Articles & Advice

Zen and the Art of A&R - Round II

Part 2: Getting "Discovered"

JEM: Tell me how the artists you've signed came to your attention, and what are some things that the average musician in, say, Indianapolis can do to get noticed.

BRIAN: I read about Robbie Fulks in No Depression, an "Americana" scene-oriented magazine, which mentioned that he was a roots singer making an album with [Nirvana/PJ Harvey/Pixies producer/engineer] Steve Albini -- which was intriguing -- and I bought Robbie's indie record. With Pitch Shifter, I'd been following their career as a fan, and this past January I had a conversation with a lawyer who mentioned that they were off of [former label] Earache, and I asked for a demo. I jumped at the opportunity to work with them, because the album that we've ended up making is a big step forward for them. And Cuckoo is from Northern Ireland. Geffen has a great A&R scout in London who tipped me off to them, shortly before I saw them at the "In The City" convention, which was held in Dublin in '96 -- I caught their set and was floored. Every song was a killer and they played really well. They had been pursued by a bunch of British labels, but were really wary of the process; when I went up to speak with them they thought I was just a tourist. Otherwise, I would've been told to "shod off," according to them!

JIM: All of those refute the theory that you have to move to a Coast to get noticed -- I think the "big fish in a small pond" mentality is so much better. If you're doing well where you are, you will be heard about, and record companies are more rabid for new talent than ever. Atlantic has a research department that studies SoundScan, broken down market-by-market, and -- in addition to tracking the Atlantic records -- finds unknown bands that are selling even small numbers of records in their market. They talk to record stores all day -- and they find things. Hootie & The Blowfish sort of came through that department, and a couple of others.

But at the end of the day, just try to be a normal band. If you're doing something that interests people, and if you're doing something truly great, you will be found. I just signed a band from Norway, and they were completely shocked that I had heard about them. Communication is better than ever, and the world's getting smaller because of it.

BRIAN: There is also a network of music industry lawyers who pretty much blanket territories. Ideally, you should start with a good music lawyer in your area, because they'll know where you're coming from.

JIM: I don't think a band should try to take on America or the world first anyway; try to get something going in your area. Record companies love nothing more than when you have built up a fan base that they can use as a motivational factor for the rest of the country. This is a big country, and the record business is notorious for trying to market to the whole country at once -- I mean, soda companies don't do that, food companies don't do that. They test-market things in certain markets.

BRIAN: And when record companies do test-market things, the markets are New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco -- primarily.

JIM: But there's nothing they love to see more than somebody breaking out of, say, Florida. Atlantic's actually been really good about that -- Hootie, Collective Soul, 7 Mary 3, those bands actually had something going on in one area, whether it was a live thing or a radio station playing their song. Don't underestimate how or where you can get your fans -- you can get them any way, anywhere.

JOSH: I'll take any tape or CD that anyone wants to send unsolicited. [That's: Columbia Records, 550 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022/ATTN: Josh Sarubin] Anything. It might take a month to get listened to, but I will.

JIM: Agreed -- send it up. [Atlantic Records, 1290 Sixth Ave., New York, NY 10019/ATTN: Jim Welch]

BRIAN: Absolutely. [Geffen Records, 1755 Broadway, New York, NY 10019/ATTN: Brian Long]

JEM: Have you ever found anything great that came in unsolicited? When I was doing A&R, I'd spend hours and hours plowing through unsolicited tapes. I found a lot of things that were good or okay, but nothing great.

BRIAN: Sure -- I signed [San Francisco electronic collective] Spacetime Continuum that way.

JIM: Yep -- [San Francisco metal band] Sleep.

JEM: Yeah, but you were both at very specialized labels at the time -- Astralwerks for electronic and Earache for extreme rock were the last words in those styles of music at the time. That raises the quality of what's coming in -- and it's also a good plug for someone who's doing a certain, rather specialized kind of music to contact the most happening label for that kind of music. At a major, have you gotten anything great?

JOSH:I've gotten good stuff, nothing great. But at the end of the day, a year from now, if I got one amazing tape, it would be worth sifting through a thousand.

JEM: Do you find that most of the artists who get signed now have an industry buzz about them?

JOSH: Yeah. It's kind of sickening, actually.

BRIAN: Exactly. It's totally gross how lawyers have become the actual gatekeepers to the A&R community, and that's how people in record companies judge if something's got cred or not.

JOSH: It's definitely a case of -- I'm not saying this is what happens at my company -- if you're after an artist and your company thinks it's okay, if they then find out that Geffen or Atlantic are interested, they're suddenly a lot more interested.

JEM: Can you motivate interest by just lying and saying that you heard that other labels were interested?

JIM: Absolutely! That's easier to do now with the Internet than ever before.

JOSH: I even tell artists, "Hey, if you get so-and-so as a lawyer, things will move a lot faster." Because I know that that person will fire things up and it will start getting going.

JIM: Having said all that, for all these giant bidding wars that have gone down in the last couple of years, very few of the most expensive ones have reaped the benefits.

JEM: Beck was the biggest one that I can think of, but most of them have been complete failures.

BRIAN: What about Jewel? There was a lot of interest in '94 when she was living in her van and playing coffeehouses in San Diego. Was that an expensive deal?

JEM: I think the issue there is more the amount of money that was spent on promotion in the 18 months it took for that album to take off.

JIM: Which is how you want to spend your money if possible -- you'd much rather promote an album than throw out a million dollars on something unproven, and then have to spend even more money on promotion. You don't want to be so far in the hole that you have to turn down a great tour for an artist because you've already spent too much. And a big signing has that much more pressure on it, for the label as well as the artist: it can take a long time to develop a career, and you don't want to be in the hole, because a) unless you're very successful, you're probably not going to see money after that, and b) your record company's going to get a little stressed out.

JEM: Isn't that a catch-22?

JIM: It is, but I let people know up front that they should take a deal that's fair to everybody. Depending on what your motivation is, and what your record company's motivation is, I think everybody should be as open as possible and try to make a deal that everyone feels will do what needs to be done for that artist. It's different in every case, but you have to try.

BRIAN: I had a meeting with [a prominent music business attorney], and we had a very interesting dialogue about how much bands should be signed for. She said that, because of the incredible failure rate of most records, an artist should try to get as much money as possible up-front, because that will probably be the only money they'll see. And she went a step further, and said, because of the unbelievable salaries that top label executives make, you've gotta stick it to the record companies when you can! The difference between the amount of money a record company president makes, as opposed to the people who actually make the music, is enormous.

JOSH: Welcome to America.

JIM: I'm hardly saying "Don't get a fair deal"; you definitely should. But there's also a big difference between that, and being a pig.

JEM: Generally, how long will it be before a band sees any money apart from their advance?

BRIAN: It depends on how their deal is structured, but they might get money for tour support -- which some managers commission -- merchandising, song and publishing royalties, performing rights -- because ASCAP pays really well, right?

JEM: Of course. But very few of those things come from the label. So it's conceivable that eight out of ten bands will get nothing from the record company beyond their advance?

BRIAN: Yes, especially if they're not selling very many records. But, as with so many of these issues, there are so many variables that it's hard to make a blanket statement without sounding really stupid!

For years, during the indie rock age, the whole appeal and pitch to the band was, "Develop organically. Get a real fan base, and then when you do move to a major label, they'll have a market to sell to." And for years that was a logical argument because indie rock actually did develop a lot of rock bands -- most of which crested and were signed in '91 or '92 in the Nirvana wave -- who came from this culture and network that supported them and kept the whole scene going. Now it's gone. The sales of indie-rock have dropped precipitously, bands that do put out an independent record don't stay there if they're good -- they're cherry-picked out of that system very quickly -- and people don't go to clubs as much any more, because that culture isn't as strong, and also because there are so many major-label bands playing the same rock clubs that used to nurture the underground bands. A major label band's advances for gigs are much bigger.

JEM: Does a network like that exist for other styles of music today?

BRIAN: For electronica it does, but most of the electronica labels in America -- or even in England -- that seem to have any effect in America are somehow or another hooked up with either major distribution or a major label. In Europe there's a vast network of electronica labels that have nothing to do with major corporations.

JIM: Their club culture has been developing for ten years, and they're basically a decade ahead of us in terms of that sort of network. It's definitely grown here, but today, artists in any kind of music are more empowered to do something for themselves than ever before. You can set up your office or your place on the Internet and get the word out -- it just depends on how hard you want to work.

JEM: Have you found any bands on the Internet?

JIM: Not that I've signed, but I sit at home on my computer all the time flipping through music sites. A good set of speakers can make them sound really good. There's tons of music out there, and it's pretty easy to find. It's just as good as reading a magazine or having somebody call you -- it's just another element. You never know where your next great artist is going to come from -- just like unsolicited demos, you've got to listen for yourself and make your own decisions.

JOSH: Personal recommendation always ends up being the best source, for me anyway. With the Presidents, someone who works in Sony's International department saw their first big show at Bumbershoot [Festival in Seattle] and told me about them and got me a tape. I found Cry of Love through [Corrosion Of Conformity guitarist] Pepper Keenan, and that led me to DAG. And [current Jive/Silvertone A&R exec] Howie Abrams turned me on to Stabbing Westward.

JIM: And I know where he got that tape -- from a guy in Relativity's Chicago distribution office.

JOSH: [Concrete Marketing head] Bob Chiappardi turned me on to Sweet Vine, and The Obsessed -- who have been dropped -- I got from Jim [Welch] and [Brutal Truth lead singer] Kevin [Sharp]. The Obsessed were a band that shouldn't have been on a major label, but at the time I was signing things I liked rather than things I thought would sell.

JEM: It could have worked -- that kind of music was on the rise at the time.

JIM: And if it had been a really expensive deal, you wouldn't have done it.

BRIAN: They were also a band that other bands liked, which in the touring world, can mean the difference between success and failure -- The Obsessed toured with White Zombie and the Melvins.

JEM: There's some advice: MAKE FRIENDS WITH OTHER BANDS. You never know who's going to make it. Okay Jim, where did you find your bands?

JIM: The band I just signed from Norway is called Babel Fish, and the head of Warner International, who deals with bringing the music in from the other territories, knew the manager and told him to come and see me. He brought music and I loved it -- simple as that. And who else? The bands I signed to Columbia, I've loved Corrosion Of Conformity since their first record came out in 1982, and Josh Wink/Ovum was an organic thing too -- hearing his early stuff, hearing him play a lot of parties around here, and then he grew into something big in Europe and England.

And I got the Pandemonium tape from a lawyer that I never expected to get a tape like this from -- they're pop artists. I thought the songs were great but they hadn't performed live, so we had them work with some people on their performance before we closed the deal.

JEM: How long did that take?

JIM: A little while. And it was dangerous, because they started meeting with a lot of other labels! But we knew we were going to invest a serious amount of money, and we wanted to be sure that everything was really there, even if it meant risking the deal a little bit. I think that really showed the group how much we believe in them, and once other labels heard that we were really interested -- and once the band was written about in Hits for four straight weeks -- all the other labels were like, "WE WANT YOU! WE WANT YOU!" I'm glad that these guys were able to see through all of that -- it actually says a lot about the group. They're also really young, between 19 and 23.

JEM: So you actually played hard-to-get with them.

JIM: A little bit. They knew that we wanted them, but they also knew that we wanted to be sure.

• Part 1: The State of the Art: Current state of
  the industry and music trends
  
  

• Part 2: Getting "Discovered"
  
  
• Part 3: Playing the Game
  
  

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