Articles & Advice
Scoppa: I think there's a misperception—and I'm only guessing here—from the standpoint of an indie band, that what they are giving up by making the step up to major labeldom is creative control or autonomy, which I don't think is true at all.
Brooks: I think it's true.
Scoppa: There's a compromise in terms of autonomy? How does it manifest itself?
 Brooks: You're entering into bald, basic facts. You're entering into a legal partnership with a corporation. Expectations are going to be placed on the artist by the label.Whether they are small expectations or enormous ones, they are there. Anybody who signs an artist to a major label and doesn't admit that is lying. Every now and then you might bring somebody to your roster purely as an artistic statement, as a cornerstone, but there's still an expectation. You're looking for something from them; it's not pure. There are complete creative control deals, but there's still a catch. At some point, something is going to be asked of the artist.
Barber: There's a machine that has to be dealt with, and that's obviously something that you can't change. You can't get away from it.
Weiss: I always tell people in bands, "If you do something that we think is really stupid, or really wrong, or really bad for your career, we'll tell you. But ultimately it's your record."
Brooks: You know what [Work Group co-president Jeff] Ayeroff says about it? He says, "Okay, we're going to give you the keys to the car. We're going to let you drive recklessly. We're not going to let you drive off the cliff." That's what I'm saying, that there are strings attached. I'm definitely not one for the big, greasy handprint all over what the artist does. I think if you sign somebody, and then you find yourself radically wanting to change what they do, then you screwed up.
 Aberle: It's not like you're trying to be didactic or facetious by saying, "We need to have a radio edit of a song."
Weiss: Sometimes the artist says, "Forget it." And then I go back to the promotion staff and say, "No, not this time."
Aberle: And then it's fine, but all you can do is offer a suggestion.
Brooks: Exactly. It's like a working partnership. They're in it and you're in it, and you say, "Look, in order to make this work in this way we would need this from you. Okay?" Scoppa: I would think some acts would want a level of dialogue as they enter into their creative process.
Brooks: Most of the bands I'm talking to or signing right now are looking for guidance. They want somebody to help them in the record-making process. They want guidance in their career. They want somebody to support what they do and enable them. That's a perfectly legitimate thing for a band to expect. One of the greatest things that we can do as A&R people for artists is to provide that guidance.
Aberle: If they tell you to [get lost], that's fine.
 Weiss: Of course, sometimes they're going to. Sometimes you're going to make a suggestion that's inappropriate, and they're going to tell you it's inappropriate, and then you'll deal with it. I haven't done my job if I haven't tried to help them as much as I possibly can. Not usually creatively — my job is to find something that is great. I like to stay as far away from it while they're making it as I can. Then we'll just try to take what the artist has done and make it as palatable as possible. On the other hand, there is a degree of delusion going on with a lot of these labels that do give complete creative control, and then complain that their records don't sell millions of copies. The fact of the matter is, traditionally, records from Nirvana to the Beatles to Boston to the Beastie Boys, records that sell a lot of copies, generally do have some degree of work from a record company or a producer that is... you can say "collaborative" or you can say "intrusive."
Barber: I was listening to London Callingthe other day for the first time in a couple of years, and realizing what an intensive process they went through to get to that record from Give 'Em Enough Rope. That's a record—whether it was a producer or an A&R person—somebody worked with that band to get it down on tape in a way that they had never gotten it on tape before.
Weiss: Professional video making, professional design, professional record producers and professional record companies serve a real purpose. If a band really wants to be successful on the big marquee in the sky, they have to play the game. There is a lot of ground between there and where you fall off the radar screen. You can exist at a lower level and be a viable band, and a great band, and a major label band if that's what you want.
Aberle: Certainly you try to find out as much about the artist as possible when you're courting, and they're trying to find out as much about you. If everyone feels comfortable, then it usually goes forward. There is only so much you can do on that. If things change and then they kick you out of the studio later, then so be it. Of course, you try to take care of those problems up front. You don't want to anticipate having any surprises somewhere down the line. Inevitably, there will be. Artists are artists.
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