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This is the second installment of my interview with Chris Ashford. You can read Part 1 here.
This interview is running concurrently with my full interview with Chris Ashford at Horrorgarage.com which covers his history in the music business, from the creation of What Records to his present releases on Wondercap. You can read that here.
Chris Ashford: For what it’s worth, it has brought back the music business, in some ways, from where it was headed. They certainly don’t know how to sell product. It’s too expensive. If they could bring out product cheaper, then they could sell more product, but I think the damage is done. We’ve gone through a generation of people that just don’t want to buy stuff. Kind of sideways here a little bit, I think people are getting less and less collector-minded for stuff. I think, starting in the late ‘60s through the ‘70s, collector-ism became a huge thing. Now people have too much stuff and I think some of the younger people don’t want a lot of stuff and a lot of them can’t afford a lot of stuff. Look at all the storage units around the world! People have too much stuff! Music is just part of that. People used to buy thousands and thousands of records and CDs. People now would rather just put one or two songs on their iPod. They don’t want to own all that stuff. The industry, as the big dinosaur record companies have known it, is dying fast. They’re still surviving a little bit by TV, a little bit of hip-hop and a little bit of country music that still sells large amounts, but how many American Idol people can you chunk out until people just kind of go, “AAAAH!” It’s interesting. There’s a very cult undercurrent of kids that like vinyl. I think people like the sound of vinyl and I think they like to hold something that’s big. There’s a lot of hype about vinyl coming back, which is kind of bullshit, but there is a certain amount of vinyl out there. But I think the big companies are getting involved and I think they’re going to ruin it, too. You can’t go out and buy an album without spending $20-$25 for one from a major.
The new vinyl releases are that expensive?
Chris Ashford: Yes! So how long is that going to last? It’s almost big business scam again. The independents still put out vinyl at $10-$15. It is harder to get things pressed now because the small amount of pressing plants left are just busy all the time. I think that will last for a certain amount of time, but I think vinyl, ultimately, is still going to be just a cult thing. We’re not going to see the big return of vinyl. CDs will probably dwindle down and people will play them in their DVD players through their sound systems. I don’t think they’ll go completely away, like they keep saying they will, but I think the economy for the next 5, 10 years is not going to allow many new formats anyway. So the download is actually becoming the way of the future for, probably, major labels. I could certainly see them selling downloads of their albums, and then you can download the graphics and print your own graphics. That way, they don’t have to put out money. All the big labels are all doing so poorly. Part of the reason that a band would go to a big label is, A) they’d probably offer them a fair amount of money, but, B) they’d get promotion. Small labels can’t promote like that. Majors have all these big networks. Well, they’re firing all these people that were in these networks, so what good is a big label going to be? Why would you sign with a big label when they can’t promote you the way they used to and make you famous? The alternative ways are working for some people. It’s an industry where 3-5% are going to make a living at it anyway, so every band on MySpace still has only got a limited shot. Promotion and publicity are still the ways people hear about you. It’s how you publicize and promote your live show; it’s how you promote your record. I think we’re really going back to a day when, when you think back on it, it’s like Johnny Cash driving around selling his Sun albums out of the back of his car at his shows. You’re going to see more of that, or people are going to see and hear about you and they’re going to download a song or two.
On a global scale, too.
Chris Ashford: Absolutely. Everything’s at your fingertips that way, except, obviously, if someone’s playing live, they have to tour.
Check back next week for Part 3!
