A lot of bands are lucky to survive for six months - David Gedge has managed to keep The Wedding Present alive and kicking for over 20 years and counting. With a new album - El Ray (Vibrant/Manifesto) - out in May 2008, Gedge talks about how the band has endured, the experiences he's had with record labels and the biggest challenges he thinks musicians face right now.
Question: When you started out you released your own records. Why?
Answer: I think we were very into that whole DIY independent ethic. We did our first single totally on our own, including the financing. We then signed a P&D deal with Red Rhino distribution, who sadly no longer exists, and they put up the money to pay for the album so we thought that that was a good way to do, it's still our own label, but we have someone who can pay the costs – it seemed the obvious choice.
Your first singles got a lot of attention, there must have been major label interest?
Yeah we had spoken to lots of labels, pretty much every major label I think. I'm not sure there were any firm offers, but then we didn't give of the vibe that we wanted to sign a deal really. We'd meet these people (A'n'R people from major labels) and we kinda felt a bit patronised, there was this element of “Well lads you've done pretty well so far but now let us takeover and we'll just change a few things here and a few things there and we can take it too the next level”. While we did want to get to the 'next level' we didn't think (rightly or wrongly!) that we needed any body to come and start telling is what to do – I think we were probably quite stubborn about it.
Then after the success of your debut album you did sign to a major (RCA). Why?
I think it was a combination of two things. Firstly RCA were the only people that we felt got where we were coming from. They basically said you do what you want and we'll put out the records. They'd give us advice and make suggestions but we'd retain complete control – artistic control, marketing control, everything, apparently our contract was, well I won't say mold breaking, but it was quite an artist favored contract - it's usually only the megastars that get that kinda deal. It helped that the person who was looking to sign us to RCA was pretty powerful at the label. So with this deal it seemed we could carry on doing what we wanted and be on a major label, which was important to us as we were staring to sell records around the world and being signed to what was essentially a multinational record company made that easier. We weren't totally convinced, but then it soon became apparent that Red Rhino were going out of business and even the people at Red Rhino were saying we should sign with RCA, so we did! I think it was a good decision. We made more money than we would have done doing it on our own and we didn't suffer at the hands of the major label. You hear all these horror stories of bands who sign to majors, but we had a really good time with both RCA and Island who we signed to next. I think it's because we set out our stall from the outset, making clear that we'd need control. We just said that we're not signing unless it's the kinda deal we want.
If you were starting out now would you follow the same path?
I think so. I'd definitely start out doing it ourselves, get a feel for it, then see what happens. I wouldn't necessarily sign to a major, as I said I think our deal was pretty unique, and it seems as if the major are becoming less important. And they're all disappearing – every year another major seems to vanish or get taken over.
The new album is out 26th May, how's this one being released?
The last few albums have been on Scopitones (The Wedding Present’s own label) and we've licensed them to other labels, Manifesto in the States and labels is Spain, Germany and France and we've released it ourselves in the UK. This way we've been able to cover all the territories that we sell significantly in. Am old acquaintance of mine has started a label (Vibrant Records) and he was very enthusiastic about The Wedding Present being the first release on this new label so we've licensed the album to Vibrant for the whole world, except North America. I do feel sorry for the existing licensees we've dealt with in the Europe, but this seems the right deal for us at the moment, and it makes it easier for us, dealing with one label rather than several. This may not be permanent, we'll see how it goes with this album. It seemed like the obvious thing to do at the moment.
You've always been pretty shrewd about publicity (the band’s debut album was named 'George Best' after the famous British footballer who helped promote it, the band released 12 singles in a year equalling Elvis record of 12 hits in one year, etc) any tips to bands about getting publicity?
I think it's a fine line between getting publicity for your band and it becoming a gimmick, judging that is the important thing. I've always been interested in pop culture, the way music is released and what people do with it. At the end of the day it doesn't matter how good your publicity is you have to make a good record. A lot of bands, mostly London bands, seem to have press agents and managers and record label interest before anyone's heard them, and you think 'Hang on a minute, what about the songs?' I think it's a London thing, in the provinces the bands actually form, play gigs, record demos and then they start to attract the industry's attention. With The Wedding Present our first single was, maybe not the greatest song we've written, but it was a very extreme record. It was the kind of record that leapt out of the radio and grabbed your attention. That opened the door, people then got interested and heard there were more, possible better, songs. We've had many weird and wonderful ideas over the years. With the Hit Parade (the bands 12 singles in a year campaign), I think it did overshadow the music a bit. I think it was a great marketing campaign, if I say so myself! There was loads of media interest, we were featured in the Guinness Book of Hit Singles, but I felt like saying yeah, but the music is pretty good as well!
