Northstar Artists & Eat Music Form Strategic Alliance

Ace Frehley
Scott Legato / RockStarProPhotography.com
– Ace Frehley
One of the clients shared by Northstar Artists and Eat Music
U.S.-based agency Northstar Artists and Germany-based Agency & Management Co., Eat Music have formed a strategic alliance.
After several years of working together on a non-exclusive basis, Northstar founder Kevin Daly and Eat Music founder Hendrik Wippermann have created a strategic alliance where Eat Music will represent all of Northstar Artists’ worldwide clients throughout Europe. 
“First of all, we really enjoy working together,” Wippermann told Pollstar when questioned about the motivations to form an alliance.  “On a business level it worked out very well for our artists which is certainly the main reason we decided to create this alliance. On top of that it’s a huge advantage for U.S. artists to work with a European representative who has a reliable promoter network like we do.
“Both agencies share the same philosophy of how we like to work with our artists. We try to keep our rosters small, so we are able to really focus on our artists’ needs. There are so many large agencies with hundreds of bands on their rosters who simply don’t get the necessary attention to build a career in the highly challenged present-day live business. We really focus on supporting talent and less on increasing our market share,” Wippermann continued.
He confirmed that the partnership included the UK, “which has always been a great and inspiring live market like many other European countries.”
The list of shared clients between Northstar and Eat Music includes Ace Frehley, The Allman Betts Band, BoDeans, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Iris DeMent, Nicholas David, Michael Glabicki and Tab Benoit.
Northstar Artists agent, Rachel Simon, will continue to oversee all International bookings for the Northstar Roster while leaving the lion’s share of European bookings to Hendrik’s team at Eat Music.
Northstar Artists and Eat Music form strategic alliance
– Northstar Artists and Eat Music form strategic alliance
Hendrik Wippermann (l.) and Kevin Daly
Daly and Wippermann are both believers in “a Jerry Maguire mentality”, which they describe as “more focus, fewer clients”.
It’s the reason, they say, both Northstar and Eat Music “purposefully keep their rosters manageable in size and their agent to artist ratios in check.” 
Northstar has three veteran agents in Daly, Simon and John Lochen covering a roster of fourteen clients, while Eat Music has a staff of four people handling the booking for ten exclusive clients including two of Tenacious D’s offshoot acts, The Kyle Gass Band and Wynchester.