Pair of B.C. indie music companies offer free downloads
Rock Royalty Records and Munch Music run against the wind
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
While the big record companies fight a losing battle with consumers who download their artists' tracks, startup music companies welcome the trend, some making everything in their limited catalogue free for the taking.
Many labels will offer free samples from their CDs, letting you download a few tracks. But two B.C. businesses, run by young musician-entrepreneurs, want everything to be available.
Victoria-based Rock Royalty Records, run by two 24-year-old musicians, is making the catalogues of all four of its artists free for downloads. This includes only one complete CD, but co-owners Danton Jay and Nic Whitehouse plan to have more as the business grows.
Munch Music, located in Delta, has the same policy. Company general manager Taylor Van Zant, who's all of 17, offers free downloads of tracks by seven acts, including his band Van Paul and the Forever Reds, although it's up to the bands if they want to give their music away or charge for it.
If you give away the music, what's in it for the artists?
The artists get free promotion, a chance to air their music and, in theory, more opportunities to play live.
And if you're giving away the music, how can the music company make any money?
In the case of Rock Royalty, which manages its artists, it gets a cut of the income the acts make at their live shows.
"We're doing all the middleman stuff, so bands don't need promoters, managers, agents, people who dress them up or do their makeup," says Jay. "We're doing everything in-house.
"The harder we work for them, the more money we make. Everybody wins."
Over at Munch Music, revenue comes from acts using the Munch recording studio, a company store that sells CDs and clothing, and from music students who go to Munch for lessons. The company, run by Van Zant and his mother, Dawn, also makes income from advertising links for their MP3Musicgrams, musical snippets, some by established artists, which people can listen to but not keep on their computers.
"For us, [the free downloads] are free advertising, showing people what our studio is capable of and what kind of artists we can produce," says Van Zant.
Rock Royalty's Jay says the goal is to have full CDs for download, although thus far only Machina, whose members include Jay and Whitehouse, has one available.
"With some of the bands, we're releasing a few tracks at a time as they compile an album," says Jay. "From a marketing standpoint, that allows us to have a new bunch of songs to present to radio stations and MuchMusic."
Even though the music is all available for free, Rock Royalty will still sell CDs at its online store for those who want to support their favourite acts and for those who want the entire package in their hands.
Jay and Whitehouse, who operate their business from the Victoria house they share, believe artists can thrive because they have the freedom to record whatever music they want, producing it themselves using professional or home studios, without feeling pressure from a label to turn out a top-30 song. Similarly, his company does not have the record production and promotion overhead incurred by the big record companies when they try to break new acts.
To make money on live dates, Rock Royalty is focusing on B.C. and Alberta, setting up tours for acts which would hit the best club in each town and tying up only a few hours between stops.
"By having enough bands, we can create a constant flow of bands on the road playing these shows," says Jay.
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© The Vancouver Sun 2007
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