Dead London Records
Submitted by rachelho on 7 February, 2012 - 15:27Birmingham based Dead London Records is a relatively new indie label on the scene, and have passion for good music and for getting it out there. We had an in depth chat to one of their founders, Lizzi Thomas, who let us know about how they came about, and some tips for bands to get their music out there too.
What is the history of Dead London Records?
We registered as an official company last April so we’re pretty young as a business! The company is made up by two of us; I’m Lizzi Thomas, a sound production graduate, and Geordie Blake, who’s a musician. Both of us share a passion for great music and get quite disappointed when great bands and artists sit unloved because of bad management or not fitting into the latest cliché circle of ’what’. Although, we don’t discriminate against any fashionistas; if their music holds up as well as they’re hair product or jean turn ups! We started Dead London as a reaction to lacklustre live and record promotion & what we see as a rapidly changing music industry that’s sapping bands of their morale, self confidence and direction.
With the changes in the music industry over the last few years, do you keep a label sustainable?
For us, the way we’re keeping Dead London sustainable is by going slow with the releases to begin with and not investing huge amounts of money in the releases whilst trying to create a great product that does our bands justice, even when we release just downloadable tunes, we still want the artwork to be unique and the songs to be of a certain quality without breaking the bank.
We plan for our physical releases to be something unique too, if you’re gonna do a physical release these days you’d better make it something worth paying for! This is possible, with the help of great extended family of talented contacts! Both of us have other jobs and by putting a little aside and investing in releases we want to build up a great repertoire of music that will pay for itself over time through selling merch at live gigs. We don’t expect to make any major profit; we have a system in place for a lot of the money raised from physical products to go straight towards that bands next release, when we do make any profit we’ll be sure to shout from the rooftops about it! And then re-invest into Dead London!
What type of bands do you like to work with?
Mainly the bands and artists we and like and want to work with need to make great music! But also, we like to work with driven bands who are confident in what they’re doing. Genre wise we’re trying to diverse with our band choices, although so far we’ve gone with mainly alt-rock/indie punk bands (this is a non-conscience decision, but one we don’t regret!) Ideally in the next few years we will continue choosing great bands to work with along with the ones we’ve already got, regardless of genre. The labels we look up too have diverse acts working with them I think the one I can pin point as being a major inspiration and influence would be Ipecac, Mike Pattons label along with many others.
In terms of Indie as a genre the type of bands we both love within that niche are American Alt-Rock Indie such as Sugar, the British post-punk 80′s indie scene; Magazine, The Smiths and a probably more than we realise from the 90′s indie heyday, although we we’re both more Pulp, Suede and Blur than Oasis. We listen to music from all four, but you have your favourites! I think it’s fair to say that our music tastes are very eclectic & diverse, the bands I’ve mentioned don’t really scratch the surface of what we listen too daily. We’re very open minded musically so if anyone feels that what their making is good enough to release then feel free to send it to us for a listen!
How can an indie band be considered for Dead London Records?
Any bands/artists, whether they consider themselves indie or not, that write and perform great original music we’d be happy to hear from! Driven, hard-working musicians that are doing something original and interesting catch our attention. There’s live music on every night in big cities but so much of it isn’t worth the price of a pint at the bar, we know the bands we currently work with; Bombers, Skeletons!, Pet Ghosts and Shana Tova can keep an audiences attention and are great live performers so they’ve raised the bar pretty high in terms of what we expect from a band.
Bands don’t need to have a ready made fan-base or an album in the bag to get in contact, we’re happy to hear from any musician but they have to have the drive and ability to make, perform and release great music. Everything else comes after the initial ’making the good tunes’ bit!
Tips for indie bands on how to raise their profile?
There’s all the online presence that needs to be entertaining, articulate and updated regularly, all the obvious social networking sites along with your sound cloud and band camp pages. Then there’s face to face interaction, something that I think some bands underestimate. Being able to chat to anyone at gigs that asks about your music (‘asks’ being the operative words, not just going on about your band and being a bore) and not being overly pretentious and un-approachable…people will remember how social a band were rather than the band that turned up, played their set then buggered off without so much of a thank-you to the promoter or not watching the other bands play.
Play gigs, and become friendly with other bands on the same circuit and organise gigs together, share each others fan bases. Send good quality recordings to radio stations (every radio station applicable!) and stick at it. They may not respond at first but review what you’ve sent, the quality, the originality, whether it stands out from all the other stuff they’ve been sent and keep at it until someone takes notice, which if your music is any good-someone will! Also, apply to festivals, every year apply to everything! We try to take the slack of all this stuff form our bands and any decent record company should try to do the same. If you’re with a small company that isn’t doing any of this then rethink your options!
Anything else to add?
Check out our Dead London Records artists on our .com, facebook and twitter (@deadLDNrecords) and any band or artist feel free to contact us at info@deadlondonrecords.com