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This page: Major To Minor; Finding a Better Label; Lessons Learned
Ida: Major To Minor
'It was two years out of our lives and a lot of stalled time and legal bills and self-doubt and viewing ourselves through their lens.' -- Liz Mitchell,
Ida
When Ida signed to Capitol Records three years ago, the band's singer/guitarist Liz Mitchell jokes, not many people at the label even knew it. "[Our signing] was very low-priority, very low-profile," she tells Harmony Central. "For the duration of when we were on Capitol, most of the people in the L.A. office didn't even know we had signed."
But signed they were, and according to Mitchell they went into the deal with their eyes wide open. "Oh, yeah, all we expected was a recording budget," she says. "We didn't have any delusions of success. We signed for two firm [album releases], so we were hoping to make one record with them and then we were hoping we'd either get to make another or we'd get the money for the second record and they'd send us on our way. If that was to happen we'd consider that a success."
Ida's "Will You Find Me" |
Though the band acknowledges that their slo-core sound isn't burning up the charts these days, they point out that when they signed their major label deal, radio hits were not part of the package. "They were very clear with us when we signed. They said, 'Make your first record. Don't even think about the radio. Just develop naturally and maybe on the second record we'll start to think about the radio.'" Three months later Capitol's president Gary Gersh was fired and the company's tone changed. "It was, 'What's this crap you're handing us? We can't put this on the radio.' So things changed pretty extremely."
With all but one of their champions gone -- the last one convinced the label to let Ida go -- the band started to look for new ways to get their music out there. They were fortunate, since the label let them out of the deal relatively unscathed. "Since we had signed for two firm we didn't have to give them any money for the masters," Liz explains. "We just gave up the money that they would owe us for the second record. So we got out even, clean. It was rare and we were very lucky. It was two years out of our lives and a lot of stalled time and legal bills and self-doubt and viewing ourselves through their lens -- which wasn't a really positive experience -- but we didn't lose as much as we could have."
Ida: Finding a Better Label
'[Capitol] wouldn't do anything for us until the record was finished. Tiger Style had t-shirts printed for us the same week we agreed to put out the record with them.' -- Dan Littleton, Ida
Though Ida got out of its Capitol deal pretty easily, singer/guitarist Liz Mitchell reports they did have to fight for what they got. "The initial deal they had to give us back the record required that we were not allowed to re-record any of these songs and release them," she says. "That seemed completely unacceptable to us, because they were just trying to deprive us of our livelihood. These songs are all we have and they're our tools. They don't own them."
With all the legal wrangling that ensued, one would expect Ida's members to start to lose faith in themselves. Dan Littleton, the band's other singer/guitarist, says that wasn't necessarily so: "If there was, it was just in a moment of exasperation. There was never any doubt in my mind that we didn't want our record back. We worked too hard on it and we cared about it and that's why we got in the deal."
Once they got their masters back, they could have set up their own label, but Liz says it wasn't the best option. "We wanted this release to have more of a chance than what we could do for it," she says. "We'll put out small things ourselves in the future, but we've never worked at a label with a staff before and we wanted to see what that was like."
So they went back to a label. This time, however, they went with Tiger Style, an independent that was excited to work with the band. "They were the opposite of our experience with Capitol," she says. "We were on Capitol for two years and they wouldn't pay to have a bio written about us. They wouldn't do anything for us until the record was finished. I don't understand the sense of that. You're not allowing a band to develop for two years; you're holding them hostage. These people at Tiger Style had t-shirts printed for us the same week we shook hands and agreed to put out the record with them."
Tiger Style released Will You Find Me on July 11th.
Ida: Lessons Learned
'There's a whole lot that's not arbitrary about the music industry.' -- Dan Littleton, Ida
With a bit of a laugh, Dan Littleton offers some advice to young bands. "I would say that if you were in a band kind of in our situation, don't do what we did. Don't sign a major label deal, don't bother with it, unless you're fairly certain," he says before admitting Ida was a little naïve at first. "I think we thought we could really make whatever record we wanted to make. In fact, we could, but it wasn't something the label could have done anything with."
The key, he adds, is to determine what kind of album you want to release. If pop music is your bag, then go for it. "We weren't interested in making and forcing a pop record, so we ended up with a record that represented where we were at the time and that we really loved," he says. "I think that there's a whole lot that's not arbitrary about the music industry. You have to really want certain things and you have to really invest yourself in not just business protocols, but the creative protocols. I think more than ever I'm not interested, so I couldn't recommend that path to somebody who really cared about their music or really cared about their art."
After all, he adds, there's a bevy of options available these days. "There's so many other, more creative, and more empowering ways to do that, and smart working structures to do art on your own and not letting anybody fuck with that. I would say that any way you can do it, do it. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with major labels or signing a major label deal, but it can go really wrong for you, and a lot of people aren't as lucky as we were to get out of that kind of a trap."
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