Peter Rojas, the founder of Engadget and Gizmodo, launched a record label today with Downtown Records' Josh Deutsch. We interviewed him to find out more.
Listening Post: How did this idea to give away music come about?
Peter Rojas: It's something I'd been kicking around for a while, as someone who loves music blogs, and saw why it had been so difficult for them to become a real business. And I think the biggest reason is that the music on them was very rarely legal. And labels have seen the value in getting the music out there on music blogs, but I thought it was an opportunity to take things to a different level and try to help the artists participate in the upside of creating a site that has an audience.
Once we started bringing in artists, we thought well, why don't we start bringing in labels too, and that's why we started incorporating that roster of indie labels that we have involved with the site, which we'll be adding to over the next few months. There are a few other labels that we couldn't quite get closed in time for the launch. They'll come on either next month or early next year.
LP: The other labels that are on there, are they offering all of their songs, or is it a selection of their stuff?
PR: It's going to be a selection. It's up to each label todecide what they want to put out on the site. One of the thingsthat I really like about blogging is that you can be very flexibleabout stuff. So we're being really flexible about what the artistswant to put on the site, and they understand that there's value inputting both exclusive and promotional stuff on RCRD LBL.
LP: I think the social networking aspect of the site is prettyingenious, in that everything's embeddable as a widget to help withdistribution, and the MP3 format makes sense. Why do you think themajor labels haven't figured out how to do what you've figured out howto do?
PR: They are built on a cost structure that makes it reallydifficult to do what we're doing. We're doing entirely new kinds ofdeals with artists and have these very flexible arrangements with thelabels we're working with. I think it's really hard for the majorlabels, with their deal structures, to even contemplate doing somethinglike this. I come into this with no investment in the existing systemat all, and probably a lot of naiveté about how the music industryreally works, but I'm perfectly comfortable building a lean, focusedbusiness whereas the traditional major labels want to have these verybig, bloated, bureaucratic organizations and they don't know how to goback or to shift to a leaner, more lightweight model.
LP: On the artist side, what's the reaction been?
PR: They're really into it. The artists like actually gettingpaid, and there's no weird, fuzzy, major label math about it, andthat's really appealing. So many artists that we've talked to, whetherit's a huge artist or a smaller artist, the ones that have dealt withmajor labels say "I did this deal, and at the end of two years somehowI ended up in debt to them, and I needed to put out four more records,
and they cut the funding." They like how straightforward andtransparent it is. Their music is already out there for free, so whatwe're doing is making them more comfortable about putting it out there,
doing something that's in a way in their own best interest, and notfeeling like they have to bite the bullet and put it out there and notmake any money from it.
It's not like no one makes money from selling CDs anymore, but I
think the statistics don't lie, and for most of the mid-tier artists,
it's really always been about touring and merchandise and things likethat. So a new platform for them to be able to get their music outthere, in the hands of the right audience – and they get paid for it –
I think it's really attractive to a lot of people.
What we're doing isn't for everybody. And I think that's animportant thing about blogging in general, or niche media, is that youhave to be honest about who you are and what you're about and whoyou're doing this for. This isn't meant to be the be-all-and-end-all ofthe music industry, it's just meant to be a great place where peoplewho are into this kind of music can get it from those kinds of bands.
In a way, I'm almost embarrassed by all of the attention today, becauseI want to make sure we're very creditable and focused with the audiencewe think is going to appreciate the music we're putting out.
Fortunately, we have bands that I'm super excited about. When I firstheard that Justice/Mos Def/Spank Rock remix a few weeks ago, I said,
"woah, I'd do anything to have this on the site.
LP: How big is the staff?
PR: It's pretty small. It's a joint venture with Downtown, sowe're able to leverage their A&R and publishing/licensing stuff.
And they're a small organization – they make a lot of money, butthey're very lean, which is one of the reasons we work so well withthem. It's not very hierarchical there. And then at RCRD LBL, there'smyself, Elliot Aronow and Cameron Cooke, and those two are the leadbloggers for the site, writing the stuff for the main site and gettingstuff from the labels, reaching out for artists, and so on.
Because the deals we're doing with artists are so flexible, if we'reinto a band and no one's ever heard of them, we can just do a quickdeal with them, it's not like we have to go through this big layeredprocess of vetting and getting final approval. It's low-risk foreveryone involved. It's low-risk for the band, because it's just a fewtracks to start off with. And it's low-risk for us, because we're notmaking a big multi-year commitment, and we don't have to investhundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions, on marketing theartists. We're not trying to sell anything, we're just trying to putout music that we think is good.
LP: Okay, here comes the softball question. You've traditionallyworked from home, and I read that this is the first time you've workedin an office. What's it like working in an office for the first time?
PR: Two things about that – one is, I think I was a littlemisquoted there [in the Wall Street Journal]. I actually have worked inan office before, at Red Herring. Ethan asked where the Engadgetoffices were, and I said I've never had an office, but I meant in termsof Engadget.
I still work at home, and the new downtown [New York] offices don'topen until next year. But I kind of like working from home, and I likethe feel of having a more virtual business, so we'll have a space wherewe can work, but I don't see myself getting up in the morning andcommuting over to the office and staying there all day. I'll still bepretty much doing what I do now.
LP: One more thing – does RCRD LBL own the songs in perpetuity, or do they revert to the artists and labels at some point?
PR: We have lots of different deals, and it really depends onthe artist. With some artists we do deeper deals, where we rep them interms of their publishing and licensing, and we split the revenue forthat kind of stuff. Downtown has a great team of seven people that aresome of the best publishing and licensing people in the business. Someartists want to take advantage of that, and some artists don't. Itvaries; it's a spectrum, a continuum – if you want to give us a littlebit more, you get a little bit more, and if you don't, that's fine – itworks both ways. It's going to evolve over time for sure.
And there are a lot of features on the site that we're going to rollout next year. I know everyone says that, but what we're doing now isjust the beginning of what I hope will be a very amazing place forpeople to get free music and for artists to get compensated for it. I
haven't gotten much sleep, but it's been pretty exciting.
(image from dgeneticsmusics)
