Interview: Kevin Douch of Big Scary Monsters
We caught up Kevin Douch from UK record label Big Scary Monsters this week. Check out the article below – he goes on to discuss some of the challenges facing a record label in today’s climate as well as how he has worked with Get Cape Wear Cape and his new generation of bands that are literally tearing down the ceiling of each and every concert hall across the globe. Follow Kevin and BSM on Twitter and via their blog.
Please can you introduce us to your label and yourself. Where did your inspiration come from and what’s what made you start a label?
Hi. I’m Kev and I run Big Scary Monsters Recording Company, which is a small independent label based in Oxford. The label has been running for about 7 years and 60-something releases and began whilst at sixth form, looking for a way to avoid my studies, keen to help a friends band and without a single clue about the music industry. All I knew was that it sounded fun and I liked reading Melody Maker. How hard could it be?!
Who/what were the key components of getting the label off the ground?
It took a long time to get the label up and running to any sort of standard I was satisfied with. Such is the way I came into it, there were a lot of ropes to learn and a hell of a lot of mistakes to make, but I’m quite proud of the fact that we’re still running after all of this time. In the early days Oxford had six record shops and probably about 10 record labels. These days we’re down to just HMV and Zavvi (albeit on its last legs) and maybe one or two other labels, although they don’t seem to exist in any full-time capacity anymore. It’s a shame because the healthy nature of the scene was something which really inspired me to get started in the first place and provided a lot of useful contacts. Further away from Oxford, I always dreamed of following in the footsteps of Fierce Panda, Sub-Pop, Domino and even Drive-Thru (I was a bit of a punk in my teenage days!), labels which had grown from relatively little to become very influential tastemakers. It’s something which, as time goes on, becomes more and more apparent to me that is difficult to achieve in the current climate, but adapting is a skill all indie’s need to master.
As a niche record label, understanding fans and the ever changing music industry market are key – how do you communicate with your audience?
I like to communicate with our audience in every way possible. I’ve never really understand the mentality of small labels who want to give off the perception of being bigger than they are, and modeling themselves on the practices of the majors. There’s nothing appealing about a faceless company. From day one I’ve tried to retain and strengthen the links between the label, our bands and the fans, and show that this isn’t a big, nasty company out to get rich off of you, but just another music fan trying to do right by the bands he loves. At the moment I’m finding blogging and Twitter very effective. I’ve been running (the cleverly titled, even if I do say so myself) Blog Scary Monsters for over a year now, offering a daily behind the scenes look into what’s going on, what I’m listening to, what trouble the bands are getting into and, perhaps a little too often, the distractions stopping me from working. Twitter works in much the same way for me, aiding the blog nicely, allowing me to keep people up to speed with our happenings as well as starting conversations with fans about a whole manner of subjects. Recently the number of followers has been increasing rapidly and I’m starting to feel the pressure a little now I’ve hit the 500 mark. I hope these people are enjoying todays hangover complaining, it’s probably not what they signed up for!
You continue to sell vinyl though BSM, how does this work for you and when will you digital surpass vinyl for you?
Last year we worked hard on uniting vinyl with the digital format, either by offering free CDs or downloads with each release. It’s a practice adopted by many independent labels these days and makes a lot of sense to me, bringing together two formats which satisfy very different needs. I’m not sure we’ll be releasing so many 7″s this year unfortunately, mostly due to cost effectiveness issues and the number of albums we have planned, but it’s something which will live on for a while yet, I’m sure.
Which bands / artists / movements are really exciting you at present?
At this very moment I’m really excited about Shoes And Socks Off. It’s the solo project from Toby who used to be the singer in Meet Me In St Louis, one of our most successful bands to date. I really enjoy working with him and the beauty of this project is we’re doing everything completely for fun. None of this tired old “release a couple of limited 7″s then push for a big debut album, nobody cares by the follow-up, split before the third one is recorded” crap. He recorded the first album in his bedroom one afternoon, sitting on a chest of drawers playing a beaten up old acoustic guitar. We didn’t send the record to any press people, he’s played just three shows in the past three months, we just burn the CDs to order and it’s only available to buy online. It’s a great record but you have to dig to find it, and we kinda like that. These things have taken so much pressure off of ourselves and makes the whole experience much more refreshing. The fact that so many people are still hearing about and buying the record is brilliant. Toby played here in Oxford last night and we were up long into the night drinking and planning not one, or two, but three follow-up records, all of which will probably see the light of day this year! I can’t wait to get more music out there and by album four we might even let some press people hear it. Although that could ruin the fun so we might not!
What are your plans for the future?
Scarily, I think we have more album releases planned for this year than we did the two previous years combined! As mentioned above we’re potentially looking at three from Shoes And Socks Off alone, there are debuts from Wintermute, Blakfish and Mutiny On The Bounty all before the summer, and a couple planned for the second half of the year which I’m keeping to myself for the moment. On top of this there’ll be EPs from Copy Haho, Pulled Apart By Horses, The Tupolev Ghost and Shapes, and we’ve also started a series of compilation CDs which run throughout the year. The series is comprised of four releases, each one limited to 365 date-stamped copies and made up of unreleased, rare, live, demo and remixed recordings from our roster. Away from the musical releases we’ll be doubling our t-shirt stocks, planning more label tours, throwing a couple of parties, hosting our third annual 5-a-side football tournament and Tweeting about 30 times a day.
What has been your / the labels proudest moment to date?
There have been a lot of things actually, which is quite nice looking back. Signing Get Cape Wear Cape Fly after his second gig and watching him become a darling bud of the media and fly off to Atlantic was great. Sam’s still a close friend and a big supporter of the label, which has definitely helped us out along the way. I was really proud when This Town Needs Guns album came out towards the end of last year, too. They live around the corner from me and we’ve been working together for a few years now, ever since their first 7″ single. The focus has always been online and has seen the band have albums released in the US, Japan and Australia, tour Europe a number of times and reach staggering numbers of Myspace plays per day. I don’t think anyone will believe me if I tell them they used to sound like Incubus though! One day I’ll release the ‘BSM: Before They Were Famous’ compilation with all of our artists embarrassing (or not, who knows!) funky numbers. I think we might have a few departures if I did that, though…
Running a label is an incredibly time consuming proceeds and requires unique skills of balancing the books and remaining cutting edge and creative. What are the main challenges internally and externally you must overcome / face?
On days like this: Hangovers. Every other day: Financial worries, expectations (from bands, fans and yourself) and trying to find new and improved ways to do things. Thankfully I enjoy being creative and am operating a four day week working policy this year to relieve some stress and ensure I have plenty of time to focus on new ideas. I run the label on my own, with help from a few friends assisting in certain roles, so there’s a lot of work to do but it beats the hell out of working a 9-5 job I hate, surrounded by people I despise, discussing things I don’t care about whilst trying to work on things I don’t understand.
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Tags: Big Scary Monsters, Get Cape Wear Cape, Mimas, Shoes And Socks Off
