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Features - Interview
 Sound Devastation Records Interview by Sean Butze | July 24th, 2008
With all the time we spend covering music artists here at Sonic Frontiers, it’s often easy to forget about all the other talented people involved in the global independent scene whose work normally goes completely unnoticed. Indie labels and their owners are a prime example of the many thankless yet highly important roles that exist within the music world, and we feel such folks are in dire need of some much-deserved attention. That is why for our newest interview we decided to venture behind the scenes of Sound Devastation Records, a young independent label based in Nottingham, United Kingdom.
Established merely two years ago, Sound Devastation Records was founded by Chris Keith-Wright and partner Helen out of what was formerly an underground music e-zine by the same name. Since the label’s inception, Sound Devastation has grown to house a diverse roster of artists from the experimental and extreme music underground spanning the genres of post-rock, punk, doom metal, hardcore, and beyond. Most notably, the label has developed a strong balance between quality artistic value and DIY-ethics, maintaining high standards for their releases while granting the utmost freedom to the artists they support.
In recent correspondence, label founder Chris Keith-Wright was kind enough to answer some of our questions about Sound Devastation Records, the nature of independent culture and what it’s like to start and run a small indie label.
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SF: What was your inspiration for founding Sound Devastation Records?
Chris: The inspiration for founding Sound Devastation was simple really. For about a year we had been writing an online ezine (of the same name) reviewing lots of demos, EPs and the like. Your general ezine really, nothing as fancy as Sonic Frontiers.
It started to take off though and basically after our one year anniversary so-to-speak we had somehow managed to get put on PR companies lists for any campaigns they were running. I’ll never know how, we never asked to be added. At first we thought this was great – lots of freebies, lots of new music to listen to. But we soon began to realize that the stepping up of quantity wasn’t being matched by any noticeable increase in quality. Not a problem at first, but no one wants to go to a website and read damning review after damning review, and no one (including me) wants to write reviews, the vast majority of which are negative, in their spare time.
During this period we had uncovered some great new bands though. But to our dismay these were the guys who were the few that weren’t signed. Their positive review always got lost in the myriad mire of review updates to the ezine. We had also noticed during the time we ran the ezine that the UK scene was constantly eschewed by the majority American and European fans, even those with stirling personal taste.
America and mainland Europe are strong areas that offer up some amazing bands, and they continue to generate amazing bands to this day. But so does the UK – [though] there always seemed to be a downplaying of UK bands. I think it’s because of geography if I look at it objectively now (having UK and international bands on the label). The UK is detached from mainland Europe and our scenes are worlds apart in many respects. But at the time it seemed such an injustice that we felt duty bound to do something about it.
So, to cut a long story short, we put our money where our mouths were! That was the inspiration behind the inception of the label. We stopped the ezine and picked up two bands we thought stood out who had sent us demos originally to be reviewed. They were two very young bands and unfortunately for all involved, they split up before we had the chance to start the label properly and release anything by them.
I guess it could have ended just there. It did for a while… Then a band who had approached us about releasing their album contacted us again. Despite loving what we’d heard, we had turned them down due to the aforementioned signings. We were only 17 then and all our money was going to be tied up in them. Now that they were no longer around, we jumped at christening the label with its first release. It took an age to piece everything together (due to us not knowing what to do at all) but we finally got Aotea’s ‘Apocalypse In Transmetropolita’ released early 2006. After somehow wrangling a distribution deal in the UK, we got it released in the shops May of the same year. Sorry, this answer has turned into kind of a rambling biography hasn’t it!
SF: In the big scheme of things, your label is still very young so to speak. In the few years you’ve been operating, what have you learned about the process of running a label? What are the rewards and/or challenges of maintaining a small indie label?
Chris: We’ve learned more in two years than I could have possibly imagined when we started. We’ve had to though – you couldn’t run the label nowadays without learning quick. There’s lots of boring stuff about releasing a record that no one thinks about when they buy it. There’s a lot of waiting around for all the separate pieces to be ready to send to a manufacturer (master, artwork, etc, etc). Artwork has to be to specifications, barcodes need to be purchased, files and forms need to be filled out for manufacturing, distribution, copyright, and so on. Learning how to do all that is tough and daunting to say the least.
Then you have to learn the ‘release process,’ I guess. The above stuff is part of it, but then you have to follow a bit of a formula in terms of time lines and so on. For example, a lot of magazines have lead-times for their articles and reviews, so a promo copy of the album might have to be at the magazine’s office three or four months before the release date. The distribution side of things takes time too – you need to factor in delivery to the distributor’s warehouse, and then delivery to the shops, etc. It’s a very mechanical process in many ways. It’s not a formula for success, don’t get me wrong… Doing this and that at the correct times doesn’t equal great sales and magazine front covers. All it does is basically gets the record on the shelves of the local indie store.
You have to be good a keeping a sense of everything. With music being so subjective and me being so proud of the label it’s hard to stay objective, but you have to try. You have to know what stage everything is at, especially if you have multiple projects on the go. You have to be able to prioritize and never procrastinate. You also have to be able to do some simple accounting and get savvy with any musical legal jargon that can be thrown your way from time to time.
They are the minor, niggling challenges you encounter when running a label. The challenge of staying afloat is a greater one, and one that afflicts a lot of labels, especially small indies. There are so many labels that release five or six records and disappear off the face of the earth. I guess, if like Sound Devastation, a label is ridiculously passionate and ambitious then it’s even more of an issue. A small label who releases fairly infrequently… say, releasing three or four records a year, can do without immediate recognition for the release and can do without a good pre-order period and interest in the release from the start. For us it’s different. A lot of the time it is a little ‘do-or-die’. Luckily we haven’t metaphorically died yet but we’ve been close to going ‘fuck it’ a couple of times. But we couldn’t. Not really. We are slowly moving away from being in that situation quite so much due to some of our releases doing really well. Hopefully by the end of next year, I’ll be able to breathe easier!
We are still a young label I agree, but after only celebrating our two year anniversary in late May, I’m currently working on SD030. Crazy. Not quite up to John Zorn’s Tzadik label for voluminous releasing though! Shucks…
The biggest reward about running the label is seeing a band we’ve supported start getting recognized – be that getting a good review, getting good sales or getting some better support slots live due to being signed. It’s great to see, because without it those bands may not have got signed to another label, may not have even carried on, or may not have progressed artistically due to the constraints of constant local-only gigging and no official release to ‘move away from musically’ so-to-speak.
I love incidental moments the most though. I know it sounds weird, but… I might travel somewhere and go to a gig and spot someone with a shirt by one of our bands. That’s an awesome feeling. We’ve recently had some people getting tattoos of the artwork of our releases. That blows my mind. It’s actually quite humbling to think that we’ve helped get a band received and listened to by someone who obviously has henceforth been affected by it greatly. Also hearing the odd comment that ‘I love your label’ or that we remind someone of so-and-so label who happens to be an influence of ours is always a great ego boost too!
SF: While most of the commotion surrounding music piracy has been and continues to be generated by major labels, the indie community seems to have a more diverse array of opinions on the matter. How does Sound Devastation feel about piracy, filesharing and such? Do you feel filesharing makes it more difficult to run your label?
Chris: Aaaah! Oh dear. That question. I knew this would come up…
OK… It’s a difficult one. I’ll admit straight off that I download some music, so anything I say is basically undercut by that fact that I’d be being hypocritical if I say it’s the most evil thing ever to happen to music. Well I won’t say that anyway… However, I will say this, I do buy a lot of what I download. It’s normally just to sample it. If I don’t like it, I delete it immediately so no-one downloads it from me. Don’t know if that’s even got a slither of principle in it, but it sates my guilty heart anyway, so there!
In terms of mp3 releasing (iTunes, etc) I’ve been against it for a long time. We have the capability with our distribution deals to have our releases on these systems for sale, but at the moment, we’ve held out against pressure to do so. It’s difficult though, as the financial lure is always there. With flagging sales (especially with CDs) it’s something that is getting more and more tempting, and puts me in a bit of a catch-22 between being able to continue doing what I love (i.e. the label) and relinquishing a principle. I can see some select SD releases going through these channels in a year or so. Perhaps. We’ll see. I just cannot fathom why someone wouldn’t want the packaging! I want physical releases, damn it. I can’t understand why someone would pay for a few file names on a computer screen.
I really don’t know how one can tackle this. It really is just becoming a fact that label’s have to deal with. I don’t know if our sales would increase if file-sharing was somehow made completely illegal and this new imaginary law was actually upheld 100%. In fact our sales might go down, especially if people who download our stuff behave like me when downloading.
Sometimes the facts make a bit of a sorry read though. For example we did a 1,000 pressing of Sons of Alpha Centauri. I don’t think the band would mind if I said that we are still some way to selling out of that record. However, I know for a fact that the album has been downloaded more than 3,000 times from one illegal site alone. It’s up on at least ten more sites, each of which number between 100 and 1,000 downloads of the album. That hurts a bit, when you do some basic math. The fact is that the record is ‘underground’ enough that most of those people must have sought it out to download. So you’d have to wager that they must have liked what they heard on MySpace or another of those sites. So you’d hope they’d like the album. But that means that less than 1 in 50 or 100 bother to buy it from SD.
In general though, I think people in the ‘alternative metal scene’ (if we so dub it for arguments sake - ahem) and who appreciate Sound Devastation releases are those who appreciate the cool artwork and/or innovative packaging. The major labels have more to fear in the long run I think. They release entertainment music, rather than artful music. If that makes me a music snob, then so be it. They release entertainment for the most part. Entertainment can be thrown away. Files on a computer lend themselves to that. Major label releases are standard-everything packaging for the most part too. I think if I bought that music I would buy digitally online or just steal it.
I hope Sound Devastation releases have more depth musically and artistically, and so in turn make people long to own it and have the packaging to look at in their hands as the music kicks in.
SF: With more and more notable musicians leaving big record labels in favor of the independent format, many are wondering if these might truly be the last days for big-business labels as we know them. Do you believe indie labels are really the way of the future, or will the big guys eventually catch on that their old ways aren’t going to fly in the 21st century? Do you think major labels could learn something from the kind of philosophy surrounding indie labels like yours?
Chris: I have no idea how to answer this if I’m perfectly honest.
I have absolutely no faith that the major labels will learn anything from independent labels. The reason they can’t learn might not be for lack of wanting to. It’s the reason that they would be trying to mimic successful indies that you have to question. And it’s the reason they and any large corporation does anything. Money. Profit. As the philosophy of a lot of indie labels doesn’t have money anywhere near their heart (even successful ones that do make very good money), there will always be a ‘short-circuit’ of understanding for major label big-wigs.
Saying that, I’m not predicting the downfall of the major labels. Far from it. They will always be there, in one shape or form. I don’t really believe that the major labels are having it quite so bad as everyone says. I query the hype and the rumour. I don’t see musical revolution on the horizon, sorry.
Perhaps, at the most revolutionary of industry turn-overs, the names of the major labels will disappear. But that will all be marketing, not their dissolution to the annals of history. Almost every label, apart from true indie labels, has their roots or connections to the majors. Maybe the early 21st Century is the rise of more and more major ‘subsidiary’ labels. The label with a separate name, separate staff, separate website and so on, but are still truly run and owned by the big boys.
SF: Like many indie labels these days, Sound Devastation releases a lot of material on vinyl LPs. There’s been a lot of talk lately about vinyl making a big comeback, even with some mainstream artists. To what extent to do think vinyl will continue to become popularized in the years to come? Do you think the indie community has played an influential role in sparking this revival of the format?
Chris: Vinyl is awesome. I love it, and it is my preferred medium. I think it’s a nicer sound, and as a ‘fuck you’ to the whole download culture, you get bigger, better artwork.
I think the indie community has definitely instigated the revival. It’s been a great move in recent years and been financially smart for some indies. Any time you mention monetary terminology, you have to the mention the majors, and there they are. As soon as it became a bit more ‘public knowledge’ that vinyl was cool again in a wider community sense of the word, you can bet the larger labels and mainstream artists would be over that like a rash.
Whether this vinyl revolution is sustainable we’ll see. You have to remember that vinyl is more heavily reliant on oil than CD manufacture, and I’m sure we all know about oil’s sorry state of affairs! Only yesterday my vinyl manufacturer contact phoned me warning me of increasing LP pressing prices. We’ll have to see what happens. For now, I love it, and I enjoy putting out vinyl, and will continue to do so.
I have to mention though that I love putting out releases on multi-format. In other words on CD and Vinyl. I think there’s a lot to be said about the now common place CD. It can still be lovely to work with and I think a lot of labels (including Sound Devastation sometimes) have been a bit lazy with being innovative with the medium. I think we’ve done some great packages – some gatefold sleeves, differing sizes of digipak, and all with lots of different inks and finishes… But there’s still more to be done.
I think Robotic Empire has done some fantastic stuff with this kind of creativity – Circle Takes The Square’s custom digipak was awesome. Labels need to do more of this but push it even further. Bring back interest in CDs too! Plus, Robotic Empire have started doing dual packages like the new Capsule release. Ace. Plus cassette tapes – what about them? I loved them as a kid. I’d love to do a release on tape, but every time I say this I get told no one owns a player anymore. Severe bummer. Why not, hmmm?
SF: Your label strongly promotes the DIY (do-it-yourself) philosophy of music production and distribution. What do you feel is valuable about DIY culture and giving more freedom to the artists?
Chris: DIY culture is what it’s all about. Grass roots connection to the bands, to other labels, to distributors, to indie shops and most importantly to the listener. I do have a very subtle definition of DIY though, which has got me into arguments sometimes…
I’d say Hydra Head for example is still totally DIY. Yeah they have PR companies, booking agents, distributors and so on. But at the end of the day all decisions and actual work behind the releases come from a small core team of people as far as I can tell. Same with lots of cool labels – Level Plane, Conspiracy, etc.
Non-DIY is when you can’t really attribute a decision, an action or an event with someone or some small group. How many people for example must work on getting the new Jay-Z album from inception to release? Hundreds. That’s impersonal, cold, business-like. It doesn’t compute for me.
Some people, including close friends, would say I’m mad right about now. DIY to them is… well you’d have to ask them. I’m afraid all I see is posing bullshit a lot of the time. In fact, I find a lot of the DIY scene more intolerable than major label stuff. At least EMI aren’t pretending to be something they’re not. There’s a lot of ‘DIY’, ‘punk’ or whatever labels and bands out there that are actually making a lot of money by basically subscribing into a look, a way of writing their blogs, etc, blah blah fucking blah, and having a captive audience lapping it up. It’s insincere.
I’m all for this ‘proper’ DIY but only when I find a genuine mass of people doing it. I find DIY at its worst an excuse for shoddy releases – making it as cheap as possible just to make it cheap… and subsequently ripping fans off and not doing a great band justice… Also letting people down and if they complain going ‘Whoa, who’s the business man?’ It’s an excuse sometimes, y’know? Playing on ethics and principles... It’s despicable. Way worse than some suit hocking me some copies of Coldplay’s latest abortion.
DIY to me is caring; it’s about being accountable and about being available. It’s about being involved and being open to ideas, new ways of doing things, being connected to a scene, doing something not always for monetary or material gain. It’s tough to explain because it’s a concept or theory that is only realized in fleeting sub-conscious decisions. It’s tough to explain because I think some people are predisposed to understand that way of working and living, others need to see it to understand it and some will never understand how, or more importantly why, one would operate like that. Kind of goes back to my argument about majors not understanding indie labels because of their motivations behind any learning wanted.
DIY culture and giving freedom to the artist is valuable because it’s not my place to dilute art. It’s not mine to own or to suggest how it might be different. The copyright to the music isn’t mine. It just isn’t. I didn’t write it, why the hell should I have ownership of it? Even when we’ve funded recordings I’ve relinquished any copyright I could have asked for, to the artist. I could very well have a shout for it, but I didn’t write the tracks. They needed help financing the recording. If I do my ‘job’ right and sell the record OK, I guess I get me reward by breaking even or making a bit of money. That’s it. As long as I set up a fair deal with a band where I get recognition for ‘being their label’ (i.e. I can make my money back fairly quickly) then after that I’m pretty easy with money.
I can’t operate any other way. All Sound Devastation relationships are based on trust. I consider everyone on the roster friends – some closer than others as is natural. People communicate differently and some more frequently than others. Also, people live apart. We’re based in Nottingham, UK. Kids With Guns For Hands are from Perth, Australia for example and others are dotted about the world. Even being DIY you need to have a head for business. I need it to ensure SD can carry on. DIY doesn’t mean I can become a charity. I can’t just go ‘here’s your awesomely packaged release… no, no, keep all the album sales.’ But I don’t like business getting in the way. Because of that I do stress a lot and seem to apologize constantly to my bands when I’m talking about boring stuff about their contract of when we’re going to do some accounting or whatever.
SF: Talk a bit about the underground scene in Britain right now. Is there anything about the music and culture going on in the region these days that you find particularly inspiring?
Chris: Britain has some amazing bands that deserve attention. Hopefully people might check the label out from this interview so I’m not going to wax lyrical about bands on my roster. But bands such as Sika Redem and Redstarsparade deserve attention. Some are getting it too – Rolo Tomassi, Manatees, Bossk, The Mirimar Disaster, Moloch and so on. Some I like, some I don’t, but at the end of the day, that there are some bands worthy of international listeners is alright by me.
I must admit that I think the scene was a little stronger a year or so ago. I think it’s still an amazing music culture, but as with all things it is cyclical with a lot of death and rebirth. I think the UK is at the start of the circle again…
There was an amazing band called Rainydayfuckparade and they released one four-track EP and are done now… Another called Crydebris did a 3-track demo and they were finished… There’s a lot of that in the UK scene, that I perhaps don’t see too much of in Europe and America anyway. That is, a band surfaces and disappears in no time at all. Maybe our ‘circle of life’ (crack out Elton John), is a little too quick. It seems to me that EU and USA bands seem to be in it for the long haul a little more. But, saying that, I may be completely wrong, as I’m not immersed in particular international scenes to notice the small fluctuations and releases made by small short-lasting bands. (By the way not all our bands have words running into each other, just seems to be my examples!)
The problem for the UK is that we’re an island, and as pathetic as that sounds, it is what I put a lot down to in terms of UK bands and labels being overlooked. We’re not connected. It seems like an excuse for not touring internationally for most bands too. But the obstacle is there and the UK scene can be a little incestuous at times. I do find 99% of UK bands insufferably lazy. But once you’ve done the UK once or twice in a year, there’s nowhere else to go (so their argument is legitimate for the most part), unless you have the balls and actually bother to get organized and get over to Europe and beyond. Unfortunately, hardly any UK bands do this on a regular basis. So, since beginning the label, I’ve begun to understand why the UK scene has been so overlooked. We’re never involved!
Britain, as a music buying public, is a bit more reserved about our purchasing than the EU and USA is I think. It takes more for us to part with our cash evidently! It’s a shame and the scene can be a little harsh and unsupportive of its own at times. It depends really. Having been in Europe recently, I must say the price of living in the UK is startlingly high, so I guess a lot of people don’t have the money to buy luxuries like CDs and LPs! Especially with postage prices the way they are! Argh!
Other times I feel as though the British scene is perfect; really punk-rock, and everyone is friendly and it works really well. Other times I seriously think of moving Sound Devastation’s operations to mainland Europe or to the States.
Getting back to the point, there are lots of great online communities that Sonic Frontiers readers should get involved in to induct themselves into the UK scene. It’s well worth chatting to music fans in the UK to get tips on cool bands and labels. If you love your doom, drone, stoner, sludge then head over to NineHertz (www.ninehertz.co.uk) and if you’re into screamo, emo, hardcore and the like, then visit Collective Zine (www.collectivezine.co.uk).
I love the British music scene as a whole, despite its idiosyncrasies, and as displayed by the SD roster, we still support our own a lot. Go listen to them – you will be pleasantly surprised at the talent our little island has to offer!
SF: What advice would you give to someone looking to start up their own independent label?
Chris: Don’t start one! Oh, I am a clichéd man at times…
I don’t have any advice. I think it’s best to find out for yourself. Just love the music you release and believe in what you’re doing and the way you want to work. Unless you’re absolutely hopeless at basic business I think you can make it.
Maybe plan a bit – look into what other labels have done. Who distributes them? Who did their manufacturing? Ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask. Never be afraid to ask. I guess that’s advice…?
I’m still learning. I emailed some dudes at Trustkill about the name of a special paper they used in the original pressing booklet of Poison the Well’s ‘Tear From The Red’ just because I liked it and wanted to know for a project. I didn’t want to guess and our manufacturer couldn’t understand what type of paper it was from my explanation of it, so I just asked the people that we’re involved. Simple! People are never unapproachable. If you can get over the boundary of seeing a little contact button on a website and it being a little daunting, then you’re half way there, I swear.
Have some money too. It’ll help. Price of making records has gone up and it’s harder and harder to sell people records due to the increased availability of so much music (myspace, last.fm, etc). People are pickier. I am. I used to ‘blind-buy’ albums in shops. Not anymore…
More expense + harder sales = A need for belief, an innumerable treasure trove and some damn hard work (aka whoring oneself to passersby in the street).
SF: Is there anything new and exciting on the horizon for Sound Devastation Records that you can clue us in on?
Chris: There’s plenty going on! We’re releasing some records that I’m so excited about; I could positively vomit with delight!!
Ehnahre’s debut album called ‘The Man Closing Up’ is coming out on 1st September and is simply going to blow everyone away. The music is insane, the packaging is gorgeous. The band consists of quite a few ex-members of Kayo Dot. Jonah Jenkins of Rawradarwar did some vocals on it too. People are getting pretty hysterical about this already. Luckily we’ve managed to keep it away from any download sites. Nothing has slipped… yet.
We’re also releasing a collaborative record between Black Boned Angel from New Zealand (who feature Campbell Kneale of Birchville Cat Motel fame), and Nadja (Canadian drone pioneers). It’s called ‘Christ Send Light’ and is one 21 minute track that’s just outstanding—blissed out drone with captivating vocals. People have been going crazy over it. It came out on CD via one of Campbell’s own little DIY labels. 500 copies sold out in like a week. It’s coming out on vinyl from us and the B side will have an etching. Will look stunning, no doubt! That’ll be later in the year.
We’ve got some other projects cooking, but way too early to reveal anything yet I’m afraid.
The label is growing exponentially, and we just hope to keep releasing music we love. Some better distribution in the USA would be great… We’ve been talking to a few people, so hopefully we should come up with something. We’d love a few more people in the USA to know about what we’re doing and be listening to some more of our bands, so thanks for the interview!
We’re really ambitious, so hopefully people will be interested in us for some time to come. We plan to stick around for some time yet!
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More on Sound Devastation Records
- Sound Devastation Official Website
- Sound Devastation MySpace page
- SF reviews of Sound Devastation releases
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