There's an old joke about the way to make a small fortune in the restaurant biz... "Start with a large fortune!" That joke applies nicely to record labels too, because starting your own can be a big money drainer. Considering how many facets are involved in creating the infastructure necessary to find artists, sign them, and make money selling their records I don't feel qualified to speak on that subject. There's too many sides of the business I have no experience with. There's another option I have some history with, however, and that is creating a label just for your own releases. 

Doing it yourself is a hard way to go, too, but is becoming more popular with computer savvy musicians. The artists that do well on their own tend to be sort that have had success already and can rely on an established fan base. Annie DeFranco was the first artist I ever remember to release her own records, but she did so after years and years of successful touring. Aimee Mann puts out her own records, too, and there's Prince, but they both had prior major label careers and hit the ground running so it's hard to say how they would've done starting from scratch.

For artists without a sold foundation there are many things you must have in place to begin a label, like contacts in publicity, radio, and TV.... distribution, manufacturing, and marketing... and a base of operation to oversee everything. Of course you need a good amount of capital to create merchandise and keep the band on the road while you're trying to "break" the record. Did I mention accountants, lawyers, and interns? Putting all this together, writing great songs, AND having a good band to play them are too much to ask from most people, and understandably so. That being said, I was once part of a band that was in a perfect situation to put out their own record. 

Adam Rossi, a great producer and friend, called me to play on a record he was producing for an artist named Tom Luce. Tom had written some good songs and was recording his debut album. We tracked the drums in just a few days and I didn't hear anything for a long time. About a year later I got a CD in the mail from a band called "Blue Sage Poets". I hadn't heard the name and put the CD on thinking it was a local band looking for a drummer. From the first song I realized I liked it. I said to my wife "You know what I like about this drummer? He doesn't accent the horn lines. Just sticks to the groove." I liked the next song, too, and went to see who had played on it. Only then did I realize it was the record we'd made the year before. 

Tom got a manager named Joe Schuld who happens to be a great radio promoter. Joe had helped break "Toad the Wet Sprocket" and "Train", among others, and was very excited about Tom's record. Tom put a band together and started playing out and before long Joe had a song ("Good Day") getting adds at some nice stations. "Good Day" continued to get adds and became a hit song in many markets. The song would eventually get placed in two major motion pictures. ("13 Going On 30" and "How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days") By this time the ball was rolling nicely and the band signed with Nettwerk Records and rereleased the record. "Luce", as it was called, had additional airplay from a second single called "Long Way Down". They toured extensively and enjoyed moderate success. 

I got a call from Tom in 2004 saying he was ready to start demoing songs for the second record. We tracked three of the songs and they were really good. Then we tracked three more and they were even better than the first batch. By the time we'd finished demoing all the material I was thinking this could be a huge record. Nettwerk hadn't done as good a job with the debut so Tom got out of the deal and found private investors to finance the new recording. With Adam Rossi at the helm again, we recorded Luce's sophomore release, "Neverending". The sessions went really well and the record sounded incredible. Tom asked me to be in the band and I jumped on it. As a married father of two with a mortgage I really had no business getting into a van with a band and trying to break a record with no label support, but I couldn't get the songs out of my head... and so we went for it. 

Here's what happened with Luce.

We got the band together and began rehearsing the live show. Red Eye distribution was signed on to get the record out. "Neverending" was released and started getting radio spins on our local AAA station, KFOG. We did some shows in the bay area and then hit the road. There was enough private financing to tour for a while and, if we could do well in tickets and merch, we had a great chance of staying out long enough to break the record. Some of the stations that had played the first record were slow to get involved. It was frustrating but we kept at it and toured all over the country.

Sure enough, a song called "Buy A Dog" started doing well in many big markets. It wasn't a national smash but it allowed us to get a good booking agent and continue to press on. One of the problems was that while we did well in San Francisco, Chicago, Kansas City, Philadelphia, (and a few other major markets), we were dying in between these cities. The cost of non paying nights and travel days were expensive. We stayed on the road, hoping that the record would take off in more secondary markets or get added to a really big, influential station that might create greater momentum, and these hopes continued for a year as we slowly went through the money we'd secured for touring.

Luce was a heartbreaker because it made no sense. All the pieces were there. Tom is a great singer. He's good looking and charming in interviews. The band sounded great. There was a nice foundation set up from the first record. We had an awesome radio promoter and money to tour with. We had distribution. And the record itself was amazing. Not only were the songs great but the track order followed the cycle of a relationship from looking for someone to meeting to breaking up to looking again. It was ART! I know I'm biased but every person I gave the record to came back saying how much they loved it. And they would go on and on! I started saying "Here's your new favorite record." when I gave it out and sure enough they'd call and say it WAS their new favorite record. Every time! I was sitting at a stop light once and looked in the car next to me to see a woman in her late 20's/early 30's. She was wearing a DMB hat and listening to Maroon 5 and I thought to myself "She would LOVE our record if she just heard it! Aaaaaaaaaa!" 

In May of 2006, however, Luce received a knock out punch. We woke up in Philadelphia to find our van and trailer had been stolen while we slept. Everything was gone. There was a show in NYC a week away that we really needed to play. It was at the Knitting Factory, where we would be showcasing for Steve Lillywhite, who, besides being a top tier producer, was also working as a rep for a huge major label. We had tried to do it on our own but were now willing to sacrifice our royalties in order to get the record out.

We borrowed more money and bought/rented enough equipment to get us through the New York show. We had been paying $600 a month for the van we'd owned. Now, on top of that, we had to budget an extra $1000 a week to rent one. And since our trailer was gone we had to sit on the new gear. It was expensive and uncomfortable but we made it to New York and to the showcase we were banking on. We played well that night but Steve Lillywhite never showed up. The next day we flew home with the last of the money.

Being your own label is the ultimate way to go if it works but there are many things to put in place and there's no guarantee of success even if the pieces come together. For solo touring artists it is a good idea to have something to sell at shows, but trying to support a band on tour is very expensive and the odds of breaking through the other 80,000 records released every year are low.

Reasons to do it yourself:

Full artistic control

You make more per record sold

You are your own boss

The downside:

It takes a lot more work

There is no financial help

You need to tour constantly to get anywhere