Bruce Almighty

Bruce Allen has parlayed success managing some of rock's biggest stars into a second career as a self-proclaimed "voice of the people."

By Chris Smith

BRUCE ALLEN IS AN ALIEN, or so some mysterious graffiti artist would have you believe. Behind the towering wrought-iron gates that demarcate his office parking lot (resembling a prison yard for wayward sports cars), Allen’s sleek black Corvette rests in its designated space by the front door, a “Reserved for Bruce Allen Talent” sign near its bumper. A clever bandit has carefully marked a line through the second “l”—changing it to an “i”—insinuating that even though Bruce “Alien” is not of this earth, he somehow warrants the best space on the lot.

What manner of alien Bruce might be would depend on whom you ask. Those who have suffered his temper might see him as the acid-drooling bane of Sigourney Weaver’s space adventures (or perhaps the Predator—smart, calculating and able to dispatch his enemies at will). His friends may compare him to Chewbacca—a loveable and misunderstood Wookie of a man. No one would confuse him with outer space’s less threatening characters—a passionless Vulcan, for instance, or the lovable and needy E.T.

If anyone, Allen resembles two of science fiction’s prototypical space prophets: David Bowie’s charismatic spaceman Ziggy Stardust and the protagonist from Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, Valentine Michael Smith. Like Ziggy and Valentine, Bruce is an instigator, a firebrand, a troublemaker of the highest order, hell-bent on converting the masses for their own salvation. Allen believes that his perspective is what everyone else sees when they squint just enough to make out the truth of things. “The things I tee off on, this is what everybody thinks,” he claims over tea at his comfortable False Creek penthouse. “I believe I’m just an average guy. When I go to a hockey game I like to watch the game. I don’t buy club seats. I don’t have a box. I like sitting with the fans because I think that’s who’s really watching the game. If I am going to talk to somebody, I don’t want to talk to a banker telling me about a deal he’s got going, I want to watch the fucking game.”

It’s been 20 years since Vancouver mayor Mike Harcourt declared February 4, 1986, “Bruce Allen Day.” But unlike Rubik’s cube, clear sodas and parachute pants, Allen survived the ’80s intact and relevant, a permanent media fixture in the city he has always called home.
Growing up in Dunbar, Allen was 12 when he lost his father, a deep sea engineer. With his large frame and aggressive personality, Allen was driven to secure his place at the head of the pack. “I didn’t have a male role model,” he has said. “That kind of motivated me…from the start I felt very cheated. I thought I was one down, so I thought I would always have to work harder than everybody else to succeed.”

Initially Allen imagined becoming a union boss like Jimmy Hoffa, a dream fuelled by an after-school job at a Burnaby truck assembly plant and a major in labour relations at UBC. But his love of music—particularly Elvis Presley, whose movie posters take up so much wall space in his apartment one might assume they are load-bearing design features—prompted him to begin booking small acts in local clubs in the late 1960s. Within a decade he was a dominant musical force, exclusively booking 17 nightclubs in Vancouver and managing one of the 1970s’ biggest acts, Bachman-Turner Overdrive. His success with BTO was repeated the following decade with the Toronto power-pop band Loverboy and a young Ontario artist named Bryan Adams, an unknown songwriter Allen took from obscurity to worldwide fame—all on a handshake.

Despite the viciousness of the music industry, Allen works without contracts. “What’s a contract gonna do?” he asks. “Enforce a bad relationship?” One key element of the success of Allen’s roster is that he won’t take on an artist that can’t match his commitment. “I believe in myself,” he says. “No one will outwork me. No one. One thing I’ve tried to instill in my kids, you gotta have passion for what you do. When that passion’s gone, you’re finished.” Although he’s ventured into other territory over the years—representing a professional wrestler, a NASCAR driver and an Olympic boxer—he’s since returned to concentrate on the music industry, currently representing Adams, Canadian legend Anne Murray, record producer Bob Rock, Nashville star Martina McBride and his newest success, Michael Bublé.

Allen believes in touring. After 25 years together, he’ll still often accompany Adams on tours—completely unnecessary, but emblematic of his devotion to his artists as well as his professional commitment to staying at the centre of the game. “Adams has not been off the road for four and a half years,” he says. “Last week we were in fucking Serbia. Serbia and Slovakia. Where the fuck are those places? We’re going to South America. We’ve been through Guatemala, we’ve been through Venezuela this year. We’ve been to the Far East, the Middle East, we were the first people in Vietnam. That’s what music is. Music is a universal thing that opens the door for people. Who’s in fucking Pakistan? Adams. We’re there. They haven’t had an act in 30 years. It’s him, and they all sing. What a tribute to an artist.” (You can measure Allen’s passion by the number of swear words he uses per sentence—the more excited he is, the less likely you will see him on the Disney Channel.)

Allen sees tour success as a measure of the health of the entire industry. Unfortunately, the prognosis is not good—according to Billboard, most top-grossing tours in 2006 were by acts at least a decade past their prime, with the Stones, Madonna, Bon Jovi and U2 leading the pack. “Somebody told me they went to the Rolling Stones concert and they were shocked by how many people walked to their seats holding their tickets far away from their eyes so they could see,” says Allen. “So my fear is that we have this strata of artists that are selling tickets—from the Stones down to Aerosmith—that are of a generation. Where’s the next generation gonna go? What are they gonna see? Is my daughter gonna wait until Justin Timberlake comes around and take her kid? I don’t think we’re gonna see it. Where a lot of people took their sons and daughters to see the Rolling Stones. How long are these acts gonna keep moving, keep going? They can’t keep lowering the keys so they can hit the notes.”

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