Tony Smith - Former Indie Record-Label Boss, Spring 2000
By: Toby L
In the UK, some record labels make obscene amounts of money in marketing pop tat that simply sells boy and girl bands whose songs sound like Abba's b-sides, only worse, to an unsuspecting teen-public. Some record labels market successful rock bands that have had to fill the stadiums only after slogging themselves around Welsh pubs and London bars for five years before getting recognised. Then, at the bottom of the heap, the UK indie label; some manage to find one definitive act that pulls them up to league-two, though most remain in obscurity. For this reason, some guess it must be easy to create a record label, certainly a league-three indie set-up that will probably never make it.
But, what if it does make it? What happens if you captain the ship of an indie success story and sign up the band that everyone else would soon want, but you got them first? But, more intriguingly, what if you didn't expect any success? Well, it happened to Tony Smith, head of Deceptive Records, a label that's been going since the early 1990s and signed up deals with Jonathan Fire Eater, Scarfo and various others, not to mention the people it never thought would grow so hugely - Elastica. The latter, notorious signing of Justine and co's pop-punk outfit occurred at the legendary Camden pub The Good Mixer, where over the shake of a hand and a seven-inch being passed over, Tony had glued Elastica's name to his roster. Going on to achieve three top twenty singles and a student punk anthem ('Stutter'), Elastica topped it off by incredible live shows and an album that was the fastest selling debut record of the time - even shifting more copies in the first week than Oasis' 'Definitely Maybe'. Obviously, there were troubles, but finally, five years later, the rock success story finally released 'The Menace', a superior and more diverse album to the first. In addition to the signing of Elastica though, Deceptive also release the records of punk-Gods, Snuff, who still bear the most incredible live performances known on the circuit, as demonstrated at last year's Reading Festival appearance. They continue to create storming records, as proved with the release of their last album 'Numb Nuts', which contains a breathtaking, heavy cover of Fatboy Slim's 'Rockafella Skank'.
Based in the SE1 area of London, Deceptive's previous offices were located in an old, Victorian school. No joke. From the outside, the building appeared clean and, on an almost hidden road, proved to be an interesting historic feature in an otherwise average, industrial part of London. However, on entering the side door, loud and bright graffiti is there to greet, in addition to mood lighting and loads of young musos running around. We're soon let into the fact that 'Tony's up there,' as revealed by one of these characters, who points to a stairway leading up to a dimly lit attic-office. On entering the room, the stacks of demos, promos, leaflets and magazines seem to be scattered everywhere and after ducking several times to survive having my head knocked off by large beams of wood, seemingly resting in the air, the label boss is revealed. On the phone. Dressed in a blue coat and wearing round glasses, Tony is chatting enthusiastically and makes a gesture to sit down. The seating arrangement is minimal and the only option is to sit on a chair that is located on an area of the floor where you can't help feeling like you're about to fall through. Naturally, most of the interview, in addition to trying to find out more about Tony's label, featured a desperate bid to stay alive. To find out if rockfeedback survived the wobbly seat of doom, read on...
In your time, you've managed to sign up bands such as Placebo and Idlewild that have both gone on to bigger and greater things...
'Where Placebo was concerned, they knew Jamie out of Scarfo, who was on the label and they were already quite advanced in talking to a number of other labels. They came to us and said, 'Do you fancy doing a single?' and we had always been very cautious about being... basically used by big labels. I mean, they hadn't signed their deal, they were certainly intending to, but the fact that they hadn't signed it let us think, 'Well, hang on, we like this,' so we did it as much as for the band as for us. So, we had a single released, which got their profile increased a little bit, but they were never intending to be a Deceptive act. When we cut the record with Placebo, I distinctly remember saying to Brian, who wanted an acetate, which costs money, 'If you give us a gold disk for your first album, then we'll give you the acetate.' He went, 'Yeah, sure, no problem,' but I still haven't got it from him. I take the piss out of him now about it! He denies it though, because he's obviously got that artist ability to forget things!
'For Idlewild, we have a sister company called Deceptive Music (for publishing) and had done a publishing deal with them and, simply because I run both of them, we let them do something. I personally feel that their mini-album ('Captain') was really good so I'm pleased it went ahead.
'We do these short term deals for various reasons. Sometimes, it's not to test out the band, but for us to suck it and see as well. Angelica, we did a single with two and a half years ago or so and we thoroughly enjoyed doing it and it was good, but they were still at school doing their A-Levels and I didn't really want to do the, 'You should give up your education,' bit and they weren't really comfortable about giving it up... Well, actually a few wanted to get out of there straight away! So, because of that it just turned into a bit of a one-off, but I'm glad they're doing stuff with Fantastic Plastic because they've always been a good band.'
The most interesting aspect surrounding Deceptive Records at the moment is the thing that you're using to read this interview - the Internet. Excluding Deceptive's website, the record label first touched its toe into the pool of cyberspace in late November last year by launching a new format of the music single - through your email inbox. It also contained a new, unused price - it was free. Tony's instant reaction to the events ('oh yeah, that was fun!') may not sound like it was a major deal, but with over two thousand hits, a mention in the press and an excellent profile launcher for the band it was used with, Superfine, it was an experimental success. The 'E-Single' was the first one ever released by a signed band and since then Deceptive has been getting involved with the Internet and its artists in a unique way that other record labels will either shy away from or imitate in the next year. The benefit of an e-single, other than being free, is the ability to download the mp3 in a specifically quick download time and extras often are a small band biography, tour information and a link to the website, plus a photo - something that only enhanced CD singles can do. It's fun, easy and convenient: the reason why record companies are nervous that CDs, tapes and vinyl could be a thing of the past once the whole world is online. The real joke though is that Tony doesn't see himself as the next Bill Gates when it comes to the advanced computer work...
'I'm not technical at all. We decided to do a proper website (for the label) so we got a couple of people in to design it and I said, 'Right, I want it to look like this, but another thing is, you have to teach me how to update it with photos and text.' I simply didn't want the situation where every time I wanted to add something to it, I had to send something to someone to do it. So, through that, I can now scan photos and change the text. I have a kind of aversion to the sites that you have to (says in a bored manner) find the band, find the track and by the time you download what you're looking for, it's taken about twenty minutes, half an hour, which is just for one track! So, I just said to a mate, who's very technical, 'Why can't you just mail music to someone,' and he said that you can! I didn't understand why people don't do it and he said that no one's probably thought about it so he designed a program to do it. As a bit of a test, we just did it on Superfine.'
Sadly, one review in a music-paper rated Superfine as 'indie dirge', and didn't seem to respect the effort and advancement of technology that was involved with the project. Superfine probably weren't as important as the new, revolutionary format of what Deceptive were toying with, therefore, reviewing the music shouldn't have been the sole consideration.
'I think it works great; it arrives on your own machine, wherever you send the email to get it from, it carries a bit more information than just a track, and it only takes about four-five minutes to download. We've subsequently done that with the 'NME' and Elastica, which has had about 4,000 hits in about two weeks and it'll probably top 5,000. There are so many Internet sites that are an idea looking for content and as record labels are content-holders, we all get hit with x amount of proposals for what various Internet sites can do for you, but we just want to take it project-by-project. With Elastica again, we've taken five tracks off the album and put them on five different sites and that gets people cruising round the sites, which is quite nice, and also allows them to listen to the album before they want to buy it.'
What are your thoughts on music in the UK currently?
'Well, we've got ourselves into a mess really, but I just think it's a reaction from the popularity that guitar bands had in the mid-nineties when pop acts couldn't be so popular. I think it's just so arbitrary that bands have their sales registered in the first week for how many copies the single or album sells. It should be just how many copies it sells, full stop, not in any specific time frame. In addition, I also think that the press are having to put bands on the covers on their magazines that aren't good enough because they've got a whole year's set of issues to sell so the best bands aren't getting recognition. Also, when these not so good new bands get the limelight quickly, people say they're being hyped and they soon fall flat on their faces.
'I think the music-journalism in this country has lowered a bit and people are no longer as creative. I mean, some people get the Llama Farmers and go, 'Hey, I've got a great idea, let's take a photo shoot of them at a llama farm!' I mean, there's got to be more creative input into it than that! Having said that though, I'd love an article with The Longpigs where they do it with long pigs! A journalist could go, 'Look, we've got a really, long pig for the band to stand next to!' That's the kind of level that people are operating on.'
What are you listening to at the moment?
'At the moment I'm listening to loads of my old soul stuff from the 60s and 70s, just because of those Channel Four documentaries (two humorous music profiles featured on TV around this time). I used to really like anything from George Clinton to all the Motown stuff and I've got a pretty big record collection with all that stuff in it. It tends to languish, but at the moment I'm digging it all out and going quite a lot, 'Oh, I didn't know I had that!' I'm pretty decent on dance music, up to old school hip-hop and then after that, when it kind of went techno, trance, I just lost the plot! I can't get back into it unfortunately and I'd love to because I don't understand what the attraction is, but obviously it's a massive attraction. I can get my head around the people like The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers and whatever, but when you start to get down to the hardcore techno side... Well, maybe it's my age, maybe it's when you get older.'
At this point, we then agree with Tony and reassure him that UK dance music at the moment is pretty abysmal.
'I love talking to friends that are really into it, because when they get philosophical it's great, because it seems to boil down to one sentence that you can blame the quality of the current dance music to the quality of the drugs at the time! It seems a wonderfully simplistic way of looking at it, but they generally go, 'Oh no, it's on the up. There's been some stuff kicking around, but it's on the up,' and I go, 'This is great! If only life was so simple!'
Tony then naturally goes on to his main music love, though.
'The thing I love about Deceptive is that it can marry together two completely different bands. On the one hand, you've got Elastica, who are really successful from their debut, but then on the other hand there's Snuff who have been going for about 12 years! Snuff never get daytime radio, don't expect it and probably wouldn't know what to do if they got it! They don't sit well in photos and don't feel comfortable doing them, Duncan (main member) has the attitude that his music is his music and that he doesn't need a photo to go with it.
'If people would want to have their own record label, you should certainly start at a pretty known one to get experience that will give you more of an insight than just being a record buyer. However, don't get too buried in the existing way of how everything works because it inevitably moves on quite a lot. I have found that, in general, people are immensely helpful in passing on snippets of information to help you out and show you their expertise and their knowledge. Obviously, if you keep going back to them, they'll get pissed off, but a lot of people you can just ring up and ask for advice. My main advice would be don't do the whole thing in one go and if you've found the band that you really like and you think that they're going to be great, shake hands with them, and get £500 - £1000 together to cut a record. If you've got a band from Dover, don't expect people in Aberdeen to hear it, unless you've got it on a site, but don't necessarily go straight into looking for shops that will sell it. You can always sell it mail order, bands sell them at the back of gigs and luckily in this country, the late night shows on Radio One, for example, are just great for things like this so there are many things on your side.'
Where do you see the label going?
'Well, I'm immensely pleased that we're still in business. I mean that in an environment that's seen even A&M and Geffen go to the wall, so, for a small, UK, independent label to be going still, it's great to have survived for about six, seven or eight years. I think the Internet does offer some great opportunities so I think that's a very interesting area and it's all being driven by looking for what we see as talent and hoping other people... I'm getting dangerously close to the 'we just make our music and if the kids like it then we're happy' line! No, we just muddle by; there's no great Masterplan.'
It's the right place to stop, not just because Tony's created a great ending in his words, but also because the chair I'm sitting on is getting scarily close to the prospects of me falling through the floor and landing on someone. Deceptive may have no Masterplan, but who needs plans when you're already the masters? Despite their dodgy chair.
Sadly, though - in February 2001 - Deceptive closed its doors in the music-world, ceasing continuation of the art which it pioneered so marvellously.
Co-founder of the label, Radio One DJ Steve Lamacq, spoke to rockfeedback about its closure: 'You talk to any of the indie labels around at the moment - even some of the quite well founded ones - and you'll see that everyone's in a bit of trouble because some just can't compete with the majors. With Deceptive, there wasn't really anything to go forward with particularly at that point... 'Also, everything's changing; you always have to be very aware of where and how you get your message in your music across and I don't know if a little indie label down the Elephant & Castle was really as relevant as it was... I mean, it made its point at the time and, thinking about it, I think the best thing to do was to shut it; Deceptive had gone as far as it could.'
An official statement on its ending can be read at the website. Goodbye, Deceptive: your legacy is on record.
Artists in this article: Tony Smith