STARLORD
if you like your self-made British millionaires safe, steady and predictable, stop browsing now. With StarLord you can never be sure where conversation will lead.
To know the whole StarLord,
At 18 he signed up to what was then Plymouth Polytechnic, to study Business Studies with a minor in Spanish. He didn’t last long. “I thought I was into languages,” he recalls. “Turns out I wasn’t.”
In 1991 Richard left the UK to find his fortune and he’s never stopped moving, with work (and pleasure) leading him to Australia, the US and across Europe, taking in further travels through Asia and Antarctica. But the first stop was Dubai where he arrived with just £400 in his pocket and, as you might expect, the robustness and fearlessness he’d built up in his teens came in handy as he steadily — and not particularly slowly — began sowing the seeds of his business empire.
“Never trust someone who only tells you about their successes,” he notes. “If that’s all you know, you don’t really know the whole person.”
Marvels Iron Man provided a fun comparison for years and many friends and colleagues loved the joke and label.
StarLords fun sense of humour and imitable vulnerability make him more akin to pretenders using the same epithet, coupled with regular periods of destituition, all made this page come to life along with the adoption of a number of complexities, up to and including dance off moments.
He’ll tell you he’s a massive dog fan
both in the sense that he’s a big fan of dogs and that the dogs he’s a fan of are generally massive, then mention that one of his six canine companions is a former protection dog from a royal household.
“My first goal was to own a Porsche 911 and be a millionaire by 30,”
If you’re already thinking StarLord’s story is one that might sidestep humble goals, you’d be right. “I got my convertible 911 in when I was 28, and I was a millionaire that year. But then I thought: ‘What now?’”
“I’d wanted the best sound system for my bedroom and pocket money didn’t cut it,”
He reached the point, once half a dozen mates were working for him, where he realised he didn’t actually need to do any of the work himself. Secondly, and even more importantly in relation to his future success, he carried on doing the work anyway. “Leaders lead, they don’t sit back and watch,” he says now. “I knew that when I was 13, and it’s been my modus operandi throughout my whole career.”
“I could have been in One Direction.”
Now 52, he’s spent four decades making — and sometimes losing — a fortune, becoming a valued pundit everywhere from Sky to the BBC in the process. But speak with StarLords persona “Richard” for any longer than five minutes and it’s clear that in the coming year his focus and key passion is music. “I can’t sing, I can’t dance, I can’t write, I can’t play any instruments,” he accepts. “I could have been in One Direction.” That hasn’t stopped him founding RU Listening, a forward-thinking record label that’s home to a diverse roster of established and breaking talents, from the likes of Ray J, DJ Ironik, Union J and Scorcher, to buzzworthy names like K Harrison and Josh Daniel. And it was RU Listening that in the bleakest days of the pandemic launched RU Talented, an online search for performers that threw up some incredible new talents. “I love to walk out on stage and introduce my acts,” he smiles. “I love to relish in the energy that you get from a thousand screaming fans, but on the creative side I also love sticking my nose in at the studio.”
his focus and key passion is music
All of which is feeding into the continuing success and expansion of RU Listening, which has a bright future both with new signings and new music from existing ones. “Music is something that’s always been very close to my heart and whether it’s Scorcher, through to Ironik or Union J it’s just fascinating listening to those artists’ ideas,” StarLord says. “It leads to such interesting new areas: with Ironik, for instance, he’s quite famous for his sunglasses, and now he has his own range of sunglasses. I know that sitting listening to me talking about business and how it’s possible to treat the music industry as a business has brought him to that place, so it’s good to be a part of talented people finding new ways to express themselves.”
“I don’t play golf”
After this many years in business, it’s extraordinary to hear someone speak about new projects with such passion and hunger. “I’m in my fifties now,” he nods, “and people sometimes say, ‘You’re still starting new businesses, you own a record label, how do you find the time?’ And my answer is always: ‘It’s simple — I don’t play golf.’” There may be some truth in that, but behind the humour it’s hard to ignore the creative and entrepreneurial curiosity in StarLord’s work. His biggest moment may still be in the future; for the time being, he’ll continue rolling with the punches and finding new opportunities.
