Phil Cass on Managing The Beautiful South, Starting His Own Label and Being a ‘Jammy Bastard’

Loitering around a classy, old boozer on the outskirts of Leeds city centre, Phil Cass arrives coolly, materialising through the harsh sunlight like a gunslinger in a Western. He’s dressed in a tattered motorcycle jacket, sporting sunglasses (it was actually quite a bright day in Leeds for once) and a hairstyle that still has a hint of the ‘80s mullet but somehow it’s not hideous, it’s quite cool actually.   

Hands shake, a few words are exchanged and then we enter the saloon like Clint Eastwood and sidekick. It’s not quite a scene from a Spaghetti Western, with the saloon – pub rather – almost deserted as it’s about 3 o’clock on a Monday afternoon. A round of ale is ordered and then we sit, pints de-clouding on the table in front of us and begin talking all things music. Phil is charismatic, laid back and totally down to earth, making him a highly likeable character.

We peel back the years and dig up Phil’s ancient history like an old carpet, discussing how he got the gig to be manager of The Beautiful South. Phil reminisces in a comical fashion – It’s like a flashback in a TV show. The camera zooms in slowly and he gazes out into the distance as he remembers, “It was 1995 and I’d somehow managed to befriend one of their singers. They said they were splitting up but did I fancy coming to America with them for their last tour? I said I’d love to.”

Phil’s account of how he became manager of a major band is a simple tale of staggering into the right pub at the right time. He continues, “So, I went out there with the band for 3 weeks, paid for myself and just ended up mucking in and selling a few t-shirts. We had a great time!” After such a successful final tour, Paul Heaton – who in Phil’s words was, “the main guy and wrote all the songs”, decided to forget the split – “he wanted to record a new album!” By this time Phil was slowly but surely becoming a welcome addition to the band, being asked to craft the cover art for new single ‘Rotterdam’ and even flying out to the Netherlands for a week to oversee it’s recording.

He’s barely touched his pint at this point - when it comes to The Beautiful South, Phil can talk for England. He continues, “I’d sort of heard around that time that the manager, Bambi, was packing it in and didn’t have it in him to do another album. Anyway, about 4 weeks later my phone rang and it was Paul saying, ‘Have you heard about Bambi? We’ve just had this big meeting, how do you feel about managing us?’”

The barmaid behind us decides to drop about 10 glasses at this moment and they shatter thunderously, briefly breaking Phil’s monologue. “I thought to myself, ‘bloody ‘ell!’”, he exclaims in true Yorkshire fashion. “I wouldn’t know the first thing about managing a band!’” he laughs, takes a sip of his pint and concludes, “I thought about it for literally 2 minutes and decided it was too good an opportunity to waste. But what a shock to the system it was! To answer your question though – I was a jammy bastard!”  

On that note we both burst into laughter and simultaneously reach for our drinks. We talk psychology for a while and come to the conclusion that there is a significant amount of it involved in managing bands. Especially when the band is The Beautiful South, who, in Phil’s words were, “hard drinkers”. That aside, Phil insists that no one in the band ever got above themselves, which he feels is partly down to his modest, down-to-earth character and refusal to be like some of the “cartoon characters” he met in London. Managers who, he stresses were, “COMPLETELY up their own ARSES!”

Phil’s on form - reeling off anecdotes from his Beautiful South days like a frenzied film projectionist. There’s the one that tabloid papers dubbed ‘Booziful South’, after the band performed on the Pepsi Chart Show some years back. “They’d supplied us with all this free drink. We had camera and dress rehearsals then we were shooting the thing live. But Paul, he got so pissed that after both rehearsals he thought he’d done the actual show and buggered off back to the hotel! HONESTLY, to get him back - it was unbelievable.”

The performance was a mime, which Phil was deeply thankful for. He continues, “Everyone was in the same boat – they were all LEATHERED! When you watch it now you can see everybody was just hanging on for dear life!”

Now back in his native soil of Leeds, Phil focuses most of his attention on new record label, Cuckoo Records, which he set up with a couple of other like-minded musos. “We’ve just moved into a new studio in Leeds. It’s this giant, old, stone-built house in the middle of town! It’s crazy!” he laughs. The label has been growing and developing for the past year now and boasts a talented roster, which includes up and coming Folk singer/songwriter Annie Drury. “We welcome anything that we think has a bit of a quirky feel to it, which feels a bit different. The first thing we released was an Electro-Swing record.”

Phil admits that, even though the record label is now gathering momentum he hasn’t been paid in over 2 years. Something which he doesn’t seem phased by in the slightest. Cuckoo Records, he insists, is all about “getting artist’s music out there”, which they manage via different outlets of distribution. Mainly through syncing companies like ‘Audio Network’ which provides tracks for television and film corporations.

Even with The Beautiful South years behind him now, Phil still gets his hands dirty managing new artists. In recent times it’s been the fairly low-key Indie outfit, ‘Raglans’. He appears content though, to be back in his humble hometown. Plugging away behind the scenes, still working with a few artists here and there. Seemingly with little or no desire to return to the world of ‘cartoon characters’ and Pepsi Chart Shows - Just a relatively unknown figure of the music industry. Which is exactly how he wants it.  

And with that, we’re off. Pints are necked and it’s back into the desert sun. Phil’s got to meet with one of his artists and then return home to tend to his garden which, he admits, due to having quite a lot of free time, “looks immaculate!”