music industry

This interview was conducted by Felix / Final Prayer for their band-blog in July 2010. Infact Felix and me got discussed over topics such as indepentend labels, diy-ethic and the music business in general quite often. His questions were quite challenging and very direct, which makes the interview a very good one. read for yourself…

When was the first time you heard about FP and what was the occasion?

I heard about FP the first time, when their bassist Felix told me that he had started a new band. I’ve known him for ages, dating back to his first band DISRESPECT, and remember being kinda surprised that hey decided to play in a “tough” band again. His former project “Battle Royal” went in a completely different direction. I never got a hold of the 1st demotape Final Prayer released so I guess the first actual song I heard was “Every Man My Enemy” from their split with CRISIS NEVER ENDS. I remember that I didn’t like the vocals too much in the beginning but was blown away by the plain heaviness this song carried and still does.

Why did you ’sign’ FP and what were your expectations concerning the release?

For years I had a policy with Let it Burn Records of only working with people I personally know and trust. So I guess what gained my interest in the first place was, that I knew Felix was a reliable and dedicated person it would be great to work with. However it’s easy to figure out that I cannot sign every friend’s band simply because I like them (well, some labels do, Let it Burn doesn’t). So it was a 4-song demo-CDR with pre-recordings of “Right Here Right Now” that made the decision very easy. This was by far the best european “heavy hardcore” I had heard in ages. I also liked their approach of adding socio-political lyrics since at that time the only topics tough bands sang about were friendship, loyalty and trust (Today it’s more about Booze, Bitches and Pimpcars, which is even worse hahaha!). I didn’t have too many expectations right form the start, in fact I never do when putting out a “first album” by a band. I just released it and did my best to let everyone know about it.

Sometimes bands make huge steps between their demo and their first album which can be perceived as a change of style, break with their past etc. Did you think about anything like that before FP entered the studio? Is there something concerning ‘right here, right now’ that you would have done differently if you would have been in the band at that time?

I know exactly what you are talking about and to be honest, I already had some hard times with bands changing their style drastically between every release. However, in the case of Final Prayer I didn’t have any concerns like this. On the one hand because of their music-style. If you play tough, metallic hardcore there’s not too much room for experiments. Sure, you can become a little more metal or write a bunch of faster, more hardcore-like tracks but the core of the music stays the same. On the other hand I quickly found out that everyone in FP loves what they were doing. They were (and surely are) 100% into it and I never saw any signs of “Oh, let’s try to be real musicians and do something totally crazy like… jazz!!!” or anything like that.
As far as their debut album “Right Here Right Now” is concerned: No, I would not have done anything differently. This is the perfect hardcore album and I love everything about it. I love the songs, the sound, the artwork, the length, the spirit, simply everything. There are not too many records I would say the same about, so this means a lot. Definitely among the top3 albums I ever released on Let it Burn. I would have had a few “suggestions” for their follow-up album “Filling The Void” but “fortunately” I was not the one to release it, hahaha

If I remember correctly you signed FP without having the chance to see the band live first. Would you do something like that again? Did you feel like you were being thrown in at the deep end?

Usually we do not sign bands without having seen them live. It’s simply an insurance that the band has a future at all. If a band sucks on stage they have exactly 1 year to improve, if they do not manage to do so, they are basically dead. Hardcore music lives from raw energy and power, something you can only experience to 100% at a show. However I had a good feeling about Final Prayer’s live abilities. DISRESPECT was an amazing live band, the same with LIFEFORCE. It was kind of a risk signing them without having checked them out live, but not a big one and in the end Final Prayer proved to be among the best live acts in our roster.

‘Right here,right now’ has been release some time ago now. From a label perspective what has changed since then? Would you release the record to the same conditions again?

I guess me and Felix could spend nights and nights discussing this topic, hahaha! You can actually get an impression at www.blog.letitburn.de. Well, to cut it short: A LOT of things have changed since then and today it’s simply not possible anymore to release a record to the same conditions. I always try to make the best offers possible but the financial risk has grown constantly mainly due to the fact that record sales (except for the ones at bands’ merch-tables) have constantly decreased. You can easily tell from the amount of labels who quit over the last years, it has become almost impossible to break even with a record, not to speak of earning some money to cover the costs of an album that did not break even. I alway try not to sound winy over this topic so I won’t go into more details. I just hope that bands, promoters, fans, bookers, agencies AND labels become more aware of the fact that strategies, prognosises, prices, offers, deals, conditions, etc. that worked perfectly a couple of years ago do not work anymore these days. It’s time to rethink and reorganize.

If labels need to ‘re-organize’ as you say, in what way do they need to re-organize? Are digital releases the future? Likewise: can Cd’s considered to be an outdated medium? Or should a hardcore label like LIB go back to the roots and only do vinyl releases?

The cd IS an outdated medium, that’s out of the question. It is bulky, slow, has only 70 minutes of playtime, does not support multimedia and is way to expensive. Of course we do not have to automatically deny everything that is outdated but compared to vinyl (which has been outdated for decades now) the cd hardly has any nostalgic value. It’s a little bit comparable to VHS-videocassettes. No one would shed a tear, cramming out their old VHS-tapes and thinking of the good old days. Vinyl has a big advantage compared to the cd when it comes down to nostalgia and “emotional value”: it is not a “passage media”, as I would call it. The cd was crucial and necessary for the shift from the analog music-world to the digital, but this process has been completed years ago. To come to the point: Vinyl is old, it is vintage, it is a technological chapter of its own. The cd was only a means to an end. That’s why I believe the cd will sooner or later disappear completely. When that will be depends on the “next sound carrier” that comes along. Do you remember when the DVD came up? It took only a couple of month and all VHS-cassettes were completely banned from the stores. That’s a great example to see how quick such “shifts” can happen. However, since there’s no “next sound carrier” yet (at least no system that is mass-suitable enough) we will live with the compact disc as main sound-carrier for another couple of years, I guess.
Coming back to the question: Yes, I believe that labels should start preparing for the digital age. Digital record sales have increased constantly over the past years and if you look over the big sea to the US, they alredy have a good 40% of all record sales being bought digitally. That’s a good indicator where we’re gonna end up sooner or later, too. The other way to go is vinyl. Sounds weird, I know, but the nostalgia this media carries is deeply rooted within the hardcore-/punk-scene. Vinyl has a great standing among collectors and music-fans all over the world and the combination with free digital downloads of the music simply leaves not many arguments left why one should not buy vinyl. However vinyl still is a niche-thing. You can only reach a “hard core” of listeners which might be cool for a hardcore-hardcore band but any band that is willing and wanting to also address listeners outside of the scene will have to look for a label which also releases other formats.

This question might sound a bit rude, but why should ‘the kids’ actually care about all this? I suppose HC has been around before the crisis of the ‘music industry’ and will be around afterwards…

No worries, I am already used to “rude questions” when it comes down debating with Final Prayer over this topic Well, even though that hardcore-scene has moved quite a bit away from what I got to know back in the early 90s, I still believe that there is a great awareness for ecological, social and political procedures among hardcore kids, these days. So why should they care about the “music industry” at all? Because they can either become/stay a cue ball of the music industry or they can start making their own decisions. The time is perfect to tell labels, promoters, bands, etc. what YOU want instead of simply taking what they offer you. It’s a little bit like breaking into Troya with a great plan and then not giving a fuck about what’s gonna happen next. The fans and listeners have contributed a big part to the crisis of the music industry by using the internet as some kind of “everything for free”-store, which was a good and important thing in the beginning. But now is the time to sort out how we all want to handle the process of creating, releasing, promoting and selling music in the future. The chance for codetermination has never been as high as now, within the hardcore AND outside of it. Say how you want to access music, scream out if you think pricing-policies are ridiculous, laugh out loud a promo-campaigns and ads that would never make you buy a record and most of all: decide consciously how you purchase your music. Labels, bands and bookers will listen to you and go into it.
It’s tough for me to speak “for” those big major labels since I do not have enough information of what’s really going on in these companies. In addition to that it is not my point to defend their marketing- and pricing-strategies. I rather focus on mid-range and smaller labels since I have a deeper view and that’s also the environment of Let it Burn Records. I see a lot of labels searching for “things that work” and if it is adding digital booklets to iTunes downloads: they do it. If it’s offering pre-order deals (shirt + cd) for 15,00 euro instead of 25,00: they do it. If it’s focusing on a nice and meaningful artwork: they do it. So, to pick up my previous point, I see way more effort and willingness among labels to step towards their “customers” than ever before.

Isn’t it a bit far-fetched to assume that big corporations like Sony or Warner will all of sudden “care” about their customers. I mean companies always “care” about their customers insofar as they want them to buy their products in order to make money. But this does in no way necessarily mean that they’ll create products according to the demands of their customers. I mean now that vinyl is coming back, Sony and Warner start selling Lp’s for 20 Euros (instead of Cd’s) – that’s ridiculous from my point of view…

Well, you said it yourself, the do care about making money (or at least surviving) and thus their customers play a key role. Even though I agree with your sample (major label’s vinyl pricing is ridiculous) I am quite sure that the time of heedlessly exploiting customers are over. For 5-7 years there’s grown too much consciousness among fans and buyers. The “illegal download disaster” has shown both, the labels and the customers, who really is in power. Sure, labels (especially multi-million-dollar corporations like Sony or Warner) will always try to maximize their profits but the times of constantly overstepping the mark are over. The labels’ role has become less important – due to the social web there’s a way stronger direct link between the artist (by the way: it is the ARTIST who creates the product. The label just throws it into wrapping paper and puts a price sticker on it) and the fan than ever before and the labels know that.

And don’t you overestimate the ‘rationality’ of us customers in the first place. If you’d ask me what I want, I’d say make music free for all. Put everything up for free download. Art should be for everybody to enjoy, not only for those with enough money to buy it. How are you gonna turn this attitude into a new marketing strategy for independent labels?

One thing that hasn’t changed during the constant decline of CD sales is the average amount of money each customer spends on music in general. It’s easy math: If someone saves 12,00 Euro for not having to buy an album he/she will surely spend this money on a concert ticket and/or merchandise item The general purchasing power has not decreased at all, it’s simply channelled into a different direction. If independent labels now thoughtfully reorganize their marketing- and pricing-strategies they will surely regain their core business: selling music. By the way, I agree with you that art should be accessible for everybody to enjoy but I totally disagree that it should be offered for free, no matter what. Artistic value might not be something you can fully compensate with solely money but to a certain degree “paying” for art (especially when the production-process – studio, artwork, pressing, etc. – has caused expenses) is just a reasonable thing. So if people claim to get things, they impute a certain value to, “for free”, it’s highly contradictory, if you ask me.

Why the re-release of ‘right here, right now’? Simply to make some money without having to invest in studio budget, artwork etc.?

First of all: we DID invest in a beautiful new artwork hahaha The idea came up once the original “Right Here Right Now” album was sold out and it was about time to do a repress. Usually a repress below 1000 copies does not make much sense and my prognosis for selling another 1000 copies of “Right Here Right Now” was pretty bad. So we thought about making it a completely new release, with a new artwork and, most of all, with a new “value” for the fan, listener, buyer. We added some rare and unreleased demos, split-songs and compilation tracks, called it “Best of Times” and thus created an “early discography” that documented what Final Prayer had recorded up to “Filling the Void”. For the band it is a precious “time stamp”, for the kids it is “value for money”. We sell the CD for a really fair price and so far the feedback has been great!

How do you envisage the future of LIB rec.? It seems that some diy labels continue to operate rather well despite the ‘crisis’ that hit the music industry during the last decade, while others cease to exist. Where do you see the future of diy labels in the HC-Punk sector?

Well one of the basic ideas of a subculture is to stay functional far off what the mainstream does. So when the “music industry” suffers from a severe crisis it is still possible to run a small diy-record label, maybe even easier. However, as soon as you’re among the – let’s call it – ’semi-professional’ labels you’re kinda “playing with the big ones” and also suffer among the same preconditions as they do. It’s easy to say: “well, why not break everything down to DIY-level then” but the things that “semi-professional” bands (same prescription here) such as Final Prayer, Teamkiller, Zero Mentality, To Kill, etc. expect from their label, may it be concerning promotion, distribution, reliability or simply general label-business, is far off DIY-level. And to be quite honest: I love the “level” Let it Burn Records is on. It is something that can be taken seriously but at the same time it is not something that can financially break my neck since I also have a “real” job.
So coming back to the question where I see the future of diy-labels: I think the process we have witnessed over the past 5-6 years will continue, maybe even accelerate. That means the smaller labels will focus even more on low-level, diehard-DIY bands/releases (limited vinyl pressings, etc.) and the big labels will continue trying to find out how to finally squeeze more money out of kids and bands. And Let it Burn Records? Well, we just do OUR thing.

Do you think it’s possible that through the demise of the record industry possibilities to get your hands on independent records will actually become more narrow, because only a few big players will survive, themselves ending up with some sort of quasi-monopoly over the market? Or I am not taking the multiple channels of the internet enough into consideration here?

Nope, I don’t see any risk like this. There will always be bands wanting to present their art/music and they will surely find ways to do that. If everything fails and record labels just don’t get it, things might break down to a more diy-level again, making the bands doing it themselves. As you indicated, the internet has a lot of potential in this context. A risk that I do see, though, is a limited amount of major labels holding the monopoly on a certain sound carrier or transmission path for music. an example: Just image Sony or Warner (or Microsoft, or Apple, or Google, etc.) develop a new and easy way to buy and consume music that EVERYBODY follows. They’d surely have a dangerous monopoly on that. It’s a bit like the combination “Apple iTunes + Apple iPod” which nowadays is the most common way of consuming music. Even though this “system” is the most successful these days, it is far away from being a monopoly. You can add your own mp3s to your iTunes library (you don’t have to buy all your music from iTunes) and there’s dozens of other audio-players and media libraries you can use. However such things change quickly these days and the risk of a big corporation abusing their advantage definitely is high.