Right, something special this week. A world exclusive interview with Magnum. Mercurial and ironic at the same time, we interviewed them via a long email exchange over many weeks to find out what makes them tick. If you don’t know who Magnum are, they are currently doing a Successful Conference World Tour and more details can be found on their LinkedIn. Read away below…
LS: There are few things on my mind to somehow kick this interview off. Maybe many questions that somehow form one identity, plus I don't really want to continue to go back and forth. Like we agreed over Instagram, let's keep it to four rounds max. (And to be honest, this is kind of inspired by those interviews you read where they continue it over email but instead we are starting, continuing and ending it over email.)
South Manchester, Liverpool, and Barcelona. Two port cities and one artificial port via the Salford Dock, which is now Media City. What's gone on there, where's the link? This ask comes from knowing the stories seem to be very much rooted in the folklores of the North-West, or more tales of a generation, for which I think there are few artists doing something similar. My old workplace colleague Tom Fish was a little obsessed with Michael Barrymore last year, and we all want to save The Albert's of NW cities.
Magnum: Without giving away too much paid content, these three cities are the secret to Magnum’s success. Import, export, visualise your dreams in full screen. We never went looking to be the next big thing in the motivation game but Liverpool and Manchester gave us students before we knew we were teachers. Then old lady fate dipped her hand in the till and Barcelona turned out to be our Ted Talk. Think of the Albert as a car and I’m the driving instructor, these fellas wanted the secret to success and I’m telling their stories on the world stage to help you help yourself.
LS: The success of The Albert doesn't feel very LinkedIn. The Albert seems to be like what Scott King is doing at the minute. He published a work this year basically saying you should fail. Get things wrong. In parts of academia there is similar thought about generally working less and breaking things on purpose at work. Without revealing anymore secrets, who is your success tour for and does any of the above correlate?
Magnum: We were in the Albert long before we had the LinkedIn presence we have these days. It’s where we learnt the trade. The amount of rags to riches stories that have come out of that place off our backs is shocking. It was only after, when we clocked our talent, that we got onto LinkedIn and the wider world. We’ve been all over on this tour and I’ll tell you it’s for everyone, there’s not one city we’ve stopped off at where punters don’t want us to tell them how to succeed. Correlate? You tell me. One of our students from the Albert days was Hawaii Tom. He was on the bones of his arse until me and Dr. Da Costa advised him to get into the pub game. The fella started at the bottom, bought himself a grass skirt and started handing out lighters on Withington High Street doing promo for pubs. No idea where he is now but no doubt he’s flying.
He wouldn’t be there now if he wasn’t broken and came to us for fixing. You might be onto something, I wouldn’t know, I do it all by feeling.
LS: That's interesting. The Albert as the riches. The pinnacle. That's kind of it. I've been doing a lot of bottomless brunches recently and I'm really getting into them. Start in Didsbury, end up in The Albert. Add me on LinkedIn, add me on LinkedIn – it's what bottomless brunches are about. I've never met Tom. Losing track of stories here, have I mentioned the Old Trafford Conservative Club on Seymour Grove? Did a bit of filming in there during the day and we ended up staying for the night. Pints of Carling £2.50. Pictures of Lady Di and The Queen on the wall, loads of Man Utd memorabilia. I highly recommend it if you do something in Manchester again. It has a stage and stuff too.
I've noticed food seems to be a big feature in the idea of being successful. Grilled prawns. Monster Munch. Ribs. Shots of something. Cans of lager. In my head when seeing that, a voice was saying 'Sopranos, Sopranos, Sopranos.' Do you want to elaborate on that?
Big, big feature in the success game, yeah. I met my Success Technician, Alvaro Da Costa, in one of my restaurants, a chain that I called after myself, El Rey de la Gamba. It’s one of life’s mysteries really but food’s always in the mix. I’ll find myself having a pint in bed and suddenly I’m inspired. You just can’t explain it. Any similarities to the Sopranos is purely coincidental.
LS: Glenn Marigil reviewed El Rey de la Gamba on Google with the following:
Shameful. Try everything else but stay away from this place. Menu is written in 20 languages, touristic place serving only frozen food (bread, vegetables, tapas...). Not a single fresh product and pretty high prices for Barcelona.
Your lads responded:
Frozen bread? Frozen vegetables? Frozen tapas? Menu in 20 languages? I sincerely believe that you have not been to El Rey de la Gamba.
This doesn't look good does it or does it?
Magnum: I know Glenn personally and he’s a fucking liar. He can’t even walk in front of El Rey de la Gamba without getting kecked so I don’t know how he’s managed to review us. A classic smear campaign, don’t pay him any notice. The lads were dead right, I too sincerely believe that he has not been to El Rey de la Gamba. You’ll have to come. How can tapas not be fresh if you’ve got crabs swimming round in aquariums? Embarrassing for him that. It can only be good for us that, I wouldn’t worry, we’re the top dogs on the Barceloneta strip, Glenn winging won’t change that.
LS: Would love to come. Pencil it in the diary. Sounds good, crabs. Do you guys eat octopus? It would be good, on the tour, to spread the message not to do so. They're wonderful creatures.
Crabs, octopus, the works mate. We typically eat crabs when we’re teaching the Magnum Method as they’re an aphrodisiac. They’re all wonderful creatures, you’ll see when you come, El Rey de la Gamba is like the Garden of Eden. You wanna see our Plato del Rey, it’s got all sorts on it, comes with a litre of our fresh squeezed sangria as well for 42 euros. Well worth the investment.
LS: Andy O'Brian. The ex-Virgin Atlantic Global Sales Manager. Who is, and I quote, 'A commercially driven and creative Sales & Business Development Manager working in the travel and aviation industry. [Who] thrives on challenges, providing solutions and achieving results with an ability to lead and direct at all levels. [He focuses] on the detail in any project ensuring the best outcome.' How did he get involved?
I don’t want to overstate this but you can attribute all that to us. Listen, Andy is our best student and it’ll be difficult to knock him off his perch. He first came onto my radar when I heard his name being screamed out of a loudspeaker that was strapped to the roof of a van going round South Manchester. Turns out Andy was the neighbourhood Romeo and it was only a matter of time before someone took to the streets to hunt him down. I pride myself on scouting talent so I found Andy before one of his enemies did and we took him under our wing. His story really motivates the punters in our success conferences.
LS: South Manchester and Andy O'Brian. Withington itself is a version of South Manchester. A co-op of Fallowfield and Didsbury with a co-op. When pitching this interview to you about the Success Tour, we mentioned Gibraltar. Is Withington trying to be Gibraltar or the other way?
Magnum: Gibraltar is where Magnum HQ is based just because it makes complete sense. The British / Spic make up of Magnum can be seen on the streets of Gibraltar with a flaming hot paella plated up next to a red post box. It’s a dream come true really. Given the worldwide nature of Magnum’s Success World Tour, setting up shop on the gates to the Mediterranean suits us nicely. We can keep an eye on things and shoot off when the mood takes. It’s a natural progression. We cut our teeth in Withington and expanded to Gibraltar, it’s a tried and tested method. We won’t miss a trick sat here. There’s the cultural perks too, bacon and eggs and a pint for breakkie in a roasting hot pub. Plenty of tarts n all.
LS: Yeah, Gibraltar is an odd place. Like a Truman Show, maybe Andy O'Brian is part of your own Truman Show set in Gibraltar. In all seriousness though, what's the art scene like in Gibraltar? It seems like a good place to have Documenta, maybe could make that happen.
Gibraltar is a touch of class so naturally, the art scene is top of the range. You’d be surprised the amount of artists that come to us for the method. Success knows no discipline mate. I will say that we are in part to blame for the success of the art scene, a lot of the big players have passed through our doors. We can organise whatever you want, send us a message on LinkedIn and we’ll do the rest, there’s no such thing as a can’t do attitude in ours.
LS: What does your business card look like? Recently went to Freud's house and his was on display. It's pre-Brett Ellis. Pure success...
I know what you’re driving at here but I’ll tell you right now you’re heading in the wrong direction. You want them fully laminated, loads of overlap on the plastic so they’re completely waterproof. Freud’s is nice and that but imagine pulling that out of a damp pocket at the end of the day. Then imagine pulling out ours. World’s apart mate. Freud’s has disintegrated and Magnum’s is as crisp as the day it was printed. There really is no comparison, we’ve got the job and he hasn’t. I shouldn’t really be telling you that one for free either but there you go.
LS: You laminate your business cards to make them last longer. That's part of the many words of wisdom to be found in this interview. We've covered a lot of ground here, what would you like the future to hold? And remember, when flipping a coin, you can not 100% confirm whether the coin will be heads or tails. It is impossible to truly know what the outcome will actually be.
You’re right on the coins there. Old lady luck tends to leave nothing to chance for us. Our future is very simple. We help people. We’re going to be going round the world selling success for a good few years to come, there’s no signs of us slowing down. The momentum we’ve got at the minute is incredible and you won’t find us wasting it. I suppose really what we’ll end up doing is selling the most recent updates of the method to a few trusted generals who’ll then each sell it on to some of their mates and on it goes. We’ll have new updates for the method every week or so so it’ll be sound. It’s a labour of love.
LS: And before we finish, the name: Magnum. There's a small powerful drink called Magnum. It's a tonic wine. Seen a lot of cats drinking it. A dude in an offy down here told me not to touch it and as it makes your head spin. Words of wisdom. Is the name inspired by that or Magnum PI or Magnum the ice creams?
We’ve just seen that wine ourselves mate, you’ll find a lot of people using our name, we don’t mind, we haven’t copyrighted it or nothing, as long as the word gets out you wont find us moaning. At the end of the day inspiration is a circle so you could never really say for certain whether Magnum PI, the ice creams, the guns, the johnnies, Alexander the Great et cetera have inspired us or we’ve inspired them, one of life’s mysteries, we’re just happy to carry the torch.
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