CANADIAN TALENT SCORES A BIG WIN

One person’s loss is not always another’s gain, but when the Canadian agency scene lost one of its biggest players recently, it turned into a major plus for some veterans who landed new jobs. The shake-up began with the long-expected shuttering of UTA’s Toronto office in the second week of August, which led to an exodus of the talented staff to a number of other agencies who were happy to pick up new team members.
“It became evident that UTA was looking to make changes within their music department across the board and ultimately the fact that they were trying to reduce that department became a numbers game,” said 20-year veteran Rob Zifarelli, who moved from UTA to a gig with his old friends at Paradigm Talent Agency almost instantly when the hammer came down on the Canadian music arm of UTA.
Zifarelli was not alone in jumping ship, moving over to Paradigm along with Adam Countryman and André Guérette. “UTA saw that the Canadian business was not something they were aggressively in pursuit of, and I’ve been friends with [Paradigm’s] Marty [Diamond] and Tom [Schroeder] for years because we cross paths so often in our musical space, and I’ve always been fond of those guys and what they’ve done to build such a great musical roster.”
When the opportunity came to jump to Paradigm, Zifarelli — who has worked with acts including Feist, Broken Social Scene and Dashboard Confessional — said the deal was closed at “lightning speed” and he’s still pinching himself at how well it worked out. “We were at work for Paradigm within three hours of the press release,” he said of the transition to his new gig on Aug. 16, which came quickly after he logged his final day at UTA. As for what Schroeder and Diamond’s pitch was to lure Zifarelli over, he said the pair made it clear they wanted to expand their Canadian presence, from corporate gigs to festivals, and tap into the former UTA agent’s expertise in the market.
“They wanted more boots on the ground in Canada and we gave them that turnkey opportunity,” he said of his team, which includes a staff of six manning Paradigm’s first Canadian office. One of the unique perspectives Zifarelli offers to Paradigm is a deep understanding of the Canadian touring market, with a pitch to managers of 14 dates on the front end of a record, festival plays mid-album cycle and another 14-15 dates at the end of the cycle. “But if an artist wants to go deeper into the territory, there’s no one better,” he said. “Our domestic clients do 30-40 shows across the country and we’re experts at digging into the corners and building up past the six major markets.”
In addition to Zifarelli’s move, Paquin picked up former UTA agents Adam Kraft, Rob Thornton and Sarah Litt, while APA snagged Ralph James and Jack Ross, who are now running a new Toronto office for the full-service agency with offices in London, Atlanta, Nashville, New York and Beverly Hills.
James said he’s worked with APA’s EVP/head of worldwide music Steve Martin for years — including at The Agency Group — and when the opportunity came to join his old friend, like Zifarelli, it was too good to pass up. “It seemed like a natural fit, there was a comfort level there and it’s a multifaceted agency with an international reach, which has always been our priority here in Canada,” he said. “The artists we’ve had the most success with we’ve found at an early stage and tried to take them to the world and having an international partner that understands the world market was key. And Steve is a guy who knows the Canadian market and can see the potential.”
James and Ross came to the arrangement with most of their roster intact, including such well-known acts as Nickelback, Big Sugar, Billy Talent, Danko Jones and Bruce Cockburn, as well as some new acts they are both excited about such as Birds of Bellwoods and The Standstills. With the country market still growing at an exponential pace, James said he’s excited to work with APA’s Nashville office to develop acts. Like Zifarelli, James said the UTA breakup is probably a good thing for the market because it creates more competition and opportunities. A spokesperson for UTA did not return requests for comment at press time.
“There are more people in California than there are in all of Canada, but the amount of talent for a country with 35 million people is unbelievable,” James said. “I think artists want to work, and they want opportunities and this is a fantastic thing for the Canadian music business and for international artists who want to do more work here.” Along with Ross and James, APA picked up former UTA agent Stefani Purificati — “a great young agent with some great country artists — Jess Moskaluke, Virginia to Vegas — and great ears” as well as Mike Graham, who James said “has great ears and is out there signing young bands. The two of them are exciting to watch in action. They have a different approach and look at things differently than we do.”
Jim Cressman, Invictus Entertainment Group founder and promoter, who knows about going out on your own, couldn’t contain his excitement about all the upheaval in the market set off by the UTA shut down. “Paradigm is in beast mode. I love the aggression and certainty in uncertain times,” he said. “Expanding into Canada will give Canadian artists the option to work with another major player domestically and internationally.”
Cressman admitted to being a bit surprised by the reaction to the closure of the UTA office in Toronto, explaining that “corporatized people who value the business card with the big logo, and the desk in the corner office, were freaking out,” while most music business entrepreneurs instinctively knew that all those agents would land on their feet. “They're all just far too valuable to the ecosystem. It's not like their clients were going to stop touring because there's a new sign on the door.”
When it comes to Zifarelli, Cressman said he couldn’t think of a single agent in Canadian history who has brought more value to the AC/Modern rock niche for his clients. “That guy could open an office in his basement and he'd still crush it,“ he said, adding the same praise to James and Ross, dubbing them “self-starters” who belong in the pantheon of most iconic figures in Canadian music industry history thanks to their innovative mindsets and hard work.
As for what it all means at a time when the Canadian dollar is on an upswing, Cressman wasn’t sure yet. “In some ways, not much has changed,” he said. “You still have top tier agents, bringing indispensable value to their clients, and that never changes regardless of what logo they have on their business cards. With the new presence of Paradigm and APA offices in Canada, it's a plus.  Anytime there's more competition and more choice for the artist, the industry wins. It forces everyone, including Invictus, to step up their game, and I embrace the challenge.”
Zifarelli feels confident that his team will be able to break more international artists in Canada thanks to diligent experts such as Guérette, a bilingual Frenchman who is excellent with artists of French descent (Marie-Pierre Arthur, Bobby Bazini) and who can do business in Quebec and French Canadian provinces like nobody else. He also had nothing but praise for Countryman, who has been booking North America for half a decade now and who is looking to blow up an artist, like Zifarelli’s core client City and Colour, into a global act as soon as he can. “He’s kind of cut from the same cloth as I am, but he has the advantage of being 10 years younger,” said Zifarelli.
“The movement will be healthy and it will increase the competitive nature that’s always there in the business,” he said. “I think it’s definitely a new era. I would joke that they broke up the band, but the fact is it was the end of an era because most of us had been together for 10-plus years. It was a decade where we had a great run. I think it will be healthy for the Canadian music business and it’s an opportunity for more artists to develop out of Canada and have success worldwide.”