CMM = Communication, Management, Marketing.
For 35 years Wolfgang Rott and his German-based CMM team have working with the true heavyweights in heavy metal, guiding their careers and building their brands around the world. And we are talking some big names like Iron Maiden/Bruce Dickinson, Savatage/TSO, Motörhead, Alice Cooper and countless others, along with doing PR/Marketing for the biggest festivals in the world like the Wacken Open Air, the ROCKHARZ Open Air and spearheading 70000 Tons Of Metal, the ultimate heavy metal cruise! But that just scratches the surface. His career dates back decades when he first was the road manager for Joe Cocker in the early ‘80s. You name the band, Wolfgang Rott has no doubt worked with them!
Wolfgang on CMM’s philosophy: “The traditional distinction between record labels, publishers, management, agents, tour managers and merch companies hardly exists anymore. This has led to a situation in which young artists often find themselves looking for people with the patience and the means to allow them to develop their talents. Instead, reality television casting formats and competitive, soap opera-style talent shows have risen as questionable ready-made substitutes. The number of artists with true character has been sinking dramatically as a result of this. Unique talent not immediately suited for the mainstream barely stands a chance on the market these days. What we’re trying to do is to go against this downward trend.”
BraveWords also has a long history with CMM and it was honour to chat with Wolfgang and join him celebrating 35 glorious years of working with our idols in the hard rock/metal world.
“It’s been a long story,” he begins during a Streaming For Vengeance interview that will air tomorrow (Tuesday, October 22nd) at 9AM EST. “I was asking for videos from people and I told them I don’t want happy anniversary, I want you to tell me a story! It’s a great time. I met so many great people. But it was a rollercoaster. Business went up, went down. We had a few disasters as well, which wasn’t really our fault, but you meet the wrong people, but you stand up again and we are still here. But when we started, it was a different time. There was no university teaching music marketing. In my time - and now I’m talking like an old man - I learned every angle of this business. We were challenged all the time. There were no books you could read. I was a tour manager when there was no cell phones. Not even a laptop. Anything. You had coins in your pocket if you had to make a phone call! Young people don’t even know what that means! So communication was a totally different thing.”
BraveWords: I met you at Wacken years ago for the first time and for a kid coming from Canada, I’d seen nothing like it.
Rott: “We started working with Wacken when they were drawing around 15,000 people. And we saw it grow and grow up until 50,000. But had brought ideas like the Scorpions reunion and the special Trans‐Siberian Orchestra set in 2015. And all the side things like the Wacken Foundation and the Metal Battle, which is worldwide. It’s fascinating.”
BraveWords: But m life truly changed when I walked on to 70000 Tons Of Metal.
Rott: “Absolutely. And I remember when Andy (Piller; Skipper) called me. We had new known each other 10-15 years. I actually hadn’t seen him for a while because he moved from Switzerland to Canada. And he said, ‘Wolfgang, I have this idea. Would you consider doing PR and Marketing in Europe?’ And he explained it to me and I said ‘Wow this is so crazy. This is a real challenge.’ That was two years before we floated. We had to figure out what kind of ships, we had to figure out everything - all that part was done by him. Andy and I would visit musicians and the first reaction was, ‘I’d be locked up in a ship for 45 days and there’s no backstage area? This is too risky.’ So we had to talk them into it. It took a while. Even the press questioned. They said to me, ‘Aren’t cruise ships for my grandparents? Why should we go on a cruise ship?’
So nobody could really imagine what it was and what it could be. I won’t forget the first cruise in 2011. We arrived in Miami and we saw the Majesty Of The Seas. And we saw all the normal people coming off the previous cruise. Right from the first cruise I had German national TV, multiple magazines jumping on this crazy idea. Everybody was expecting that we would trash the cruise ship. Or sink it!
Everybody was surprised how easy it went ,even the cruise line from the get-go said you can’t name the ship. You can’t name the brand from the cruise line. And you can’t talk to the captain and then all of a sudden the whole ship is filled with black dressed people with long hair .
But then they realize these were nice people. There’s no conflict. They do drink a lot of beer. But that’s it. There’s no fights. They are very humble even the captain ended up doing a TV interview and he said it was a very great experience and how nice these people are.”
You can watch/listen to Streaming For Vengeance on the BraveWords YouTube channel, the BraveWords Facebook page, the BraveWords Group Facebook page and the BraveWords Twitter.
