Part two of my interview with with Kevin Ehlers, one half of the duo behind upcoming DIY indie label Lemon Drop records.

3. What are you offering the bands who sign to you?

Bands that sign to us get their album recorded should they need that, but mainly our bands get to be a part of something that has never been attempted as far as a record label is concerned. We’ll provide as much of the usual record label support as we can, from helping with recording needs, album artwork and merch design, website set-up, ordering physical CDs and Vinyl, writing up bios and promoting each album, etc. In the end though, it’s all about exposure for our bands and creating a fan community around each band through podcasts, forums, remix contests, etc. You name it, we’ll try it. And we’re only here to help our bands, so along with the exposure will come equal share of their profits with the label and very low recording costs.

4. How are you different from a traditional label?

The Creative Commons License. Plain and simple. At LemonDrop, we’re all about giving our bands the exposure they deserve and helping develop a fan community around that band they may not have had otherwise. The biggest difference between us and a traditional label is the fact that we’re not only releasing our songs under the Creative Commons License, but all music on our label will be readily available for download as low quality mp3’s. That means if you want to hear it before you buy album quality versions, then go for it. They’ll be low quality enough that you’ll know exactly what each song sounds like, but may want to buy the album quality versions of the songs since they sound the best on home sound systems or car stereos.

I’ll talk more about the CC License in the last question, but other than our use of that license, we’ll split all profits 50/50 with our artists. That’s unheard of in the industry, but at the moment, we can’t provide our bands enough, such as Sub Pop getting their bands on the Letterman Show, to justify an uneven ratio where the label gets more. If we record our bands, then we’ll just log the hours we work and charge something small like $5/hour. Once the album’s done, we’ll do a 70/30 split on profits until their recording time is paid back. We do this not only to make sure our bands get exactly what they want out of their album, but also so they don’t have to spend $2000 up front just to get a decent demo recorded before we would even consider them. Doing it this way keeps the band from paying any money out of pocket to record, and only end up getting less share of profit once it comes in.

Finally, we’re different from a traditional label because Charlie and I will be doing literally everything in our power to involve people from both sides of the musical spectrum. Bands on our label will hang out at the label and hopefully contribute to each other’s album. I have a small army of artistic friends that are ready to get started designing album artwork, t-shirt designs, tour posters, etc. It’s my goal to get LemonDrop known for our artwork as much as it is for it’s music (much like Sub Pop). And last but certainly not least, LemonDrop will be a label run and supported by true fans of music for music’s sake. Our bands are required to blog at least once a week, we’ll do behind the scenes podcasts of the bands talking about each song as the album plays, and many other things like contests, fan contributions, and more. Music has become much too passive of an experience in the last few years and we’re hoping through our live shows and fan interaction, our fans will feel closer to our bands than ever before.

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