You Can't Sing, You Can't Play, You Look Awful...You'll Go Along Way

Back in 1989 I got a job working for a big residential studios near York (UK) called The Slaughterhouse Complex. To a naive 21 year old musician, who was trying to make a name for his own band, it seemed like an ideal place to further my own ambitions and make a few useful contacts. I was basically only the studio tea boy and record label gofer, but I saw it as a chance to learn a bit about how things worked in the business, and maybe be able to get some cheap studio time along the way.

The business was essentially a very cool residential studio complex, housed in an old Regency corn exchange building, and comprising the very impressive main studio, two smaller production suites, and fourteen residential bedrooms for the artists and visiting producers. However, the business also included a record label called Prism Records, and a marketing and promotions company called Catalyst Promotions Ltd.

One of my main jobs was to assist on A&R-ing prospective bands for the label, and each week the post man would deliver around 50 to 60 demos that had been sent by bands to an advertisement in the national music press. The company boss, Russell, would always encourage me to call as many of them as I could, even if I thought they were pretty crap. His mantra was that; even if they weren’t very good, or suitable for Prism Records, maybe we could still help them in some way.

In the years to come, I was to realise that Russell’s single objective was to fill his expensive studio, regardless of musical talent or potential, and it is unfortunately a set-up and con that still exists today. The bands would be invited to a meeting, whereupon I would have an initial chat with them about what they were doing and their ambitions etc. Russell would then sit in and play the cynic. ‘Yeah, I think you might have something but you are still not quite there with your songs, but let’s stay in touch and see how things progress, blah blah’ He would then conclude by offering them a quick tour of his kingdom; ending up in the main studio. Of course, to the eyes of your average teenager or twenty something musician, this was Xanadu. It was probably the most impressive studio any of them had ever seen, and you could immediately see them dreaming of how amazing it would be to record in there.

Over the following days or weeks, all the emphasis would be on telling the bands that they really needed some better recordings if the label was to be able to move forward with them in any way. However, the owner constantly pressed the point that, although he was the record label and promotion company boss, the actual studio was a separate business; of which he was just one of several partners. For this reason, he couldn’t supply free studio time, but he could have a ‘special word’ with the other partners and get a bottom dollar rate for bands he was interested in for the label. Of course, the young bands thought they were being made a special case and would beg, steal or borrow the funds to afford a couple of days in the studio.

The reality was that Russell would then sell them a couple of empty days (down time) for $400 a day, and put them in with the studio apprentice engineer, who got paid $50 a day. The guy was actually quite talented as an engineer, but he was also very slow, and by the end of the second day, most bands had only finished the tracking. However, they would now be salivating like thirsty bulldogs at the thought of how awesome it they would sound when it was mixed, and go away and save up for another two days to complete it. The truth was that Russell had just made $1600 by filling up dead time that would otherwise have seen the studio sitting empty. After several weeks of telephoning and never getting passed the receptionist, most bands gave up calling.

The second string to Russell’s bow, was to get the bands to pay for a promotional campaign with Catalyst promotions. For about $1000 fee, Catalyst would do a campaign to press, media, and radio. This cost Russell about $100 in postage and CD promo’s and consisted of me sending them out to addresses on our industry directory and making an afternoon’s worth of follow up phone calls. Of course, the results were poor because most of the bands were not really good enough. Russell’s response to disgruntled musicians was that he wasn’t responsible for the quality of their song writing, and he was simply acting as a conduit. If the industry wasn’t getting excited by their stuff, maybe with some better songs and demo’s, things might go better. He would then offer them some cheap studio rates to record some new songs.

Scroll on twenty years and I became associated with a dynamic young manager. I went to meet him in central London at the offices of a production company called Animal Farm. Like The Slaughterhouse complex, to the eyes of any young band, it was super impressive. The big open plan office area was buzzing with activity, the walls adorned by gold discs and old guitars, and guess what else? You guessed it, a great big expensive recording studio. The manager enthusiastically told me how he had done a deal with Animal Farm that basically equated to them giving him a central London office space, and knock down recording rates in their studio, in return for signing his bands to Animal Farms own publishing company.

Initially, I kept my mouth shut about what I suspected was going on, but having then been told that the ‘knock down’ studio rate was $2500 for a 3 day recording and mix session, I felt I had to speak up and open his eyes to what was going on. Initially, he thought I was both wrong, and questioning his ethics and integrity, and we fell out for a few months. However, he then contacted me and apologised after having read the terms of the publishing contract with Animal Farm Publishing Ltd. The deal offered an advance of £30’000 GBP ($55’000 Aus), BUT the small print stated that this sum was in lieu of studio time at Animal Farm Studios. That basically meant that the artist had to spend their publishing advance on their own studio time. In short; Animal Farm Publishing got the bands publishing rights for nothing more than their own dead studio time.

I have never in my life come across a music publisher who didn’t provide some kind of free recording facility for their artists. When I was based in Stockholm, I worked with a small 2 man indie publishing company called Monza Music, and even a tiny set up like Monza had a 4 metre square room in the back of their basement office with a couple of thousand bucks worth of home recording equipment, some microphones, logic7, and some DIY egg carton sound proofing. Publishing is about quality of songs and not quality of recordings. A great tune is a great tune even recorded into an iphone with an acoustic guitar. It seems to always be the case that these kind of production and promotion package deals seem to have a recording studio business at the centre of them. I wonder why that is?

About a month ago, a friend’s son sent me his latest demo of his band. I think that in time he could have some potential, but his latest demo was at best, OK. The drums were a little out of time in a few places, the vocals were first takes because they were running out of time, and, all in all, it was pretty much a loose and live garage demo. The band hasn’t even decided on a name, yet, and to be perfectly honest, his old band was a lot better rehearsed and had a few more tunes. For those reasons, I was quite surprised when he told me that The A&R Department had told him it was brilliant and they could get him played on Triple J and loads of other stations. Of course, they thought it would definitely need a re-mix costing $700, (in their studio) and the promotional package itself was another $2000.

The issue I have with these kind of deals is that there is nothing technically illegal in what they are offering to do. They are offering to give the songs a final polish in the studio and then send it out to a list of their industry and radio contacts. I am sure they will do that, but surely it is ethically and morally wrong to be building up the hopes of musicians and taking their money, when you know full well that the songs hasn’t a hope in hell of making any radio playlist, or even getting a courtesy play.

Good A&R is not only about searching out and promoting great new talent; it is also about acting as gatekeepers and keeping the mediocre out. That might sound cruel, but what is crueler? Telling someone they are great and could be a huge success, just to get them to pay you $3000, or being honest to them and telling them that their stuff isn’t yet strong enough? As a young guy in a band, I was turned down by labels loads of times before we finally got any kind of deal. It is disheartening sometimes and of course you get despondent at times. However, it is those rejections that make you improve your game, and those rejections usually come with some advice on what you maybe need to address.

In over 20 years, I have never chosen to work with a band that I didn’t think had the songs. I would rather say no and tell them that they still need a bit of work, rather than waste my time and theirs. Putting a silk hat on a pig doesn’t stop it looking like a pig. Worse still when someone has sold you that silk hat for several thousand dollars and assured you that it will.