(((O))) : Hidden Currents – To Bury A Ghost talk to us about Record Labels

1) So, you were approached by a record label, but did not take up their offer How did that come about? Were you looking?

We were approached, by someone who clearly is a genuine music fan and believed in what we were doing, which I consider the ultimate compliment, but I feel we are not ready to sign with a label. Although we would have been given time to deliver a follow up record, I have pretty ambitious plans for our second EP and want the time and freedom with no pressure to work to deliver an even better record. As a band I know we haven’t gotten even close to what we are capable of which excites me. Knowing someone was waiting on us, would be some kind of barrier to reaching that goal really. I will not release something I don’t truly believe is worth releasing, so even if it takes a Kevin Shield esque time frame to record a follow up, I want that choice. In short, the only person I have to please is myself, which I’m very comfortable with!

Not to say it’s not our ultimate ambition to sign with a label eventually, one of the greatest untruths making rounds at the moment is “with the internet you don’t need labels.” I think at this juncture my main concern is simply making music and not worrying about making sales. Our immediate game plan is just to make a better record, and try and build a wider fan base – and if we are lucky/good enough to cross these bridges/make these decisions at a later point, so be it.

23) Did you not think that being affiliated to a label might make people view the band more seriously?

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind, and from my experience that sadly, being DIY does close certain doors to you. Despite working with a serious producer, despite spending so much time and energy on the look and “total package” of the ep – the way the industry is geared – some avenues will not even give you time of day if your record is not being delivered through a specific trusted source. As frustrating as it is, I guess it’s the only way, in such a saturated market, anyone can assert control. It’s tough being a little fish swimming in a big pond. It would be nice being part of an exclusive club, with an instant community to rely on to sustain a living….but the truth of the matter is, for 99% of musicians, making music is just a seriously expensive hobby, and generally speaking, if you want access to some kind of exclusive club – you have to earn that privilege.

4) So you decided to self release your EP, “The Hurt Kingdom”. Tell us how you went about that.

The best piece of advice I would give to bands would be to do a digital download via bandcamp or musicglue which are amazing free services, and sell physical copies of your record through Bigcartel which is also free.

Probably the toughest part was getting press for our record, mostly as we in effect are nobodies, coupled with a really saturated market and the fact that you are competing with bands with paid priority space/ PR machines. You pretty much just have to hope someone bothers/finds time, to give you’re record a play and understands where you are coming from which sadly means, it all comes down to luck. I think my main approach was to hope the music did most of the talking.

As I’m a big music fan I am pretty immersed in blogs etc online anyway so had an inkling of who I thought would give us time of day. I’m not really in the best position to offer advice to anyone really, but a piece of advice I would offer bands is to approach reviewers you enjoy reading and seem to have an active interest in the music you listen to and start from there. Thanks to the likes of social networking you can pretty much contact people direct these days, so as long as you don’t take the piss – it seems a valuable tool you shouldn’t underestimate.

5) The physical copy of the EP is really quite special. Where did the idea come from? And where did you get them produced?

Thank you! We are all big music fans in the band, and huge record collectors, so even with the decline of the cd – it was important to me to deliver a collectible version of the record with extra bits and what not, for people that really loved it. The digital download is really disposable and I worry the art of the record sleeve / presentation is becoming a lost art, with the record cover resorting to a Jpeg thumbnail or whatever. So it was important for us not to fall in the same trap.

Thank All the art was created by our drummer Rupert Boddington who does graphics for a living, so is really second nature to him. It was important not to create something that didn’t just “looked nice” though; as I think you can really tell with stuff like that..It looses it’s sort of intellectual weight if you know what I mean? Don’t mean it in a pretentious way necessarily; I just feel that some records you look at, it instinctively it all ties together..feels right. There is a certain impression one gets from looking at the art that accompanies for Kid A for example, and that’s sort of the vibe we hoped to capture. It would have been wrong for us to put a picture of a break dancing-teddy bear on the record cover if you get my drift.

So we really wanted the visual element to mirror the musical themes, so we sort of brainstormed and went through the lyrics of the record and came up with the sort of broken glass metaphor, and the transparent nature of the limited edition sleeve sort of connecting with the idea of peering through a broken window at the x ray that appears on the cover of the ep. Visually we looked towards the sort of way people like Godspeed! Your Black Emperor presents their records….that grainy filmic quality. We talked about capturing the essence of all the 4AD stuff too, with the colours and what not.

The EP is not CDR but actual print run. It was important to us to go the whole hog with the package. We got the record all printed in different places then had to assemble it ourselves, which was a long night’s work and left me with very sore fingers.

In the end it actually cost more money to print the tracing paper sleeves then getting the actual record print run which is sort of crazy, but at the end of the day, once you know you have no real chance of making your money back, it frees you up to make the decisions just to invest in making something special you would buy.

The final touch was the promo shot of the band, which we shot in our local rehearsal studio, and kind of tried to go with the “Birthday” theme of the single off the ep, only through some sort of Stanley Kubrick filter, and our lyric card (lyrics have always been important to me) which tied it all together to give it a more DIY feel, as we wanted to avoid the mass produced glossy look. My only regret is we didn’t do it all on vinyl. You have to save some ideas for the second record I guess…

6) The digital copy of the EP, however, can be downloaded from your bandcamp for free. What was the rationale behind allowing people to do that?

The decision to give away the record free after so much time, money and energy put into recording was a fairly agonizing and protracted choice to make, but I don’t regret the decision. I have pretty mixed feelings about artists giving away their music free truth be told. Unfortunately, given the current state of the market/industry – I feel…especially new artists starting up, if you have any realistic expectations of building a fan base these days; you have no real choice other than to give your music away free.

I can see the pro’s and cons. As new band just starting out, I appreciate it’s our task to build bridges with fans & critics and gain trust. I appreciate that it seems almost vain to expect people to part with money for what you create when you have not proven yourself. I don’t really think a band should ever feel entitled to make money from their music. However, I do worry giving away music free sends out the completely wrong message to people, almost devalues the music…kind of like….if you send out the message that something isn’t worth a price why should anyone else? This of course is not the intention.

There are ways of turning the situation to a half advantage however. It can be argued that giving your music away free through a site like bandcamp is sort of the best empowering technique, you as an artist can employ in dealing with file sharing…..people may be getting the music free but at least you know about it (kind of)….you can use the stat counter, to monitor your downloads and fans, which all helps in the greater battle of helping promote your work in the big wide horrible world. I think Bandcamp themselves have attempted to acknowledge the tendency in the industry for bands to give away their music free as it can now actually cost the band to choose to give your music away once you have hit a certain amount of downloads per month. Which shouldn’t worry/concern most new starting artists/bands…Rebecca Black not included.

So really, when making the decision it was more important to me to consider…do I make music to make money or because I enjoy making music? For me, the moment you start looking at music as some sort of money making, business transaction… no real good can come from it. My main concern throughout making The Hurt Kingdom ep was really more geared towards recording a record I was really proud to be involved in, which I think we achieved. It somehow seems more important to get the name out and allow people to hear the music, and maybe one day in the future, maybe someone out their will value it enough to pay for it.