcoholism and was trying “to live a simpler, less egotistical life.”
The conduct of another member of New Zealand’s top music management community is also being called into question.
On December 1 2020, Paul McKessar won Manager of the Year at the Aotearoa Music Awards, for his work repping singer Benee. In 2014, McKessar approached Auckland band Openside after a gig and asked to represent them.
“I was really impressed because I knew he was managing The Naked and Famous,” former Openside lead singer, Possum Plows, told Stuff.
The business relationship yielded a record deal and studio time, but collapsed four years later after the end of a year-long sexual relationship between Plows and McKessar, which Plows claimed the manager initiated.
The relationship was characterised by a steep power imbalance, Plows said.
“I wouldn’t go anywhere or meet anyone without him saying it was okay. I depended on him so much for my career, I didn’t have the autonomy to call him out on the relationship. I cared about the band so much, this just had to be fine. Because what else am I going to do?
“Leaving wasn’t an option, and neither was telling anyone about what was happening. Paul was extremely charismatic, well connected and well liked. The industry would be loyal to him.”
Lecturer in forensic psychology at University of Canterbury, Dr Jacinta Cording, says such relationships are “incredibly complex” and Plows’s situation would be recognisable to anyone who had experienced a situation “they would desperately like to get out of but they don’t have the skills to do so.”
Cording says such relationships are often not seen as a problem by society.
McKessar declined to answer a number of questions put to him by Stuff, saying he “won’t be making any comment about my private life, or about a consensual relationship with a former partner.”
Another artist, singer-songwriter Lydia Cole, was 21 when she was approached by McKessar after a festival gig in 2009.
“I thought, finally someone sees my potential.”
But as time went on, emails showed Cole had become uneasy about the nature of their relationship. She wrote to McKessar on at least two occasions between August and September 2014 about his flirtatious behaviour.
On September 18, she suggested boundaries to their relationship, including no longer drinking alcohol together.
“It just doesn’t feel safe being that flirty and I can’t help it when there is drinking,” Cole wrote, adding “can we be actual non-jokey adults about this..?” McKessar agreed, “Let’s be adults.”
Cole said she called off the business relationship with McKessar in April 2015 after another alcohol-fuelled, sexually-charged encounter at his Morningside studios.
Both Cole and Plows agreed their participation in intimacy was consensual. What worried them, and an increasing number of women and non-binary people in the music scene, was the way power was wielded by men at the top.
“You’re looking to this person to guide you, and introducing new things to you. Everything’s new and you’re the one that doesn’t know any better,” said Cole.
Plows (who uses the pronouns they/them) said they were speaking out now through mounting concern about the “thousands” of young people trying to get a break in a tough and competitive industry.
“I can see how ambitious they are and how vulnerable, because they just don’t know this kind of behaviour is unacceptable. Or they do what I did, and pretend it's fine because they want it to be fine,” said Plows.
Plows claimed McKessar broke off the relationship after being questioned by his partner - but that he was “really upset” when Plows wanted to end the business relationship as a result.
“He said it would be really embarrassing and it would look bad for his career and no-one would know why we’d left.”
Openside broke up shortly afterwards, but Plows did not blame McKessar alone for the fallout.
“It’s not about one person being manipulative or a bad person, the industry thinks it's normal to hang out with young people. And It's a small industry and there’s a small number of people who control things, and they’re the ones who are older and white. There’s not enough space for diversity.”
Chairperson of the Music Managers Forum (MMF), Teresa Patterson, said MMF had had a Code of Conduct in place since 2015.
The Code was “a guideline of what is expected of all members of the MMF NZ. The purpose of the code is to encourage professional, ethical and expert behaviors from our members.” Patterson said membership was voluntary.
“We are shocked and saddened to hear these stories of harm caused by people in our industry.” Patterson wrote in an email.
“We know that we can and must do better as an industry.”
MMF, along with a number of other music industry bodies, helped found SoundCheck Aotearoa in November 2020 - an action group to tackle diversity and safety issues in the music industry. A spokesperson for SoundCheck confirmed it was working on an industry-wide code of conduct and complaints process.
“As these stories highlight, this collective work is urgently needed to set agreed standards of behaviour and provide a safe and transparent process for those who have been harmed, particularly the many artists and others who work outside a traditional workplace and do not have access to HR support.”
The spokesperson said the initiative would only work if all areas of the industry agreed to implement the new measures.
“That’s why we are calling on everyone in Aotearoa’s music community to step up and contribute to meaningful positive change.”
Many industry professionals Stuff spoke to said the industry was dominated at executive level by older men, although that appeared to be changing slowly. A number of senior women interviewed, none of whom would agree to be named, agreed women and non-binary people were disadvantaged as a result.
“Music across the board is dominated by white men, they are the gatekeepers of everything,” one industry veteran said.
“Pressure cooker” working conditions meant sexual relationships were inevitable, she said. “It's a hard one, because I get there are boundaries and there are lines. And often those do get blurred.
“When you spend so much time with people, those things happen. People fall in love.”
But she said problems arose when one of the people involved had the power to influence the other’s future.
“The issue is what the implications are for the artists. You’re not working within a company, where there's something in your contract to say you can’t have a relationship (and) there’s no one to take (a complaint ) to.”
All the industry’s senior women interviewed by Stuff said sexual harassment was rife, and applauded those who were speaking up.
“It’s just been part of the industry for so long, and it’s been unchecked for so long,” said one senior industry player.
“If these women don’t tell their stories, nothing will change.”
Where to get help for sexual violence
Rape Crisis 0800 88 33 00, click link for local helplines.
Safe to talk: a 24/7 confidential helpline 0800 842 846, text 4334, webchat safetotalk.nz or email support@safetotalk.nz.
The Harbour Online support and information for people affected by sexual abuse.
Women’s Refuge 0800 733 843 (females only)
Male Survivors Aotearoa Helplines across NZ, click to find out more (males only)
If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 111.
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