‘The end of the UK touring industry’: Blur on why the EU needs to let British music play

Another day, another campaign by musicians. But this time it’s not the paltry income from streaming that they’re worried about. It’s the mounting costs and bureaucracy of touring in Europe that’s concerning them.

Over 200 musicians and bands including Wolf Alice, Annie Lennox, Mark Knopfler, New Order and Radiohead are urging the Government to act now to mitigate the Brexit-related expenditure and red tape of touring on mainland Europe. The ‘Let The Music Move’ campaign has the backing of household names from across the musical spectrum: from Rick Astley and Ghostpoet to Biffy Clyro and Keane, and from Bob Geldof and Anna Calvi to The Chemical Brothers and IDLES. Meanwhile a second group of artists overlapping with this lot – but comprising musicians represented by agency WME – have written to Boris Johnson demanding action. Madness, Massive Attack, Mumford & Sons and Mabel are among the letter’s signatories – and that’s just the Ms.

Dave Rowntree knows a thing or two about touring Europe. As the drummer in Blur, he has played hundreds of gigs on mainland Europe since the band formed in 1989. He tells the Telegraph: “This is a problem that stands to turn into a disaster if action isn’t taken now. Today it’s an irritation. In six months we’re talking the end of the UK touring industry. It has to be fixed now.”

The campaigners say that the cost, restrictions and bureaucracy of touring in the European Union will make hitting the road unviable when full-scale live touring resumes after the pandemic. The future success of the ￡6 billion British music industry is at stake, the artists claim. Touring Europe sustains 33,000 British jobs. Yet since the UK formally left the EU at the start of the year, touring musicians have been hit with a raft of costly headaches.

Under new rules UK musicians must acquire a goods passport, known as a carnet, in order to tour. Individual visas and work permits are required for different countries. And UK touring vehicles are limited to only three stops in Europe before having to return home. The extra costs can add almost ￡5,000 to the touring budget per individual country, wiping out any profits that these musicians may have previously made. The letter to Johnson talks of a “crisis” and a “logistical nightmare”.

Although the campaigns have launched on the fifth anniversary of the Brexit vote, the musicians care less about the politics and just want the situation sorted. The Prime Minister has vowed to “fix” the problem. The UK Government and Brussels are both pointing the finger at each other for failing to resolve the issue, with each side rejecting the other’s proposals. The Government blames European intransigence. The situation comes at a terrible time for the industry: most musicians have been unable to work for 15 months due to the Covid-19 pandemic. They are raring to play live once more.

“We’re at the crunch point now,” says Rowntree. “All of these musicians who haven’t worked for a year and rely on – as Blur did in the early years – those European audiences in order to make the whole thing viable and they’re going to find that they don’t have a career to go back to.”

Simone Marie Butler, the bass player in Primal Scream, tells me that Europe is the “workspace” where bands learn their trade. “Europe is our office. And to deny that is denying a real central part of how our career works and how young bands are allowed to develop,” she says.

Butler says no bands, artists or DJs would ever have imagined playing in Europe would be a problem. “If you wanted to, tomorrow night you could get on Eurostar and do a gig or book a short tour… In what other industry can you not work where you’re meant to work?” Bands will suffer both financially and creatively, she says. The UK is the second biggest exporter of music in the world. In 2019, UK artists played almost four times as many shows across the European Union than they did in North America.

Rowntree remembers Blur’s first show outside the UK in Rotterdam in February 1991. “We just jumped on a ferry with no restrictions for us or our gear,” he says. Other musicians recall touring Europe in a beaten-up van as a rite of passage.

Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler, says: “To take a van with your gear and perform across Europe is an essential start for the careers of many UK musicians. Without immediate government action to address the bureaucratic barriers put in place since 1 January, a whole generation of musicians will simply not be able to start or continue their touring careers.”

Earlier this month Elton John warned of a looming catastrophe. He said the music industry could lose a “generation of talent” due to the changes.

Let The Music Move is calling for four pieces of immediate action from the Government. It wants a short-term financial support package to cover the new touring costs for artists and crews in the EU, it wants measures to overcome the so-called ‘cabotage’ rules on UK vehicles touring the EU, it wants a “viable long-term plan” so UK artists can work in all EU-27 countries without costly permits and bureaucracy, and it is calling for European artists to have reciprocal access to perform at UK venues and festivals. The Telegraph has approached the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) for comment.

Rowntree says the industry is potentially facing “an absolute cataclysmic disaster” unless help is forthcoming. “That is the kind of thing that people say when they’re trying to nag politicians into doing something. But this is a world-leading industry. We in Britain are absolutely the best in the world and it’s an industry that UK PLC relies on. ￡6 billion flows in as a result of it. Are we really going to sit back, fold our arms and go ‘Not my problem’?”

He says that if money and change to the system are not forthcoming, then the Government will have to pump a billion pounds a year into a subsidised UK touring industry. “I don’t think anybody would want that,” he says.

The touring restrictions come at an already tough time for the music industry. Many artists have seen their incomes slashed by the low royalty rates they receive from streaming companies like Spotify. Musicians’ fight for fairer streaming pay is the subject to a separate high-profile movement. The Broken Record campaign, run by Gomez’s Tom Gray, has led to an ongoing parliamentary inquiry and has garnered support from the likes of Sir Paul McCartney, Kate Bush and The Rolling Stones.

“This is by far and away the toughest period in the history of the music industry full stop,” says Rowntree. “All the ways that artists can make money are being chipped away. We can no longer sell music to make a living, so we moved to relying on touring to make a living. Now it seems we can no longer make a living out of touring.”

Rowntree stresses that long-established and successful bands will be able to absorb the extra costs of touring the EU. But it’s the long tail of small and medium-sized bands that will suffer. “Blur will be fine. Radiohead will be fine. Paul McCartney will be fine. Bands at our level can afford to take on staff to do the administration. An extra ￡50,000 of costs we can sink into the budget through gritted teeth,” he says.

“The bands for whom the ￡50,000 was the profit on their tour will find that it’s no longer viable to do. The tragedy is that that’s 90 per cent of the industry. Ninety per cent of the industry are living hand to mouth. They’re doing it for the love of it and doing it out of passion and in the hope that they’ll one day be in the privileged position that my band is in.”

And why – lest we forget amid all the dry talk of politics and economics, of cabotage and carnets – does any of this matter? Because, says Rowntree, playing overseas reveals the universal language of music. “It teaches you that music is emotion made tangible. It’s magical. It doesn’t rely on a shared language other than the shared language of emotion,” he says. “It moulds you as a musician. It’s absolutely vital.”