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Music Connection
Vol. XXVII, No. 21  October 13 - October 26, 2003

A&R Profile
-by Tom Kidd


Pete Veru
Founder
Innocent 12th St. Records

Years with Company: 1
Address: 201 East 12th St., PH 5,
New York, NY 10003
Phone: 818-755-1617
FAX: NA
Web site: www.feathermerchants.com
E-mail: [email protected]
Artist: Feathermerchants


BACKGROUND: In the age of indie labels, everyone wants to start one. It looks easy enough: Put your music on CD and sell it. Of course, it�s not quite that simple. Making it in the music business is as much about the business as the music. Pete Veru knows that. Vera has a long and distinguished background working for the New York Stock Exchange. That�s where he learned the different aspects of running a business, especially a business as convoluted as music. Today, his Innocent 12th Street label is enjoying success with the second release from Vera�s own band, the Feathermerchants. The project has been going so well, that Vera wants to expand his label to include other worthy and hard-working acts.

Starting a Label: The label is still in its early form. Basically, I started it strictly to promote my band, the Feathermerchants. We have the one band signed to the label right now, but we get requests all the time from other bands, particularly in the East Village, to replicate the modest success that the Feathermerchants have had.

What He Wants: When I go to a show to see a band I�m thinking of signing, there�s always a first thing I notice: if it�s unbelievably loud, that�s always a bad sign. That means the band is trying to hide bad songs. I want to hear the songs and I want to know that the crowd knows who the person is and is humming along. When you see that, it�s always a good sign.

My Favorite Things: There�s a band in England that I like, called Soma. I�ve had conversations with them, though I don�t yet know what�s going to happen. They�re a lot like us, very artist-run. There�s a band in Austin that I love called Seven Percent Solution. I love their sound and have been trying to figure out who would buy their records. It�s not really song-driven, but these guys have an atmospheric ambience to their music that�s incredibly attractive.

The Business Side: I worked on Wall Street for 17 years. I was a junk bond trader, which is really to say my job was to find out how different businesses worked. I wasn�t a telecommunications expert, but I had to be the one to trade bonds from those companies. I also had to learn a lot about radio to trade those securities. Eventually, I applied what I learned there to the record industry.

Ramping Up: If I didn�t have an active promotion campaign going with Feathermerchants right now, I would definitely be making overtures to other bands. Right now, I�m trying to give Feathermerchants the best possible chance and my undivided attention. When that succeeds and I have what I consider a formula for making records a success, I�ll be ready to sign other acts.

Being Indie: Being an indie label right now isn�t good from the business aspect. Ostensibly, all these record outlets � Tower, Virgin �they�re all dependent on the major label system. They�ll always cut the major labels breaks instead of the indies, because they don�t make a whole lot of money off the independent labels right now. That doesn�t mean they won�t.

Being an indie really opens a lot of doors. The horror stories that come out of being signed are so vivid that bands are really afraid of getting into a deal. Maybe the label will release their record and maybe they won�t. From what I hear, major labels are signing 10 acts a year, putting their money behind two and letting the rest fend for themselves. They have to show they can sell 20,000 units before the label will put a dime into them.

When people read about me or hear about me, they�re attracted to the fact that I come to it from an artist�s point of view.



Cable TV: I have some ideas that are very out of the box. I�m trying to figure out if some of my ideas work on a practical level rather than just as a theoretical thing. For instance, we�ve just made a video. We�re going to make a 30-second clip and run it on cable TV across the country. This is a strategy that has been tremendously under-utilized. When I first started making overtures to this little cable station, I got calls back immediately. That�s a bad sign, because it means they think I�ve got stupid money. So I got myself a cable buyer. We found that to advertise on, say, VH1 in a hotspot like Athens at 10 p.m. was $5; that�s two slices of pizza at New York prices.

Coffeehouses: We�ve entered into an agreement with a company called Caf� Music Network. These guys service 1,000 independent coffeehouses across the country. We signed an agreement at a significant discount to have a different track for June, July and August on a compilation that goes to these coffeehouses for three months. Then, in September, 1,000 coffeehouses are getting a full-length CD from us. In addition, we�ll be the featured band on their Caf� Music Magazine. It�s these kinds of life-style things that make a difference.

Desperation: Musicians have so little options. If one guy tells the story about how he answered an ad in the Village Voice, sent out something and was signed three weeks later, everyone will be doing it. Everyone wants to be the exception and if you really don�t have any other options, it�s all you can do to try to be the exception.

Being an indie artist isn�t the same thing as it was 10 years ago. You can sell records on Amazon .com, though we have national distribution and so that�s not really a problem. If I didn�t want to go through the process of distribution, I could still go to Amazon.com or CDBaby.com and get my music to the audience.

The Audience: Kids and young adults are angry and disappointed enough with what the major labels are putting out that they�re starting to give independent labels more attention. Even the casual music listener is annoyed at the choices he or she has. This gives us a little bit more of a chance to get attention.

Releases So Far: We�ve put two records out so far. We did the original Feathermerchants CD and then the new one, Unarmed Against the Dark. With the first one, I was really learning the difference between what is tangible that you can touch and stuff that�s more esoteric like radio airplay.

Future Releases: I think the second Feathermerchants release is going to be a success. I believe there�s no way this label can afford five acts other than Feathermerchants. There are a lot of things brewing on the weight of Feathermerchants success.

Radio Play: For the second record, we went with a college, non-com, Triple A promoter. Our second record is not a one-listen record. To prove that, our add day was in late June and there are still radio stations adding it now. That�s pretty amazing since these guys at radio are very sensitive to the time value and whether something is old or not. Our radio guys have kept hammering away. �Give it a play. I�m not going away.� After awhile, they give it a spin.

Radio Effects: I think radio is a wonderful thing, especially on the college and non-com side. But it�s no secret that radio really doesn�t sell records. It�s good to have as part of your resume, but college kids are very hard to get to as consumers, especially with everything that�s going on with the Internet. What it is good for is, if you can get the record even remotely charting and you have a list of stations you can present to a non-com Triple A guy, then all of a sudden the record starts looking good.

�Tom Kidd