Hitmakers: The story of England football anthem Three Lions

With England facing Argentina tonight (July 15) in the 2026 World Cup semi-final in their quest to overcome 60 years of hurt, Three Lions is heading back into the Top 3 of the singles chart. Once again, Frank Skinner, David Baddiel and the Lightning Seeds’ 1996 hit has been the soundtrack to the team’s progress through a major tournament. As the nation waits for kick off, we revisit our Hitmakers interview with exec producer Rick Blaskey to trace the song’s story… I said to the Football Association, ‘We need a national anthem of football’. Big words, but I give Frank, David and Ian the credit. We did it. I remember phoning [Lightning Seeds frontman] Ian Broudie because his song Life Of Riley was used for Goal Of The Month on Match Of The Day and he had the sound, a very evocative sound. He said he’d love to do it but didn’t want to front it. I said, ‘Great, can I introduce you to Frank Skinner and David Baddiel?’ He sent a tape to Frank and David and they came up with the Three Lions and football comes home [lines], it’s genius to me. Ian sent two choruses – amazing. Do we know another song with two choruses? I don’t. The FA had wanted Simply Red because Mick Hucknall was a huge football fan and they were one of the biggest bands. He didn’t have time because he was finishing an album, so management sent me the tracklisting. One track was called We’re In This Together, and the FA they said they’d take it. It was a complete and utter dirge, but they and the BBC agreed that would be the official theme song. We premiered it at the draw ceremony in Birmingham. I was in the FA for lunch days later and they were taking a steady stream of calls saying, ‘We’re not using your dirge of a theme song.’ They looked at me, like, ‘Fix this!’. I put Frank, David and Ian together in February and they recorded on April 1, Grand National day and April Fool’s Day. I was like the chief of police in the studio, they wanted to make it really real, about how football fans really suffer. There was one line, “Butcher bloodied by war”, about [former England captain] Terry Butcher with the blood-soaked bandage. Everything they were coming up with – which was genius and very funny – it was like, ‘You can’t say that, you can’t say that!’ The song’s saving grace was the football comes home and three lions message. It was because of those two ideas that we got through the negative lyrics and the other things. We went to shoot a video at an England training session... I did a deal with [then Epic boss] Rob Stringer because Epic had The Lightning Seeds. I’d gone to Ian before everyone else. Rob was a genius on finishing the record, his A&R got it finished. We went through lots of mixes. A lot of people deserve credit. We recorded it at Dave Stewart’s place in Crouch End. Frank, David and Ian got on like a house on fire. The three of them were just brilliant. The chemistry was right. They weren’t tunesmiths, Ian was, they were there to write the lyrics and put their Fantasy Football brand all over it, which is what they did. We went to shoot a video at an England training session. No one was interested. I got Frank and David and Ian into the [players’] lunch and someone got a boom box out and played the song to a not particularly excited reaction. The only players we could get after training were Teddy Sheringham, Steve Stone and Robbie Fowler. Frank and David got them to re-enact great moments from the past, and that was the video. We had 45 minutes. Nothing was set up to make this work. It really wasn’t easy. The song is brilliant. What is it about a song that really connects? Every little piece, from the tune, to the lyrics, the arrangement, the production – any one of those can let you down. With this, every single piece fitted and supported the other. Then there was the completely unknown surprise of public euphoria… Writer’s Notes Publishers: Chrysalis Writer: Ian Broudie, Frank Skinner, David Baddiel Release Date: 20.05.96 Record label: EpicTotal UK sales (OCC): 1,078,421 (1996 version)

Staying Power: Celebrating two decades of Raw Power Management

As Bring Me The Horizon chase another Top 10 result with the re-recorded Count Your Blessings album for its 20th anniversary, here's another chance to read our new interview with Raw Power Management, who are also marking two decades in business... Now 20 years into its existence, Raw Power Management has become a totem of the UK music industry. To celebrate this anniversary, Music Week joins founder Craig Jennings and newly appointed co-CEOs Matt Ash and Don Jenkins in New York to get the lowdown on their new era and talk Bring Me The Horizon, new talent and breaking beyond rock and metal for good… WORDS: JAMES HICKIEPHOTOS: ANDREW LIPOVSKY “The phrase I come back to is ‘evolution not revolution,’” says Craig Jennings of the changes he believes will fortify Raw Power Management, the company he founded in 2006. Jennings is in New York’s Lower East Side with Matt Ash and Don Jenkins, friends and colleagues for 18 years and 14 years, respectively. While Jenkins suggests “art is first and foremost” in Raw Power’s world, the trio’s mutual respect is high on the list of reasons behind the longevity of a company that today boasts many big-hitters (Bring Me The Horizon, Bullet For My Valentine, Don Broco), cult heroes (The Damned, At The Drive-In, The Mars Volta) and new acts (Jordan Adetunji, Heartworms) on its roster. Longevity, according to Ash, is also a strategic imperative in an industry shaped by long lead times. “It’s fundamentally built into everything we do,” explains Ash, as we retreat to a nearby bar to celebrate the company’s 20th anniversary. “I remember when I was in a band, signing a management deal for a five-year term sounded like a long time. But it’s not. So we’re planning at least two years in advance.” Jennings has had cause to reflect on how he wants to spend his time. He was diagnosed with advanced colorectal cancer in 2022, necessitating courses of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, as well as a 12-hour operation with a lengthy recovery period. When Bring Me The Horizon headlined Download Festival in 2023, the crowning achievement of a relationship dating back to 2008, Jennings was notably absent. With Jennings now in remission, the company’s two-decade anniversary presented a fitting time to promote Jenkins and Ash, formerly commercial director and US president respectively, to joint CEOs. “I don’t think I’ll ever retire,” says Jennings, who now serves as founder and executive chairman. “But it’s time to take a different role in terms of strategising the overall feel of the company and looking for new opportunities. Nothing will change for the artists, but it’s time for Matt and Don to take more of a leadership role.” “This is a natural progression, post-pandemic,” explains Ash, who joined in 2008. “I feel like myself and Don have taken on more responsibility for the running of the company and making decisions that affect its fundamental direction.” Jenkins agrees. “It’s a good time to create a new energy around the Raw Power leadership,” suggests the former commercial director. “This is a vocational job. My family has been brought up with me doing this, so it’s fantastic to get to this point.” “It’s a 110% job,” Jennings says of being a CEO in the music industry. “I’ve recovered incredibly well [from cancer], but I’ve probably got 100% in me now. I don’t want to travel as much as I used to, stuff like that. To use football parlance, these guys are the forwards and I’m the playmaker.” A diehard fan of Birmingham City Football Club, in the week me meet, Jennings’ focus shifted to basketball. Last night before our rendezvous was Game 6 of the NBA Eastern Conference playoffs between the New York Knicks and Atlanta Hawks. And if the Hawks had won, taking things to a seventh game decider, Bring Me The Horizon’s show at Madison Square Garden would have been pushed back from the following night, Saturday, to Sunday. Mercifully, the Knicks triumphed, so the show remained unmoved, which is lucky considering 54% of ticket sales came from states beyond New York and New Jersey and 4% came from outside the US entirely. That figure goes some way to illustrating Bring Me The Horizon’s international currency. The most vivid representation of this success is L.I.V.E. In São Paulo (Live Immersive Virtual Experiment). The concert film was recorded at BMTH’s sold-out show in front of 50,000 fans at São Paulo’s Allianz Parque, as part of their Nx_Gn Wrld Tour on November 30, 2024. It was shown in cinemas for a limited time in March this year, grossing $490,984 worldwide, before being released as an album. “Aside from the content of the live shows and the evolution of the music, [the band has] shown willingness to go and play territory after territory, year after year, and keep going back,” explains Ash, who manages the Sheffield band with a team of four. “One of the things that’s helped them achieve what they have globally is that, from their early stages, going back to the MySpace era, they had a fanbase there and waiting for them worldwide.” “We’ve been going to Brazil for a decade and a half,” continues Ash. “We’ve gone from small club tours with independent DIY metal promoters to mainstream stages with people who put on shows for the likes of The Killers and Shakira.” BMTH are therefore on course to make good on Ash’s pledge they’ll soon play stadiums worldwide, as made to Music Week in 2024, before ATC announced a majority investment in Raw Power in May that year. “We consider ourselves a stadium band in some markets already,” he says today. “I think in the second half of this decade, when we move into the next album cycle, whenever that happens to be, that’s going to be our goal in multiple territories. So it’s in the relatively near future.” A show at Madison Square Garden, one of the world’s most iconic venues, is a huge step towards that. Our weekend in New York, then, acts as a double celebration – of Raw Power’s biggest act playing a landmark show, and of the company’s 20th birthday. The latter is marked with dinner the night before BMTH’s gig, with the staff of 17 flying in from various corners of the globe. Among them is Dan Brown, who’s been at Raw Power for 11 years and became head of A&R in early 2025. The company’s showcase at The Great Escape in May included London rockers Tooth (Brown’s first acquisition in his new role) as well as alt-rockers Lady Of Mars and Heartworms, the solo project of Jojo Orme. There are also representatives from Raw Power’s operations in Japan and Australia around the dinner table. Dominic Durham, a Mancunian emigre to Melbourne and part of Brown’s team, has been working with Maple’s Pet Dinosaur, the artistic name of 15-year-old Maple Johns, whose debut single, Lego, went viral thanks to its innovative video filmed on a Ring doorbell. “It’s quite a leap of faith to sign someone who’s 15,” suggests Jenkins at dinner, as colourful seafood dishes pass back and forth. “But she’s mining this Beastie Boys-meets-Deftones sound, with serious hooks and a brilliant voice.” There’s much to be excited about for Raw Power, then, now and in the future. But there are challenges, too, as the gregarious trio of Jennings, Jenkins and Ash reveal. But first, Jennings has a clarification on one of the more contentious points from his previous Music Week interview… In our last interview, Craig, you told us, “Labels used to be the kings, they would run the business, and I think managers run the business now”. Do you stand by that argument? Craig Jennings: “I would qualify that, actually, as that was made into a big thing at the time. The labels will have a big part to play. Our relationship with our labels is incredible, especially with Sony on Bring Me The Horizon. Me and Matt have a meeting with the UK company in a couple of days, with 30 people in the room talking about the next level for Horizon – that is something very special. We also have an incredible relationship with Spinefarm on Bullet For My Valentine. What I was trying to say is that there’s much more responsibility now on the managers. Years ago, everyone had their jobs. The record company did their job. The publisher did their job. The manager did their job. It feels like management now has to do so much more to help run stuff. With us having our own marketing, our own digital, our own A&R, we’re actually acting like a record company in our own way, but from a management perspective. It feels a lot of the time that, if we don’t drive stuff, it doesn’t happen, especially on the early development of an act.” You also hinted that, in the wake of the ATC merger, “opportunities are going to come that are going to make everything better”. Has that materialised, and in what ways? CJ: “We’ve consolidated our businesses together and we have a fantastic relationship. I wouldn’t say there’s been anything that’s come through that’s been game-changing yet, but we’re continuing to look for opportunities. We’ve gone into a public company, which ATC is, and we’ve wanted to maintain our own identity, while also being a team player. I think that we’ve done both.” Don Jenkins: “In terms of operations and all of the creative stuff, post-ATC, that’s still very much between us, and we’re sailing our own ship in that respect. I think being able to preserve our own distinct identity and ethos inside a group of companies, and bring a different flavour to the mix, is great for us, and great for them as well.” Do you think we will see more mergers and expansions among independent management companies? CJ: “It’s about finding the right partnerships. I was part of Sanctuary for a few years, which was a 360 model – X-Ray was the agency side, for example – and that all kind of collapsed. The actual idea was good. Raw Power would probably be a lot bigger if I was more selfish, to be honest, but I’m always thinking about what’s right for the artist, so I’m trying to find a model that’s right. I was very keen for us to merge with ATC, which was something a lot of people didn’t see coming. One of the reasons to do it was to open new horizons for us, if you’ll pardon the pun, and different opportunities that’ll come from working with different people.” DJ: “I don’t think there’s ever going to be a one-size-fits-all for management, because given its entrepreneurial basis, you often start very small. When you’re an individual manager, looking after your roster becomes a bit of a weight because of the amount of workflow, because you have limited bandwidth, no matter who you are. What a company like Raw Power can do, very straightforwardly, is not just offer mentorship and structure, but also nuts-and-bolts stuff, because looking after how your business runs can be a bit of a drain to creative, entrepreneurial people.” Corduroy Artists founder Chris Dempsey recently mentioned the idea of management companies adding merch, digital and brand work to their offerings. Are you thinking about any of these things? DJ: “My immediate observation is that this is something the ATC Group is doing in real time, right now, because Raw Power isn’t the only management company that they’ve invested in and partnered with. And under that corporate umbrella, there is merch with Sandbag, promotions with Joy [Entertainment Group]. There’s obviously a live agency in Roam, run by Alex Bruford, which is doing incredibly well. I think they’re a living example of this all happening. But let’s be honest, if you wind the clock back 25 years, you had Sanctuary Music, which was also management, a record company, publishing, merchandise company and live agency, so this isn’t a new idea. Having that type of structure is really interesting, though, and it is something we’ll lean into further in the future. Raw Power has long been associated with rock music, but to what extent is the word ‘rock’ relevant now in terms of genre? Is there anything you wouldn’t sign based on sound? Matt Ash: “No, we’re open to anything. I don’t think anybody at Raw Power has ever considered rock as on-trend or not on-trend. We manage the artists that we manage, and a lot of them do fall under the rock category, but some of them don’t. It’s not really a fundamental thing that affects us one way or the other. Are Bring Me The Horizon a rock band? Yes. Are Bullet For My Valentine a rock band? Yes. Are Heartworms a rock band? Yes. But they’re all very different entities operating under the word ‘rock’. We have a new band from America called Voilà, an LA-based alt-pop act that could not be more different sounding to Heartworms, Tooth, or The Dark, another metal act we’ve just taken on. We’ve got a broad range of developing artists, which keeps it exciting.” Skindred recently scored a No.1 album, which was welcomed by the rock community. Do you think the scene still needs to celebrate itself like this? CJ: “I don’t feel like we need to be cheerleaders for any particular scene, if I’m honest. I would never want to be personally restricted by any sort of scene or genre. But of course, when you see Skindred getting a No.1 record, yeah, it’s great, but I don’t feel we’re necessarily part of a big gang. I think all of our artists consider themselves in their own lane, and we want to manage our artists individually.” The discourse around Geese has been another big story in alternative music this year. What did you make of that situation? DJ: “All of that’s marketing – and marketing is a massive challenge. So if Geese’s team found a way of making that work that was unusual and different, that’s good on them. What we’re talking about here is the use of various burner and fan accounts on platforms like TikTok and Instagram to increase the amount of coverage and, seemingly, engagement with an act. But the reality is that’s probably happened with 500 acts in the past 12 months, of which the only one that anyone’s associating this with is Geese. Why were Geese successful? The answer is because Getting Killed is a fucking brilliant album. So long as great music comes through and great bands come through, then who cares?” Bringing it back to Raw Power, what are you looking for in new hires to the team? DJ: “First and foremost, we’re looking for young, independent, hungry managers with great ears and a lot of ambition and drive. And while I appreciate that might seem a pretty stock answer, someone needs to have those things at the very least. In this new era we’re launching now, we haven’t actually had a situation where we’ve had someone come in with an act or a set roster, though it’s something we’ve previously done before. When Stuart Gili-Ross, our VP in Los Angeles, joined more than 10 years ago, he came on board with [UK alt-rockers] Mallory Knox.” CJ: “I see myself, more than ever, as a mentor to new managers. I think with a lot of great managers, it’s born out of instinct. You can do all the college or university courses in the world, but it won’t give you that instinct. I want to find people who have got the same passion and are willing to think longer term and see that things aren’t going to happen overnight. Managers are so important to an artist – we’re always there at the start, and we’re always there at the end. We’re confidants, we offer courage, and sometimes we have to get involved in the horrible shit. I’m excited to be bringing new managers into Raw Power that share our vision. And if things happen quickly, great; but if they don’t, then don’t give up.” And in terms of your roster, Bring Me The Horizon are releasing a re-recorded version of their 2006 debut Count Your Blessings this summer, as well as playing it in full as part of Outbreak Festival. What kind of commercial opportunities does this open up? MA: “The commercial opportunities of Count Your Blessings as an album that represents a [specific] time in their career are probably quite limited because it’s quite extreme metal music. However, at the band’s show in Montreal this year, there was a fan standing at the front, holding up a banner that read, ‘I aged. Your music stayed.’ One thing that the band has never done is lean into their history. They’ve always been such a forward-thinking band, evolving with every single record. But it felt like the right time to do something like this. It sounds incredible compared to how it did. The in-joke in our camp now is, wouldn’t it be amazing if we can somehow get Count Your Blessings to chart in the Top 10? Perhaps on the week of release, when we play the show...?” Beyond the reissue, what stage are the band at with new material? MA: “Oli [Sykes, singer] and the whole band are never not creating music, so there’s a constant desire to make new projects happen. They’re working on new music now, literally, as we speak. The Count Your Blessings thing will be a moment in time that happens this summer, then after that they’ll be concentrating on the next thing. To be honest, there are probably multiple projects that Oli and the rest of the band could be working on at any one time, because there’s so much creativity flowing around.” With all that creativity brewing, how do you as a manager keep on top of it? MA: “It’s a lot of work! We’re lucky that we have a great label that supports us as well. Our team at Sony is amazing, and they always back whatever project we do. So, luckily, we have a number of people we can work with to help us fulfil those things. But sometimes you just have to sit down and work out what the plan is, going from project to project, because it’s easy to trip yourself up. We’d never say to the band there’s something they can’t do – it’s more a case of, ‘If we’re going to do this, we should do this bit then, and the other bit later.’ That’s a fundamental part of what we do as managers: helping the artist organise their workflow.” Can you divulge any details about new material from some of the other acts on the roster? DJ: “The Bullet guys are in the studio right now, making their eighth album. We’ve heard some of the tracks on it, which are sounding absolutely killer. So we’re in the midst of putting a campaign together for that, which will be taking up a lot of my time in 2027 and beyond. We’ve obviously just had a fantastic campaign for the latest Don Broco record [Nightmare Tripping], with them touring the UK in the autumn and then the US with Beartooth later in the year. And Jordan Adetunji is in the studio at the moment. He’s in a new deal with 300 [Entertainment] and Warners, so he’s working on new tracks. He obviously had an amazing breakout with [2024 hit] Kehlani.” How much of a challenge is touring for you and your acts now? How do you navigate keeping ticket prices low so everyone can see your biggest bands at one end, with trying to ensure newer acts get the exposure they need at the other? CJ: “It’s a balance. I was listening to TalkSport the other day and they were talking about the prices of Ryder Cup tickets. [Former Crystal Palace chairman] Simon Jordan, who’s a free enterprise guy, was on there saying it’s about supply and demand. Well, not really. I’m hearing that the cheapest tickets to the [football] World Cup, to watch Iran vs New Zealand, cost hundreds of pounds. With all due respect, who the fuck is paying that? With prices like that, you’re going to end up with these football tourists watching the matches, because they’ve got more money than anyone else, while real fans aren’t there and you don’t have the right atmosphere. Coming back to the music side of things, we will always be trying to give value for money. But if I’ve got a band playing a pub with no production, I’m not going to charge the same price for an arena show.” DJ: “The live business is thriving at the top end, so the challenges are just related to the scale of what you’re doing, logistically. Commercially, it’s very sad indeed and the challenges are tied to tour funding at a lower level. Brexit really fucked up Europe for us, as did the pandemic, with increased costs for every part of the tour in the supply chain since then. We used to be an open market, so dealing with withholding tax was pretty straightforward, but now it’s an absolute nightmare. If you want to go and tour in Germany, for example, you’ve got withholding tax held on the gross amount you’re being paid, not the net amount. It’s also difficult getting paid in France and Italy – it can be really slow because you need A1 paperwork. It’s a whole new level of bureaucracy that’s created all kinds of unnecessary headaches.” Lastly, do you have a message for the industry from Raw Power? MA: “At this point, we’re enjoying opening up conversations with other managers about partnering up, joining what we’ve established to make everyone collectively stronger. And we’re going to be making more additions to the company as we go forward.” CJ: “As I said earlier, it’s the ‘evolution not revolution’ situation. When you’re at the top of your game, which we fundamentally are, having built it on bricks and mortar rather than sand, then we’re ready to go to that next level. I’m not looking at the 20 years we’ve done and thinking, ‘We’ve made it’ – I feel this is the start of another push to go bigger and better. All I know is that we do things in what we think is the right way and, going forward with Don and Matt as joint CEOs, that’s exactly what we’re going to keep doing. We will keep believing in our artists and doing our thing in the best way we can, always putting our artists first in every single way, fighting the hardest we can. I think Raw Power stands out a little bit, and what we’ve done in the last five years in particular has put us even more out there, in terms of having a roster of the kind that has never existed in a heavy metal management company. We’ve got all sorts of things happening under one roof that are all brilliant, but are all different. And I think that’s incredible.”