Sixtoo
FP: Do you manage to make a bit of money from airplay and other revenues?
Sixtoo: Yeah, I’ll get some overseas royalty cheques for airplay. I register everything with SOCAN and get monies from college radio airplay, and that’s where all this stuff gets played. It’s not being played on mainstream radio at all, with the exception of the CBC, which happened to take a liking to the Duration record. But it’s rare that a national radio program will play independent records during the day. Canada’s fortunate as far as that stuff goes, that there is a place to fit that music into daytime programming. A lot of countries don’t have that.
FP: Did you ever self-produce your own vinyl?
Sixtoo: I have, it’s getting hard though. The lost art of vinyl cutting is fading. Some of the stuff I did on 4-track in ‘96 or ‘97 sound better than some of the 24-track studio stuff I’m doing now. I think it’s just a matter of the guys doing the cuts are either losing their ears cause they’ve been doing it for 20 years, or they’re just not passing the knowledge down to the younger guys that are willing to be passionate about it. Also, record-cutters don’t make a lot of money, and I think guys that have really good ears are saying fuck it, I’m going into mastering instead of cutting, which makes less money and has a huge overhead as well.
FP: Did you ever finance your own singles or albums?
Sixtoo: I have, and that’s the hard part, especially 7-inch, that’s so much money. And you’re never gonna get that stuff back– you’re basically using your 7-inch like a promotional item, to get your name out there, get it on college radio and promote shows. Occasionally they become fetish objects, you might be able to sell 1000. Or, in the case of Bully, where that’s their thing, it becomes a sort of boutique label. They have a good model because they pay all the artists up front for the 1000, and they might not sell out but at least the artist is paid in advance. If I was ever going to set up an independent label, that’s the way I would do it, pay up front for everything manufactured and make sure there was enough promotion to sell out whatever pressing you make. It’s a tough process, though, selling records…
FP: When you started in Halifax, did you save a bunch of money to press your first record?
Sixtoo: Yeah, I was working a night shift job, and just saved enough to press up 500 copies of a 7-inch. Actually, the first releases were on cassette and they were just like, my friend Jay had two cassette decks plus one master one that we’d just dub tapes off of. I was still in high school at that point, so I’d just sell tapes hand to hand in high school. I think through that stuff I probably got enough money to press up some vinyls.
FP: It must have been exciting the first time.
Sixtoo: Yeah… the first time, when I first got the test pressing I was like “Yeah, that’s what it’s all about!” you know? Now, ten years later, I get the test pressing and I’m like “Goddamn, that sounds like shit! I gotta recut it!” [laughter] Come to think of it, even then I was lucky enough to have friends invest in my music.
FP: How did you unload them at the time, through friends and at shows?
Sixtoo: Yeah, mainly at shows. Especially coming from hip-hop, the live show is what it’s all about, it’s not even so much about making records. I think it’s the same thing with punk rock and stuff, where it’s really about the energy at the live show. Selling music is sort of secondary.
When you start making records, it’s the hardest, because nobody knows who you are, distributors won’t pick up your stuff, and if they do, you’re at the bottom of the food chain because they’ve got someone like Quantum or Epitaph that are independents that have records that are going to move like 600,000 units the next month. And so you’re the last to get paid on the list of labels. And a lot of times, you’ll get something to a distributor and six months later they’re out of business, because they’re the only ones willing to take the risk on those small projects.
I think it’s really a matter of doing enough live shows to get your name out there, then the distributors come to you.
Distribution is the biggest problem in North America right now for independent artists, because they control everything, and they’re ultimately the ones who determine whether you’ll get paid or not from records. And whether they market you or not through their channels [to stores or chains or trade magazines, catalogues etc.] is what determines what gets to be in the bins.
FP: Aside from music, distribution is the thing, whether it’s books, magazines, clothes, chips or whatever, just the job of getting it out there. We never really learn about in school, but if it isn’t distributed to stores, nobody can buy it. I remember bringing home the first issue of Fish Piss in a big box, thinking “OK, it’s done, I put it out– but wait, it’s not out.”
Sixtoo: Then you realize it costs more to send out one book than it does to manufacture it. That’s certainly the case with records– it costs me 3 times as much to send a record than it does to make one.
FP: The cost difference between manufacturing vinyl and CDs is there, but then the difference between shipping vinyl from CD is really the killer.
Sixtoo: It destroys you. And, like, try to do that independently. I’m really, really surprised that there hasn’t been a big upstart independent distributor that works on some other system than what’s going on, because right now, everybody’s getting fucked. There are three or four distributors that are honest enough that you might get paid, if you’re on someone like Constellation or Ninja or someone they’re making money off of. But it’s really tough, and there is an argument for giving away music on the Internet and being an artist who just tours to support themselves, because working within the framework of that whole system, which is just set up to perpetuate itself, is a really tough thing to deal with.
I know it’s been like that for a really long time, but now it’s just getting worse because it seems like the major monopolies of not only music but all facets of culture have gotten out of control, really. And it is a struggle of being for or against that idea, you know. It’s huge.
FP: Like you say, even if you get to a certain point, you do a lot of touring, you build up something, you get to the point where the distributor is actually coming to you, you still haven’t really changed that game.
Sixtoo: Mmm-hmmm.
