IndieHQ / Article Detail

April 5th, 2007

Interview with Ross Siegel of Reignition Recordings

I am proud to bring you an interview with Ross Siegel of Reignition Recordings. Ross cut his teeth in the music industry by starting a fanzine called Law of Inertia. LOI become one of the best-run publications in Punk/Metal/Indie journalism. A few years ago, Ross sold the magazine and in doing so changed the name of his label which was also using the moniker Law of Inertia. This is how Reignition was born. When I decided to feature more consistent interviews with labels on this site, I was excited to share with you labels of all shapes and sizes. Reignition is on smaller side of things, but I feel that Ross has just as much to say about what is going on in the industry than labels ten times his size. Reignition has released bands such as The Static Age, Marathon, Ultimate Fakebook, Dead Girls Ruin Everything, Zolof the Rock and Roll Destroyer, as well as tributes to Guns N Roses, Smashing Pumpkins, and Black Flag. He has most recently put out a Reel Big Fish / Zolof the Rock and Roll Destroyer split CD and a live album by Death By Stereo. As you will read, Ross has strong opinions about what is going on in the industry and for good reason.

Thanks Ross for taking the time to do this interview. I encourage everyone to stop by his label site and check out his artists and releases. I especially recommend checking out the Static Age who i recently saw in Denver; the band writes great music, performs incredibly, and with their recent addition to the Leave Home roster are poised for great things.

IndieHQ: When did your label start?
Reignition: It started as Law of Inertia Records in 1999. I put out around 12 releases before I changed the name to ReIgnition Recordings in 2004.
IndieHQ: What inspired you to start the label?
Reignition: Some extra cash and I was too stupid to know I was going to fail. Also, because I believed there were some good bands that needed to be heard and I felt I could make the world hear them. Do you know Edaline, the Grey AM, the ‘65 Film Show, This Year’s Model, or any of our early bands? Yeah, apparently I wasn’t very good at getting the word out.

IndieHQ: Where is your label based?
Reignition:My kitchen table near Union Square in New York City.

IndieHQ:Do you do the label full time?
Reignition: Kinda. It’s a labor of love– a full time hobby if you will. I’ve really never made any money off the label and thankfully I have been pretty lucky in past careers. Mostly I’m a full time student. But I spend an irrational amount of time on my hobby. Thankfully about half our records do extremely well, so that subsidizes my coke habit, Bentley, supermodel girlfriend, and our other less successful records.

IndieHQ: What don’t most people know about you/your label?
Reignition: I’d say most people haven’t discovered that when they steal music off internet file-sharing services that my ability to put out more music– or adequately promote existing ones– becomes severely compromised. Anyone who kids themselves into thinking that file-sharing is not killing the music industry in many many ways is living in a dreamworld. Kids complain that record labels suck and don’t take chances on art anymore? Try a musical environment in which the labels are so strapped for cash that they can’t afford to take any risks whatsoever. I may as well be the Crowned Prince of Doom and Gloom when it comes to the future of the record industry.

IndieHQ: What active bands are on your label?
The Static Age
Death By Stereo
Zolof The Rock & Roll Destroyer
Reel Big Fish
Love Equals Death
Dead Girls Ruin Everything

IndieHQ: What do you look for in a band? Have you ever signed a band from a demo? What advice do you have for bands trying to get your attention? What band or bands would you kill to work with?
Reignition: Let’s take this one at a time.
What I look for in a band: Honestly, there are a number of things I look for, and some may seem superficial to those that have never invested time, energy, or money in a musical project. Sadly, those superficial aspects can be the difference between a successful record and a failure. Unfortunately, the music industry may be about selling art, but profit and loss is still the only determinant in the success/failure category. Don’t try to fool yourself– music is a business like baseball or fine art, and sadly, like in those arenas, superficial traits of an artist or athlete can often be more important than the objective traits. For music, one of the things I look for is the age of band so I know how to set expectations and therefore budget accordingly. I tend to work with bands that are a bit older (i.e. in their mid to late 20s) so my expectations for them touring are generally lower than, say, a bunch of 23 year-olds. However, touring is paramount– it’s very hard for me to sell a band that doesn’t criss-cross the country at least a few times a year. If your band is from LA, San Francisco, or New York you MAY be able to get away with bands that don’t actively tour, but it’s unlikely. I look for bands whose members are charming, smart, reliable, and perhaps most importantly– somewhat attractive. I look for bands who have good style in everything from their clothing to the artwork that represents the band visually. I look for bands with good names. I firmly believe that bands with unique, inspiring names do better than bands with ordinary, dumb names. I get demos all the time from bands that are virtual carbon copies of the powerful-yet-sublimely-stoic-three-word-names of a few years ago (think Sky Came Falling). People, you think Green Day would have gotten to where they are if their name didn’t sound like it works for their style? Metallica? Rancid? Those names are perfect for what the bands do. If any of them were called Rock Kills Kid or Jack’s Manequin I’m not sure there would be hundreds of millions of people lining up to buy their schwag.

Reignition: Demos: I have signed bands from demos but I almost never do it. I generally feel that if a band needs to send demos out to labels to get noticed then they are obviously not resourceful enough to make it as a successful rock outfit. Sending a demo to a label and hoping they sign you is just about the least you can do. I try to only work with bands that have some sort of following, even if that means that following needs to be built up. Put it this way: if your band is from Chicago and can’t at least fill a 100-person room in their hometown then count me as not interested.

Reignition:Advice I can give bands to get my attention: get 10 million hits on your tricked out, digitally-hot Myspace page. Make friends in bigger bands to help you and take you on tour. Get your friends who are bad ass web developers or producers to make you hot videos or web pages. Be organized. Keep email addresses of your fans and stay in touch with them regularly. In short: show me I won’t have to build a fanbase for you. Oh, and recording a finished record and then offering me that record is a very very very good idea. If I don’t have to pay a recording advance I’m probably more likely to take a chance on the project. Truth be told, the really smart bands– of which there are, sadly, few– realize that labels are so 20th century. Do it yourself is back in a big way (Anyone heard of Rilo Kiley, Bright Eyes, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, or the Barenaked Ladies?) Better yet, start your own damn label. Hell, Rocafella, Def Jam, TVT, Victory, Epitaph, Dischord, etc.– all those labels were started to put out records by the bands of the labels’ owners.
IndieHQ: What one marketing/promotions tool do you find is your greatest asset? What vendor/manufacturer that you work with do you recommend the most?
Reignition: Marketing/promotions tool? I know you want me to say Myspace, but at this point, Myspace is not an added bonus it’s a necessity. I’m looking for the next wave. My mailing list is a huge boon.
Vendor, manufacturer: Duh, Suburban Home Fucking Records. Pastepunk and Wonka Vision are also tremendous resources for me in a variety of ways.

IndieHQ: What release is your best selling title? How many has it sold?
Reignition: —— Our Guns N’ Roses tribute, “Bring You To Your Knees.” It’s sold a lot.

IndieHQ: Music retail is tough these days, what steps, if any, have you taken to adapt in the post-file-sharing/post-Tower Records music retail landscape?
Reignition: Buy digital. Plain and simple. No one actually cares about CD artwork since everyone listens to music on their iPod anyway. I make more money when people buy from iTunes or Downloadpunk than I do from CDs. Also, eventually if I’m to continue this I’ll have to start taking a percentage of bands’ merchandising, publishing, and live show guarantees– harsh reality, people. Hundreds of millions of kids a day stealing my music has made it harder than ever for my company to survive on record sales alone. Also, I like to think we have a very good system for digital, low-cost marketing. File-sharing and the internet revolution has made ads in big magazines not cost-effective. Moreover, I’m not entirely sure that people still read magazines. Some of you know I used to publish a magazine called Law of Inertia and even though kids come up to me a shows and tell me they miss my magazine… I think they’re lying.

IndieHQ: Who handles your distribution?
Reignition: RED, ADA, Koch, Universal (Fontana), Caroline… duh. This is a dumb question. There’s only one possible answer. (Suburban Home handles Reignition’s Distribution)

IndieHQ: What do you see as the future of music sales?
Reignition: Um, future? Is this a joke? Dude, your average 13 year-old doesn’t buy music. Your average 20 year-old trades more music on their college-ethernets in a week than I actually buy music in two year’s time. Let’s face it: there’s no future for recorded music sales. Everyone in the industry had been saying that the bottom has been reached and that music sales’ meteoric decline over the past six years had ended. Well, according to the Wall Street Journal a week ago, music sales fell 30% from the same time a year ago. 30%! There is a future for music consumption, as evidenced by the fact that over 100 million iPods have been sold and Apple’s share of the portable music player department is only 25% worldwide. I believe there will be a lot of money to be made on music in the future– in merchandising, publishing, marketing, PR, live show production, management, magazines, web zines, et al– but I believe that music itself will have a hard time making a return on investment in the future. The beauty of it is that as the world goes digital, record label’s costs will fall so at least the bleeding will be stemmed. In the early days of the music industry, records were used to promote tours. Eventually tours became used to promote records. In the future, I see this as reversing once again. Ross Siegel of ReIgnition Recordings’ vote for the BEST way to become rich a famous: become a booking agent. The world can always use good booking agents.

IndieHQ: Are your releases available on Emusic? Why or Why not? Are your releases available for streaming on sites like Rhapsody, Napster, and Urge? Why or Why not?
Reignition: Yes, my music is available on eMusic, for the time being at least. eMusic’s business model works in such a way that I make less money per song from them than I do ANY other method to purchase my music. In the past, I’ve received around $0.17 per song on eMusic (their rates vary month to month based on the economics of their subscription model) whereas I get a healthy $0.69 for Downloapunk, $0.70 from iTunes, and around $1.00 from every song I sell in CD format (though, I do have to manufacture CDs and packaging which costs money). So, I am torn on eMusic. I like the idea that my catalog is cheap and easy to find, I don’t like the idea that some months I get totally screwed by them. More to come on this in the future, note: Victory just pulled their catalog from eMusic.
As for Rhapsody, Napster, and Urge, yes yes and yes. The difference between those services and eMusic which makes me feel differently is that their subscription services don’t allow you to own the music you rent while you’re a member. You lose access to that music overtime. With eMusic, you own your music. If I’m going to get screwed, I’d rather not give away songs unequivocally. Ultimately, I try to direct everyone that comes to my sites to go to iTunes or Downloadpunk for their digital tracks. Ultimately business is all about the marginal difference between the costs of goods sold and the price at which you can sell them for. Today, the music industry’s margins are fucking awful.

IndieHQ: If you could tell the world to buy one release on your label, which one would you tell people to purchase? Why?
Reignition: Great question. I absolutely love The Static Age record I did, “Blanks Screens.” But, the Marathon record I released is one of the best punk records… ever.

Written by Virgil Dickerson