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Jaddan Comerford
July 18, 2017
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The challenges for an independent label in the music business' streaming economy is significantly imposing - even more so if you're an indie label from another country. Despite that, Australian Jordan Comerford had brought his UNIFIED company to America with a label that offers punk/metal/hard rock and a management company that has already broken Vance Joy to mainstream success. Here, he delves into his roots and how he's been able to survive and prosper not just in America, but worldwide.
You've been running labels a la Boomtown and management companies for years. What aspects of each attracted you?
I was 17 when I started Boomtown in my parents' house; the management came later. I was working with punk rock and hardcore bands at the time, which was a small-market genre in Australia. A lot of bands didn't know anyone who could manage them, so they asked me if I could be their manager, and I just said sure. This was not some master plan by me to start managing.
Was there a turning point where you realized that this could be a viable business for you?
At first, we were lucky to be selling 1,000 records with the acts we were working. In 2004, Behind Crimson Eyes hit with 30,000 records sold, and we picked up our first big check from the distributor. Then it hit home ... that I was running something serious. I moved out of my parents' house and hired some people.
At that point, I realized that this was my real job now. I'm not just some punk kid, hanging out with cool guys. I had a responsibility here. After that, many obstacles presented themselves for every hit record we had, and we didn't have that many -- especially in 2004. I didn't realize at the age of 20 that selling records was not an especially easy thing to do.
The idea of also having our own management company, where our artists are putting out records, selling merchandise and publishing, made more sense because that's what enabled us to sustain a business model and we kind of organically developed from there.
Isn't it a challenge in doing both at the same time in terms of balancing the interests of your artists and the label?
It wasn't back in 2004, 13 years ago, and things have changed a lot since. The company now has 30 employees; our head office is in Melbourne and we have other offices in London, New York, Sydney and Los Angeles. We have GMs and finance directors, people doing all these different things. I started as one guy wearing a lot of hats; now we're a company with divisions and with people specializing in areas of their expertise. Having a good structure and good people are keys to success today.
What are the keys to a successful relationship with an artist from a management level and a label level?
What's really important, when working with artists, is establishing the artists' vision of themselves and their goals, then working to accomplish that for them. We provide full 360 service, although we don't provide it to every client, because every client doesn't need it.
That said, we're very much a company that looks out for the artist, and do whatever we can to ensure they have success, a longstanding career and a good relationship with us. The last thing we need is friction. An artist unhappy at an indie company will be knocking on the door every day. We pride ourselves on doing the right thing for our artists. It may be on our label; it may be just for management -- and as their manager, we might advise them to go to other labels for better opportunities. Whatever's best for the artist -- within reason, of course.
Your UNFD label describes its artist roster as those who play "heavy music." Are you still talking punk, hard rock and metal here?
What Boomtown was is now UNFD; we rebranded whole company and refer to it as heavy music - punk, metal, hardcore ... all those. In Australia, that genre is still very strong in the arenas in Australia. It's strong globally, too, with the Download Fest in England and the WARP Tour and Rock On The Range in the States. I've found that as pop music becomes a more mainstream-dominant force through streaming, niches like "heavy music" get stronger. The people who support the niches may not number as many as those in the more pop genres, but it's still a very passionate lifestyle.
Describe the working relationship you've had with indie labels Hopeless and House of Beige.
Hopeless was one of the first deals I did as youngster. When I was 19, I flew to MIDEM in France to network, but I had no understanding of what it would take to network at an event of that caliber. Still, I met Lewis Posen, the founder of Hopeless Records. He wanted someone to provide research into Australia for his label. So he hired me to be its label manager there, and we've expanded our relationship since then.
House of Beige is a label that was established by Melbourne-based rapper Remi; we've provided them with label services.
Was breaking into the U.S. a longtime goal for you?
It's something I always wanted to do. I was always very interested in what it would mean to grow the business outside of Australia, and on my 30th birthday in 2014, I moved to New York to set up shop. I'd been to America 20-30 times before I moved there. I got my visa, got an apartment, and I've spent the last three years in New York, with the major focus, at the time, being management. One of my clients, Vance Joy, signed to Atlantic Records and has broken worldwide.
Was there a specific time and place when you realized that Vance would be globally successful?
The first song I heard by him was "Riptide," and it was a pretty special moment. It was hard to quantify that moment on the size of success he would have, but I definitely knew I heard something very special.
It seems that the success you had with Vance Joy on Atlantic led to creation of 1825.
We do have very good relations with Atlantic Records and unlike the other indie labels I mentioned, which are very niche, very focused on serving their specific community, we created 1825 as a multi-genre label not bound by any community. We're simply trying to sign great talent in Australia through our relationship with Atlantic. The big part of partnering with Atlantic is the opportunity to sign artists in the mainstream, where we can look them in eyes and say we can link them to major label opportunities when it comes to promotion and marketing.
We've signed three new acts to 1825 already and we're always looking at for new talent, but at the same time, we're definitely not looking to add 10 artists all at once. We're trying to focus on a "less is more" philosophy so we can get the maximum results with our clients and partners.
Compared to America, how has the transition to a streaming retail economy impacted the Australian music business?
Australia is one of the slower markets to adopt steaming. Although we had it quite early, it took a while before the revenue made sense to acknowledge the importance of streaming. Now it's there and everyone knows how incredible it can be for a label, whether it be a rock label or an urban label. We're now making money in every corner of the globe. Granted, it's only pennies out of a country like Peru, but we can now make enough to invest in countries like Brazil, and we can grow these markets and make the global scale of business more achievable.
By expanding our labels to include different genres, which we couldn't have done five years ago, we can see where the revenue is coming from. It's important for labels to invest in streaming, and as far as marketing and promotions, things have changed a lot. I'm a big believer in consumer behavior, where you've just have heard about the new Foo Fighters record, go to Spotify, load it up and listen to it; that's now part of our marketing. The business has changed so much where it's better when you don't have to sell something to people anymore. It's like they already bought it by listening to it. You just have to let them know it's there.
But for a new or up-and-coming band, isn't trying to break on Spotify akin to a lot of people finding the same needle in the haystack?
It totally comes down to artist development. You build an artist by building a base and all of the things that can make people go back and listen to the music. Live shows are important, but it depends on the type of music. In rock music, touring is everything, but for Vance Joy, a big act in America, touring and live-blogging is not the only revenue streams or ways to promote him. In the old economy, you toured to sell records. Now your music, and not necessarily record sales, is used to promote the tour.
In a streaming economy where singles rule, what good are albums nowadays?
I think albums can still be important to consumers, and an album campaign can still make a lot of sense. With that said, you have to be releasing more content today, whether the song is a single or not. Be it an album, a song, an EP, a remix or a new stream, continuous content releases are very important for artists.
What's Unified's perspective on music trends? Should you lead the public with what's new, or should you serve the popular tastes?
In Australia, our labels' focus is on new music, but if you're talking about America, our investment is more into management ... helping to grow and develop artists. Managers have to focus less on finding artists in popular genres because if they do find something in a genre that's currently popular, it's often too late to break them. We're simply focused on finding artists who have great songs. Vance Joy is a timeless artist, a singer/songwriter who seems to have been around forever, and artists like that are the focus of my time.
Finally, how do you gauge your company's future - do you set long-term plans, or is the business today so fluid and volatile, you have to focus on the here-and-now?
We definitely have long-term plans and are committed to executing them, but at same time, you have to be just as ready to change them if need be. The way this industry and the world are developing, you never know what's just around the next corner.
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