I met Peter Pawan at a gig and, after knowing him for some time now, I can easily say “where else?” He’s one of those rarer than you’d expect people, who will go wherever the music is, relying solely on trusted recommendations. This shouldn’t come as a surprise - after all he’s been involved in Sofar Sounds for the past four years and is responsible for bringing Sofar to Brighton. The reason we meet at the Phoenix Artist Club however is Presana Music, a consortium founded by Pawan to bring some long awaited change to the independent music industry.
“There needs to be a team effort. If everyone contributes a little bit, we can go a lot further. We’re trying to educate people into that way of thinking, but because artists and artistic talents have always been exploited, it’s quite hard”, Pawan says as he starts to share his vision. Revenue and equal share sound extremely important to him. We start our conversation with an anecdote about George Lucas who introduced a completely new way of thinking about royalties with ‘Star Wars’. “Because what George Lucas was doing at the time was so different to what everyone else was doing, there were a lot of people who were thinking ‘meh, it’s not really gonna go anywhere’”, Pawan laughs. “So he put two options on the table for all actors: one - you’d get your lump sum fee, done. The other was - you’d get no fee, but you’d get a share of merchandise in perpetuity. All the actors - Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford - were jobbing actors, if that. They needed the money, so they took the fee. Alec Guinness, who’s a great thespian, didn’t need the money. So he waved his performance fee in favour of the merchandise rights. Every year for the rest of his life he earned millions.” Pawan admits that it would be too big headed for him to say that Presana Music is going to get to that stage; however he is very much focused on the fact that everyone should be able to enjoy the share of royalties.
Online Presana Music says it’s more than a label. I endeavour to find out what exactly it is and whether it is a label at all. Pawan, in a very matter-of-fact tone, asks back “What is a label?” With experience in head hunting in financial services, Pawan sure has his business head firmly screwed on and it really shows. His attention doesn’t escape the smallest detail of his enterprise. He begins to explain how he came up with the name itself, and the story involves charts with arrows pointing to feelings certain words evoke. The process took him over a year. Eventually he explored the idea of going on a journey, which led him to associations with mission. Suddenly David Beckham’s Sanskrit tattoo became a source of huge inspiration, taking him back to his ancestors. “A lot of Sanskrit words have multiple meanings”, Pawan elaborates. After a long Google Translate session, Presana came up. “Presana has a lot of meanings, but one of them is ‘mission’ and suddenly that felt right - Presana Music. The idea is to create the necessary infrastructure to identify and develop support for emerging music around the world. That’s the mission.”
We carry on exploring the current understanding of labels and publishing companies. “The old model obviously didn’t work, otherwise the industry wouldn’t be as fucked as it is today”, Pawan states bluntly. He goes on to explain that Presana is more of a brand, a stamp of approval and an investment fund rather than a label. His idea is that whatever genre the audience is into, if it is attached to Presana then that means it’s good. “The other side of Presana’s definition of a label is providing the financial support that is needed to help artists achieve a certain thing. Take Tall Ships, who are on the roster, and have gained a significant following. They can sell out Scala in London and they played SXSW and other festivals in the US. They need to go back to the US, but they need five grand to do it. That’s where Presana’s label side comes in. We can raise that money and invest in that band to go on that tour.” Pawan anticipates my question about what does Presana get back from it and continues to elaborate that Presana claims their backing to begin with and that helps to push the brand out there from publishing and synchronisation angles. “Pushing Tall Ships out there is beneficial for everyone. They can build up their fan base, and they can sell a few more records. Presana has nothing to do with mechanical royalties or publishing royalties, but what we do have, and what we’re glad to have, is that we have an amazing band, that should be heard all around the world, on our synchronisation roster, and if we can help them to develop their name - absolutely we will do it.”
Synchronisation keeps coming back in the conversation and I keep getting more intrigued by it. What does it have to do with Presana’s mission? “Given what is a completely different background than most of the people in the music industry, I was thinking how can I mix my experience of being an actor for many years, a guitarist for a bit with the pretty hardcore world of head hunting in a quite volatile and highly competitive sector which is the financial services. I was also thinking that there are so many bands that I go to see, artistic friends that I have, who make amazing music, but make no money out of it. The current (the old) music model doesn’t work per se. A technology company controls the music industry, which is amazing”, Pawan adds sarcastically. “You’ve got the live side, which is great if you’re The Rolling Stones or Radiohead, or any of the amazing bands that builds up a massive following over many years, or you’ve got the backing of a major label. Then you can charge £30, £40, £60 a ticket. But if you’re an emerging band or you’re on an indie label - you just need to pick up a copy of Time Out or any digital site to see how many different bars have live music as a novelty act. They don’t give a shit who plays. You pay £3 or get in for free; music should be for free, right?” he throws in another sarcastic comment and passionately continues to explain his frustration.
“Bands take out credit card loans to hire a van to do a tour of the UK with a minimal fan base. It’s a very risky strategy to go out on a live circuit and think you can sell t-shirts for £15, or a tote bag with their logo. There is so much choice for bands and there are so many tote bags that you can have”. He mentions CDs as another revenue stream, with a note that that’s another dying habit. He does optimistically note that vinyl seems to be coming back with force though and goes on to reminisce how the tangibility of music releases meant so much to him. We seem to share the love for CD sleeves and bring back the memories of great disappointments when the lyrics where not printed inside. The idea of listening to an album in a certain order, which Pawan observes doesn’t happen that often anymore, has a romantic value to him. He does see how the digital format is accessible and convenient and he encourages that, but he does point out that people don’t buy music in a visible form as much as they were.
Pawan lists publishing as one of Presana’s revenue streams and mentions that Presana just became a publishing house and that area will be actively explored. Synchronisation will remain Presana’s main revenue stream though. “Synchronisation can provide the finance necessary for other aspects of a musician’s career. If you land synchronisation of a piece of music that you’ve written with a big brand that is doing a global advertising campaign, that could be a six figure income, which in itself could fund your tour, or serious time in a proper studio with a qualified engineer with a massive experience. That itself will gain you exposure. The really cool thing about technology is if you see a very cool advert, you can very quickly find out what song is on that advert. With my background as a head hunter, which is going out and finding the opportunities that are out there, understanding the needs of a client, scouring the entire relevant market to present a long list and then a short list of options for that client, is totally transferable to providing music supervisors and the broader creative industries with music. Going back to the team idea, visual image without music has got not as much of an impact as visual image with music. So the music industry as it has been can continue down that road and the major labels, like massive battle ships, will take forever to turn.”, Pawan firmly states his view of the industry. However he does see the silver lining and believes that now is not only the perfect time for the independent music, but also for an independent way of thinking about independent music.
The team effort seems to be incredibly important to Pawan and I find out that the team at the moment consists of Pawan himself and three people starting up in Brazil - and the bands and their managers, who are not a part of Presana’s movement, but it’s in their best interest to help out. Presana’s website encourages people to get in touch if they want in, from whatever creative field they’re coming from: writers, photographers, sound engineers… “If they have strong interpersonal skills, if they are good networkers with a real passion for music then I’d love to hear about them. No one’s skills are left unrewarded. The idea is to build a partnership in the likes of John Lewis partnership, which means whenever there is a success, everyone who is a part of that organisation gets a reward” Pawan paints a broader picture of his vision, which obviously includes artists themselves.
However, there are certain criteria they have to meet. “I’m looking for artists who, when they’re writing their music, are thinking about visual images. From roster and synchronisation angle, we need to be able to take those words and melodies and see pictures from them. From Presana’s point of view, acting as a synchronisation business, and also a publisher and a label backer, these visuals build a scene. We’re not gonna be the right company to support a band where we can’t see those visuals. That doesn’t mean that the music isn’t great, but I can only sell a roster of a music that I absolutely love and believe in. Otherwise Presana just becomes another music business that does exactly what everyone else is doing - takes on all this stuff, shelves most of it and forgets what it’s got most of the time… I’m not interested in that”, Pawan states definitively, with an obvious passion and a clear vision of how to right many wrongs that became somewhat staple in current music industry.
Another part of Presana’s activity is the live side. Following a launch at The Sebright Arms on the 1st of June 2013, Presana Presents seems to become a regular night with a second gig of the series on the 7th of August. The focus is not on the quantity, but the quality of Presana’s nights and they’re not about to become monthly anytime soon. “We’re not a promoter. There are plenty of promoters out there. But we want to support, develop emerging music talent. One of the ways in which we can do that is to put on Presana Music nights in London and other parts of the UK, and soon overseas, where we are presenting a very small selection of our synchronisation roster and some of the publishing roster to market. That is to music bloggers of course and also to the music industry. It’s great opportunity for people who buy music for film and advertising and gaming to come out and actually meet some of these bands and be completely blown away by the quality of stuff and the eclectic range of the music we’ve got on the roster. So we’re doing it as a way of giving a platform to the acts on the roster.” The bands that performed during Presana’s nights include The Young Aviators, who are signed to Electric Honey, the label responsible for the early Biffy Clyro and Franz Ferdinand releases.
We talk about the channels Pawan uses to find talent for his business and that brings a whole new discussion shedding more light on his disillusionment with the current state of affairs in the music industry and his determination to do something about it. Despite previous praises for technology, Pawan boldly declares “As Peter Pawan, I’m not a facebook fan. It’s there and I don’t mind other people using it, but I don’t judge a band by how many facebook likes they have - you can buy that stuff. I wanna hear it. I’m an old school guy and the business that I do is based on picking up the phone and having human conversations with people who are in the position to actually make decisions on this. So in terms of developing the knowledge of what Presana Music is about around the world, whilst yes, there is a facebook set up, the is a twitter account, there is a Google + account, there’s a Spotify account, we’re not a company that’s on them all of the time. I’m not gonna spend my time updating all the social media platforms when I could be putting music into film.”
I catch myself thinking that it all sometimes sounds too idealistic to be true. Then again I’m an idealist myself. It’s obvious that the change in the industry is desperately needed and it’s refreshing and inspiring to see that instead of standing in the corner and moaning about the state of it all - people like Peter Pawan take all their experience, add passion and a good business plan and put it into action. It will be fascinating to watch Presana take off and hopefully create an anticipated stir.
