Ben Price is Owner and Artist Manager at Harbourside Artist Management. Harbourside is an international music management company with a heartbeat in the city of Bristol. Established early this year, it has already received backing from the BPI, Arts Council England and the MMF’s Music Managers Accelerator Programme. Roster includes Viktoria Modesta, Lucy May Walker and Lachi.
Here's our recent chat with Ben to discuss his favourite recent campaigns and talk about the overlaps between visual creativity and music.
Creatively, we are working on a new show for Viktoria Modesta incorporating new visuals and projection mapping. We’re due to be in Japan a lot at the end of this year so are working with a lot of tech companies to bring it to life. We have a year full of releases for Viktoria as well as for Lachi and Lucy May Walker.
I'M LOVING
Creatively at the moment I’m loving Imogen Heap. She is setting the tone massively when it comes to tech-wearables and embracing technology within music at the moment. The MiMU glove she has developed is going to bring an extraordinary element to live music, and no doubt lead the way for other creations.
FAVOURITE VIDEO
My all-time favourite music video is Weezer, Buddy Holly. Simple, bonkers, hilarious. I discovered it on a Microsoft Windows 95 CD-Rom - it was the only music video on there and everyone had it. It was probably the first music video to go ‘viral’ as a result! It still looks great 26 years later.
BEST ARTWORK
I’ve always loved the album art for Nick Drake, Pink Moon. I’ve stared at it for many hours trying to figure it out and I’m still not sure. It somehow reflects the perfect fragility of the album though, which is one of my all-time favourites.
FRESHEST CAMPAIGN
The best creative campaign of the past year has been Charli XCX, How I’m Feeling Now. No one embraced lockdown more, a stunning campaign with zero lead time and creatively brilliant, with a different artwork for each DSP and I love how she used her fans as consultants over Zoom throughout.
BEST COLLABORATION
The most recent brand collab that caught my eye was Brewdog, who have been doing some fun stuff embedding themselves in the music industry. The Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes tour collab before lockdown was a brilliant partnership, creating some great content for both. They also had plenty of artists perform at their Open Arms online pub throughout lockdown. I’ll also make a cheeky mention for our own Viktoria Modesta x Rolls Royce collaboration last year too, which people should check out.
VIDEO OF THE YEAR
For me the most creative and original music video of the past year is FKA Twigs, Sad Day. Beautifully shot by Hiro Murai, it’s more of a short film than a traditional music video. I love how it gave an artistic tease of the music without ever playing it in full, igniting the intrigue to check it out elsewhere.
LOGO LOVE
A great logo has to stand the test of time so it’s difficult to look past the greats here. Purely for the balls of it, I’d have to say I wish I’d designed the artist logo for The Rolling Stones. Last year I read the story behind it - then-student John Pasche received £50 for his design. Fifty years later it’s possibly still the most recognised music logo of all time.
GO FOLLOW
The one artist you should follow on Instagram is Nina Nesbitt. I’m constantly telling my artists to watch how creative she is, she’s a real trendsetter. She was the first UK star to really embrace TikTok last year and reaped the benefits massively. She understands her audience better than anyone and knows how to create social media content they’ll love.
ICONIC
The most iconic music photograph is Johnny Clash flipping the bird at San Quentin prison. Just the perfect picture to accompany such a legendary gig. The story goes photographer Jim Marshall asked Johnny to take a picture for the prison warden. The passion on his face is something else.
Creative Corner, in association with The MMF
