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2. On the importance of indie labels in 2013
Anyone can release music, but in opening that floodgate, to invite anybody to be an artist and have a website or have a Soundcloud, the artist loses their voice, I think, and I think the individual musician loses a bandstand on which to have a voice.
3. On the mission of Innit Recordings
It’s changed drastically. We started exactly what we’ve been talking about. We have a band called Reputante... and we were looking for a record label. We were hoping someone was going to sign it and release it...we were getting people out to see shows, people seemed to be liking it and so the next step is to try to get someone to represent you and push it for you, and when that seemed to be slow going after about a year of it... we were trying to see if we could fast track it in any way possible, and so we decided to start a label who could push their own stuff.
4. On artists creating labels
An artist sending their resume to a booking agent or to Pitchfork or to anybody, they are getting thousands and thousands of emails a day and submissions. Once you have a label all of a sudden it means, it’s like an actor having an agent, it means that somebody else is willing to represent you.
Even if that person is the artist themselves.
5. On the business side
Our manager Morton Lorge is an old music lawyer, he wouldn’t like me saying old music lawyer, but he’s older than us and he started putting it into place, he started putting the paperwork into place and looking for investors, and he has friends who are older and lawyers, who are in a position to invest and set out to raise some money to be able to support something like this. As he was putting that together successfully, we got signed, Reputante got signed to Cult Records, which is Julian Casablancas’ record label. We had this entity that was already set up and ready to go but now we didn’t have an artist to put on it because we were signed.
6. On where to find investors
Anywhere you can, anywhere you can. Right now, support for the arts is at an all time low, but money’s out there, there’s always money out there. There are always people out there who want to support the arts. Finding them is the difficult thing. So we’re very fortunate to have Morton on our team who has connections to old friends and people that he trusts that were looking to invest in an artistic venture who are very familiar with James’ [Levy] work over the years. Has seen the success that he’s had. He’s had success all over the world and they trusted us.
7. On where that money is going
1. First for recording, and professional sounding recording.
2. Next part of the process is hopefully getting that on the road.
3. Eventually who knows, merch and all these things that you would hope as an artist your label would support.
8. On getting onto music blogs
Those relationships are forged over many years and they don’t mean anything if the blog or whoever it is doesn’t like the material. There were relationships with Pitchfork and relationships with Noisey... and I know all of these blogs have all been pitched different projects by different members of Innit before and this is the one that stuck and it seemed to stick really fast, and having Zoë on board we were hoping that the focus would not be on her as a celebrity... and then our first announcement came through Noisey and they didn’t even know who was on the track.
9. On the different reactions of Noisey and Pitchfork
Relationships are different. I’d imagine if Noisey knew [who the band was] they would have written about it. The truth is I wasn’t the one to broker that interview so I’m not sure. Sometimes when Pitchfork comes to you and says 'we really like it, but we want to know who it is, we want to break news, we want to be able to have an exclusive,' at that point you can say no or you can say yes to a good interview from Pitchfork. For better or worse that’s very important these days.
10. On whether offering something “special” to blogs is important
Absolutely. Knowing blogs are always looking for that, it’s definitely a matter of playing some kind of game whether it’s having a little music video that you shot, just the band members, that they can give to a blog, or if it’s having another track, or if it’s having another quick snippet of an interview or a sit-down interview or whatever, it’s an exciting thing as an artistic venture to think how are the different ways we can pitch this.
11. On their international exposure and whether they were reaching out to outlets all over the world or whether those outlets took their cues from American ones
Both. We have a publicist that works with Innit, and that publicist has a relationship with blogs all over the world. That’s specifically their job. Being able to have someone who’s raising money for you and being able to hire a publicist that helps. Sometimes getting to Pitchfork is about having a publicist. Sometimes you can’t reach these people without it. There’s no one way to do this. It is something that gains momentum.
12. On what's most important for the early success of a single
1. Man hours, working endlessly on everything, working on your content. You can push everything as much as you want you can hire the best publicist, if your content’s bad people aren’t going to listen to it.
2. Putting a team together. A team of people that come from many different places. While two friends can have a band and have a label and try to push it, I think the voices involved are very important and that you find a good balance of people that support each other’s work and are also able to critique it and have the same goal with it.
13. On what’s next and possible expansion
Very much focused on Lolawolf. Hoping to work with Cult Records who we’re [Reputante] signed to and possibly put a tour together where we’re able to tour Reputante and Lolawolf at the same time at the same shows. Luckily Innit is in a place where we can support ourselves. We don’t need Cult Records to support a tour right now. Of course you always want support in any way anyone is able to give it. Who knows exactly how it will take shape.
14. On celebrity
We never want to fall back on, no matter who’s involved with the label, their career outside of the label, that’s totally not the point. I’m not worried about that.
15. On goals
We’re focused on one thing right now. Nobody’s looking at the next step even though we know that it looms.
If want more indie label inspiration, Ullman suggests checking out Daptone Records, who he thinks are a perfect example of the more “music collective” approach an indie label can take (as opposed to a hands-off, curatorial one).
Lolawolf's debut EP is out in November on Innit Recordings. Stream the single below.
