“When I was signing an artist I would say, ‘you need to really listen to me, and listen seriously, this is not a joke—if I do my job perfectly, I will probably kill you.’”
Shep Gordon is a bona fide enigma wrapped in a riddle. You might not have heard of him, but you’ve definitely heard of at least one person he worked with in his entertainment management career. (Do these names sound familiar? Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, Luther Vandross, Teddy Pendergrass, Anne Murray…)
Supermensch, directed by Mike Myers, is a film that chronicles the life and career of one of the most important figures in the entertainment industry, who pioneered a guerrilla marketing style for musicians and, later, invented the idea of the celebrity chef.
The Birth of a Marketing Genius
Shep began his Hollywood career in an unusual place: he was a sociology student, and then started working as a probation officer in a prison. A free-spirit at heart, he didn’t last long in his chosen career, and moved to LA where, within 24 hours, he found himself taking acid with Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.
Shep’s first client in his music management business was Alice Cooper, and it was Shep who was responsible for his meteoric rise to cult-stardom. The film documents the then-unheard-of tactics that Shep uses to make Alice a megastar, based on his top strategy: hatred by parents. Shep realised that if you could get parents to hate you, kids would love you.
Using his background is sociology, Shep helped Alice to develop a character. His training told him that you can make an impact through three things: violence, sex and rebellion. So, what if Alice was all three?
Record Company: Do you know how expensive that is? Shep: Do you know how REVOLUTIONARY it is?
His revolutionary ideas made Alice Cooper the most famous, notorious, parent-hated musician on the planet, and Shep began broadening his client base. He managed Anne Murray, Pink Floyd, Luther Vandross and Teddy Pendergrass amongst others, with the same keen marketing eye that shot Alice Cooper to the top.
The Celebritizer
Throughout the film, one thing that’s plainly obvious is Shep’s uncanny ability to make someone famous. They need the talent, sure, but there are plenty of talented people out there who never got a break.
Shep utilized three main ideas to make his clients famous:
1. The hatred by parents strategy as mentioned above
2. Guilt by association. When he started managing squeaky-clean, uber-square country singer Anne Murray, Shep knew he needed to do something to get her name out. He came up with a strategy: guilt by association. By calling in favors, he orchestrated a photo of Anne with John Lennon and Alice Cooper, at the time the most famous, rebellious stars in the world. When the photo was released, Anne Murray became famous just by association. Then her talent did the rest.
3. The network. Shep might be a genius, but even then he knew the secret to great business: he couldn’t do everything himself. When it came time to record Alice Cooper’s first album, he and the band chose a producer so out of line with what the record company was thinking that they refused to fund it. (Of course he got around this, and the record was a wild success). Trying to break Alice in London, Shep found the perfect PR star to help him understand the culture and devise the best plan. Surrounding yourself with the the best is one of the biggest lessons to be taken from the life and times of Shep Gordon.
When we think of the music scene in the 70s, most of us think of the quintessential sex, drugs and rock n roll. But what’s even more interesting, in many ways, is what was behind that: what allowed the stars to shine and the music to become more important.
The answer is revolutionary geniuses like Shep Gordon. Watch the film, and prepare to be inspired.