INTERVIEW with Morgan Davis of Rallytime Records

An Interview With Morgan Davis, Owner/Founder of Rallytime Records!
Subject--the Online World and the Music Industry.

Hi, today I'm talking (via email interview) with Morgan Davis. He's the owner and founder of Rallytime Records and also performs as Esio Trot. He graciously agreed to be interviewed and share his opinions on his label, Rallytime, as well as his views on the music industry, the online world and online music.

QUESTION (CG): "Why don't we start with the basics? Could you please tell me a little bit about your label? (History, size, number of clients, location)"


MORGAN: Rallytime Records was formed in April of 2006 by myself and Gord Myren. The idea had been around since 2003, but due to time and resource issues, it wasn't until that year that anything started. Although we formed it then in order to release an EP by our friends the Terrordactyls, who we had been recording for quite some time at our studio, we have always been interested in starting a multimedia organization and the record label seemed like the best branch to start with.

Currently we have 5 artists on our roster, Animal Nation (who are from Whistler, BC), Esio Trot (who are based out of Vancouver, BC), John Dye (who is based out of Vancouver, BC), Jeremy Nischuk (who is from Edmonton, Alberta) and the Terrordactyls (who are now based out of New York City, New York). Most of our acts are from Vancouver or the general area, and we have a headquarters in the city as well as a studio we use in Langley, which is a little south of Vancouver. We also have a headquarters in Seattle, Washington. We're currently a relatively small regional label, with most of our print runs being in the 10,000 range.

CG: What made you decide to get into this business? Isn't there a lot of competition?

MORGAN: We decided to get into this business because we saw a need for better label representation in Canada and felt that there was a definite place for an organization that could offer artists fair and just treatment. I've been in the music industry for about 7 years now, playing in bands of my own, working in various studios, and also doing merchandise management. When I moved to Seattle in 2003, I worked as the booking manager and director of a youth center called the Crux (which was operated by the Vashon Youth Council), on Vashon Island. While there, I truly realized what an impact music had on people and how difficult some entities, be they corporate, government, or otherwise, made it for artists to get their work to people. It was also at that time that I got to know two artists (Pete Droge and Ian Moore) who had been through the major label process and had come out of it feeling like they had been exploited and abused. Even though these artists had been relatively successful, they remained massively in debt to their labels and had made little off of their careers.

The idea for Rallytime came out of this experience, with my intention being to form an organization that would operate in every aspect of the arts (music, film, theatre, etc.) and help artists not only succeed at what they do, but also make a living off of it and never have to deal with third parties wishing to exploit them. So, while there is a lot of competition in this industry, and a lot of people who have a very different of how things should run, we are a pretty unique operation (on the independent circuit) in that as well as running the label, we also run the management firm that represents all of our artists, the studio they record in, and we are heavily involved in film, theatre, graphic design, and show promotion. Within the next five years, we expect our presence in areas outside of music to be at least equal to our presence within this field.

CG: How has your label fared so far in the business? Successes? Setbacks?

MORGAN: The label has fared at least as well as we expected it to. We make enough in our various branches to continue putting out music we love, but it will still probably be a few years until we obtain the level of notice of someone such as, say, Barsuk. Our biggest setbacks have mainly been the level of apathy the city of Vancouver has towards its independent music scene, particularly towards hip-hop. Animal Nation and ourselves have both been incredibly frustrated with the unwillingness of the city to recognize this scene or support it, especially the booking agents in Vancouver and the media. Papers here don't review or acknowledge much of anything that isn't already successful, and venues just don't book much in the way of hip-hop period. Even national acts that come through are often forced to be on clumsily formed bills, with hip-hop acts opening for punk bands opening for alt-country bands.

Even more discouraging has been the recent (and nearly secretive) acquisition of Vancouver's largest independent promoter (Sealed with a Kiss Productions) with the Clearchannel/Livenation subsidiary House of Blues. Vancouver's apathy towards its music community has caused the city to lose many great artists who leave the city for places like Montreal, and we've been forced to encourage our artists to look towards places like Seattle for the bulk of their shows. Also, as a result, we've had to become a promoter in the city a lot earlier than we had anticipated, or wanted.

CG: When did you decide to get an online presence? And why?

MORGAN: We made this decision immediately because, quite frankly, anyone who ignores the internet now is setting themselves up for failure. The internet has had as large an, if not larger, impact on music as the punk movement did. It has shortened the divide between consumer and artist, independent and major, considerably, allowing people to experience music instantaneously and at their disclosure and to discover artists from places they may never even visit physically with minimal effort.

For labels it has meant increased exposure at almost no cost and it has also meant that they can discover artists and fans in areas they may never have been able to reach otherwise. The existence of internet-only labels, such as what 5 Rue Christine/Kill Rock Stars have been up to lately, has been especially noteworthy, as it has allowed previously impossible to sustain forms of music (such as the experimental field, which has been exploding lately) to reach wider audiences at no cost, with printing now entirely eliminated from the picture. Even five years ago, this idea would be laughable at best.

CG: Why choose to have a MySpace presence? Was there a particular reason? Or is it just one of many online presences you have, each being no better than another?

MORGAN: MySpace, regardless of what you might personally think of it, has become another necessity. We had MySpace from the moment we formed because we knew that it was a resource that could not be ignored. We've had the conversation with our artists about traditional websites versus MySpace, and despite aesthetics, it's difficult to ignore the fact that our MySpace (and those of other, larger labels) gets more hits per day than our website may get in a month...and it's free. Of course everyone hates the constant glitching, the spam, the poor fidelity of the audio, the mallrats but MySpace (and whatever replaces it) will always be more visible than an actual site, because people check their MySpace every day.

I mean, when was the last time you checked an artist or label site just because?

CG: Has the Web/Internet made any difference to your effectiveness and success as a label? If so, why? If not, why do you think not?

MORGAN: I think the easiest way to tell that it has made a difference is that we get people sending us demos from places like Brazil, or Japan, or Spain...and none of us have ever been to any of those places. Without the internet, no one outside of Vancouver or Seattle would have heard of any of our artists or the label.

CG: Tell me about some of your musical group clients. Ones you are particularly proud of and why?

MORGAN: Honestly, we're proud of all of our groups. Everyone on the label makes music I honestly love, and I will do whatever I can to get their work out there, even if no one buys it until 100 years from now. Animal Nation continue to amaze me by how much they grow with each release, their most recent EP (Timezone, which you can listen to for free on our site) floored me the first time I heard it; John Dye is easily one of the best performers I've ever seen and he puts more into shows with attendances you can count on one hand than most groups put into sold out events, and his band is one of the tightest I've ever worked with, the release he has coming this September is one we expect to make some major waves; Jeremy Nischuk is without a doubt the most innovative musician I've ever worked with and I feel that he has the potential to become one of the most influential Canadian artists in decades, we can't wait to rerelease his incredible debut, Copies of Copies, later this year; and the Terrordactyls continue to be the most imaginative duo the world has ever seen. Now if only Esio Trot weren't such bastards.

CG: Of your clients, do they also have online pages, either on MySpace or elsewhere? What has been your impressions or feedback from your clients regarding having an online presence--good or bad--and why?

MORGAN: They all have MySpaces, but none of them have websites they actually use. They just tell us how they think ours should look, haha. But I'm pretty sure they all spend more time on MySpace than they do interacting with people in real life, which is a good or bad sign, depending on how you want to look at things.

CG: Do you believe that social sites like MySpace make it easier or harder for indie or small labels to compete with bigger labels in the industry? Why? Do you think it's just having an online presence anyway or having a presence on social sites geared for music fans (like MySpace Music and how it allows users to search and listen to new bands.)

MORGAN: It definitely makes it easier to compete, but I think the main accomplishment is that it makes it easier for music that major labels will never touch reach a pretty good size audience (although how the Rupert Murdoch factor will affect things, who knows). Having a site like MySpace take an interest in music has also been a huge help, because social gathering sites will always attract people in a way stationary websites cannot. Having music available in a place that people visit daily (or in some cases even hourly) will have a much larger impact than any other form of advertising could have.

CG: If you could change anything about having an online presence, MySpace or other, what would it be and why? (If it's an issue with the technical aspects please try to be specific about what you think would improve the experience.)

MORGAN: Really it's just the technical aspect of things. I'm not personally a fan of the constant epileptic fit that MySpace can be, or the onslaught of webcam girls it often is, but I understand why that happens. I do wish they would improve their glitchy-as-hell music player, though, both in the fidelity department and in its determination to make HAL look like the epitome of zen. But I understand that when you have hundreds of millions of users logging in as often as they do, it's probably already a nightmare for your servers, and using decent quality audio/video would only make that even more awful to deal with.

CG: If you responded to the previous question with a technically oriented change, then also think about and answer here about some non-technical aspect you'd like to see modified or changed...something that you think would make having an online experience for your label and your clients more worthwhile, or more competitive.

MORGAN: I would like to see MySpace use its power to focus on "new" artists that aren't just reformed rap groups or massively popular emo bands. It aggravates me when their artist of the week section is always bands that I believe most of Earth's population have at least heard of or bigger indie bands that are already well on their towards obtaining a level of media saturation that will put them on the pop culture map. I mean, really, can anyone say they aren't at least passingly aware of the Arcade Fire by now? Or Rilo Kiley?

CG: What are your general impressions about the state of the music industry, online and offline? Do you believe that it's getting tougher to succeed in this business? Is it getting more concentrated or more expansive, allowing for more voices or making it tougher for a greater diversity of talent to succeed?

MORGAN: It has always been incredibly difficult to succeed in this business. I don't believe it has ever been an issue of talent, so much as it has always been an issue of drive and determination. I have had this discussion with every single one of my artists and unfortunately this will never change: if you are not willing to cope with constant failure, struggle at the absolute bottom for possibly the entire length of your career, and watch as other, less talented artists pull ahead of you, this is not the industry for you.

Eventually it may be possible to "succeed" in this business without losing the vast majority of your soul, and we're hoping that we will eventually be able to be a major force in making that happen, but realistically, that will not happen today or tomorrow or even this year or this decade. I do, however, believe that people in this industry need to stop clinging to the idea of the album as a means of profit. Album sales are not going to recover until the majority of the population once again are willing to devote a large amount of time to listening to one work. MySpace is certainly not going to lead to that happening, as, by definition, its existence is structured around the ADHD our generation suffers as a whole and the single (or iTunes track) is best at satisfying that.

If you are an artist and you want to make a living off of what you do, it is now increasingly more important that you focus on things like merchandise and music licensing as a way to accomplish that. The major labels are refusing to acknowledge this, but I think the independent scene in general are grasping this and no longer pretending otherwise.

I also believe that our model of business, branching out into related fields as well as operating our own studio (because people will always need to record, regardless of format) and doing our own, will become increasingly more common, because these are areas where it is not only easier to make a steady income but also areas that will continue to exist regardless of what happens to the idea of how music is listened to.

People in the industry should embrace the internet not for its ability to sell records in more places, but because it allows your music to be heard by more people in more areas, people who could book shows for you or who could be in the business of buying songs to be used in films or on tv or who could ask you to tour with their much larger band. It is important to note that all the internet has done is make this happen faster, though, and in more areas, because music has always been discovered through communication.

CG: What could be done in your opinion to make the industry better, more successful (financially and artistically), and more innovative and open to new, emerging or smaller niche talent?

MORGAN: Quite honestly, the only thing that will make this happen is if people start wanting more innovative things, if they stop listening to mass commercialized "safe" radio and demanding different, more unknown talents.

So many people I know, including so many artists, complain about how much better music was in the '60's, or in punk's heyday, or even in the '80's, and the reason why that music did so well, why weird things like Laurie Anderson's "O Superman" or the Butthole Surfer's "Pepper" managed to top charts was because people at that time were more receptive to strange ideas and were more willing to take risks. It isn't that music of that caliber or that odd is no longer being made, it's just that people as a whole don't care about music the way they used to.

Albums used to be fetish objects, they used to be important happenings. Now, music is what goes on on your iPod while you are doing other things; the things that succeed are those that don't require a lot of attention, that don't interfere with everyone's daily lives and that can just blend in with everything else.

If you want music to once again be ruled by weirdos and innovators, you have to care about it and be willing to make sacrifices to make that happen. You need to start promoting shows in your town, you need to start writing your own blog, hosting your own podcast, forming your own label, fronting your own band.

If you aren't willing to do that, to put something in even if it's just occasionally taking a risk on iTunes, or at a shop, then you can't complain. Because right now, as things are going, albums do not have much longer to live because almost no one is willing to devote that energy and effort to them anymore.

CG: Thank you so much, Morgan, for your time. I know how busy you are and I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions. I'm sure the readers of this blog will agree, especially the aspiring and working musicians out there.

MORGAN: Cheers! (Morgan Davis, Founder, Rallytime Records www.rallytime.org)

CG:
Well, it's a pity that Barsuk decided they couldn't do the interview, especially since their perspective would have been slightly different (or perhaps not) from Rallytime's...with possibly additional useful insight to musicians and MySpace (if MySpace is listening.) (Barsuk initially agreed to be interviewed but then backed out, claiming scheduling issues. It happens...a lot of interviewees suddenly delay or back out entirely because of other issues, it's just part of the business.)

Still, I hope to bring you other interviews that deal with the usefulness (or not) of the online space as it applies to artistic endeavors, whether those endeavors be music, filmmaking, acting, writing, art, dance or what-have-you. The national non-profit Americans for the Arts has tentatively agreed to be interviewed as well--their mission is to promote the arts and so their opinions on how the online world plays into that mission should be quite illuminating.

As for next week, a long awaited interview. Last January, I award the Aha! Blogolicious! Media Awards to several up and coming artists/musicians with one special award going to actor/writer/director Gordon Michael Woolvett. Mr. Woolvett had been a favorite actor of mine for some time, showing quite a bit of versatility. I wrote a spoof article, satirizing the way Hollywood often "appears" to choose award nominees, with Mr. Woolvett as the subject. Well, to my surprise, a number of people thought the award was real and were disappointed to find out it wasn't. It got me to thinking that up and coming artists in all venues need recognition, if for no other reason than to keep them motivated in such a tough, sometimes even degrading business. So I created a real award this time to acknowledge those efforts, but kept the focus on the online space, since I believed that is where a great deal of opportunity for innovation will arise, and made having a MySpace page the initial entry point (since MySpace is doing more, even with its problems, for promoting new artists, than any other current online venue.) Hence, thanks to Gordon, the awards were born.

Well, Mr. Woolvett finally got his interview back to me and discusses his career, the online world and what he sees for the future.

That interview will be posted next Friday.

Thank you for reading! Hope you continue to!

CG Anderson
Little Dogs Media
Aha! Blogolicious! Musings and Meanings of Non-Sensical Events.....and Canada!
(what exactly does that title mean? what it says and it includes Canada in the mix, even though I'm not Canadian...life is confusing enough and full of non-sensical events, so the only thing one can do sometimes is muse it over and try to glean some meaning from the madness.)