LARS: That comes with it of course. Everybody has to figure out what they want to do, what their mission is and ideally how can they make money with it. When it comes down to it, you have to pay your bills. There are a few people I know that have solid day jobs and it doesn't kill them. Then they do all their other stuff on the side and that's great because they can keep their freedom. But, if you pay your bills with this you gotta really start thinking. It's like a sales job; you have to sell something that people want.
5: How do you feel about the LA scene? I lived there for a few years and it wasn't really for me.
LARS: When I came here for the first time, I hated it! I went to a few places and it wasn't all that. It was about '99 and it was artists like Richard F. and that type of House.
5: Like all of the US Hard House type stuff? Like DJ Irene and that?
LARS: Yes! That's not my thing at all. Every scene has its own right to exist; it's just not my thing. The only thing that really that keeps your head up high in L.A. is DEEP with Marques Wyatt. He's bringing talent on a weekly basis like no one else is. At least for the House I like. I mean you can go to Avalon and they have big, big commercial names. It's a different crowd and not the music I like. There's a lot going on. You have a lot people throwing their own parties because they don't get booked anywhere. There's a good Deep-Tech House scene and that's alive because they're not the regular type Househeads. In order to have a party that survives you need people that are willing to spend money at the party. You can't have everybody ask for guestlist.
5: Since everyone thinks they're industry it's hard a hard thing to get around. Everybody knows somebody, or works somewhere or dates someone or something. How is a night supposed to survive when no one wants to pay for anything? People don't wanna pay cover, people don't wanna buy drinks. Then they expect top-notch talent too? What the fuck?
LARS: Exactly! You can do that when I have the party in my living room! Bring your own 6-pack, I don't give a fuck. I'll play music; I'm not even going to charge you. But when you come to a club and you know someone is putting work into it? Come on! If you're a cleaning lady, I don't ask you to clean my house for free! If you're a car salesman and I need a car, I don't say well I drive cars all the time, I'm car industry!
5: I used to have the same problem with people that would shop at the record stores I worked at. I would mark the prices down super cheap and people would still have the audacity to ask for a "DJ discount." I would say I don't go to Burger King and ask for "Hungry discount."
LARS: Right! Ideally, if you really are a DJ and you call yourself a DJ, you make money by playing the records you purchase, at the end of the year, count that against your taxes! That is your DJ discount!
5: A record store isn't the most profitable thing to operate from the start. Everyone wants a hook-up and now there's no money to be made for the store that was supplying the tunes from the get-go. Where do you see vinyl going at this point?
LARS: I still have all my records. I moved 10,000 plus records all the way here from Germany. A lot of records I have, even if I hear a second of it, it brings back memories. So a lot of it I am keeping for the sentimental value. I think that's how vinyl is mostly going to continue. There are always going to be collectors.
I do think though for the labels, that means they need to step up their game. Now days you can't just hope people are going to buy your shit and that's it. You have to work for it. It never used to be that hard. You might press some records up front, then promote the release and then sell it to the stores. Maybe you would press up 1,200 copies and that would keep you busy for a few months.
Beatport gets probably a thousand new releases each week. If you're lucky someone charts your shit on of the download sites and that way you move some units otherwise you get lost in the shuffle unless they feature your release or you have your own chart.
If you're still doing vinyl, I think you need to give the people a little more than they're used to. I'm toying with that idea for Deeper Shades Recordings but it's not going to be for a while. I've seen so many labels bleed themselves dry by paying outrageous fees for remixes or they only have the money to produce 2 - 12" and that's it. No distributor is going to be interested in that. They need to know that if they take on a label that they are going to be consistent. They know that if they don't make money, I won't make money. Distributors have been dieing left and right. I'm curious to see if most people are just going to end up distributing their own shit.
Omar S. in Detroit, he presses and keeps the stuff in his basement as far as I know. Even stores order direct from his website. I'm not willing to take that risk yet. I'm still trying to build Deeper Shades as a digital label at the moment. I figure it's much easier for me to have done it now that I live in the US than when I lived in Germany because Germany is still very much into vinyl. They're still not real keen on the mp3 thing. It wouldn't have been as easy to establish a digital only label there without some type of ridicule. No one over here expects you to do vinyl anymore.
I have a lot of stuff planned for 2009. We're going to give away some tracks for free. We're going to do a little more than just putting up posts on my blog or on a message board. I wanna make it a little bit bigger than that when you give away something for free because you're only reaching the same audience you would reach anyway. I gotta reach people and basically be like download this and it won't cost you anything. Listen to it. Next to it I will have everything else I have put it out. If you like it, you might want to check those out. What I have realized about the internet market is that it's not always about what's new and hot and I like that about mp3's. It's about quality and quality will prevail. Every time I have a new release I see an increase in sales of older releases and I think that's great for a label.
I think for a DJ you need to turn off that little I lift my finger and I'll teach you type of thing, like I'm your Grandpa or something and you should know, and rather embrace the fact that people have interest in the music and build on that. There's a lot of DJs that are like, "You're not even supposed to like this because you don't know what it is." They have that kind of weird attitude where they treat people like they don't know what this is or where it's coming from and that they can't even talk to you.
I think it's important to embrace and know that you are reaching people that had no connection to House before. That's why I do the (Deeper Shades) show. I don't make money off of it. Of course it draws attention to me. I use it as a promotional vehicle for exposure obviously. Every time I get an email it's either someone saying how they used to listen to House and that they have found it again, or they have never heard it before, or I thought I knew House and then I listened to your show. That kind of stuff is why I do what I do. There is so much good music out there that people don't get the chance to hear. I obviously stay away from things I don't like but even if I do like something, I tend to go more to smaller labels because they don't get the attention. Labels like Defected, they have their machine running. They have a large marketing budget (I would imagine). The smaller labels don't have that same ability and their music is amazing. I like to turn people on to new music. I have people that tell me that they like listening to my show but they don't necessarily like everything I play but they notice there's always a little change in the music. There are so many different kinds of this deep music that I want to bring to the people. Sometimes I'll start my show out at 110 bpms and others I'll start at 125.
5: Many people know the Deeper Shades of House show from being on XM Radio. Did it start there?
LARS: No actually it started on JAM FM, which is a nationwide Black Music station in Germany. (That's what they refer to anything that is soulful or mostly produced by black artists. It absolutely has no racist undertone what-so-ever). I started the show there. I had met Luis (Baro) from XM a bit before that.
5: What year did you initially begin the show?
LARS: June 8th 2002 was the first one on JAM FM. July 4th, 2003 was the first show on XM Radio. I asked Luis if he was interested in re-broadcasting or syndicating the show. It took a minute but then they took it on and I then began recording the show in English as well. I'd use the same mix of mine and the same guest mix as well. I'd just do different voiceovers. I think when I had just done my 5 year anniversary; XM decided they were going to pull the station I was on, The Move.
5: Do you think that has affected the audience that you broadcast to after they pulled the plug on The Move?
LARS: I'm sure there are a lot of people that cannot listen anymore but I knew it was going to come, so I would always announce on my show to go to the website because I was going to keep doing the show. When we first heard about the rumor of the merger with XM and Sirius a few years back, we kinda figured out that this is not going to be a good thing. We knew it was going to turn into more of an overground thing. Once that rumor surfaced I started podcasting the show; prior to that it was exclusively for XM. Shortly after, I started to hit up different stations. Now it's on over 20 stations all over the world. About half are internet and half are FM stations. A lot FM stations in Europe. More are regional than nationwide but at least FM in places like Turkey, Italy and Spain. Then the usual suspects on the web like SS Radio in the UK, Motion FM in Canada and Cyberjamz in the US, those are a few of the internet stations.
I think the listenership, as far as I can tell has gone up at least in regards to downloads and direct traffic through my website. It has gone up a lot in the last 2 months alone. I just checked my new stats and from the site I have like 10,000 downloads a week now and that's not including all the other stations that broadcast it.
5: Let's talk about your label Deeper Shades Recordings as well as some of your own productions on other labels.
LARS: The label is like the radio show in terms of the guest mixers that I have. It's about quality, not about who you are. I like getting artists that are fresh, willing and hungry. They're excited to have their music out and they're going to help promote it too. Bottom line is if your shit is good, I'll sign it.
This year as well I'm going to focus on a lot of remix swapping. I have a few things lined up already for the label with Boddhi Satva and Atjazz, which I'm really excited about. I have a bunch of remix swaps, some free tracks I'm going to release and an EP finally on my own. I want to release a compilation this year as well weather it's on Deeper Shades Recordings or on another label.
:: posted mar 10 by rees urban in features, february 2009 issue
