17 minute read
Rudimental Major Toms
'WE'RE THE NEW MOTOWN, NO LESS!'
New music is coming, but the industry story from Rudimental is about expanding their label and publishing company...
Chart-topping dance quartet Rudimental have had an impressively productive lockdown. Firstly, they’ve finished their fourth album, which is due out on Atlantic in September. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly for the purposes of a trade publication such as MBUK, they’ve been busy readying the start of a big expansion plan for their record label, publisher (administered by UMPG) and now creative agency, all of which sit under the Major Toms brand. That expansion includes moving from their studio in Hackney to a new complex that will house multiple studios across several floors and a multimedia recording space.
At the same time, the label has a busy year of releases ahead with Anne-Marie — who started the year with No.2 hit Don’t Play, alongside KSI and Digital Farm Animals — set to release her second album via Major Toms/Atlantic, while Ella Henderson (also signed in a JV with Atlantic) is also working on an album following her top 20 track Let’s Go Home Together with Tom Grennan. Developing artist Morgan (who is signed solely to Major Toms) is working on an EP after guesting on Rudimental’s Be the One alongside rapper/songwriter Tike, who is published by Major Toms. Other acts published by the company include composer, songwriter and producer Renell Shaw, who won an Ivor last year for his jazz EP, The Windrush Suite, and has new music coming under duo 2fox; production duo Slim Typical; and songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Beanie Bhebhe.
There’s also an expansion of their team on the cards (which currently includes Rudimental members Piers Aggett, Amir Amor, Kesi Dryden and DJ Locksmith as well as GM Gabby Endacott), and they are working on building an app that aims to help support artists’ wellbeing and mental health alongside a dedicated programme called The People’s Mantra. Here, we chat
Ella Henderson Tike
to Aggett, Amor, Dryden and Locksmith about their ambitions, their approach to artist development, and what they think about some of the major music industry issues of the day.
Morgan is an artist you’ve developed yourselves without signing to a major label — would you like to do more of that under Major Toms as you expand the company?
Amir Amor: We’re exploring that idea. I think it’s about being able to hire the people that we want to hire, to create a team that we want to create, and find the best people for the right project. It can feel a little bit restrictive being connected to just one entity.
We’re exploring the idea of nonmusic industry funding and we’re funding it ourselves. But ultimately, it’s going to be a mixture — some artists we might find and think this should be a joint venture with a label or, like with Morgan, we decide to do all of that development ourselves.
The idea of taking an artist, whether it’s Morgan or someone else, to major levels of success entirely independently is definitely something we want to explore and I’m sure that will come with time. DJ Locksmith: In terms of the record label, we’re relatively new to this game, even though we’ve had so much success for our artists in a short period of time, and we’ve got to get out and get that experience for ourselves before we start jumping in 100% and investing our own money into our artists because that can be a deep dark hole. Sometimes it can be a fun dark hole but it still burns your pocket. So, in order to acquire the team we want for our artists, we’re going to have to sometimes look at doing joint ventures. The model at the minute is starting off our artists and trying to invest our own money at the very initial stage, help with the creative side as much as we can, teaming up as Rudimental when we go on tour and then start looking to team up [with partners]. The fact we’ve had so much success with Anne-Marie and Morgan makes us want to jump into the deep end straight away but we’re still learning and need some more experience. We’ll get there.
How does the fact that you are creators, first and foremost, have an impact on how your label operates or any point of difference that it offers?
Amir: I think that’s our main point of difference. We are artists
Morgan
and we’ve been independent, we’ve signed to majors, and we’ve all done different things individually as well. So we’ve got this wealth of experience on the creative side of the industry and, as Locky said, we’ve been developing our experience on the business side as well over the years.
We’ve had the potholes, the dodgy A&Rs and battles with various labels, whether it’s for features or for our own projects, and we take all of that experience into our ethos and understanding of how to work with artists.
That goes across everything that we do. When you walk into a room with us, you don’t feel like you’re sitting in front of someone who’s a failed musician or who’s never really experienced that side of it, at least to the extent that we have and are continuing to do so. Kesi Dryden: As artists, when we want to release music, sometimes the label might be like, ‘No, we’re not ready, we haven’t got this plan, we haven’t got this or that’. But it can be important to get your music out there. An example of that was at the beginning of the pandemic, Morgan was about to release an EP and we all decided, ‘Okay, maybe we should move it back a little bit’, but there was a song that Morgan really wanted to put out.
We believe in our artists and if an artist feels so strongly about a song, we push them to put it out. So she released it and it’s actually been one of her biggest songs so far. So coming from that place where we’re artists ourselves, and we have a talent that wants to release something so bad and feels so strongly about something, I think it’s very important that we give them that opportunity to put the piece of music out.
Locksmith: Also, when we come to that decision making process with an artist, we sometimes ask ourselves as artists, ‘Would we like it if the record label did that to us?’, and that allows us to look at it through our artist’s eyes and be compassionate to their thoughts and creativity. I think that’s so important, because it allows the artist to feel more confident in themselves and have the belief that they can go on and produce some of their best work. With that said, we have been around the block a few times in the last 10 years, we’ve had the experience of not only playing in front of thousands of people but selling millions of records around the world, so we’ve got an idea of how to go about that and we can share that experience.
Amir: At major labels, people have limited timescales in their jobs, they’re in and out really quickly. There are huge teams, there isn’t that much invested responsibility in things, projects get spread out over people, and it kind of gets lost. You also get this terrible overthinking… these are all things we’ve experienced first-hand working with different labels and these are things that we actively avoid.
We make sure that it’s creative-led. If someone really believes in something, then we trust their belief, and allow them to explore that belief without putting too many stoppers in the way and without getting too many people involved.
Kesi: You have to listen to the artist. It happened to ourselves a few years back — our label wanted to put out a different song for Rudimental and we were fighting for Waiting All Night because we’d been playing it live during our shows and felt that the reaction we got from the song was so big. We really had to battle with the label to make it our next single but we won that battle, we got to No.1 and it’s one of our biggest songs.
Piers Aggett: It’s happening all the time — that’s happening right now! We’re handing in our next single tomorrow and the label are unsure, but we’re sure. It’s part of the game and, most of the time, labels mean really well, they want the best for their artists and that’s why they signed them. But not everything that they want is always the best for the artist, I think artists have to listen to themselves.
Locksmith: At the end of the day, it comes down to music, and music is a very personal, emotional thing for an artist. They have to feel like they’re heard and they have to feel like they have a connection with ears that they trust. And sometimes, with bigger labels, who have a lot more responsibility and a lot more people on their roster, that connection can sometimes feel like it’s further away. Whereas with us, we’ve got that instant connection through our creativity, we’ve got our artists in the studio with us, we’re coproducing on their records at the same time, and we’re advising them as if our older selves would be advising our younger selves.
Kesi: One last point to add is that labels tend to sign artists who’ve already got some kind of success nowadays, who are already on a million TikTok views, already doing this or that. They sign them, they’ll put out a couple of singles and then they’ll go, ‘Oh, now you want to change direction? You want to try something different? Nah, stick with what works’. They get into these battles simply because they haven’t grown with the artist and understood them.
So another major thing in our ethos is to grow with the artist. You have to gain trust both ways — the artist has to trust you and you have to trust the artist. That’s what I mean by being creative first, because you have to trust each other and I think that’s a pitfall of the major labels, this whole new ethos of just waiting until artists are already kicking off and offering some services, being like a service provider. We’re not just a service provider, we are an incubator, we incubate and we develop.
Locksmith: We want to grow, we want to become a big label and we understand that we may have some of these issues that the bigger labels are having now in the next five to 10 years. But it comes down to what Amir was saying earlier in terms of the projects that we’re trying to build, and building a team around us that share the same values that can grow in numbers, where everyone’s thinking on the same wavelength. It may take us a lot longer, but that’s something we
want to stick with.
Look at Rudimental, we don’t stay in a box, we’re not one specific genre music band, we’re able to mould with the times, and that’s what we like our artists to do. We’re not looking for the next TikTok arsehole, we’re looking for someone who has talent and wants to grow.
Are there any cons to having a relationship with your artists that is so close creatively, as well as looking after the business side of their career for them?
Amir: I don’t think there are any cons other than things take a bit longer. You have to invest more time and more money, but it’s worth it.
Piers: And you can still disagree on things, we still disagree with Morgan on stuff, but I feel like we disagree in a different way than we disagree with our label, Atlantic, as a band because maybe we understand a bit more what they are going through.
It definitely feels like a different type of relationship. You still have the, ‘What single should we put out?’ dilemma and you’ve still got to navigate through that. Especially in Morgan’s case, she’s making lots of different songs and using different sonics and
different producers, creating different sounds, so for her, especially early in her career, what type of sound and what type of artist she wants to be is really important.
Locksmith: I think the cons are outside perception. Yes, things may take a little bit longer and there may not be instant success, but at the same time, I believe that if you stay true to your goals and true to your ethos and what you’re about, then you start to bring people into your world and cons over time start to feel like positives.
Like Piers said, there will be disagreements but I have disagreements with my brother daily and I still love him. I feel like that’s what this label is, it’s like a family, the way we work with talent is through them coming on tour with us and that whole tour cycle is a family-oriented tour.
Amir: It’s about that close relationship, so if we’re in the room with Morgan and she’s playing all of her music, management is there and we’re all together, we can discuss our ideas and opinions. And what we’ve found with the label world sometimes is there’s a separation — discussions happen, you’re not involved, you hear about them through this channel, it turns into Chinese whispers and then you get into a battle, where, really, you’re both on the same side.
With that close relationship, with that trust, and spending time together, you avoid those pitfalls, because we all want the same thing, you discuss them, and you come to a conclusion.
Here’s a big picture question: the economics of streaming have been under close scrutiny in the UK thanks to the Government inquiry. On which side of the debate do you sit?
Piers: If you’re signed to a major record label, streaming really isn’t going to pay much and I think that is an issue. If you’re an independent artist in the streaming world, it can be pretty good.
Kesi: I wouldn’t say it’s pretty good.
Piers: Well, no but I’m saying it’s better because the major label’s not taking a massive chunk.
Locksmith: It’s a difficult one. You’ve got the labels, who are going to put you in front of the world and help your music reach the heights that you want it to reach. If you’re independent, there’s only so far you can go. So then if you are streaming reasonably well as an independent person, you’re still not going to break through those massive barriers without the label. I would like to see the statistics on it before I make a proper call on it, but for us, a band that’s been going for 10 years, we’ve made a living out of this. So I feel like it would be pretty patronising if we were to say that streaming doesn’t do well at the minute, because it’s got us to where we are now.
Kesi: But I think we could all definitely say that the streaming platforms could pay the artists more.
Amir: Yes, I fully agree, but I think it comes down to transparency. There isn’t really any clarity of how the money flows from the Spotifys and the Apples, although some are clearer than others, and then you’ve got the labels who blur the picture even more.
We know, as artists who 10 years ago were selling CDs, now it’s entirely streams and vinyl, and we can see that there are more people consuming the music, but the money you get from royalties on the mechanical side is relatively less to the [consumption] numbers; it doesn’t quite add up.
There’s tech companies who seem to be at the forefront of pushing this dynamic and it feels like the labels are following behind. We’re not quite at that stage yet where we’re innovating how music is consumed.
This lack of clarity on how the money is trickling down is creating distrust between artists and labels — you don’t trust labels because you feel like they’re taking a big cut and passing it on to Spotify. There’s no distribution anymore, it’s all done digitally, so it doesn’t really cost anything, and all these questions are not fully answered. That’s why people are getting really excited about NFTs, because they offer a glimpse of hope that you can distribute directly and not have to go through the gatekeepers. Right now, the gatekeepers are kind of keeping this veil and making it look really complicated and complex and saying, ‘You don’t know what’s going on here, don’t worry about it.’
Piers: All the different companies pay differently, too. But who is representing the artists? PRS represents the songwriters and do a really good job, but between the labels and the Spotifys, no-one is representing the artist.
Amir: That’s a really good point. There was a time when The Musicians’ Union represented especially classical musicians and set a standard of how much they should get paid and then you wouldn’t be a broke musician if you were
Anne-Marie Slim Typical
performing at a certain level. That is gone, there is no representation for the creatives against the tech giants, we’ve got the labels in the middle who have their own interests, and a lot of them have vested interests in the tech giants.
Aside from more transparency in streaming, are there any other big changes that you’d like to see in the music industry?
Amir: Representation for songwriters, for artists. We’re the creators but it feels like we’re at the bottom of the food chain. The tech is at the top, the labels are somewhere below that and it kind of trickles down.
Also, I’d like to see an overhaul in the way [streaming] is done, because it all stemmed from that era of piracy that went into iTunes and the labels are sort of catching up. We’re still working from a mentality that has stemmed from that era.
It doesn’t feel like the creative and music side has innovated on how we reach our audience, we’re still really reliant on these huge gatekeepers, and we’re becoming more and more reliant. So I’d like to see representation, some kind of union, The Musicians’ Union, perhaps, and I’d like to see some innovation from labels around the fact that music fans want to go directly to artists. Locksmith: It’s something we have to think about as the Major Toms label.
Amir: Yeah, definitely. We have to be more tech savvy, we have to get that side of things down. I can’t give you the answer right now, but we definitely need to innovate and be creative in how we’re reaching artists, because those traditional gatekeepers are doing what they’ve always traditionally done, which is take our money and close the gate.“A lack of clarity on how the money is What are your ultimate ambitions trickling down is for Major Toms as a brand of companies? creating distrust.” Amir: We’re the new Motown, no less! We bring the ethos of family, growth, development and we are a creative, artist-led label – and that goes across our creative agency side as well. We want to use our unique position with artists to create more natural brand engagements and natural and better content. Locksmith: To be the biggest that we can be, carry on finding and nurturing talent as much as we possibly can and see where that takes us. n
