The Daily Swarm

The Daily Swarm Q&A with Mad Decent’s Jasper Goggins and Downtown’s Josh Deutsch

Amid a wholesale retreat by the recorded music industry in the face of bombing sales and a bearish economy, some companies are pushing forward. Highly watched three-year-old record label Downtown Records – platinum architects of Gnarls Barkley’s rise—recently announced a partnership with Philadelphia’s Mad Decent – a tiny dance label mostly known for its founder, super-producer Diplo. Diplo produced 2008’s song of the year “Paper Planes” with M.I.A., further proof of his uncanny ability to divine supernatural talent and manifest musical trends. Diplo’s highest profile album to date Major Lazer comes out on Downtown Records in June. Below, Downtown Records founder and former A&R rep Josh Deutsch and Mad Decent’s number one Jasper Goggins – co-founder of L.A’s esteemed Turntable Labs—talk Diplo, Pirate Bay, Twitter, and the details of the deal.

The Daily Swarm: Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker had this post about how good mixtapes are this year and how he didn’t see why anyone would buy records. I thought that might be a good place to begin talking about the Mad Decent deal and how it might be a way forward.

Josh Deutsch: I read the Sasha piece. I really like what he writes. I just referenced that very piece in a meeting.

Diplo is one the most innovative voices right now. He cuts across all genres and a broad range of different media. Not to overstate it, but I think he’s kind of an emerging cultural icon, really. What he’s doing and the way he does it suggests a bunch of different futures by which people will consume content. It’s both about his taste and the way he exports it, that really shapes kinda the landscape itself right now.

With this particular deal, you’re dealing with someone who is, to me, very intuitively in touch with the changing consumption patterns that are redefining the music industry, not necessarily for the better in terms of the recorded music asset. I think he intuits that change and that’s one of the reasons why he’s so, kind of, followed.

Obviously partnering with him is a great fit. We’ve had a lot of success with him as a producer. It’s grown organically. There’s a level of trust there that can only be earned. And we’re obviously launching Major Lazer the most excellent collaboration between Diplo and Switch. He has graced many of our artists from Spank Rock to Amanda Blank to Santigold and then on a more cross collaborative level remixes of everything on the label from Justice to…

He and Jasper built Mad Decent. They’ve tried to do something that’s multifaceted, that has a number of different revenue streams attached to its model and the business model itself is pretty forward-thinking. People think of it right away as being Wes’ label. He’s been developing a really interesting business platform. From that point of view, the partnership is pretty seamless. And Mad Decent kind of integrates really well into our infrastructure and culture. We’re really excited about it.

Jasper Goggins: We were looking for someone to partner up with because there’s really only so far you can go in terms of distribution on your own and really getting your artists out there and selling records. You kind of have to partner up with somebody. For the label, right now is a turning point, going from a more singles-based label to signing actual artists and doing album deals. It just made a lot of sense for us to be able to have a strong machine behind the label to be able to service the records and be able to get them out to places we wouldn’t be able to on our own.

Why them? A big crush?
Goggins: No. We definitely talked to a few different labels and to be honest with you they were not my first choice for the simple fact of – they already have deals with a lot of artists that we deal with: Fool’s Gold, another label that’s related to us, and Dim Mak – both are there. And I didn’t want to just jump on board like that. It was actually more of a turnoff than an attraction at the end of the day – but there’s definitely a niche for us. There’s no denying that Josh Deutsch has a really cool vision for where he sees both Downtown as an entity going and the music business in general and in terms of other places to go. There’s not really anywhere else that offers what they can. They still operate as relatively small company.

They operate like an indie, it seems.
Goggins: Yeah, they are able to make decisions fairly quickly and turn things and act on their feet where it seems like if you went with a larger label I feel like it would be a bit harder to get things done the way that we like to. Wes said one time, ‘it’s kind of like a stream of consciousness label’. Even though we are going to be doing these album deals with artists and development, there’s going to be singles that come along and we’ll push out immediately, and—I don’t know—do weird side projects and things that don’t necessarily make the most concrete business sense to somebody at a larger label, but to us are essential to the way that we do things and building our brand.

It seems like an important insight: the power of improvisation, flexibility, being nimble when you know you got something hot that you want to deal with.
Goggins: That was a big, big part of it for us.

In a more literal sense, the Downtown logo won’t be any bigger than the Mad Decent logo on the jewel case.
Deutsch: If it’s even on there at all. We’re not looking to suck Mad Decent into some mothership model of aggregation. Given the whimsical quality of what he does and how he interacts with his followers or the fact that he can sign a punk band and Blaqstarr all at the same time—we want to be very careful not to interfere with what his creative process is. The deal accommodates directly what his vision is and our role is to help him realize it.

I think it’s a measure of the fact we’re kindred spirits that he parked his most high-profile project with Downtown. I was chasing Major Lazer before they’d recorded a note. When they were talking about it I was thinking, ‘OK, this is something I need to be involved with.’ ...

The deal comes amid a staggering contraction in the economy, why now?
Deutsch: I don’t think that there’s ever a bad time to do a good deal. Our model has insulated us a little bit from the tough times that everyone’s going through, particularly on a macro level and particularly in the recorded music side, but these are not the days also of giant deals and I think they were looking for a strategic partner who would add lot of value on the back end rather than on the front end. I think it’s common knowledge that they had a lot of suitors for this deal, so we were able to offer them something conceptually and structurally that really made sense to them. We’re not trying to suck the Mad Decent brand into some broader agenda.

Goggins: For us, it’s pretty easy equation. We’re small enough that there’s not really anywhere to go but up. It’s definitely a big step for us in terms of legitimizing us as an actual record label rather than just some people who put out records. It’s so easy to make a digital single now. You can be a record label and not truly have anything signed. Even pressing vinyl is not that big a deal. If you have a little bit of money you can do some things, so the way I see it – it really legitimizes us in a sea of kind-of Internet labels and other people who are putting out music, but I feel like we now have the ability to really develop artists and sell records too. More importantly to have full backing behind us to be able to go to somebody and say ‘I want to sign you to a multi-album deal and this is what I can offer you.’ Whereas before there’s lots of intangibles that we can always offer but this is really solid ground to say this is what we have to offer.

Is there any downside to this for you guys? Fears or concerns?
Goggins: No. The bottom line is that we’re not selling out the company or giving up any kind of control. They are on board with us because they believe in what we do. They’re not trying to take it over and slap a Downtown logo on everything. They believe in what we’re doing so I’m pretty happy to partner with them.

Downtown wins when you are special and curate for your audience, who trusts you.
Goggins: Right. Of course—we both hope we come up with hit records that make everybody tons of money but their immediate concern is not pressing us into that being our priority or saying, ‘You should sign XYZ Washed Up Rapper’ or something like that.

Deutsch: If mainstreaming a particular artist that Mad Decent is working with is one of their institutional goals, we’re going to help them achieve it with the research we have on the traditional recorded music side, with our publishing assets and with our online reach as well. The deal cuts across a whole range of revenue streams. The goal is to be flexible. There’s things that Wes is going to put out in seven-inch vinyl single only. He is going to continue to build the brand and build on the culture that he’s built however he wants. For fans, I think we’re going to make it more ubiquitous, at least, that’s the goal.

You’ve put out quite a few albums in three years including Gnarls Barkley, Cold War Kids, etc. Has Downtown met your expectations?
Deutsch: I learned more in the first three months than in the years leading up to it. I have very high, probably unrealistic ambitions, so has it met my expectations? [Pause] I’m really excited with what we’ve achieved and really proud of the roster and the team and all the strategic partners that we’ve configured around us. Having said that, we have very aggressive goals as a company and we have not met them yet, at all.

So I’m excited about what we’ve built but we all feel like we’re very humble about the fact that we have a long way to go; and also cognizant of the urgent need for any company to constantly innovate and develop new products and relationships with consumers of music that make sense in a rapidly changing economic environment.

So every day is still game day.
Deutsch: Yes. Well put. And the game is changing so rapidly. Honestly it’s like time-lapse photography. The business has changed dramatically since January. So you really have to be thinking, ‘what can we do to continuously offer a more innovative product mix to people who are interested in consuming music?’

How is experimental web site RCRD LBL holding up?
Deutsch: It’s great. The traffic is growing very nicely. We got really successful and just finished our first year. When we first launched it seemed very counterintuitive to the traditional business that we would be acquiring all these rights legally and giving them away for free and selling advertising against it and we didn’t necessarily know that we would be able to do that. One of the things we learned in the first year – we sorta figured out how to crack the code of aggregating large amounts of quality curated content at a significant discount to what most people are paying online. That was very revealing to us. It suggests to us there’s a viable online music model, which everybody is searching for. We did it on a very small investment and we’re very pleased with the results.

Goggins: I do stuff with [RCRDLBL] sometimes and I always try to – if we have a new release coming up, I’ll put up a free remix for people or a free mix by the artist or whatever it is to get people’s interest in the release going. Anybody who’s in music right now who doesn’t think that giving away music is essential is really not thinking properly. You have to give some stuff to people. Maybe not the full album, but at least give them the song. That’s how stuff gets out there.

The Pirate Bay verdict is in. What was your gut reaction?
Goggins: I don’t know, I’m pretty ambivalent about it to be honest with you. I feel like I can see both sides. I’m not surprised at the verdict at all and I’m not surprised that they are going to try to fight it. It’s one of those questions that is almost unanswerable. I don’t know where you draw the line on downloading. Obviously it sucks to take money from people but at the same time I just don’t see it ever going away.

As as outsider it seems like plenty of Mad Decent releases have benefited through buzz, word of mouth, viral evangelists spreading stuff using digital technology as opposed to traditional channels. Is that an accurate assessment?
Goggins: The way that I see it is that I don’t mind giving away music. I would just prefer to have control over how it’s done. Rather than have somebody three months before our release leak an entire album or EP or single or whatever it is. And not even write about it but have it available on like torrent sites. I think there’s a big difference between somebody who’s writing a blog, putting up a track off of a release and writing about the artist and writing about the label and putting link backs and connecting to the person’s Myspace and really making a connection with the fans, rather than just like, you know, torrents floating around and people finding stuff. It’s not black and white. If we can control how the music is disseminated and how free stuff is given away then I’m all for it.

I was reading this incendiary post from Michael Arrington, this tech guy who was having a conversation with a big label mucky-muck and Arrington came to the conclusion that in two years major labels are going to be paying blogs to leak and paying blogs to post and paying blogs to basically spread the word about their music way the way they hector and sue them now. Does that have relevance to you? What’s your take on that concept that eventually the roles will be entirely reversed and blogs will be coveted and pampered and paid for?

Goggins: I think in some circles a lot of blogs already are coveted and pampered and pandered to. If I leak a track a track on our web site and I’ll be like, ‘Hey, [to my publicist] can you see if XYZ will repost it’. And these guys don’t want to post anything unless they are the first.

[Laughs] They’re getting all tiffy already, like, ‘No. We’ll only post it if we can get an illegal remix of it.’

Goggins: Yeah, that’s the way this stuff works. ‘It has to be exclusive to us’ and blah blah blah. I think that stuff is already going on to a certain extent. I don’t know if there’s any money changing hands anywhere but a lot of the bigger blogs, sure are totally pandered to. Take Pitchfork for example. They’re at the top of the game.

Diplo seems to use twitter really well. What’s your take on twitter?
Goggins: I love twitter. I have a Mad Decent account and I find it really useful for connecting with the fans and getting word out and also just to browse everybody else’s twitter feeds, because I know what’s going on and and keep abreast of things.

Give me a Follow Friday. I love Shaq’s posts.
Goggins: Shaq is awesome. Diplo’s great. The Fat Jew is pretty funny. He gets a little bit repetitive but he’s good for laugh out louds once in a while.

Is Downtown still at nine employees?
Deutsch: We’re not at nine employees, but still privately held and fiercely independent. I can tell you it’s significantly more than nine employees. Because now we have a bigger recorded music business with a number of joint venture partnerships, and a bigger national office.

As a result you synced every song on Santigold’s record.
Deutsch: That was an amazing ride. I haven’t seen that many records since Moby’s Play where we had every song on the album. I think we had over 25 syncs in November alone. Being able to speak on behalf of both sides of the copyright has really changed the way we do business.

Mad Decent is at 8 to 10 full and part time employees with 20 releases underneath your belt. What are the challenges and opportunities for Mad Decent right now?
Goggins: It’s really tough for me to keep up with all the ideas that Wes has. He’s nothing if not a man of a million ideas and good ideas. But we’ve been a fairly small up to this point. I guess it’s a good problem – trying to keep up with all the cool things we want to do.

How will fans benefit? Will this partnership affect their experience at all?
Goggins: Hopefully not. I mean the idea is that we keep doing what were doing and just have better backing to it. To be honest with you, not as many people have even asked me about it as I thought would.

Is it there no takeaway for the average fan? Is this just insider baseball?
Goggins:I think so, which is fine with me. We’re not really changing anything for us, it doesn’t change our day to day life or the way that we release music, so I’d rather the fans think the same thing. I can’t imagine anybody going, ‘Yyyyes Mad Decent paired up with Downtown, now it’s really going to get good.’ [laughs] I can only imagine from a perspective people view these kind of partnerships as some sort of sell-out situation, which it isn’t. But yeah there hasn’t been any backlash, which is surprising.

Who do you consider peers?
Goggins: I guess Fool’s Gold for one. They’re our friends. We run in the same circles and we even release stuff from their artists. Other than them, I don’t pay attention. I don’t really see anybody doing the same things that we do. We try to bring in a wide range of music and not focus on just one thing. We definitely try to be more than just put out music.

The community you helped found at Turntable Labs did the same thing in terms of having a physical space and giving back, etc.
Goggins: It’s the same ethos of creating community around what’s essentially is a business, but a business that’s more interested in making something cool happen than necessarily making money. Obviously everybody wants to make money, but the reason why we all do this is that we want to make something great.