James Palumbo - The Man from Ministry on Drugs (interview: part 1)

“The reason I’m so against drugs is as a result of my City days where I’d see brokers who weren’t able to come in and pitch unless they’d been into the loo (toilet) and taken a line of cocaine. I just think it’s so fucking weak and pathetic.”

Chatting to Jonty Skrufff today in the restaurant of his South Kensington gym, Ministry of South founder James Palumbo is both disarmingly polite and beguilingly charming, even as his voice drips with contempt as he recalls his former high finance colleagues from the 80s.

“They’d come in all aggressive with their stupid clichéd sales pitches; ‘this is the deal for you’,” he shudders, “Whereas my style was always to be more considered.”

Though he remains best known for launching Britain’s first superclub Ministry of Sound and turning it into a reported £100million a year multi-media music and nightlife empire, he’s more recently turned his hand to novel writing, after passing day to day control of the club to CEO Lohan Presencer over five years ago.

Publishing his debut novel Tomas two years ago (a bizarre, surreal satire about ‘bloated bankers, Russian roubles, salacious socialites and filthy footballers’, he’s chatting today to promote follow up Tancredi, a similarly themed satire that this time starts from the concept that ‘humankind has become so riddled with the disease of short-termism that it ignores its fate’. (http://bit.ly/nD8g50 (Tancredi; trailer, Youtube)

That’s he’s talented as a writer is immediately apparent from a cursory glance through Tancredi’s self-penned online biography, a gripping, fast paced narrative of privilege, guns and gangsters few other than Jeffrey Archer would have dared to invent, let alone live.)

“I was born with many advantages,” he begins.

“My family was wealthy and I had the best education, going to Eton, then Oxford. And yet despite it all, I never really conformed to the norms of my background. As with so many people, my life can be read as a struggle to find my own identity.” (http://bit.ly/nx98Bg

Exploring his identity initially by campaigning against (and over-turning) Eton’s centuries’ old fagging system (a Tom Brown’s School Days’ style system where young boys were forced to be servants for elders) he next set up an illegal butler service in LA before narrowly escaping being deported when US Immigration tracked him.

Arriving back in the UK, he went to Oxford University, set up a budget airline, sold it to Richard Branson (who renamed it Virgin) before giving in to convention and ending up a merchant banker.

“No one really knew what was involved; it just seemed the best and most glamorous way to make money. I kept up my wheeler-dealing, but to my shame joined the money herd,” James confesses.

“The seven years I spent in the City were the most depressing of my life, but I learned about hard work,” he muses.

“If you want to make money you have to sacrifice a lot, there's little concept of a work/play balance. I rarely went on holiday, most weekends were spent in the office, everything was subordinated to the prime directive.”

“I shudder looking back: arriving at work for the 6.30 am meeting to hear an American voice on speaker telling us how the dollar would trade that day; talking clichéd nonsense to clients trying to solicit business; looking at the clock at 10.30 pm, wondering if it was too early to go home. What a mindless, soul-destroying life I led.”

Today he spends most mornings, cheerfully, in the gym.

“We’re meeting today at my gym because I’m an big exercise guy, I think if you’re fit you’re better able to do more,” he suggests.

Though he also owns up to being ‘very careful about what I eat’ he’s less rigid about alcohol, admitting he advises his 20 year old son ‘‘just drink vodka’. It’s delicious.”

“I try not to drink too much, though every so often I go a bit mad. I guess, deep down, the reason I’ve never taken drugs must be fear of losing control,” says James.

“A large part of me thinks doing drugs is unnecessary. I know I can drink vodka.”

“For example, I’m nervous about flying so I’ll have two or three vodkas and I’m happy. If I’m at a party and I want to anaesthetise myself because people are too boring then I’ll drink then too. Or perhaps I’ll have a really great cocktail. But I could never put anything in my nose.”

“I think it would fit the story more if I’d done drugs, but I have plenty of vices, Jonty, and I’ve done plenty of stuff. Maybe one day I will, who knows,” he smiles.

Skrufff (Jonty Skrufff): Do you feel you have something to prove with Tancredi?

James Palumbo: “All writers want their books to do well. That’s something to prove. Part of why I write is because I want to express myself; I want to say things. If it doesn’t do well then that’s disappointing. And obviously you don’t want to be laughed at, or ridiculed. Though some people will do that, for whatever motives. The other point is that I’m in my late 40s, I’m moving on, trying to do something different and yes. I no longer run the business (Ministry) and once you no longer run it, you no longer run it.”

Skrufff: What is your connection with Ministry of Sound today; do you still own a chunk of it?

James Palumbo: “Yes, I’m still the majority owner. If the guy who now runs it (Lohan Presencer) calls me up I’ll help out if needs be but I’m not there, I go down a couple of times a year, but that’s been the case for a few years now, I’ve moved on.”

Skrufff: We’ve recently been following the situation in Skrufff of the property developer effectively aiming to close Ministry’s Elephant and Castle headquarters by building his luxury flats, what’s the state of play with that?

James Palumbo: “That is an outrageous situation. If our time is up in Southwark and there’s a really compelling reason we have to move then we understand. But what the council have done, and what we can demonstrate very clearly, in an objective sense, is that they pre-judged the decision. So all this process and being able to represent your views (meant nothing); there was a presumption favouring the properly development.

The developer came down to see Lohan several years ago, and very arrogantly, as a few property developers are, said ‘well nightclubs come and go’. That’s not good enough. We’ve got to be allowed to have our say. If we don’t win on the arguments then we don’t win on the arguments but we’re not prepared to accept this situation.

So we’re now involved in this battle which I think we have an 80% chance of winning. Because in pre-determining the result and having an arrogant attitude they’ve made all sorts of mistakes. For example we can demonstrate the noise tests they’ve done (are inaccurate). The whole thing has been sloppy and not thought through.

That technical objective side is completely different from the PR side;  the 25,000 people signing the petition, us jumping up and down and making a lot of noise and fuss. I’m pretty confident that based on the objective facts, they won’t get permission.”

Skrufff: Most of the music business is in total disarray but Ministry Of Sound still seems to be thriving . . . .

James Palumbo: “I spoke to Lohan at 6.30 this morning. The office will start to fill from 7am. A lot of people come in for breakfast and you’ll find a lot of people start work at 7.30. Everyone sits on the same open plan floor. Lohan sits in the middle, where I used to sit. There’s a complete absence of ego and all decisions are taken collectively. That is a totally different ethic to the major record companies, where the ethic is one of self-preservation and salary maximisation and spurious claims as to who signed which record.

What I find is that because the music business is essentially a subjective business, there are no empirical truths. You can’t disturb the A&R guy because he’s listening to tracks. Unlike in the insurance business where things are very clear. So it’s very difficult to install discipline.

Shockingly, as record company profits and revenues have more than halved over the last 5 years, executive salaries have actually gone up. With us, because we’re nimble and disciplined and because we work harder, this all flows through to the artists and managers we work with. We won’t deal with people we don’t like. I think we have a sleeker and faster ship.”

Skrufff; Do you think by being sleeker and faster you can still make a successful business in music long term?

James Palumbo: “Yes. Our digital revenues have now crossed our physical revenues. We were the first. We worked with Apple intensively. We’ve actually physically done the work. I don’t particularly like criticising one’s competitors but there’s a feeling that over the last ten years they haven’t really raised their game. For example, major labels are still doing cover mounting CDs with Sunday newspapers, they’re doing deals with companies like Spotify which cannibalise revenues, for US$10million advances. Short term thinking (he grimaces).”

Skrufff; Did you go clubbing at Ministry much in the last 20 years?

James Palumbo: “No, never. I used to go the club sometimes to pick a fight with Security, to see how they behaved but that was all. You can’t. And that’s what differentiates us. I expect my successor to be disciplined and not to be there drunk. I’ve danced around a couple of times: literally.”

Skrufff: Do you go dancing in other clubs much, or don’t you generally enjoy going out dancing?

James Palumbo: “On holiday if I’ve had a lot to drink, and if it’s not planned but not ‘oh so and so if playing, let’s go there’.”

Skrufff: Have you ever thought about becoming a DJ?

James Palumbo: “(laughing). Categorically that’s the first time that’s even been suggested, let alone crossed my mind.”

Skrufff: Why not?

James Palumbo: “Classical music is my thing, I understand about dance music, there’s a difference between heard it all before David Guetta, Pitbull, all those songs about ‘I’ve seen you in the club, you’re my girl, I want to be with you’ and what I call intelligent dance music, such as Example, who is what I would call a proper lyricist and is really writing about what he cares about. But no, DJing is not me.”

Tancredi is out now.