How to become a pop star: a lot depends on your luck

MAKE the best possible water-tight financial agreements with your manager right from the start.

The amount of your manager’s percentage depends on what he is going to do for you. Some of the best managers take up to 40 per cent.

For 40 per cent a manager should take care of publicity, photographs, the fan club expenses — plugging your record, and the agency side of it as well, the side that gets you the work.

If your manager takes 15 per cent you’ll still have to pay 10 more for publicity and 10 for the booking agency. It’s often better to have it all under the same roof.

As a general rule I’d say a large slice of your income should be invested, but you must have enough money to enjoy life and to be fairly generous among friends.

I’m not suggesting you have to “buy” friendship, but if you are mean and never seen around at the right parties enjoying yourself, then often you’re not liked. You lose friends and get a reputation for being a bit of a tight wad.

So, in other words, as in so many of these general rules I’m laying down, you must try to tread the rather difficult middle path.

If you are fortunate enough to be highly intelligent you can make up a lot of leeway on your lack of experience or lack of knowledge of the business.

Of course, again, there are exceptions. You can be dumb and still be a star, but the chances are, not for long.

Any girl who wants to become a pop singer would do well to have Susan Maughan’s intelligence. It is, apart from her natural talent and her looks, her greatest attribute. She is a manager’s and publicity man’s dream.

John Lennon. for instance, is one of the most intelligent people I have ever met in the Pop world. And George Harrison surprised me once. We were going to a Press conference and I said: “Don’t you think you’d be better off wearing a shirt and tie rather than that sweater?”

He said: “Do you want me to wear a shirt and tie?” I said: “Yes.”

He said: “Why don’t you say, ‘I want you to wear a shirt and tie,’ instead of asking ME if I think it’s best?”

He was quite right. He wanted me to say exactly what I meant and it was “soft” (i.e., Liverpudlian for unintelligent!) of me to say it in a way I didn’t really mean.

I was, of course, coming from a different generation, merely trying to be diplomatic. But George, although he would never want to hurt anyone, says exactly what he thinks.

And this, in the Beatles’ environment, is intelligent. I can assure you.

There is a great deal to learn when you are an embryo star in the pop world, there are many emotional and material adjustments to be made and if you don’t happen to be highly intelligent by nature, then TRY to be.

Now, I’ve laid down all these rules, but I must emphasise there are exceptions to every one.

And no matter if you followed them all implicitly, no matter how talented you are, how brilliantly you are managed. how cleverly you are publicised, there are still outside influences over which you have no control.

So LUCK plays a big part in a would-be pop star’s success. If you don’t have any luck at all, you could well be in trouble.

But if you follow all these rules and work hard and really try to do what you feel to be true and right for you, then you have opened all the doors you can.

And sooner or later luck should come in through them.

Good luck!