State Champ Radio David Furnish
Artificial intelligence is a technology with profound implications — it will soon be smarter than we are! — including for the future of music. So far, though, the debate over the copyright issues involved in training AI algorithms follows a familiar pattern: Rightsholders want a licensing structure to generate royalties, while some technology companies maintain that they don’t need permission and others just proceed without it. To music executives of a certain age, it sounds a bit like the Napster battle, especially since the central issue is fair use. Technology companies seem to have the same plan: Move fast and break things, then try to change the law once consumers get accustomed to the new technology.
Could this time be different?
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Yes and no, at least to judge by the current state of affairs. In the European Union, which passed the first serious AI legislation, some lawsuits working their way through the courts now — perhaps most importantly GEMA’s case against Suno — will provide more clarity. The situation in the U.S., which seemed to depend on the result of major label lawsuits against Suno and Udio — in which the two sides are negotiating — has been complicated by President Trump’s firing of the Register of Copyrights. In the U.K., the government has been considering loosening copyright by calling for a consultation — but that effort has come under pressure from both music companies and creators.
Two weeks ago, at a party to honor the Billboard Global Power Players, Elton John and his manager and husband, David Furnish, won the first-ever Billboard Creators Champion Award for their work fighting the U.K. government’s proposed adjustments to copyright law. That initially involved an amendment to a data bill being debated in parliament that would have forced technology companies to be transparent about the content they used to train their algorithms. The bill repeatedly “ping-ponged” between the House of Commons and the House of Lords as the latter repeatedly voted for the amendment, under the leadership of Baroness Beeban Kidron. Last week, after more back-and-forth, the data bill passed without the amendment.
This bill doesn’t affect copyright, although the amendment would have, so it represents only a minor skirmish in what’s shaping up to be a serious fight. John and Furnish aren’t going away, and John’s consistent championing of upcoming artists gives them real moral authority. Other artists are with them, including Paul McCartney and the acts behind the “silent album.” There’s strength in numbers, and the days when companies like Napster could give Metallica a reputational black eye are long since over. Few artists and executives have devoted as much time to the issue as John and Furnish, but they aren’t alone. Besides artists, the entire music business is behind them.
They are also fighting a very different battle than Metallica was all those years ago. Back then, the Internet looked much cooler than major label music — more disruptive, in today’s terms — and Metallica got cast, unfairly, as trying to fight the next new thing. At this point, technology companies have grown into a new establishment, with far more political power than the media business ever had. Elton John doesn’t seem like he’s trying to stop the next new thing — he’s trying to make sure that new technology doesn’t get in the way of the next new artists. Metallica’s fight wasn’t actually all that different — people just didn’t understand it very well.
Technology companies are pushing some of the same ideas they always have, which now seem almost oddly old-fashioned. The idea is that governments need to relax copyright laws so they can “take the lead” or “get ahead” in “the AI arms race.” This sounds vital, and it is, except that the kind of AI that’s most important is general intelligence, which has very little to do with the kind that can make new songs in the style of, say, Led Zeppelin. That’s just a consumer product. Also, what exactly are governments racing toward? Since AI is expected to eliminate white-collar jobs and the tax revenue that flows from them, what exactly is the hurry?
The debate over the U.K. data bill was only just the beginning, and the way John and Furnish framed the issue could influence the debate as it develops. For the next few years, both sides will argue about how compensation will work. But without the kind of transparency that the amendment to the bill mandated, it would be very difficult for technology companies to identify and pay the right creators. Transparency is necessary but not sufficient — it won’t solve the problem, but there can’t be a solution without it. Any serious conversation about compensating artists for the use of their work in AI needs to start there, and thanks to creators, this one has. Let’s see where it goes from here.
As his husband, Elton John, prepares for the U.S. finale of his absolutely-positively-unambiguously-final farewell tour Sunday night (Nov. 20) at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, David Furnish wants to clarify one thing: “It’s really important to make a distinction between Elton retiring from touring but Elton not playing his very last public performance for the very last time,” says Furnish, 60, a former advertising executive who has produced numerous films, including John’s 2019 biopic, Rocketman. “Will Elton return as a live performer? I hope so! It’s in his blood.”
In a wide-ranging phone interview from the family’s home, Furnish, also John’s manager, discusses the tour’s COVID-19 challenges, how high gas prices and supply-chain issues have complicated budgets and his entry into the music business. “I love working in this world,” he says. “We have the privilege of working with the very best in the business.”
As of last month, the Farewell Yellow Brick World Tour has grossed $661.3 million and sold 4.5 million tickets, including 30 U.S. stadium shows this year that totaled $133.4 million and 830,000 tickets. When the tour returned in January, Omicron loomed over the concert business, but COVID-19 fears have dissipated. How has your thinking about the tour changed throughout 2022?
From us, nothing has changed. COVID is still out in the world. It is still a risk to the health of our crew and to Elton and the band. We put in place a very strict testing protocol. We went back out on the road last January with a regular cadence of testing, keeping everybody up to date on vaccines and boosters. We’ve kept all of that in place. We have people in the tour in separate bubbles. Elton feels really badly, but he hasn’t been able to mix with his band. His band travels in one bubble. He and his assistants, the people who support him, his hairdresser and people in security — they’re in his bubble. It’s been very challenging for Elton, because he always loves being with his band before he goes on stage. He always sits with them and chats and has a laugh with them. That’s not been possible. While he’s been home, between shows or in hotels, he has to isolate. Everybody that supports him at home is also tested regularly — all staff in the household.
How difficult was it to reschedule the shows in Dallas when Elton himself came down with COVID?
We had to postpone, but it meant we lost two shows in Montreal to allow those Dallas shows to be rescheduled. There’s only so much wiggle-room in a tour schedule. This is a big behemoth of a tour. You suddenly just can’t jump to another side of the country or cross the Atlantic to make up a show.
How did fans’ excitement for the tour evolve as the COVID-19 landscape changed throughout 2022?
Thankfully, COVID hospitalizations have massively decreased and there are more medical treatments than there were at the beginning, so people can make the decision as to what medical risk is appropriate for them and still come to see a show. Lockdown was very hard for most people. It was very isolating, and nothing brings people and the world together like music. It’s emotionally and mentally and spiritually very healthy for people to get back out and see shows again. We just had to go back on the road in the safest way possible, and that’s what we’re trying to do.
How have you adapted to higher gas prices and supply-chain issues? Does Elton eat the extra expenses, or have you cut the budget or production?
We just eat the extra cost, because the tour we started with is the tour we intend on finishing with. We sold tickets in good faith and people bought tickets in good faith and it’s really important that we don’t short-change anybody and we honor our commitments. Elton is really committed to that. It’s the largest traveling-production tour Elton’s ever mounted, and it didn’t even occur to us to try to reconfigure it in any way to make it cheaper.
Please set the record straight: Will Sunday’s concert at Dodger Stadium be the last U.S. show Elton ever plays?
I know for a fact he will not be touring in any capacity. What you’re going to see is the possibility of a special one-off or a small residency in one venue for a limited period of time. I don’t think it will be Las Vegas. Elton feels he’s done the best he can in Las Vegas. He mounted two hugely successful residencies there. When you’re an artist and something’s in your blood, you don’t want to shut the door completely. Having said that, I know Elton, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t do any more live shows, either. He’s really looking forward to spending time with his family. That’s the No. 1 priority in his life. Any type of return to any type of touring is going to be a very well-considered situation, and definitely not a given, at all.
Given your background in other businesses, I wonder what it was like to transition into the music business as Elton’s manager.
I have a business-advertising-marketing background, but I’ve also worked in musical theater, I’ve worked in film production and I’ve been in Elton’s life for 29 years. So it’s not foreign to me at all. When you launch a tour like this, it’s like going on a dangerous mission, and you say to yourself, “I’m hurtling down rapids, and we’re about to go over the falls — who do you want to steady things in the boat and keep things under control?” I’m very fortunate. When I took over, Elton’s tour infrastructure was very, very healthy.
Am I reaching you at the family home in Los Angeles?
Yeah. The whole family’s here in Los Angeles. Obviously, I’m here for work, but I’m here to support my husband and our sons are here. This is a big, big moment in our family’s life.
Surrounded by newly designed Elton John tour merch mixed with luxury goods from Fendi and Balenciaga at a special Rocket Man-themed pop-up shop at The Webster in the Beverly Center, David Furnish — husband and business partner to the beloved pop star — joked that everyone thinks his house looks just like this Los Angeles shrine to Elton.
“We do have a Captain Fantastic pinball machine at our home in Windsor,” he conceded to Billboard, sitting in an alcove at The Webster with that very arcade game as “Philadelphia Freedom” played over the speakers. “But we don’t play Elton John music around the clock in our house.”
For the last near-decade, Furnish has been helping Elton plan his retirement from the road, after 50-plus years of touring the world, and this pop-up shop is one of many special flourishes to send him off. “Elton said he wanted to go out on a high,” Furnish says.
So that’s the plan: He’ll end his U.S. tour dates with a trio of concerts at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium, including Sunday’s final show being livestreamed by Disney+ and including special guests Dua Lipa, Kiki Dee and Brandi Carlile. And all along, R.J. Cutler will continue to film the Disney+ documentary Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, along with Furnish as producer under his and Elton’s Rocket Entertainment.
“L.A. has always had that professional resonance,” Furnish says of why Dodger Stadium is the last U.S. tour stop, 47 years after Elton was the first solo artist to play the ballpark. “You know, we have a home here. Our sons were born next-door [to The Webster] at Cedars-Sinai; they’re coming in next week to come and see the shows. We have our annual Oscar party here; we’ve raised $95 million for the Elton John AIDS Foundation with that event for over 25 years. And so LA is a very, very special place for us.”
Below, find highlights from Billboard‘s chat with Furnish, including why Elton is retiring now, his continued relevance on our charts, and how the couple hoped music would be a “great healer” for Elton’s latest duet partner, Britney Spears.
Why is Elton John retiring from touring now?
I think the most important thing, and the most significant thing for us, is what this means to our family. Because as long as I’ve known Elton, he’s been on the road, doing 90 to 100 shows annually. It’s a big commitment. Time, travel, rest between shows. And now we have two beautiful sons; they’re going to be 12 and 10. And we were able to take them with us in the early days. And now they have their own lives. And that’s really important that they continue to have their own lives, their own identity, to not have their life defined by their father’s career.
On Elton John’s love affair with the Billboard charts, including two top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hits this year: “Cold Heart” with Dua Lipa and “Hold Me Closer” with Britney Spears.
He gets your charts daily. He gets them printed out on hard copies. Because he goes through with highlighters. And he literally has different highlighters for different records he charts — ones from Britain, ones from America, the ones that are going up, ones that are his, ones that he has a connection to he. He watches it daily. It feeds a part of his soul. And he’s absolutely over the moon with the way these new records have performed. And you know, you’re gonna see more. Like, he’s not going to stop. And I’m excited for him and excited for what great music he can bring to the world. Our streaming numbers, to see that 58% of his music is now consumed by 18- to 35-year-olds — that is one of the things that I think of which he is most proud. That he’s written songs that survive, that stand the test of time, and that resonate with a whole new generation, that for him is is like, “Wow.”
Why Britney Spears was the perfect duet partner on “Hold Me Closer.”
During lockdown, we watched those documentaries that came out, and we weren’t aware of … we’d heard about the conservatorship, but we hadn’t understood the details and the practicality of it. It was really disturbing, like, “Oh my God, that poor girl, she’s just been in a prison for such a long time.” And as a recovering addict — both of us [David and Elton] are in recovery — we really understand the impact of trauma.
When I raised Britney [as a possible collaborator], [Elton] was like, “Oh, my God, she needs the hand to help take a step forward to get back onto the charts again.” And I think the outpouring that she got from her fans, you know, that it’s a great record, I know she’s genuinely chuffed to bits, as we say in England with the response that it’s had. And I hope and Elton hopes it gives her more courage and more of a sense to get back into the studio, because music is a great healer.
“Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium” will livestream Sunday at 11 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. PT on Disney+.
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