To celebrate the launch of NeatPeople's Carry You Upward 7" we've done a little interview with Rekabet Records.
To find out where the NeatPeople 7" is available from go to http://www.index7.co.uk/threaddetails.php?thread=259
For those that aren't familiar with the label, please can you give a very brief background to the label ?>
Y : We're a two-man operation based in London. It's very much a bedroom operation. E: Yeah, we formed officially a year ago now. I had a label before called ATAK around 2001-03, but that ended, and eventually I teamed up with Yous. So far since we've been going, I've been managing the label in conjunction with my degree, but I graduate in a month. Y: Whilst I pretty much work on this full-time.
Whilst neither you or Emrah finished your degrees, do you think being in a cosmopolitan environment with lots of young creative people was integral for birthing the idea of starting a label?
Y: Very much so. Emrah stayed on at uni, but I left in my first year... wasn't for me! The whole process of Rekabet Records was to build careers for ourselves, put out music by acts we felt deserved to be in the spotlight and we told ourselves from the start it was now or never. E: Exactly! You've got to be dynamic. With Rekabet, we were just out one night with friends and at a bar and said to Yous, "let's form a label", and I naturally developed the label's concept. Look at us a year on, we're contributing something amazing to society; like Wilde says, all art should represent beauty. We're a catalyst to release that potential in people. Y: At uni we spent time listening to stuff from The Smiths right up to The Futureheads and being enamoured by the wake of bands emerging in the wings in 2002/2003. Being in our early twenties running a start-up label has its advantages; you have bags of enthusiasm, a genuine love of the music and that naivety that you can change the world with the music you're putting out! We wouldn't be able to do this at 30 we can assure you. Seriously though, it's a fantastic time to be an indie label. E: And we're doing it for ourselves. The music industry is a focal one sheerly because it gives license to so much artistic output; be it with videos, artwork... and the music! We're all just kids who want to express something, and without small indie's like ours there might not have been an opportunity like this for us all otherwise.
At present all of your releases are self-distributed. How did you find out which retailers to approach?
E: We just asked at the one's we brought records from ourselves. Y: And living in London we knew Rough Trade and Pure Groove would take our releases, the rest was just research via t'internet. Those outside London were a bit tricky admittedly as there's no telling how well they'll sell if a band like NeatPeople (bearing in mind they've a small profile) for instance don't visit a particular town often, which proves a trifling matter to say the least. It's much easier for indie stores to take 7" vinyl in than cds, unless they're touring extensively. E: Plus, with limited pressings of a 1,000 or so like we release at present, if you build fans in small places then their local stores usually catch on and want to stock it because they're dear to the fans. I mean, we've had fans from places as random as Portugal, and now we've set up a connection to one particularly trendy indie store abroad, so now we're regularly stocked in Tokyo!
When pressing your 7" releases did you go through a broker in the UK or deal direct with a manufacturer?
Y: For 'Baby I'm Bored' we approached the manufacturers, but we went via a broker in the UK for the latest NP single, 'Carry You Upward'. We had much more joy with the latter for their efficiency and very quick turn-around time. E: Paying for the vinyl is always the biggest expense of any release, but because prices are constant unlike with other factors like PR so that so saves trouble; and we've been lucky to have manufacturer's who keep us well informed when everything else might be up in the air.
Despite being a small self-funded label you've made a couple of music videos, and got a very snazzy website. Were you able to do this through being creative on a limited budget, or through pulling in favours from friends?
E: In terms of the website, I put together the image and had graphic designers build it. The designers had great attention to detail and we're always pleased with the result we get back on such a limited budget for video's etc. We've been lucky enough to build relationships with generous, talented people in the industry. Y: So it's a bit of both really. We've been very, very fortunate as a label to being able to get people pulling favours in for us such as the website and music videos amongst other things. Not many people know this, but the 'Baby I'm Bored' video was made on ONE camcorder in a now-burned down warehouse in Colchester and didn't cost us a single penny, but to date it's had 6000+ views on the director's MySpace ALONE. A word of advice that I would give though for those starting a new label is to go for bare minimum in terms of cost. Get mates involved and they'd be totally up for it as it's such an exciting thing. E: People can tend to realise something with promise, and if your's seems so then you'll find more often than not people will just want to be involved. If you stay faithful to using the same people, this builds strong relationships in the long term, because whatever you do it's in everyone's interest to make it happen... there's the bonus of a reward someday if all goes well! Y: We're still in that position where we can't afford to pay out hundreds and hundreds of pounds for artwork projects or remixes, but If you don't ask, you don't get. I'd like to think that the music industry has a general understanding that there's little point in charging small projects extortionate fees with money they don't have, until they've established themselves.
The new NeatPeople single is available as a 7" and as a download. This seems to be an increasing trend from labels putting out singles. What do you think about the recent practice of labels putting out 7" singles with an A side and an etched message on the B side acting as a code for an MP3 download ? Would you say this is a cynical marketing ploy or a snazzy innovation for people who like collecting vinyl but prefer listening to music on their computers and Ipods?
E: Well, we haven't yet done that ourselves, although I imagine it happens more often than not. Our label has already had a CD pressing release, again limited, but nonetheless. From my own viewpoint we only make the music available for download because, again, Rekabet is only in a position where it can afford only a small quantity of pressings. So if you miss out on the vinyl, then you miss out. If I were a fan, abroad or whatever and couldn't get my hands available on a vinyl, then I'd want that opportunity. Hence it's there, although I could also see why people wouldn't want to overplay the vinyl when there's so much value attached to them... or plan to sell them on ebay! Ultimately, we live in an age where there's so many different channels to reach everyone, so why not open as many ports as you can so none of them miss out?