Expat doesn't just have opportunities for musicians. What can Expat offer artist and managers with aspirations of starting a label themselves?
We have worked with a number of producers as well as musicians who have their own labels. It makes us very proud that they feel what we're doing is so innovative they'd rather be on our label than have their own. So, we write special umbrella deals in situations like this whereby we sign artists, producers, and managers to put out all of their artists on our label. This gives them all the benefits of having their own label without having to re-create the wheel.
What ingredients do you think it takes to make a release successful these days? What does a musician - or label - need to be doing to be profitable in the current music industry climate?
There are two big things, and once you look at them you can see why both big labels and indies are struggling. The first is marketing and the second is a low break-even. What are you doing to bring your music to the attention of new fans, what is it costing you to do this, and what new models of revenue creation are you opening? Most musicians I speak with are great artists who understandably do not have the ability to market themselves on a large scale. Many then sign with traditional indie or even major labels and wind up even worse off. These labels either think they're so cool they don't need to do marketing or the advertising they do is extremely expensive, inefficient, and ineffective so they cut and cut as they slowly spiral down the drain. Our model is the exact opposite: high level & volume of marketing + low break-even/profitability threshold = high probability of success.
Can you share some upcoming Expat plans you're particularly excited about?
There are two innovative aspects of our program that i have not mentioned that I am very excited about. The first is our ad network. We offer each artist a full web platform (music, video, photo, merchandise, blog, tour schedule, etc), an iphone app, and a mobile website. Each of these platforms has both fixed and video ads. Like all other revenue, the revenue from these ads is split with the artists. This is something no other record company in the world is doing. To us, it just makes sense and fits with the times. If someone does not want to buy music but just wants to watch videos and listen to streams they can do so for free and the artist still makes money, everyone wins.
Another thing I am very excited about is our new sync license program. Every music conference has sessions on sync licensing where panelists say "Just go pound on the door of music directors screaming 'You must use my music!'" For us, instead of me me me, we ask how can we bring our customers, the music directors, benefits others cannot. We offer not only a one stop shop for licensing and publishing music of all genres but many other benefits no other company offers. We give them a sub-site on our web platform with video, stills, and the songs, we release the soundtrack (digital and physical), we give them an i-phone app with songs, previews of the video, photos, etc., we provide full merchandising services, and we market their project and the soundtrack via our proprietary marketing platform. So when a music director licenses music from another company they just pay money and get music. With us, they also make money from music, merchandise, and ad sales and they get a website, an i-phone app, and a huge marketing/publicity campaign for free. What filmmaker, ad exec, or pilot TV producer would not want to put in the credits of their preview "download our free app to see more" or be at a bar at Sundance showing a prospective investor the i-phone app with videos, stills, songs from the soundtrack, etc. Who wouldn't want to take this line item of sync music that has traditionally been only an expense and turn it into a profit center? We believe that by providing those benefits we can help our sync customer-partners to succeed and we can get many more licensing deals for our artists.
How can we stay updated on the latest Expat news?
People can email us @ info@Expat-Records.com, check out our website: Expat-Records.com, follow us on Twitter: @ExpatRecords, on Facebook: Expat-Records or on Soundcloud: Expat-Records, where they can submit demos online for review by our A&R team!
