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| Photo: Michael Falco Photoshop; me. |
Then, of course, the process of getting a label interested and finally signing the deal is akin to the pulling of multiple wisdom teeth.
Take, for example, the story of the legendary Chicago rocker who shall remain nameless because, when this conversation took place, the following story was told in confidence. Some details have been omitted, but the details that do appear won't necessarily blow anybody's cover and will help the story along.
THE SHIT: How did your band get signed?
FAMOUS ROCKER: First, we did what every band probably does and just started sending tapes to labels unsolicited. Back then, there were no record company directories or anything so we had to be a bit tenacious.
For example, the A&M Records address on their albums was a P.O. Box, which we knew probably led straight to a dumpster behind the post office, but our drummer was a messenger in L.A. and knew the label's headquarters were on N. La Brea Avenue, so we were able to send it to them directly, but all we got was a form rejection letter.
Most other labels didn't even respond.
Years later, of course, I was watching the Tom Petty documentary "Running Down A Dream" where he describes loading up his band in Florida with the intent of driving out to L.A. to get a deal. Before they left, they sent out a bunch of demos to labels, completely unsolicited, and before they'd even gotten to L.A., they'd received multiple offers.
I mention this only because I've heard those Mudcrutch demos and they were not of the quality that gets such an overwhelming label response. They were passable, sure, but nothing incredible, in my opinion anyway.
THE SHIT: I agree. That dude was blessed.
FR: That he was.
So, after sending out tapes on our own proved to be a waste of time, we resorted to doing much the same thing again, but this timer we concentrated on managers. Meanwhile, we're hand delivering our demos to every club in town, but getting a gig in even the shitty ones where no big-name band would be caught dead proved almost impossible. We wound up gigging in Sacramento and San Francisco, which was ridiculous, but at least we could get those folks on the phone.
After doing this for about two years, we finally started to make a little money and build a following up north, but it wasn't until we read an interview by some other band whose name I forget where they mentioned that their lawyer had gotten them their record deal.
That was news to us.
We knew bands usually hired a lawyer after they'd gotten a label interested, but we'd never heard of hiring a lawyer to get you a deal. Once we realized that this was an accepted tactic, we immediately began researching law firms, trying to find out which ones specialized in entertainment law.
Of course, we rifled through all of our albums looking for contact info because bands always mention their lawyer in the liner notes, so, with a list of phone numbers, we began calling these lawyers and asking if they'd shop our tape. The great thing about lawyers, as opposed to managers, is that they don't necessarily have to like your music or believe in you to any great extent in order to take you on as a client.
All you have to do is pay them and they will pretend to believe in you as they pitch your tape to record labels.
Even so, there was a bit of a learning curve. For example, we had to work our way through a number of law firms before we found a guy who let us in on a bunch of secrets. He told us which A&R reps at which labels were open to taking pitches from lawyers and asked us if we saw ourselves recording for any of those labels.
THE SHIT: Were you guys prepared to be choosy?
FR: Up to that point, we'd have taken any label that offered us a deal, but, after talking to him, we realized that there were some labels that were to be avoided. So we went home and studied our record collections, trying to figure out which bands were closest to our sound that had had success at their labels. We then went back to the lawyer and gave him the list of labels we thought would be a good fit.
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| Aldo fucking Nova |
Oops!
Of all the labels we mentioned, there was only one that he felt was approachable via a lawyer, but that his firm was not the best firm to approach said label. He wrote down the contact info of another law firm and told us that they would be the best firm to use if we wanted to get our demo to that particular label.
THE SHIT: Sounds like the old brush-off.
FR: Yeah, part of me thought he was just trying to get rid of us, but when we called the law firm he recommended, apparently, he had already let them know we'd be calling and to refer them to one lawyer in particular, who invited us in for a meeting.
On the phone, this particular lawyer sounded like a real young buck, a total go-getter, but when we met him, he could not have been more of the cigar-chomping old-school A&R stereotype. He was smoking this smelly cigar and I remember his fingernails being yellow from the smoke and that he had an open bottle of vodka on his desk.
THE SHIT: My kinda lawyer. What kind of payment was he looking for to shop your demo?
FR: Right up front, he asked for a retainer of $2,000 before he'd even heard our tape or anything, which we thought sounded sketchy, but he was so honest about the whole process, basically telling us:
"Look, you guys are buying a record deal. Those don't come cheap. In doing so, you will save yourselves considerable, time, energy, and headaches." We had already been through that and didn't want to waste any more time. So we say yes without any idea where the money is coming from. Time to go beg our parents for a loan. Actually, we do that, but can only come up with $1,800. We're on a kamikaze mission, though, so we call the lawyer and tell him we're $200 short.
Is he really gonna turn us away over $200? We are about to find out.
He takes pity on us, makes a few calls and gets us a week of gigs opening for a new band featuring a two of the dudes from Boston. Five gigs at $500 a pop means that we'll have two grand to pay him and $500 to cover our expenses.
The gigs are all in out-of-the-way places, Oxnard, San Luis Abispo, Oakland, Ventura and Irvine. 200 people are showing up to these theaters that hold 2,500 so they drape a gigantic flag across the half of the hall that's empty, as if we don't notice the giant expanse of emptiness. If that's not kinda weird,the headlining band is bickering every second of every gig.
Last night of the "tour", the guitarist gets pissed at the singer and refuses to get off the tour bus. He says he'll only consider exiting the bus if the singer's wife comes aboard. This gets a round of chuckles among the crew and the singer is thinking "My what now?" she blushingly hops aboard and is in their a good hour or so, which is how long that bus was rocking.
We are told by their road manager that we might be asked to do more than our usual 45-minute set so we're in our dressing room trying to refresh our memories of some other material we did during our three-sets-a-night period. We even gave "Proud Mary" the ol' college try backstage, for fuck's sake.
Third song in, their road manager signals from the side of the stage to stretch it out, which we do for about fifteen minutes, then we see him appear again, gives us the universal sign for "shit is going sideways" and we start worrying we might have to do Proud Mary...cuz the singer's wife's name was Mary. Swear to Morrissey!
We wound up playing for almost an hour and half before their guitarist could be lured off the bus.
The next night, the band had a completely different guitarist.
Having paid our retainer to the lawyer, he informs us that our demo should be remixed before he presents it to any labels.
How much will this cost, we ask?
"I know a guy," he says, "But he'll want a credit on your first album."
The guy's name is Mike Clink who, in exchange for remixing our demo on spec, wants to produce or mix one song on the album. There may have even been talk of points, which was a foreign concept to us. "Two points"? Sure.
Clink, of course, went on to produce Guns n Roses Appetite For Destruction, but, at the time, we'd never heard of the guy. We agree to terms in a heartbeat and he spends a week on our tunes. Truth be told, we weren't all that impressed, but we're weren't in any position to judge.
We think we're finally ready to start shopping to labels, but then the lawyer takes a look at our promotional photos and says we should consider getting some new head shots.
How much will this cost us, we ask?
"I know a gal, " he says, "But she's going to want to shoot your album cover."
Again, we agree in a heartbeat and the very next morning at 8AM, we're in a huge loft in downtown L.A. in the middle of a top-flight photo shoot complete with designer wardrobe, make-up artists, production assistants, multiple backdrops, catering, the whole nine yards.
Turns out it was a photo shoot for Aldo Nova's album cover and that she'd snuck us in hours before the paying session was to begin in order to take advantage of the lavish wardrobe and whatnot. We just had to make sure to be out of there before noon, which was when Mr. Nova showed up. Those photos were fucking amazing.
THE SHIT: Did Aldo Nova ever notice you were wearing his clothing?
FR: Actually, our guitarist posed with a few of his guitars, but we never met the guy. So, with remixed demo and new glossies in hand, we go back to our lawyer, who tells us that he's already sent our tape around to three labels, including the one dream label that we really wanted, and all three passed.
Our first reaction was one of absolute depression. that we've somehow been conned into letting him re-tool our demo and promo photos for free, but he explains that just because he can get a label to listen to the demo doesn't mean he can get them to like it.
Point taken.
Okay, we reply, what do we do now?
"I can get you a deal if you guys truly just want to put a record out but I can tell you that the label in question will promote it for three months tops and then move on. Even then, it will be only the most minimal marketing campaign. There will be no video, no radio promotion, no tour support, but they will put your album out." The label is Backstreet Records, Tom Petty's label.
THE SHIT; Small world. Pretty exciting, though, right?
FR: We're fucking over the moon at the thought of being on the same label as Tom fucking Petty and, true to his word, our lawyer phones us two weeks later asking us to come to his office to look over the contract.
We excitedly show up to his office thinking we might be signing a deal today, but, as it turns out, he just wants to walk us through the contract which, at 128 pages, is like reading the Bible. After awhile, your eyes begin to fog over and your brain shuts down.
He suggests that we make a few adjustments regarding publishing details and then he has his secretary fax it back to the label's legal department. A week or so later, we're playing a Tuesday night on the Strip, the first of four bands nobody's ever hear of, and we're sharing a dressing room with the headlining band when we hear them say that an A&R guy from our dream label is coming down to see their show.
Five minutes later, the A&R guy they were just talking about wanders backstage, introduces himself to the headlining band while we just sit there trying to not gawk at him. This is a guy straight out of the magazines. Was he banging Cher at one point?
As he leaves, I get up and nonchalantly follow him out of the dressing room. He's in the middle of the dance floor when I tap him on his padded shoulder and introduce myself. I tell him that our band is going on first and that he should make sure to stick around, but he could not be more immune to my charms.
"Yeah, I'll see what I can do," he says, quite unconvincingly.
"No big deal," I respond, "If you don't catch our set then we'll just sign with Tom Petty's label."
The minute I said that, his eyes regain life and I he says,"Sorry, I didn't get your name."
We shake hands. "So you guys have an offer?" he asks.
"Yes sir," I reply.
"Who's representing you?"
I mention our lawyer's name, hoping this doesn't kill his interest. I think he sensed my hesitation. Our lawyer was a bit of a "character".
"Oh, wow, what a character," he exclaims. "Is he still smoking those awful cigars?"
"I've never seen him without one." I return volley.
"When do you guys go on?"
"Thirty minutes."
"OK. Three songs."
"You're welcome. I mean, thank you."
While I was tempted to run back to the dressing room and tell the rest of the band of this latest development, instead, I walked outside, lit a smoke, and prayed to whoever happened to be on-duty that we perform a killer set.
By the time we hit the stage, I was already on cloud nine, yet also down in the dumps after I flubbed the harmonies in the first chorus of our first tune. I'd been too busy scanning the crowd for the A&R guy but I couldn't find him.
The rest of the set flew by in a heartbeat and before I knew it, we were walking offstage. I scanned the crowd one last time and so no A&R guy. Ah well, at least we've got Backstreet, I thought.
THE SHIT: Damn.
FR: The next day, our lawyer calls us and asks us to drop by his office later that afternoon. As we nervously fill every chair in his office, taking notice of the neat and tidy contract on his desk that is about an inch thick, our lawyer takes a drag on his stogie and says "Well, Backstreet isn't going to budge on publishing, but that's not necessarily a bad thing if, like I said, you guys just want a record deal."
He takes another puff on the half-chewed brown stub sticking out of his mouth, blows a messy cloud of smoke into the air before adding, "Personally, I'd take this other offer that came in today.
Tapping the stack of paper on his desk, he chuckles, "Seems you guys made quite an impression last night."
Keep in mind that the rest of the band have no idea about my discussion with the A&R guy before Tuesday night's show. "Wait," exclaims our singer. "That's not the Backstreet contract? "Nope," replies our lawyer. "Turns out your dream label just offered you a deal, boys." Six weeks later, we held the signing party at the Troubadour.
THE SHIT: Whatever became of the headlining band your A&R guy had gone there to see?
FR: No idea. Trust me, if I'd seen their name in the BAM or LA Weekly club listings, I'd have gone down and thanked them for helping us get signed to "our dream label".