Adam Pfleider
06/23/10, 10:30 AM
The industry is always changing. We've certainly seen if go through the ringer in the last few years. Sometimes one must make a new home with their ideals. As long as those ideals stick under a different roof though, it's just a new roof in the end. Today Josh Grabelle is launching a new label, Bullet Tooth, with the same business decisions which made him successful with his old label, Trustkill Records. Grabelle recently took some time to speak with us about the transition and where is head is at in this evolving industry at the moment.
I guess the easiest way to start this is - why? What's going on with Trustkill that it is time to move on with a different label?
I never thought in a million years that in 2010 I would still be running the label I started in my dorm room in 1993. However, it ran its course and we have to move forward and not delve in the past. To explain what happened as simply as possible, in 2002 we signed a deal with RED Distribution in the US who invested money in the label to allow us to build our brand and artists. From 2002 to 2006 while we were at RED there was definitely some rampant spending on tour support, retail co-op, video production, and more. Hindsight is 20/20, but at the time, it made sense to everyone. In 2007 we move to Fontana/Universal, after they gave us an offer we couldn’t refuse. The deal was great and the people we did the deal with were awesome. Unfortunately the head of the company died shortly after (RIP) and the guy who spearheaded the deal quit. This is pretty typical for any label or band doing a deal with a major unfortunately. Fast forward a year and there is a whole new staff of people who didn’t like the deal we had agreed upon previously. This put us in a bad spot and we tried everything to work it out and it just couldn't work.
How does this tie into what Ferret Style kind of did?
It’s more or less exactly what those guys did. We’ve known that starting fresh was a possibility for the last year or so as negotiations with our former distributor were not going the way we would have hoped. At a certain point you just have to be realistic and make a move that makes sense for everyone involved. I think we’ve done that. Obviously we are tight with Ferret/Good Fight (Carl was the best man at my wedding afterall), but they are a separate business and they had to do what made sense for them as well.
Trustkill has been known as one of the original development labels for hardcore music, post-hardcore, whatever you like to call it. Looking back, what do you think about those bands now that grew out of the label and where you think development stands - or doesn't stand - in the current workings of labels these days? I'm not justifying every label acting that way, but a general foresight.
Artist development is still our #1 priority. That is what we do and we do it well. There is a misconception about Trustkill; that we signed “big” bands. That just simply isn’t true. While I think it’s AWESOME that people think that, the truth is that EVERY band we ever signed was more or less unheard of with no sales figures to speak of. When we signed Bleeding Through, Hopesfall, Walls Of Jericho, Bullet For My Valentine, Throwdown, Poison The Well, It Dies Today, Eighteen Visions, and more, these bands were just starting out with maybe 1 or 2 indie releases out. We signed them and worked VERY hard to build them to the point where they could sell records, tour, and make a living doing what they love.
There have been opportunities that have come across my desk to sign “bigger” bands with history and sales figures, but we’ve just never done that. I prefer finding the bands when they are just starting out and through creative marketing, developing them so they can be successful around the world. Not to say we wouldn’t sign a bigger band looking for a new home, but the deal has to make sense for everyone.
We could sit here and talk about artist development and how it may or may not work in the quick fire Internet world of today. Who's really to blame in this? Is it the labels looking for a quick fix/turnaround or is it just the flood of bands that said, "Oh, cool, I want to do that," and over saturated the market?
There are numerous reasons why this is the case in 2010. Firstly, there are 10x more kids playing musical instruments now than there EVER were in the past. Chalk this up to Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Myspace, kids not wanting to go outside, whatever it is. When I was in high school if there was a kid in a band he would have been a complete ROCKSTAR, as bands didn’t exist. Now if you asked any kid in any high school in the country there are probably 10-20 full bands in their school.
So now you have 10x as many bands trying to “make it”. Meanwhile, the business is declining RAPIDLY due to illegal downloading, less space at retail, kids hate CDs, etc etc. Therefore, labels make less money to pay bands, and in return, bands NEED to tour more to make a living. Now you have 10,000 bands all trying to make a living, touring the US (for example) 6 to 9 months out the year and completely saturating every market. Ask a promoter how many shows they put on 10 years ago and it was 2 to 3 shows per week. Now it’s a show almost every night of the week, and most agents have to book shows in nearby venues, all competing for kids’ allowances. Tack on a recession, exorbitant gas prices, and it becomes increasingly difficult to get kids to come out to a show.
That being said, we never looked for a “solution”. We never signed more bands than we could handle looking for “one of the darts to stick”. Bullet Tooth will continue where Trustkill left off signing the best heavy music out there. We have no agenda, we never have, we just find what we feel is the most compelling music written by kids with the strongest work ethics.
With Bullet Tooth, how are you going to make that statement of giving artists room to breath in an industry that's garnering to kids looking for a quick fix?
We are an indie label with a small dedicated staff, low overhead, and we CAN develop artists. We DON’T have to sell 500,000 of an album to make our investment back. We have a scalable business so that we can work with a band selling 5000 records and also work with a band selling 100,000+ records.
What about distribution? A lot of marketing ideas have surfaced with limited deluxe packaging to digital releases prior to a physical to podcast and mixtapes across the Web. Any ideas on how to take the reigns on this one? What are you seeing more of if consumers are purchasing and not downloading for free - is in Best Buy or is it online or at shows?
I believe we have always been at the forefront of creative marketing for our bands and our music. Marketing to the right kids at the right time takes knowledge of the music, and a love for what the band is trying to achieve. We work closely with ALL our bands to make sure everyone knows about their album, video, or tour, using street marketing, advertising, publicity, radio, and more.
We have surrounded ourselves with a network of partners across the globe who believe in what we do, what our bands are doing, and can assist us in our goals to develop our bands to be self-sufficient touring machines who can make a living off doing what they love.
We certainly cannot dictate how music fans want to listen and pay for music. We are just one label in a vast sea of music companies. Just like one doctor cannot change the healthcare system, we have to “wait and see” what happens with iTunes and Spotify and the cable and phone companies. We go with the flow and try and make the best decisions for our bands and our music.
What bands are going to be joining the label off the bat?
The bands we are working with for Bullet Tooth are Memphis May Fire, First Blood, Victory In Numbers, Deception Of A Ghost, Kid Liberty, Soldiers, The Great American Beast, Most Precious Blood, Awaken Demons, and we have a new band announcement coming very soon. We also have some great projects coming up like the Saw VII Soundtrack, HorrorFest Soundtrack, and many other tricks up our sleeves.
Working with Trustkill, what have you learned that you will take into building Bullet Tooth as a new label amongst others at the moment? As a grandeur question, do you think there's still a need for label development when a lot of artists are kind of doing their own things with their own imprints?
If there is a lesson to be learned it is that for a while with our bands and contracts we were under the assumption that things would always “get better” or bands will always “get bigger”. That isn’t the case unfortunately. You have to come to terms with the fact that EVERY band has its ups and downs and you don’t want your agreement with the band to make them a liability to the company. That is really it. Just being more realistic. There are no guarantees in the music business!
As for label development, OF COURSE anyone can record an album now for pennies, and throw it on Myspace and say they have a “band”. Unfortunately for the 10,000 new bands out there, they are simply NOT Nine Inch Nails or Radiohead. Those bands had decades of money spent on them to market them to radio, with huge staffs of people working for them every single day to break them and elevate them to a household name. Just because you threw some songs online doesn't mean anyone is going to notice, or care. If you scream in space nobody hears you. You still need a team of people who can navigate you through the murky waters of the business and get your music to the right people. Without it you are doomed.
I guess the easiest way to start this is - why? What's going on with Trustkill that it is time to move on with a different label?
I never thought in a million years that in 2010 I would still be running the label I started in my dorm room in 1993. However, it ran its course and we have to move forward and not delve in the past. To explain what happened as simply as possible, in 2002 we signed a deal with RED Distribution in the US who invested money in the label to allow us to build our brand and artists. From 2002 to 2006 while we were at RED there was definitely some rampant spending on tour support, retail co-op, video production, and more. Hindsight is 20/20, but at the time, it made sense to everyone. In 2007 we move to Fontana/Universal, after they gave us an offer we couldn’t refuse. The deal was great and the people we did the deal with were awesome. Unfortunately the head of the company died shortly after (RIP) and the guy who spearheaded the deal quit. This is pretty typical for any label or band doing a deal with a major unfortunately. Fast forward a year and there is a whole new staff of people who didn’t like the deal we had agreed upon previously. This put us in a bad spot and we tried everything to work it out and it just couldn't work.
How does this tie into what Ferret Style kind of did?
It’s more or less exactly what those guys did. We’ve known that starting fresh was a possibility for the last year or so as negotiations with our former distributor were not going the way we would have hoped. At a certain point you just have to be realistic and make a move that makes sense for everyone involved. I think we’ve done that. Obviously we are tight with Ferret/Good Fight (Carl was the best man at my wedding afterall), but they are a separate business and they had to do what made sense for them as well.
Trustkill has been known as one of the original development labels for hardcore music, post-hardcore, whatever you like to call it. Looking back, what do you think about those bands now that grew out of the label and where you think development stands - or doesn't stand - in the current workings of labels these days? I'm not justifying every label acting that way, but a general foresight.
Artist development is still our #1 priority. That is what we do and we do it well. There is a misconception about Trustkill; that we signed “big” bands. That just simply isn’t true. While I think it’s AWESOME that people think that, the truth is that EVERY band we ever signed was more or less unheard of with no sales figures to speak of. When we signed Bleeding Through, Hopesfall, Walls Of Jericho, Bullet For My Valentine, Throwdown, Poison The Well, It Dies Today, Eighteen Visions, and more, these bands were just starting out with maybe 1 or 2 indie releases out. We signed them and worked VERY hard to build them to the point where they could sell records, tour, and make a living doing what they love.
There have been opportunities that have come across my desk to sign “bigger” bands with history and sales figures, but we’ve just never done that. I prefer finding the bands when they are just starting out and through creative marketing, developing them so they can be successful around the world. Not to say we wouldn’t sign a bigger band looking for a new home, but the deal has to make sense for everyone.
We could sit here and talk about artist development and how it may or may not work in the quick fire Internet world of today. Who's really to blame in this? Is it the labels looking for a quick fix/turnaround or is it just the flood of bands that said, "Oh, cool, I want to do that," and over saturated the market?
There are numerous reasons why this is the case in 2010. Firstly, there are 10x more kids playing musical instruments now than there EVER were in the past. Chalk this up to Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Myspace, kids not wanting to go outside, whatever it is. When I was in high school if there was a kid in a band he would have been a complete ROCKSTAR, as bands didn’t exist. Now if you asked any kid in any high school in the country there are probably 10-20 full bands in their school.
So now you have 10x as many bands trying to “make it”. Meanwhile, the business is declining RAPIDLY due to illegal downloading, less space at retail, kids hate CDs, etc etc. Therefore, labels make less money to pay bands, and in return, bands NEED to tour more to make a living. Now you have 10,000 bands all trying to make a living, touring the US (for example) 6 to 9 months out the year and completely saturating every market. Ask a promoter how many shows they put on 10 years ago and it was 2 to 3 shows per week. Now it’s a show almost every night of the week, and most agents have to book shows in nearby venues, all competing for kids’ allowances. Tack on a recession, exorbitant gas prices, and it becomes increasingly difficult to get kids to come out to a show.
That being said, we never looked for a “solution”. We never signed more bands than we could handle looking for “one of the darts to stick”. Bullet Tooth will continue where Trustkill left off signing the best heavy music out there. We have no agenda, we never have, we just find what we feel is the most compelling music written by kids with the strongest work ethics.
With Bullet Tooth, how are you going to make that statement of giving artists room to breath in an industry that's garnering to kids looking for a quick fix?
We are an indie label with a small dedicated staff, low overhead, and we CAN develop artists. We DON’T have to sell 500,000 of an album to make our investment back. We have a scalable business so that we can work with a band selling 5000 records and also work with a band selling 100,000+ records.
What about distribution? A lot of marketing ideas have surfaced with limited deluxe packaging to digital releases prior to a physical to podcast and mixtapes across the Web. Any ideas on how to take the reigns on this one? What are you seeing more of if consumers are purchasing and not downloading for free - is in Best Buy or is it online or at shows?
I believe we have always been at the forefront of creative marketing for our bands and our music. Marketing to the right kids at the right time takes knowledge of the music, and a love for what the band is trying to achieve. We work closely with ALL our bands to make sure everyone knows about their album, video, or tour, using street marketing, advertising, publicity, radio, and more.
We have surrounded ourselves with a network of partners across the globe who believe in what we do, what our bands are doing, and can assist us in our goals to develop our bands to be self-sufficient touring machines who can make a living off doing what they love.
We certainly cannot dictate how music fans want to listen and pay for music. We are just one label in a vast sea of music companies. Just like one doctor cannot change the healthcare system, we have to “wait and see” what happens with iTunes and Spotify and the cable and phone companies. We go with the flow and try and make the best decisions for our bands and our music.
What bands are going to be joining the label off the bat?
The bands we are working with for Bullet Tooth are Memphis May Fire, First Blood, Victory In Numbers, Deception Of A Ghost, Kid Liberty, Soldiers, The Great American Beast, Most Precious Blood, Awaken Demons, and we have a new band announcement coming very soon. We also have some great projects coming up like the Saw VII Soundtrack, HorrorFest Soundtrack, and many other tricks up our sleeves.
Working with Trustkill, what have you learned that you will take into building Bullet Tooth as a new label amongst others at the moment? As a grandeur question, do you think there's still a need for label development when a lot of artists are kind of doing their own things with their own imprints?
If there is a lesson to be learned it is that for a while with our bands and contracts we were under the assumption that things would always “get better” or bands will always “get bigger”. That isn’t the case unfortunately. You have to come to terms with the fact that EVERY band has its ups and downs and you don’t want your agreement with the band to make them a liability to the company. That is really it. Just being more realistic. There are no guarantees in the music business!
As for label development, OF COURSE anyone can record an album now for pennies, and throw it on Myspace and say they have a “band”. Unfortunately for the 10,000 new bands out there, they are simply NOT Nine Inch Nails or Radiohead. Those bands had decades of money spent on them to market them to radio, with huge staffs of people working for them every single day to break them and elevate them to a household name. Just because you threw some songs online doesn't mean anyone is going to notice, or care. If you scream in space nobody hears you. You still need a team of people who can navigate you through the murky waters of the business and get your music to the right people. Without it you are doomed.