{"id":242238,"date":"2025-10-17T14:09:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T13:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=242238"},"modified":"2026-03-27T17:35:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T17:35:34","slug":"sleep-token-manager-ryan-richards-on-guiding-the-career-of-one-of-the-biggest-breakout-bands-of-the-last-few-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/sleep-token-manager-ryan-richards-on-guiding-the-career-of-one-of-the-biggest-breakout-bands-of-the-last-few-years\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I don’t see any ceiling \u2013 the sky’s the limit.’"},"content":{"rendered":"

MBW\u2019s World\u2019s Greatest Managers series profiles the best artist managers in the global business. Here we talk to Ryan Richards, a rock drummer turned major manager currently guiding the career of one of the biggest breakout bands of the last few years, Sleep Token. World\u2019s Greatest Managers is supported by Centtrip<\/a>, a specialist in intelligent treasury, payments and foreign exchange \u2013 created with the music industry and its needs in mind.<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a>\"Music<\/i><\/a><\/figure>Ryan Richards<\/strong> looked like he was on top of the world. He was the drummer\/scream vocalist in Welsh post-hardcore legends Funeral For A Friend<\/strong>, one of the most successful UK rock bands of their generation, touring the world and playing to thousands of adoring fans.<\/p>\n

After five albums and hundreds of gigs, however, in 2011 Richards found himself getting his thrills elsewhere. No, not in the sex-and-drugs-and-rock\u2019n\u2019roll lifestyle that has distracted so many drummers over the years, but in the little wins achieved by the local bands back in his native South Wales that he was advising and helping out.<\/p>\n

It was that, combined with a desire to spend more time with his young family back in the Valleys, that saw him sit down for a chat with the band\u2019s manager, Craig Jennings<\/strong> of Raw Power Management<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div> <\/div> \n

\u201cI said, \u2018I think my touring days are numbered\u2019,\u201d Richards recalls. \u201c\u2018This management thing is where my passion is and where I see my future going forward\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cA few days later, Craig rang me up and said, \u2018If you\u2019ve made up your mind to do that, why not come and work with us at Raw Power and learn there?\u2019 It was a massive learning experience, and so helpful to my development as a manager. It was the perfect next step.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fourteen years on, Richards has his own management company, Future History<\/strong>, and is himself one of the most successful rock managers on the planet. In a UK industry starved of breakthroughs, the huge success of Sleep Token<\/strong> \u2013 one of three bands he had on his roster when he left Raw Power to set up Future History in 2018 \u2013 has been remarkable.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/i><\/a><\/figure>

The mysterious, masked UK rockers have headlined Download Festival<\/strong>, signed to RCA<\/strong> in America and scored a No.1 record with their fourth album, Even In Arcadia<\/strong><\/em>, on both sides of the Atlantic. More to the point, their pop sensibilities, hyper-engaged fanbase and savvy use of online marketing have taken them to places other rock and metal bands can no longer reach: Hot 100 hits, late-night TV appearances and the biggest US streaming week for a hard rock band ever. That\u2019s ever.<\/p>\n

This is uncharted territory for a rock band in 2025, but Richards is taking it all in his stride.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot to self-aggrandise, but I always thought from the start that this is where it would end up,\u201d he chuckles. \u201cI was always a true believer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nor is it likely to be a one-off. Richards has cultivated a roster of fast-rising rock acts, including the likes of Those Damn Crows, Holding Absence, Bambie Thug, President, Zetra<\/strong> and Dead Pony<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re the sort of bands Richards would have loved in his own South Wales youth, when he was encouraged in his musical abilities by his family, at first playing piano\/keyboards before settling on the drums when his musical tastes \u2013 initially shaped by a babysitter who would play him Bon Jovi and Guns N\u2019Roses \u2013 became too heavy for tickling the ivories to be involved.<\/p>\n

He played in a number of local bands before joining Funeral For A Friend. He realised the band was going places when they scored a Kerrang!<\/em> feature that tagged them, \u2018The most exciting new band on the planet\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen it was like, \u2018Right, I guess we\u2019d better get serious\u2019,\u201d he chuckles. The band signed to Atlantic Records UK<\/strong> and Sanctuary Artist Management<\/strong> (after Rod Smallwood<\/strong> saw them play at the Kerrang!<\/em> Weekender in Camber Sands) and Richards settled into the unofficial role of liaison between band and industry advisors on their unstoppable rise to rock stardom, marking him out as a future exec in the making.<\/p>\n

When Sanctuary dissolved, Funeral stayed under Craig Jennings\u2019 wing at Raw Power (\u201cI still consider Craig a mentor,\u201d he says), while Richards started helping out local bands by passing on contacts and helping them secure gigs.<\/p>\n

<\/div> <\/div> \n

He joined Raw Power when he went full-time with such management concerns, working his way up before leaving when he found himself again spending too much time away from Bridgend (\u201cWales keeps drawing me back: the green, green grass of home that Tom Jones sang about really is that magnetic,\u201d he laughs).<\/p>\n

Initially, he worked alone from his home office, meaning he and his artists could weather the Covid shutdown due to his low overheads, but Future History is now expanding rapidly, with Download Festival boss Andy Copping joining as a director.<\/p>\n

“with rock being such a growing genre, I\u2019d like to think it might empower the scene to have more leverage or influence.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Accordingly, Richards \u2013 who spent the summer back in the reformed Funeral For A Friend, playing the band\u2019s biggest ever gigs, including a headline at Cardiff Castle \u2013 fizzes with plans for the likes of Bambie Thug (who just signed a publishing deal with Universal<\/strong>), President (\u201cOut of any band I\u2019ve ever worked with, that\u2019s been the quickest out of the traps,\u201d he declares) and the reviving rock genre in general.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard work being a rock band,\u201d he says in his mellifluous Welsh tones. \u201cClimbing up that hill can be a slippery and steep slope. But, with rock being such a growing genre, I\u2019d like to think it might empower the scene to have more leverage or influence. We\u2019ll certainly keep trying\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Before that, however, he sits down with MBW in his Bridgend home office on a classically rainy South Wales morning to talk streaming, mystique and why Sleep Token aren\u2019t actually a metal band\u2026<\/p>\n

\n
Unusually for a band in 2025, Sleep Token have mystique. How big a part has that played in their rise?<\/h6>\n

I love that stuff. I was listening to a music industry podcast recently and the topic of conversation was social media and how it\u2019s changed the dynamic between band and fans, and how it\u2019s a shame you can\u2019t do things in the way you used to, when you had
\nthat mystique.<\/p>\n

And I was thinking to myself, \u2018Well, surely you can if you choose to?\u2019 And that\u2019s what it\u2019s been. It\u2019s about wanting to find that magic again, that deeper connection between fan and artist, which, conversely, comes from that separation, it engenders that deeper connection.<\/p>\n

Because the band is operating the way it does, in terms of the anonymity and not connecting in the conventional ways with social media, interviews and press, it\u2019s about putting everything around that and giving more substance to the whole story.<\/p>\n

You go to a Sleep Token show and, even though the band doesn\u2019t speak in words, there is that unspoken connection and dialogue between the band and the fanbase which is really special, quite unique and very powerful.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/a><\/i><\/a>
Picture: Andy Ford<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n
Will you be able to keep all that up, or will there be a \u2018Kiss without the make-up\u2019 moment?<\/h6>\n

The difference there is, it doesn\u2019t feel like anyone \u2013 certainly not the fanbase \u2013 wants that. They\u2019re not trying to peek behind the curtain, dissect it and invade upon what the band is doing, or to break that fourth wall.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just about respecting it, but really indulging in it, buying into it and enjoying it for what it is. It was different back in the day with Kiss, and maybe even Slipknot, where it was like, \u2018Oh, I wonder what they look like and who they are?\u2019 Now, maybe because the dawn of the internet means information is always at your fingertips, people value having that mystique and separation.<\/p>\n

With any movie or TV show that comes out, before you watch it, you can go online and find out the ending. You can spoil it for yourself \u2013 but why would you do that? I don\u2019t see anything positive or helpful in that and it seems like people feel the same.<\/p>\n

\n
Conventional industry wisdom suggests rock music doesn\u2019t work on streaming. How have you bucked that trend?<\/h6>\n

One of the big things is the understanding of where rock is now. A lot of the listening public have had a skewed vision or perception of what rock\/metal\/hard rock is and sounds like, informed by music from the past or what they define in their heads as rock
\nor metal.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a person that never listens to metal, but you\u2019ve heard Metallica, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest or any of the big, heritage metal acts and you don\u2019t like any of those bands, and you\u2019re seeing a band like Sleep Token described as metal, you\u2019re probably not going to go and check it out.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s like, \u2018I don\u2019t like Iron Maiden, I probably won\u2019t like Sleep Token\u2019 \u2013 which is to completely miss the point. When Sleep Token get put into the metal genre, it\u2019s because that\u2019s the most extreme touchpoint of what the band does.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s like, \u2018I don\u2019t like Iron Maiden, I probably won\u2019t like Sleep Token\u2019 \u2013 which is to completely miss the point. When Sleep Token get put into the metal genre, it\u2019s because that\u2019s the most extreme touchpoint of what the band does. But there\u2019s as much pop, R&B, electronic and piano-led music as there is heavy guitar; there\u2019s perhaps even more of those
\nother things.<\/p>\n

But now the band has had more mainstream exposure and people have heard it by accident or been recommended it, they\u2019re like, \u2018That\u2019s not metal\u2019.<\/p>\n

There are elements of it throughout the record, but it\u2019s not a metal band: it\u2019s just an artist painting with many colours to portray many different feelings and emotions, and that\u2019s just one of them.<\/p>\n

\n
We keep hearing about how few British breakthroughs there are these days. Are Sleep Token getting the industry respect they deserve for their success?<\/h6>\n

There\u2019s been this wave of optimism and positivity at the place that rock is in, where it\u2019s going and the trajectory it\u2019s on, so it\u2019ll be interesting to see if that\u2019s just in our little circle, or if it permeates into the outer reaches of the industry.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve been in this industry long enough to know it\u2019s always been this really vibrant and exciting part of music culture and always will be. It never goes away, it never dies, that\u2019s why it circles round to every generation \u2013 it remains to be seen if that\u2019s what this is.<\/p>\n

\n