An interview with Pilks from Sydney's Dogfight records and No Love Lost. A good little insight into what it takes to run an emerging label. Also, pretty sure I got the exclusive on exactly what is going on with his old band. For fans of No Love Lost, there is bad news ahead.
What’s up man, would you be able to tell everyone your name, what you do at Dogfight and are you happy to finally have the new Shinto Katana record out?
Yeah mate really happy to finally have that one out, its been hanging around for awhile and we were keen to get it out so people can finally hear it.
I heard you had some trouble getting that record out. Issues with distro?
Yeah lots of hassles there mate haha.
We had something lined up with Stomp for a distro deal and then there was a re-structure over at Stomp and they had to put it on the back burner, which put us in a spot because both Shinto and us at Dogfight expected it to be distro’d thru an actual company rather than the DIY stuff that myself and Trent were already doing.
With the amount of time, effort and money that Shinto spent on this album it sent us into overdrive to try and get something worked out to get some type of distro before its release.
Obviously the goal of all record labels is the same. Get their signing’s record out. But not all offer the same benefits or services as each other. What do you do for the guys that you have at your label?
Well I'm not sure what the other labels do to make us different from them so I cannot really say. But apart from releasing the record’s and promo, we like the bands to come to us with stuff they need help with, anything that comes in to the normal band organization which could be from hiring vans to merch designs, we are here to help them. We really like them to know that they can ring us for everything and anything.
Trent and I just wanted to be able to do something for a lot of the bands out there that maybe weren’t big enough to get on some of the major labels. Kind of like a stepping stone for bands to move to those bigger labels and that’s what set the ball rolling on what Dogfight is today and yes it surely isn’t profitable, I’ve worked a lot of Saturdays to get extra cash for Dogfight haha
How did you get up in the beginning? Was it hard?
Getting started wasn’t the hard part for us, it was more so understanding and getting our heads around the in’s and out’s of what running a label means. Lucky for us good friends of mine, Craig and Cassie, had already been through the same stuff setting up their own label, Sightline, (Craig now runs a label called Midnight Funeral) and myself and Trent spent many an hour on the phone to them picking their brain on everything to do with record labels and they helped us get it all started.
Graham at Resist also helped us understand a lot of stuff and pointed us in the right direction with a heap of things.
Without Craig, Cassie and Graham it would have been a much harder exercise for us then what it was.
I’m sure people reading this would have heard of both labels, but if not check out www.myspace.com/resistmusic & www.mysapce.com/midnightfuneralmusic
You are pretty established now as a label now, being quite well known through out Australia. Now that you have established yourself what is on the cards (Bring a band over from the states, sign a foreign band)? Or are you just going to keep on with what you are doing?
We are getting to the point now where things are running really well and smoothly and we have been talking more and more about bringing bands out from the States and also signing or releasing some bands from overseas. So I think that is going to be on the cards for us for this year or next.
We would also like to maybe do some 7” releases at some stage and maybe even start doing a yearly Sydney compilation CD where we can get all the Sydney bands on one release to help promote the scene here.
Is the fact that your label is fairly well known a shock at all? Did you expect your initial signings to do well and establish such a good base to build from?
I’m actually quite shocked about it all and how fast people have recognized the label. I think we have been very lucky with the first few bands that we signed. All their releases did very well and all the bands helped us a heap in the beginning to promote the label as much as possible. With them as well as a lot of our friends promoting the labels name, it really helped us get our foot in the door.
No Way Out have done two records with you, Shinto Katana are literally days away from number 2, Relentless are looking at doing their second record with you. Is it a good feeling to know that these bands were happy with their first round with you and want to come back?
For sure mate, it definitely makes us feel like we did something right with those first few releases. At the time it was a gamble for both us and the bands, and I’m glad it worked out well for everyone and that they were happy enough to come back to us a second time.
The impression that I get from the label is that Dogfight is more or less a family. A group of dudes that hang out, play music and just have a good time in general. Is this something that’s important to you?
That would have to be the most important part of the label for Trent and myself. We want the label to be fun first and business second without compromising what we have to do for the releases.
Having the bands able to ring us for advice and to get along with the other bands on the label is the main thing that matters to us.
First and foremost this is a hardcore label and hardcore to us is more than music, it's friendship and being able to do something positive. Having our bands tour around the country and know that the guys from other bands on the label will go out to the shows and hang with the guys on tour and put them up or lend them gear is what this is all about and I reckon this would go for a lot of other labels too.
I’m just going to finish up some short questions
Favorite record you have released so far?
Um hard question, but would have to be the new Shinto record as well as the new Relentless one which will be out soon. Both these records blew me away the first time I heard the finished product and got me really siked on releasing them.
Anything exciting planned for 2010 that we don’t know about yet?
Well there is a few things in the works in the way of tours that haven’t 100% been finalized yet so I cant say to much on that haha. The new Relentless album will be out in August, which everyone should check out.
We have also been chatting to the Hand Of Mercy guys about releasing their new record so if all goes to plan we will be putting that out at some stage over next few months.
No Love Lost… What’s going on haha?
Haha mate if I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked that question I could actually retire I think haha
Well ill finally tell the full story of what’s going on, here goes haha
Well we were all set to record the new album and two weeks before we were meant to record we lost two guitarist and a bass player but seeing that we had the pre production all done Tom and myself still wanted to give it a crack, so I rang Roman and filled him in on the situation and he said that he could play the guitars for us.
We spent the first few days tracking all the drums from the songs we had from the pre production at Romans Complex Studios and then came the guitars.
Well because of the fact that working out all the guitars was taking ages we scrapped that idea.
Roman had the idea that Tom and myself can tell and explain to him how we wanted the guitars to go in each song and he will pretty much write the guitars on the spot with the help from Jon.
So Tom and myself spent like three days making guitar sounds with our voices and explaining how we wanted the guitars to be while Roman and Jon recorded guitars to the drum tracks.
At the end of it we had a record that we all love, but all fool us that we didn’t take into consideration that the two guys laying the guitars are in the Red Shore haha
Now we have an album that despite our best efforts can't seem to find anyone in Sydney who can actually play it hahaha
So it looks as if one day there will be a final show when we can get Roman and Jon down to play the show.
If anyone hasn’t heard the album its up for free download so try and download that anywhere you can.
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