by Danny Colman originally published on Rock On! This Week’s Sound Bites…9/25/2025
“Yes I do, it’s out in October and it’s called “Giant Steps.” I think it basically tells the tale of my musical career if you like. Some things are in there that I don’t think many people would understand or know about that I’ve been involved in from both being a musician in England; I was originally born in Scotland, to becoming a music executive and dealing with every kind of musical situation that anyone can be in to be honest with you.”
Derek Shulman, musician, record company executive and A&R guy has, by his own admission been “Involved in music” his “Entire life” and now this former member of Simon Dupree & The Big Sound as well as frontman for progressive rock pioneers Gentle Giant has written a book about his life and career in music titled, “Giant Steps My Improbable Journey From Stage Lights To Executive Heights” and at Progstock 2025 at Williams Center in Rutherford, NJ he will be there with it in tow doing a Q&A and book signing on October 11 and 12.
Shulman’s career has spanned decades and has seen every corner of the music industry. He signed Bon Jovi, worked with Dream Theater, Slipknot and “Revitalized” the careers of AC/DC and Bad Company and this book gets into all of that and much more.
So, as a former A&R “Guy,” what does he think about the current state of the major labels and does A&R still even exist?
“No, no it doesn’t and it has been this way for at least 20 years if not more but certainly, “Artist and Repertoire” which is what A & R means, is non-existent for the most part in all of the majors and even the independents,” he was quick to respond. “Any artist who is a musician and wants to come through the mill that way really should do it on their own because that’s the only way they are going to get any attention. That was the case when I first started to be honest with you, so it has really come full circle and as far as major labels are concerned, there is no A & R, it’s about what is going on through analytics, AI and anime or whatever. The effects of that on an audience who like music is non-existent because they won’t even look, hear or be interested in whatever this is; it’s completely for a niche, a very large niche of teen and tween consumers and there is a vast amount of those and for the musician who wants to play music, who wants to master their instruments, who wants to play on stage and get a fan base, this is completely a 180 from that. So, will this stuff have a legacy or legs in the future? I don’t know, probably not because when I mentioned the last 20 years or more, I say there is probably maybe not one handful of artists who will be able to hold a record company catalog in place. The bottom line is, the majors, Sony, Universal, Warner, they all rely on catalog for their existence and that catalog is basically artists like the bands that made it in the ’60s, ’70s and even the ’80s who could play their instruments, get a fan base on stage and be great musicians. Gentle Giant has a catalog and it’s selling more these days than it probably did 20 years ago. The internet came and it’s here to stay and it has moved onto AI and God knows what else, however the good news about the internet is that there is a young audience who are musicians who don’t want to watch “KPop Demon Hunters” and want to master their instruments and become a musician or enjoy playing and listening to, I don’t want to say real music because it makes me sound like an elitist but music that is written and composed and played by musicians that are human with flesh and blood. So, we’ve had a lot of young people who have gone on YouTube and listened and heard Gentle Giant music; in fact, there is a huge younger audience that have glammed onto whatever we did so our legacy has lived on with the younger generation thankfully. I think that’s probably true for most of my peers if you like.”
When one has had an extensive and musically diverse career such as his, writing a book can be a herculean task; what made him decide to do so?
“The motivation obviously was to write my memoirs about being involved with music my whole life but also to tell the story about family, which is a very important thing for me and my siblings and about life in general. I mean, it’s all about me being involved in the music business as a musician or as an executive but it’s all about life as well, why we are who we are, why I was traumatized when my father died in my arms when I was 15 or 16 years old and how it affected me through my life. We’ve all been through these times of things that affect you and you don’t realize this was the reason until after therapy or whatever and so the theme across the board is my life in music and the various other things in between which talk about why I’m me and the artists I’ve been involved with and their issues as well. Yes, I’ve been involved with some of the biggest artists ever and I’m very lucky and privileged to have been in that situation. I feel that the story, I hope, is one about, as we started off; real music. I was thinking the other day about having a blank page in front of you and creating something with your own mind, with your own fingers and your heart, putting it down and doing something which is yours; not somebody else’s, not trying to be like somebody else and this is what I tried to do and hopefully, in some respect succeeded to a certain degree. Hopefully other people will do that as opposed to going on their Pro Tools or artificial intelligence machines and saying, “Make it like this” and here you go.”
With family and the music industry so prevalent in his life; what about bands who were considered his peers? Groups such as Creedence Clearwater Revival, King Crimson, The Rolling Stones, etc have all written material that has withstood the test of time. What is his take on today’s music climate? Does he see it having the same longevity as its predecessors?
“Major labels are dependent completely on catalog and if it wasn’t for catalog, the major labels would not exist,” he stressed once again. “You mentioned Creedence Clearwater, we’re talking about all of the bands that broke through in the ’60s, ’70s. ’80s and even the ’90s, their music, including Gentle Giant, their music is still relevant. In the last 20 or 25 years, there are maybe a handful of artists that in 50 years; will they be relevant? I don’t know, I don’t think so personally, maybe a handful, maybe U2 for instance or whatever but they’re only a handful. When I was growing up, The Beatles were it and The Beatles still are to me no matter where and who you are; they changed everything and their songs and music still resonate for me and I think it does for everyone.”
“I hate to sound like a crotchety old man, which I am by the way,” he continued with a laugh “The younger generation feels that if they get “Likes” and looks and Tik-Tok appearances; being famous and being rich is the most important thing for them whereas when I was a musician, playing music was important to me and being a musician that was able to make a living being a musician. That was the most important thing, being able to master my instrument to be good on stage together as a band and if we were good together as a band, people would come to see us and pay a little bit of money and we were able to make a living out of it. It wasn’t about being famous online and being a personality, it was about music first and today it’s about fame first. The superficiality of that wears very thin across the board and I don’t know who or why and when these things will turn into something subhuman which it kind of is already actually; I’ve been hearing about this “Demon Hunter” stuff and I looked at it and I thought, “Wow!” This is kind of where these catalogs are gonna go once AI gets hold of them, maybe they will just become AI versions of their catalogs but my point is, the younger generation, I think there is a sense of entitlement to be famous and rich as opposed to putting in work. As a musician and even as an executive, I put in a lot of work and I think that’s what the book is about by the way. I worked my ass off to be as good as I could be. I didn’t just go online and do a video and stick my tongue out and be funny. That’s something that I guess the younger generation believes is the way to do it and again, I don’t want to be negative because perhaps, that’s enough for them but it’s not enough for me.”
Above, there was mention of just a few of the acts he has influenced or broke wide open. When asked what it was like being an A&R representative for a label, he quickly relayed two of his favorite instances.
“I’ll give you one major example; Pantera. When I was running ATCO, I was aware of the band before I signed them because I was living in Texas for a minute and I was running a pretty big company of about 150 employees and the attorney came to me and showed me a VHS video of some new songs and with a new singer and I was completely blown away. I knew the band and I saw this video and I thought, “I think this is something very special.” So, I sent an A&R guy down there and he called me literally at 11:30 at night and said, “This band Pantera that you told me to go see, you’ve got to come see them.” I said, “I know, how are they?” He said, “Just come down and see them.” The next week, I knew they had a show in Arlington, Texas and I went down myself and within three songs; I’d hoped that they were gonna be as good as it looked like it was gonna be and within three songs I wasn’t just a fan, I was completely sold on this band; I almost jumped in the mosh pit and that would’ve been dangerous (Laughs). I knew this band, Phil (Anselmo) was just an incredible front guy, Dimebag (Darrell) was just an incredible guitarist and personality and they had this word, I.T., they had “It.” I immediately said, “OK;” no one was interested in this band, no majors because they were heavy and completely doing their own thing and that’s key as well; they were authentic and they meant what they did and within three songs, I went from being someone going to check them out to becoming their biggest fan. So, I signed them and I knew they wouldn’t be on MTV because of how they looked and their music on radio would have been hard to push but what I did do was put money behind them to go on tour because the fact that they made a difference to me as someone who has been around music most all of my life and I immediately became a fan, I knew that other kids who came to see them would be a fan too. So, I put money behind them to tour and sure enough when they went out there, 500 people would show up and six months later 5,000 and that’s exactly what happened when “Cowboys from Hell” came out. I had confidence in their ability and again, they were authentic, they weren’t following anyone. The music that I heard and the way they played was theirs, they weren’t like anything else and that was the key to Pantera being leaders in their field and most of the bands that I’ve been involved in, they still are; whether it was 30 or 40 years ago, they’re still leaders in their field, whatever field that is.”
“AC/DC is another story as well because they were gonna be dropped by Atlantic. They had two albums that did not do well and the deal was pretty high but I came in when I was running ATCO and the head of Atlantic said, “We’re gonna drop AC/DC because their last two albums didn’t do well and AC/DC didn’t particularly like the people who were running their show. I said, “You can’t drop AC/DC. This is the band that invented that kind of rock.” So, I sat down with him and I inherited when I took on running ATCO, a couple of artists that were already signed and one of them was Stevie Nicks. I said, “I’ll tell you what, I’ll trade you Stevie Nicks for AC/DC” which is what I did. AC/DC was very reluctant, they were standoffish with their record company, they did not like record people. However, their brother George Young in England was in the band called The Easybeats and when I was in my first group Simon Dupree, we played with The Easybeats several times and we got on very well and Angus and Malcolm called George and said, “There’s this guy called Derek Shulman who is running this record company” and he said, “Is it the same guy who was in Simon Dupree and Gentle Giant? He’s cool and he’s a musician.” So, George telling Angus and Malcolm that I was cool made a difference and it enabled me to sit down with those guys and become part of their team. I sort of convinced them to go to Vancouver with their favorite producers Bruce Fairbairn and Bob Rock and when we got up to Vancouver, they allowed me in the studio a lot of times and we came back when the record was done. The album was called “The Razors Edge” and we put out “Thunderstruck” and AC/DC was back and bigger than ever.”
There is something to be said for “Following your gut” and Shulman’s instincts have served him well over his lifetime but even he admits that despite his possible aversion to it, AI and today’s technology does have its place.
“Funny enough, I’m gonna eat my words and tell you a story from the end of the book because we had our Gentle Giant albums remixed and for whatever reason, they are almost as popular as 40 or 50 years ago because the young generation of musicians, they’ve seen us online and played along; that’s a whole different animal. There are a whole lot of musicians out there who want to play and be good at what they do; so, most of our catalog had been remixed but there was one we couldn’t find the multitracks to and that was an album called, “In A Glass House.” So, I’ve been in the studio in Brooklyn working with a brand new highest end AI program which can separate not just the stems of the music but the tracks themselves and I’m remixing the album “In A Glass House” because for some reason the multis got lost. So, the new technology has been very helpful to me recreating something that we should have done back then. What I’m not doing is creating something brand new, I’m just recreating something we would’ve liked to have done back in the day. The music is already written, I’m just making the drum sound a little better.”
Derek is looking forward to meeting people and answering questions at Progstock but he’s also looking forward to some rest and relaxation as well.
“I’m doing a Q & A, book signings and after; how about a good night’s sleep (Laughs)? It has been a wild ride putting my life in music down in print and that’s something I never thought I’d be called in a million years; an author per se but it turned out fairly well and I’m glad it’s getting some decent reviews and people seem to like the book and it’s an honest book I believe. It’s an honest look at being involved in the music business from when I was a kid, the earliest days in the ’60s until today.”
To discover more about Derek Shulman, the book or his long career, please visit https://gentlegiantband.com/