How Elton John's husband, David Furnish, leads the musical empire of the rock star

by
Ludovic Hunter-Tilney

"I live with the brand," says David Furnish smiling. "I understand what the brand does on a daily basis: in advertising, we said better than the business of your customers … Well, I think I checked this box."

in the magazine. one of the houses that he shares with the "brand" – his husband, Sir John Elton, one of the most successful artists in the history of pop, with sales to date of more than 300 million records. It's a small elegant London home (their main home is in Windsor). Contemporary art is hanging on the walls, much like a Tate Modern pocket. Furnish, 55, sits at the table in front of me. It's a sultry day, but it looks flawless with a white shirt and a blue Gucci jacket.

The former Canadian advisor met John at a dinner in 1993. They entered into a civil partnership in 2005 and got married in 2014.

The following year, Furnish takes a new role as general manager of Rocket Entertainment, an umbrella company overseeing companies that have banded together around the singer. They go from Rocket Music, a management company, to Rocket Sports, which does the same for athletes (John is a footballer).

"Before taking over, it was really a world of silos," he says. "It was frustrating for me to sit on the sidelines, no one was firing right away, Elton was getting very frustrated to be driven from one place to another all the time, so I was I got everyone together and I wrote the first business in the long run. plan in the history of Elton's career. "

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This resulted in a reshuffling of the staff, the old hands remaining in what the tabloids called furniture-driven purging." As the saying goes, you have to break some eggs To make an omelette, "he says, the most pressing goal was to wean the singer from the old school music industry's model of releasing albums and visiting them.John regularly plays 100 shows a year. "He even has the habit of saying," I want to die on stage, "which did not bring me much joy," says Furnish.A dramatic disappearance is an even calamitous prospect now that the couple The parents are five and seven years old. "

" We needed to start a farewell tour so that he could leave the road and spend time with his children, "says Furnish. The Farewell Yellow Brick Ro Tour ad starts in the United States in September, a great release of the scene that will end in 2021 when the singer will be 74 years old.

Brand-building and Uniformity

Furnish grew up in Toronto and graduated from the Richard Ivey School of Business with a degree in Business Administration. He worked for the advertising group Ogilvy & Mather and persuaded the company to send him to the UK in 1989. "I was dying to live and work in Britain, 1980s and advertising booming.I've had British grandparents so that I could get my work visa. "By the time he met John in 1993, he was on the board of directors. O & M's administration

While record sales were booming, at the time, commercialization was badured by some of the less prestigious departments of record companies. Today, musicians are supposed to sell themselves. "These are really my antecedents in terms of brand building and consistency," says Furnish. He produces a baseball cap with a starry "E". "We've never had a logo so far," he says incredulously. "Elton has been around for almost 50 years."

New companies open John's catalog to the new generations, from this year's album Revamp in which Ed Sheeran and Lady Gaga covered his songs, the radio show Rocket Hour of the singer for Apple Music. Next year sees the publication of a memoir and a Broadway musical based on the film The Devil Wears Prada that John Mark. ("He started two weekends ago and wrote four great songs.") A music jukebox based on his successes is under development. "Look at what Mamma Mia! did for the Abba catalog," says Furnish. A new long-term contract has been signed with Universal Records.

Considering the singer's famous temperament, one can imagine the odd testy exchange on work in the Furnish-John House. A scene from Furnish's 1997 documentary Elton John: Tantrums and Gods shows that John threatens to never visit southern France again after a fan shouted at him "Yoo hoo" during a part of tennis. But Furnish says there was "a lot more anger and stress" before he took the position of CEO.

"When it comes to works of art, creative partners, musical partners, he receives tons of comments. "He has fantastic instincts and you want his judgment out there, but in terms of managing and creating daily, he wants you to strive because he's busy with other things."

to be "a challenge," says Furnish. "It's like" Look, you're too much on your phone. "We have to go through the next two or three years, I would like the pace to slow down to a certain point so that we can really be there for our children, otherwise we will never get out of the ring. . "