IndieHQ / Article Detail

May 22nd, 2007

Interview with Patrick Kindlon of End of a Year

The following is an interview with Patrick Kindlon of End of a Year. End of a Year are from upstate New York and if you haven’t been paying attention, there seems to be a number of excellent bands coming from the area. As Patrick answered the interview, he made a number of jabs at his own band that they don’t have a marketable sound. On their Myspace page, their bio states:

we wanted to play music we liked so we got together and did that shit. no one else really liked it and we were pretty comfortable being the band who tours the country but no one really likes and then revelation called one day and it was pretty weird but i like the kiss it goodbye record a lot so we decided to go with it.

When I listen to End of a Year, I am reminded of a sound more prevalent  in the late 80’s, not necessarily of what is going on these days. I hear a little bit of Born Against and definitely see these guys fitting in with some of the earlier Dischord stuff and that to me, is not a bad thing.

Thanks Patrick for taking the time to do this interview; and check out “Sincerity” which was released by Revelation Records.

IndieHQ: When did your band start? Where is your band based? What label is your band on? Do you do the band full time? What don’t most people know about you/your band?
EndOfAYear: End of a Year started 2002 or 2003, I hope you’ll excuse me, my memory is very poor. We are based out of Cohoes, NY, which may as well be Albany for most people, or Upstate if someone really wants to be vague about it. About a year ago we signed to Revelation Records.

IndieHQ: Where can people sample your music? Myspace url? Website? What is your latest album? What is your best selling release? How many has it sold?
EndOfAYear: People can listen to our music at Revhq.com, Revelationrecords.com, or myspace.com/endofayear. Our last album was a full-length on Revelation called “Sincerely”. I’d imagine that’s been our best selling release, though I have no idea how many records have been sold.

IndieHQ: What do you look for in a label? How did you hook up with your label? Would you ever consider signing to a major label? What advice do you have for bands attempting to get a labelÕs attention?
EndOfAYear: What we were looking for in a label was the resources to do a little more than we can without a label. Also, it was important to us that whoever was willing to give us those resources understands we don’t play music people like and will never sell very well. The man currently in the signing seat over at Rev has run his personal label Collapse for a number of years now. One of the bands on Collapse, Forced Forward turned him on to us and we got a call shortly thereafter.

Regarding signing to a major label: It’s too late. There is no point. I could see it being fun 10 years or more ago when people would immediately dislike you for signing to one, but now now no one cares and there is certainly no advantage to it otherwise. So hell no.

IndieHQ: I run a label and attempting to sell music in the post-file-sharing, post-Tower Records retail landscape is more difficult than ever. Do you feel that file-sharing/copying has helped or hurt your band? How??
EndOfAYear: I think it has helped and hurt us. Helped in the respect that because all anyone had to do was click a button, many more people have heard us than would’ve prior to file-sharing. Hurt us because the fewer records we sell the less likely we are to get more money from the label for future recordings and projects. If we had a more marketable sound I think file-sharing would be a huge help to us. Those bands playing radio music but staying on independent labels are reaping the rewards of file-sharing. Their shows, which would have always been their primary money-maker, are even bigger now. The label was going to be sucking them dry on album sales anyway, so what do they care if sales are in the toilet? They can still command huge guarantees on shows and push bigger door deals.

IndieHQ: Do you have a booking agent? Who? Do you have a manager? Who? How important is it to your band that you have a booking agent and manager on your team?
EndOfAYear: A number of my friends work in “music” and I’ve seen how that world works so I can say that if you are going for a “career” in music, a manager is crucial. Most musicians utilize a certain portion of their brains and they need a manager to speak on behalf of the unused portion. For a band like mine a manager is unnecessary and, frankly, silly. However, I would like a booking agent and have begun convincing the few people who I think might understand what we are doing to take us on as a member of their roster. The problem is I have no idea what we are worth. For a booking agent to make money, we have to have a guarantee, something we’ve intentionally never had. I would like to delete some of the headache of booking everything myself, but at the same time don’t want to fuck some kid doing us a favor by putting us on a show by hitting him/her with some ridiculous guarantee.

IndieHQ: As music sales continue to decrease and music distribution changes, there has been lots of talk about a new label business model where labels will need to start taking a share of the bandÕs merchandise, publishing, and ticket sales. How do you feel about this idea?
EndOfAYear: While the sound of this makes musicians hair stands on end, I think we have to look at it realistically. In two years, if things don’t change, anyone putting your record out is doing you a favor. Straight up and down they will not be making money on it unless you sell impossibly well. So I think arrangements outside of the traditional are going to be necessary for people who want to be on a label. Personally, cutting into publishing sounds like insanity to me, but merchandise and ticket sales are two things I think bands and labels are going to have arrangements on more frequently.

IndieHQ: If you were forced to describe your band to someone by mentioning the 3 bands that most influenced your songwriting, which bands would you mention?
EndOfAYear: Guitar 1: Heresy, Guitar 2: Gang of Four, Bass & Drums: Rush

IndieHQ: What do you see as the future of music sales?
EndOfAYear: Nonexistent? I honestly don’t know. There was a moment where people thought that the higher sound quality of regulated online music sales would keep them afloat, but the average person doesn’t care about that on any level. So I see niche markets like vinyl doing well forever, compact discs becoming extinct of course, and every label scaling down their ambitions regarding sales.

IndieHQ: What 5 albums are you currently listening to most?
EndOfAYear: Bill Callahan “Woke On a Whaleheart” , Seaweed “Spanaway” , Engineer “Reproach”

IndieHQ: If you could get everyone in the world to listen to one song by your band, which one would it be? Why? Is it on your Myspace page?
EndOfAYear: I suppose “Beleaders” sums it up better than most, but I would prefer everyone listen to “Above Ground Pools” it’s the one people dislike the most, but it’s a love-letter to my favorite band and I think if people opened up to it they’d figure out why we wrote it.

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Written by Virgil Dickerson