STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF A GIANT
After ‘godfather of the Australian music industry’ Michael Gudinski died two years ago, his son Matt took the helm of Mushroom Records. This year the independent music business marks 50 years at the top
I HAVE NO EXPECTATION OR WANT TO BE THE PERSON HE (MICHAEL) WAS. I’M MY OWN MAN
Matt Gudinski always knew he would join the family business. It was in his blood. He was two weeks old when he joined his first tour, with Jimmy Barnes, who dad Michael – founder of the Mushroom Group and a legend of the Australian music scene – was managing at the time. “I’d take my friends to concerts when I was 10 or 11, or even younger,” Matt tells VWeekend. “No kids went to concerts back then. The live music scene was so different. Every friend I would take to a show, it was their first-ever concert.
“Now, you look at Ed Sheeran, and there’s all ages, and children as young as five or six years old, getting live music into that system. It’s so different now.”
Matt’s entrepreneurial flair was evident at an early age. One time, when Barnes’s kids, who once recorded as the Tin Lids, were at the Gudinski home, Matt charged parents for tickets to see them perform. Another time, he turned one of the rooms at the family home into a music festival named Mattstock and whacked everyone with a $2 admission fee.
“I knew, from a young age, I was set on continuing in the family business,” Matt says.
“I moved into the Mushroom building the day after my last exam, when I was 17. I spent 20 minutes in that exam because I was so set on what I was doing. I didn’t care what the results were. I didn’t go and celebrate the end of school with my friends. I started booking international tours, and identifying and signing Australian artists.”
It was 2002, and his instincts were good from the get-go. He staged all-ages shows, with acts including The Living End and 28 Days, in Melbourne’s suburbs, and soon graduated to the soul, funk and hip hop festival, RNB Fridays Live, which played to sold-out arenas and stadiums nationally. His early successes included Bruno Mars and Drake tours, and signing Bliss n Eso, Temper Trap and Vance Joy to the Mushroom Group.
Asked what he was like at 17, and fresh into the family business, Matt Gudinski says: “I was the youngest person here, dare I say it, by at least 20 years. I was very opinionated, but I had a good hold on the challenges the industry faced at that point in time. I don’t think my ideas were listened to, initially. But my dad and I formed an amazing working relationship. There were not many people who would challenge Michael Gudinski, but I did.
“I guess we were both working out where we wanted to go, and I think my passion and interest motivated my dad for what I’ll call the second wave of Mushroom.”
Matt’s concerns included the-then threat of file sharing and music piracy. Song streaming was also on the horizon. He was also keen to diversify the business and build on the strengths of successful Mushroom Group companies. Working at Mushroom HQ, in a converted warehouse in Melbourne’s well-to-do Albert Park, also put him in prime position to observe his father’s business nous and deal making prowess.
“Dad always knew what he wanted, and how he wanted it, but he was very fair,” Matt says. “It’s something he definitely instilled in me – a good deal is a deal that both parties are happy with. You want to work with people that want to work with you.”
Michael Gudinski, a high school dropout,
started his music career by promoting dances as a teenager before forming his first booking agency in 1970.
He launched Mushroom Records in 1972. Skyhooks was the label’s first success story. Others included Kylie Minogue, Jimmy Barnes, Paul Kelly, Hunters and Collectors, The Angels, Yothu Yindi, Peter Andre, The Church and Vance Joy. Gudinski then started Frontier Touring in 1979, and lured superstars like Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and many more, Down Under.
Gudinski Snr was charismatic,
hyperactive, and fiercely devoted to Australian music, Melbourne and the St Kilda Football Club.
He began sketching plans for the 50th anniversary celebrations of his music empire five years ago, but sadly the largerthan-life figure, and a man widely acknowledged as the godfather of the Australian music industry, didn’t see it to fruition, passing away in March 2021. He was 68.
“I would love to have a reunion of all our people,” Gudinski told the Herald Sun in 2018. “I get all the glory and the spotlight, but I know the artists and the staff are our strength.”
It was classic Gudinski. For all the fanfare and success at Mushroom, with an all-star roster including Kylie, Skyhooks, Barnes, Paul Kelly and Split Enz, and tours by Madonna, Foo Fighters, Bruce Springsteen and the Stones, he always knew it was a team effort.
Matt Gudinski says he and his dad had loose discussions about the 50th milestone, which actually ticked over last year, but became mired by the post-pandemic mess and music industry uncertainty.
But in 2023, the Mushroom Group, an empire of 25 companies including record labels, touring arms, a publishing house, merchandising, film and television divisions, creative agencies, and artist management, has emerged stronger than ever.
Matt, 38, and now chief executive of the Mushroom Group, says he and his father had different views of the 50th birthday celebration but “met somewhere met in the middle”.
“He wanted to make it larger than life, and I wanted to find the right balance,” Matt says. “I think we agreed on most things. While it wasn’t really planned out when we lost him, we found a middle ground of what was right.”
Mushroom will mark its 50th this year with a mega-concert in Melbourne in November. A line up and venue will be announced later in the year. A movie documentary on Michael Gudinski’s remarkable career, and his impact on Australian music and culture, will be screened in cinemas.
A series of newly-recorded singles, covering classic and modern material across Mushroom’s history will be released throughout 2023 – the first song, the Temper Trap covering The Church’s iconic Under the Milky Way, was released on Thursday.
Michael wanted the celebrations to be “very much focused around the artists, and using it as a platform to create further awareness for our great new artists”, Matt says.
“For so many people, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, Mushroom was the soundtrack to people’s lives. It shaped who they were. I want to show the cultural importance of Mushroom, and how it established the thriving Australian music scene that we have today.
“It should also be a celebration of how an independent music business can survive, and be at its peak, 50 years after it began. That’s a story in itself.”
Family was key to Michael Gudinski’s success
story. Despite the big name celebrities and superstars he ran with, Gudinski’s true loves were closer to home – his wife Sue, son Matt, daughter Kate, and her two children, Nina and Lulu.
Michael once said that without Sue, a former radio executive, he would surely have fallen into the perils of the business.
“Sue is my rock and the backbone of everything I do,” he once told the Herald Sun. “She has stood beside me through the ups, the downs, and I couldn’t have done any of it without her.”
Matt agrees.
“I think with Dad being as crazy as he could be sometimes, they really balanced each other out well,” Matt says. “Our business is built on relationships. Not every single person loved my dad, but the ones that didn’t, usually loved my mum.
“She always supported him. We promoted ourselves as a family company, so having a strong family, and stability, was integral to that. They complemented each other really well.
“If Dad didn’t think he could do or achieve something, Mum gave him that belief and confidence.”
When Michael Gudinski passed away in his sleep, from heart failure, on March 2, 2021, Matt pushed through the grief to step up as a son and leader.
“I immediately felt a weight of responsibility on a number of fronts, but in a positive way,” he says. “I knew what he would want me to do. First and foremost, I had to look after our family, and not let anyone take advantage of him not being here.”
The family mourned their loss at a private funeral service then more publicly at a state memorial. “He’d be very proud of the way our family stood up,” Matt says.
“At the time dad left us, our company, and the industry, was facing critical times. You grieve in your own way, but we really had to keep the business moving.”
Matt Gudinski was named Mushroom Group
executive director in 2013, and Michael was chairman of the company until his passing.
Matt became Mushroom Group CEO in 2021. Michael’s office, in the tower of the Mushroom building in Dundas Lane, is now Matt’s.
“It motivates me,” Matt says. “It gives me the feeling that I can carry on what he’s done. I’ve been in his office – I still call it his office – to see amazing deals done and incredible relationships established.
“It an obvious progression, but it’s something that’s makes you feel he’s with you, giving the support he always gave, to me and everyone.”
Matt says he felt all eyes on him, and minds quietly ticking away, when he took over the top spot at Mushroom, without Michael by his side.
“There are always going to be comparisons,” he says. “There are certain people who still say, ‘Your dad would have done it that way.’ I tell them, ‘I’m not my dad.’
“He was a larger than life character. There will never be another Michael Gudinski. But my dad always drove me to, hopefully, one day, be greater than he was.
“I have no expectation or want to be the person he was. I’m my own man.” Five years ago, Michael Gudinski was excited about Matt taking the reins.
“Matt has made a real difference to the business,” Michael said then.
“He’s not a ‘yes’ man, he’s opinionated, and he’s really learned a lot. He’s young and smart. It’s inspiring to me, and inspiring for people at Mushroom and Frontier to see a future beyond myself.”
Matt Gudinski may not have Michael’s hyperactivity or volume switch, but his focus is the same: steely and determined.
“I believe in people until they give me a reason not to. I trust people until they give me a reason not to,” Matt says.
“But I want to see others have success, too. I like to support and back people in. We’re a big organisation. It’s never been a one man show.
“The business became what it did because so many people were part of that, and supported and followed (Michael’s) vision.
“I operate with a similar mentality. I love and thrive on other people’s opinions and involving them in everything I do.”
In 2023, Mushroom employs 250 people
across 25 businesses in Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland, the US and UK.
“I’m so proud of the fact we’re sitting here on the 50th anniversary of Mushroom because it could have gone either way. It could have fizzled out,” Matt says.
“In this day and age, in a climate where a lot of bigger companies eat up little companies, the fact we’ve managed to survive, and kept our identity, is a credit to my dad and everyone who’s been a part of the Mushroom journey. There was so much success and amazing times in the first 25 years of the business. But I think the last 25 years have made Mushroom a staple, not only here, but in the global music industry.”
Mushroom and Frontier certainly made their mark recently, with Billy Joel’s historic show at the MCG, and Sheeran’s record-breaking concerts, to 108,000 and 110,000-strong crowds, at the same venue.
Matt sees many challenges for the music industry in 2023, and beyond. “For new artists, it’s difficult to get traction. Of course, we’re seeing Australian artists having great success locally and internationally, but there are so many more who are being missed.”
Mushroom’s touring and merchandise business are thriving, and Matt sees opportunities in the tech, digital and streaming space. Lately, TikTok has reinvigorated songs from the Mushroom vaults, and licensing tracks to TV and film is also lucrative.
“I don’t think there’s a clear road map for our company, which has so many arms to it,” Matt says, adding: “It’s not the time for significant change yet. “I think coming out of a pandemic, and losing the founder of the company – the driving force of Mushroom – stability within our business, and getting back on our feet, is really important.
“I feel once we get past the 50th anniversary celebrations, there will be a more noticeable change at Mushroom, and who we are, and what we do. To survive the next 50 years, we’ve got to evolve.
“Mushroom has always been at the forefront of looking ahead, not behind. We’re leaders, not followers,” Matt Gudinski says, firmly. “My goal is to make sure the company is here in another 50 years.”