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

6. How do you go about finding bands to sign? or is it just friends’ bands at the moment?

At the moment, the bands are all friends of Charlie in some way, or in the case of Reset, it’s Charlie’s band. I’ve got a few bands interested in what LemonDrop stands for and want to be a part of it, but it’ll be a while before we can support them, so I’m just keeping in contact for the time being. I find bands through a variety of means, but mainly through word of mouth or through my blog. I’m contacted on a daily basis by bands asking if I’ll post about them, and most times I make sure to keep in touch with them. There’s a few bands I’ve kept in contact with throughout the last year or so that may be interested in joining us, but we’ll have to get a little bigger to support them, even though I’d sign them in a second otherwise.

Charlie knows everyone and anyone, so I’m sure he finds out about bands through word of mouth, but much like me, he has music A.D.D. and is constantly looking up new bands and listening to new music. Once we get a little bigger, I’m going to continue scouting local bands, as Springfield has a lot of great, unsigned bands, and keep developing my connections with bands and promo companies alike. I just saw a band last night open for our band The Verbs and they absolutely blew me away. Never have I seen a group of young guys pull of the classic rock Led Zepplin/Pink Floyd sound, but by the end of the show the kid was playing guitar with his teeth and wailing like Robert Plant. Random encounters like that are what I’m banking on as well. And like any label, the bigger we get, the more bands will come to us, but I’ll also be out there searching for bands no matter how many bands come to us. It’s just more fun that way.

7. Why did you decide to release everything under a Creative Commons license?

Fan control. Band interaction. Developing a true sense of community. There’s plenty of reasons we decided to go the Creative Commons route, but the main one is because for years labels have let greed overtake their decisions and the fan has been left behind because of this. The Creative Commons License basically states that once you purchase a song from our bands, you can do whatever you want with it as long as you don’t make money off it. Currently, the majority of labels release music under strict copyright, meaning you may have bought the songs, but even in your possession, they’re still property of the label and any use of those songs not authorized by the label could lead to you getting sued. We found it ridiculous to sue the very fans that were supporting your bands, but that’s what the music industry has been doing.

Most people who download albums are much like me. We don’t do it to be rebellious, we do it because we’re genuinely exited to hear new music from a band we love. Or, we do it out of pure curiosity to hear music we wouldn’t have heard otherwise. Since all our music is available for download at LemonDrop, fans can test out an album and decide if they like it or not. The days of singles are all but gone, and having the songs available right off the bat allows blogs to post whatever songs they want, which means nearly every song on our albums will be out there in some way on the blogs for people to hear.

The Creative Commons License also allows fans to do much more with our songs than before. Aspiring filmmakers can use our songs in their movies as they pitch them to producers and only need to pay for the license once they start charging admission to watch it. Someone can make a music video for any of our songs they choose and most likely we’ll be more than happy to post it up on our site in a fan music video section giving them the exposure they’ve long deserved. DJ’s can remix any of our songs if they want, giving them exposure they also deserve having their name attached to one of our band’s songs, and they only need to worry about paying us if they decide to release it as a single for sale. The list goes on and on with the possibilities the Creative Commons License gives us, and only time will tell what we end up coming up with next. It’s all about the fan for us, and going this route with our music was the best direction for the label in our opinions.

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