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Former Lorde manager apologises for “harmful impact of my past behaviour”

By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 25 January 2021

Artist manager and former Warner Music exec Scott Maclachlan has admitted to past bad conduct in relation to allegations of sexual harassment made against him.

As part of an investigation into harassment and abuse in the New Zealand music business by Stuff, Maclachlan also confirmed that he was banned from Warner offices and live shows following an investigation into accusations against him in 2018.

Best known for discovering Lorde – although they parted ways in 2015 – Maclachlan was hired as SVP A&R for Warner Music Australasia in 2018. However, months later he was stripped of the title and banned from both the company’s offices and from gigs involving artists signed to the label. Stuff reports that he nonetheless remained in an A&R role with the company and news of his demotion was not made widely known internally or externally.

“I do accept the harmful impact of my past behaviour and I try every day to repair the damage and prevent it happening again”, Maclachlan told Stuff.

“There’s not a day goes by that I don’t regret the harm I have caused people around me and most importantly the pain and embarrassment I have caused my wife and children”, he went on. “I have to live with that guilt, knowing that people I worked with have also endured pain and stress because of my actions”.

In a statement, Warner Music said that it had now cut ties with Maclachlan entirely, following the Stuff report.

“Warner Music is committed to providing a safe, professional environment for all our team”, said a spokesperson. “Our Code of Conduct is very clear regarding harassment of any kind. All allegations are treated seriously and action is taken if any employee’s behaviour has breached that code”.

They went on: “We investigated what we believed to be an isolated incident in 2018, with the assistance of an external expert, and we went further than they advised with disciplinary actions. Now that we’ve learned about these additional incidents, we’ve terminated Scott Maclachlan’s employment contract with immediate effect”.

Stuff also spoke to a former employee of Maclachlan’s management company Saiko, Amy Goldsmith, who said that she had a “complicated” working relationship with him that involved “a lot” of sexual harassment.

However, she says that her experiences working with Maclachlan were part of a bigger problem, as they were both operating in an industry where such behaviour is often ignored or even accepted.

“The problem is really when those in powerful positions take advantage of that, with little to no accountability”, she said. “Our industry relies heavily on networking and connections. We have a culture of sweeping things under the rug, often leaving the burden of change to victims alone. I think a lot of behaviour has gone unchecked because many of us, myself included, accept or downplay it as an ‘industry norm'”.

In its report, Stuff uncovered numerous other accusations of abusive or inappropriate behaviour involving a number of people in the industry.

One woman who worked in marketing at a label spoke of her experiences, saying: “I’ve had local artists asking me for threesomes. I’ve had international managers ask me to give them hand jobs. I’ve had a tour manager lock me in a stall in a strip club and try to kiss me”.

When she told one artist about these experiences, she says he told her: “You’re a label girl, it’s your job”.

Some of the women interviewed by Stuff said that the small size of the New Zealand music industry left them scared to speak out, for fear of losing their jobs. Although that is a concern raised by women in music all over the world, regardless of the size of their local industry.

A spokesperson for SoundCheck Aotearoa – a group launched in November to tackle diversity and safety issues in the music industry – said: “As these stories highlight, this collective work is urgently needed to set agreed standards of behaviour and provide a safe and transparent process for those who have been harmed, particularly the many artists and others who work outside a traditional workplace and do not have access to HR support”.