Backstage Spotlight™
December 2003 Talent Agent Scott Pang
Scott Pang has worked in the music industry for 24
years and has been an agent at both ICM and William Morris. Artists he’s worked with
over the years include Rod Stewart, Barry Manilow, Diane Reeves, David Lee Roth, and many
others. Scott Pang was also the director of touring for the Ice Capades and Harlem
Globetrotters. Currently he is an agent at ICM.
MBADC: The artist deals with their Responsible Agent (RA) for the
most part, but artists sometimes deal with other agents too. Under what circumstances
might other agents be involved in placing the artist with projects?
SP: I would say that 90% of an artist’s career is brought to the Responsible
Agent by the RA’s colleagues. The RA who has his own territory will bring certain
elements to the table playing booking agent, and the other booking agents will definitely
bring most of the work. And the RA who has his own territory is also bringing deals to the
table on behalf of his colleagues’ clients. So it’s a process that goes both
ways.
MBADC: You’re primarily a music agent. What if you have a client that wants
to get into acting? Then they would see an agent in the film department?
SP: Theoretically, yes.
MBADC: But you would still be the RA?
SP: Correct. They would also have also an RA in the film and television world if
it makes sense; if they grow to the point where someone says "I’ll take them
under my wing and develop them in those other areas," then you would have a number of
different RA’s.
MBADC: Do most agency contracts have key-man clauses?
SP: No, most of them don’t.
MBADC: What happens if you’re an artist signed to an agency and your agent
leaves the agency?
SP: Chances are, if the agent leaves the agency and the artist wants to go, and
there’s a signed piece of paper binding the artist to the agency, then it’s
usually negotiated out with the agent and the agent’s new employer. Or if the agent
goes out on his own, it’s negotiated out with the agent directly where the signing
agency—the agency that holds the paper--will receive maybe half the commission, maybe
a third of the commission or something. But they generally will grant the artist a
release, unless there is some sort of extenuating circumstance where there’s a lot of
bad blood, or the parting was not very clean, or the agency itself feels that they were
taken advantage of. But those are the extenuating circumstances. Usually it’s
negotiated out. No agency wants to hold an artist to the paper who’s unhappy there.
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