Are Record deals a good idea? i hear people saying home studios are the way to go, but ive always kind of hoped i wouldnt have to do everything myself, not to say that i wouldnt. Have any of you ever dealt with a label? Are they a bad idea, or does it just depend. what do you know about them?

I think that maybe John Holland is the guy for that one... ?

Otherwise of course ihave27frets aswell

Just speaking from an accounting point of view, a record deal often involves the payment of an advance which as the name suggests is the payment of future earnings, i.e. the band are in debt to the record company. This means that any income the band make after the album is finished, goes towards paying back the record company. So it's probably a good idea not to blow your advance in the first six months.

If income earned reaches a level such that it exceeds the advance, then the band will get a cut of the revenue. I can't be exact with the actual percentages, but I'm sure you can imagine that the label comes off very good from the deal. There are obviously other financial arrangements to ensure that the band receive income while they are technically still in debt to the record company, but this will often mean a lower cut of the revenue.

The way to think of it is that the record company, unless they're signing Cannibal Corpse or Morbid Angel, are taking a risk in investing in an extreme band as they have no idea whether your band will sell any records. The higher the risk involved with a particular investment, the higher the required return is and so labels will always seek to maximise their return in the initial stages to ensure that they can at least cover their investment.

When this risk reduces through increased popularity and - more imprtantly - increased sales volume, the band can start to earn a bit more money as the record label then have an asset with which they can make even more money. In order to retain the band on its roster the label needs to offer better terms. However, since sales volumes in the extreme music scene are generally low anyway, these improved deals will still not allow band memebrs to drive around in a BMW although they will provide a certain level of comfort.

Then there's touring, which is the area within which most bands make their money. This is done mostly through merchandise sales due to the revenue raised going directly to the band rather than being filtered through an intermediary, i.e. the label, distributors, etc.

Of course, going it alone is no less arduous as the band have to fund everything themselves which often means a large cash outlay at the beginning that they can ill-afford. The recording process and the manufacture and distribution of the record and associated merchandise is not cheap and that's why many bands seek a record deal no matter how unrewarding it may seem. The record label can also offer expertise, contacts, the chance to produce a better quality album (in terms of production value) and a wider distrubution network. All of the above can lead to boosted sales.

All these things have to be weighed up and I would suggest working with some rough figures in order to come up with the strategy that suits you best. Needless to say, whichever route you choose it's not going to be easy.

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thanks John, that was quite informative. also discouraging . not surprising though, ive had a vauge idea of most of that. about the touring deal, that sucks cause the bands ive had in the past dont even like to practice. well, they are too lazy to meet for it anyway, or to "busy". so ive considered recording everything myself since i already write all of it. but then i thought i could at least get three of the songs onto some sort of demo and find a new band that way. or who knows, maybe share it with a label or something and see what they say. not anytime soon, but i was thinking maybe sometime this year.

http://www.loadrecords.com/bands/necronomitron.html

http://www.corleonerecords.com/banddetail.asp?bandid=29

these are independent release of my prior bands.

i really dont know what to tell anyone about contracts, these labels never had me sign anything. what was important is that the release pays for itself, you do the rest.

ive done DIY style tours,had a friend record the albums for like a hundred bucks, my bands self books and organizes tours, we made our own t-shirts to sell, our label handles the cds.

the deal on the cd is that you buy them 6$ each, we got like 150 free then the rest we pay for.

not signing means they own that release, its thiers, you cant fuck with that, if for some reason they end up selling a bazillion of albums they may or may not kick down some cash your way at their discretion. the thing is, is that independent releases on this level usually just pay for themselves, thats usually the labels goal. thats what occured here with these releases so its usually ok, i have no problem with these labels.

i wouldnt sign anything or even worry about it in a band starting out, its usually years slugging it out in the farm leagues of underground band scenes. and if you generate a huge following then yeah maybe its good consult a lawyer.

im interested if anyone here encountered a big label and could break down the specifics

"Just speaking from an accounting point of view, a record deal often involves the payment of an advance which as the name suggests is the payment of future earnings, i.e. the band are in debt to the record company. This means that any income the band make after the album is finished, goes towards paying back the record company. So it's probably a good idea not to blow your advance in the first six months."

this is how 99% of bands dont make it anywhere, signing to a BIG way too early then not selling, falling into endless debt and getting fucked over. THIS is why i wouldnt sign to any large ass release unless my band had a huge following. and im not talking about in your own city, im talking after the fact you toured all over, everywhere you go you had hundreds to thousands of fans.

this is why having DIY principles of being self sufficient should get your ass working on the road. self recording a demo, finding venues across the country to mail those demos, getting a van thats road worthy, booking every date thats feasble with driving time, making cd-r albums, making merchendise<silkscreening usually>. basically everything as far as starting out you can do yourself. this is the main thing about being an ACTIVE musician, not some bar band weekend warrior,and you will always operate at a loss financially but you do it because you get to travel,party and rock out doing something worthwhile. this is what you should focus on, more opporunities come with touring, you meet bands,you find better venues to book at, you meet people involved in labels, you get to network,people see your band on the move. touring really is the key for a band starting out

Yeah, Dan's Crypt Records wants to sign us. We just about shat ourselves at the very notion of 'record deal' when we were contacted, but then we thought it over when we came down from cloud nine, and at this stage its definitely not a good thing this far along into it, with a label that we've never heard of/is in Spain. If it were Relapse or Metal Blade, we'd probably get paper cuts from signing the papers too fast, record label debt be damned, because we're just that young and stupid.

If someone already wants to sign us this early in the game ( our demo is a little over a month old ), then its going to be no problem holding out for something that at the very least is in the States.

If you've decided to go 'all the way' playing extreme metal, then you're aware of the notoriously absent income that it draws. What you're after is respect as an artist and being lauded as something important in metal, taking the effort to get other people besides your friends to hear it.

Which you don't have to be signed to make a dent in metal. Whomever here has heard of Devourment, raise your hand.

Most labels structure deals the way any large company responsible for producing art does: with the assumption that most bands will not make it and a plan in preparation to profit from them anyway. I've lost the materials I had on it, but studies of the economics of the music industry are incredibly disheartening. Essentially the system is designed to get the band in debt to the label, which allows the label to use that debt to coerce the band into doing things that it believes will make money. That's the basic model*, which various individual labels fit to more or less exactly. In the extreme metal scene I'd assume that the labels will fit to this more loosely.

You have to contrast this to the option of paying for everything yourself, which will also get you into debt in a way that's less easy to deal with (a label may never actually call on you to pay off your debts, but a bank invariably will). It may get you deeper in debt, if you go through the normal channels without the usual intermediaries who are discounted because of their size, or, if you follow the virtual enterprise type model of small studios, might get you into significantly less debt.

Basically it's a matter of picking your poison, reading everything that comes in front of you carefully, and accepting that you're likely to lose money making music, at least for a while.

*This is not as bad as it sounds in comparison to, say, the example of publishing houses that essentially force an author to pay for his own publication, and then sell him the majority of the copies of his book when they go unsold.

so those are like small labels? i dont NEED to be on a big label in order to be happy. one of my points was that i dont think i can make a demo on my own worthy of selling. i said i would make something worthy of sharing with people who would play that stuff and make an actual cd, possibly with some kind of label.

seems like the hard part would be writing the songs, not figureing out how to do something with them.

yes, but its kind of hard to respect a CDR with a white paper slip for a cover, and possibly bad recording. this is why im discussing labels, for proffesional style booklet, cd, and production. most people find it hard to enjoy a cd with bad production, unless youre one of those ultr@ gr1m tr00 kvlt sort of metal guys.

and i dont find that a big problem, im willing to get into debt, i suppose, if its for the sake of having a cd out. like you said, its either debt by label or doing it on your own. seems like the label is a better deal from what ive heard here, at least it provides a proffessional product.

Whoa

It's not like i expected any different but...

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If you got that route, then definitely, definitely, definitely read any contract you see very carefully. If there's anything in it you find unclear or ambiguous, have other people look at it. Just because it's impossible to avoid dealing with the realities of a filthy business doesn't mean you shouldn't do your damndest to avoid the worst of it.

true. honestly man, i still dont know for sure what ill end up doing, but i know ive got to put out a cd of my stuff somehow.

thanks all for the tips and such. any other experiences or inputs are welcome.

[QUOTE=timedragon]so those are like small labels? i dont NEED to be on a big label in order to be happy. one of my points was that i dont think i can make a demo on my own worthy of selling. i said i would make something worthy of sharing with people who would play that stuff and make an actual cd, possibly with some kind of label.QUOTE]


all the recording technology necessary exists at an affordable price, its usually best to do it yourself to make a cdr demo. you can make a cdr album if you wanted, just dont sell it for 10 bucks a piece. this is the part where you have to be creative with the cdr, handmake each album, make it fucking wierd and make it work. i live in art school town and people here have no problem doing this, sometimes the bands concept and album design will be cooler than the actual music.

I'm pretty sure Devourment were on a label for Molesting The Decapitated. That album got them quite a cult following, to the point where they could release Butcher The Weak on their own and still sell a few copies. I remember Mike Majewski saying he was surprised how many BTW albums got sold, in a good way.

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