Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Expanding The World Of Opportunities With MARK ALEXANDER From GOLDEN ROBOT RECORDS
Transcript
- Hey Chris, I'm Mark Alexander on the head of Golden Robot Records, which is owned by Golden Robot Global Entertainment. Mate, good to see you finally get together after a few hits and misses. I made out. Both of our schedules seem to be a lining against this, but we finally made it totally. Mate. It's good and even if that has to be at Sparrow's fart in the morning, it's worth it. I know if you're my first of the day, mate, so you're coughing me at my worst, so best of like black coffee? Is there a coffee there underneath you there? I haven't even had a chance to go in the kitchen yet. I'm wake straight up, pretty much, open mind, very good. Before we get into this chat, I'm sure there are people out there who are I'm exactly sure what Golden Robot Records is, mate, So give us a bit of a brief outline of what it is that you're up to. Well, Golden Robot Records started at about nearly ten years ago now and started off with a bang. Basically he started because of my son. My son was on Australia. He's got talent and he was about nine at the time. He's twenty one now, and he nearly won the show. Is that little Drama, that little blonde Drama. When he came out of the show, we thought, well, we don't want him to be a novelty. We want him to have some sort of a legacy. So he put him together with a couple of great guys who were fantastic musicians. Steve Barbie was one of them from Noise Works, and they made this great album. They called the album The Orbiter, and the band was called moon Its. Actually it's actually a really good album. It's on Spotify and still get the vinyl to these days. Anyway, when I shop that around, nobody was interested. Nobody gave a shit. So I thought, you know what, I'm going to do this myself. So I'd given everybody a little as a little present to think them for the recording, a little Golden Robot. So when we went when it was time to named the company, we named the Golden Robot Records and we started off hard. Mate. We were signing some great bands in the States. In Europe, I was working with Derek Shulman, who was the ex president of Roadrunner, who discovered everyone from slip Back, I'm Sorry, slip Knot, Nickelback, bond Jovi, Pantera, you name it, and him and I went along and got involved in quite a lot of things from about twenty and fifteen for about three years, four years, and then we just kept going. We grew to twelve labels. Mate, We've probably put out one thousand albums, spent a lot of money on this over the years, and it's culminated in US now. This is a different year for US, which is sort of segueing into where we wanted, what we want to talk about. You know, we've had the hits and misses over the years. We've had some things that have gone to number one. We've had some things that have been a disaster. Some things that you thought were going to do really well hasn't done well. Some things we fucked up, some things we didn't fuck up. Some things were absolutely brilliant. But look, that's the business. The good thing about being an Aussie and working in the global world is if you make a mistake, you can apologize and fix it and get on with it. You're not hiding it. If you're doing something well, we'll celebrate it with you. So it's served its purposes. It's served as well, and we've worked with some great bands. We've got global distribution for physical and digital, which I've just changed recently to even a better setup. Great pr people, great marketing people. My team today is the best it's ever been. We've had a few changes over the last six months and I've got a really good team that just gets on with it. There's no dramas. We're just into it for the music and inwards to get the word out about Ossie music across the world. And really exciting, damn straight mate. And thanks again. Even more exciting because this year you've branched out even further with Robot Distro, So tell us a bit more about that. Yeah, Chris, that's it's been a real it's been a really great sort of segue into that that business over the last few years. And obviously we've done a physical product and a digital product, but we get so many people every single day applying to join Golden Robot, and you know, up until last year there was obviously you know, you can't sign everybody, and not everybody you want to sign. That's just the way that the business is. So we decided to retire a few of the brands we had Write Records and Crusader Records and Bread and Butter Records, which really did some fantastic albums over the last few years, Lots and lots of different things over the over the the time. So I've put those on hold for the moment and I've just kept Golden Robot the main label, Rockin and Rollin, and that's you know, that's that's taken everybody on board, whether it's from Nick Barker to Augie who we just signed to do a couple of singles Cairo and Knight, Fight to God, you name it. There's so many different people were doing under there. It's it's been a really good start to the year and coming on from last year. But I started up a label that could take on all those bands that were coming across that just wanted digital service and something a little bit more than destro Kid or CD Baby or any of those labels will give you, because really they're just putting your music out. What we're doing is, yes, we're just putting it out as well. We're giving you a good percentage. We're giving you a much better percentage than you would get normally because we obviously we're not doing as much as we would if you're on the main label, but we're still more than those other companies. We've got a massive database of journos and bloggers and reviewers all across the world, so their music still gets serviced pr wise, which is not happening on the other side with those other companies unless you're paying for it. So they get that service as part of this upload. So it's very exciting and it's doing really, really well. We've had an incredible amount of people. In fact, we've had to put more people on just to handle the influx of all those bands, which is super exciting. So Robot Distro is absolutely alive and well, and there is something in the contract that yes, it's distro only and you know exactly what we're going to do for you, but there's also then if things start going well, there's the opportunity to potentially go to the main label or us potentially to do a physical product for you. So that's all. There is a trigger. It doesn't just stay on the distro, but people are the bands and the artists are really taking it up and excited about it, and I think we're giving something a little bit extra. So that's super cool. Yes, right now, there's probably a lot of bands out there listen to this and getting really excited at the moment. But what are I suppose what are the basic entry level requirements? So what do they have to have in place before their contract? Yeah, a guitar, dude looking, you need to have you need to have a couple of things. I mean, this is where you know, I know we've got a limit of time today, but the thing is this, you've got to have the basics right if you're being If you're a band and I've gone on the record a lot and a lot of interviews talking about this, you can't just turn up with a song and say to the label, here go. You do all the work. You've got to work together and the band has got to have obviously their material recorded. Well, look, some bands recording their garage. Some bands record with friends because that's what all they can afford to do, and that's absolutely fine. But if the quality of the recording reflects the quality of what you've produced, fantastic. If you're happy with it, we're happy with it, and you know, we can listen to some stuff. And if we're not happy with the recording. We're gonna let you know and go, look, this isn't good enough, doesn't represent the band well. But you know, nine times out of ten, what we're handed as far as the recording is fine. You've got to have that ready tick. Secondly, you've got to have your socials ready. You've got to have your socials. You've gotta have your Instagram, your Facebook, your TikTok whatever. I mean. I'm not a massive fan of TikTok, but I understand the necessary evil of it. You know, I'm not a well, I am a massive fan of Spotify and iTunes, et cetera. A lot of people don't like it. I say, yes, they should be paying more to the artist, one hundred percent, should be paying more to the artists. That I absolutely agree with that and that and that is something I'd love to see happen. However, you're not going to get to the to the bloke and sit at lunch in India, or the girl that's sitting in at her desk in Oklahoma, to you know, the couple that's in New Zealand by any other means other than digital. And that's what I love about Spotify. And you're getting to people and iTunes and Amazon and Deezer and all those services. You're getting to more people than you would ever get to if it was the old days. So you've really got to have your socials right. You've got to have you've got to be able to have claimed your Spotify Artists page on Spotify already, all those little things you should be doing as a band. And thirdly, and most importantly, you really should be touring and playing behind your releases. You really should be getting out there in live. I mean, I went to last week Mid Not Oil's new documentary that was part of the Sydney Film Festival, and hence I'm wearing my mid Not Oil shirt to day. And you know, you forget how important Mid Not Oil was. What they did with exon, what they did at the Olympics, with the sorry on their jump with sorry on their jumpers, all these things they did along the way was incredible. But they played and they played, and they played and they played, and they were doing something like it said in the doco, which I knewhen it was two hundred and something gigs a year. So I understand things are a little bit different these days. There's not as many places to play, but you can certainly get out there, so that would be number three. So you know, the right quality product and a great song is a great song. The socials and that whole slew of that set up right and obviously touring and playing behind it, and then everything else will fall into place. And if we do our job and get the music into as many ears as possible and onto as many desks like yourself as possible, and it's got to be something that stands out. You can imagine, I can imagine how many I's gonna say fast, oh my god, I can imagine how many emails you get a day. And it's got to be something that stands out of press release, that stands out, something that's that it's going to come across your desk. And this is the one thing I loved about Golden Robot is we were getting behind some great We are getting behind some great stuff and so when journal's a blogger saw it, they go, what are these guys in do now? So it was helping the bands with the way we were doing things. So that's sort of the basics of what I believe in a in a real quick conversation, the bands have got to have reading, and then we can do the rest read and then how do people contact you to see if you're interested. Go through the website and you'll see a contact form of form on the website. We can send everything through Golden Robot Records dot com and then you know, I've got it. There's a full team there that's going over these and listening and getting back to everyone very very quickly and getting their music out. And it's exciting. Man. I'm at I'm looking at their socials and I'm looking at our socials and it's just this community in this family, and this was something I was always proud of. You know, you'll have Eric from Wild Streets, you know, congratulating the guys from this band, and this band congratulating these guys, and it's really really cool and you can see it going back and forwards and tagging. I could just see our socials spiking as well as their socials. It's good. It's good for the band, it's good for music. I always say, you might hate Greta Van Fleet. I personally love them, but you might hate Greta van Fleet in their music, but you know what, they're bloody good for rock and roll because they're selling albums and they're making people come to shows. So that's basically where our heads are at. Hey, you touched on us a little bit before, but I was speaking with Augy last week, who headed out to Australia with Cold in October, and they mentioned a two song deal with you guys. Go I'm talking to them straight after you. It's funny, you know, I mentioned before Derek Shulman and you. Derek was always very instrumental in the very early days because I was quite green at what I was doing signing bands, and they were one of the first bands we approached. Orgie. I remember being in Los Angeles and having dinner with them. It was actually around the time that old mate from was his name, Beddington, Chester, Beddington passed away and there was a big dinner and his wife was there and the Orgie guys were there, and I was at that dinner, so that, you know, that's quite a fair way a long time ago now, so we were after we couldn't put a deal together back then, and then I saw them again at the fiftieth Rainbow anniversary party or gig in LA where a couple of our bands were playing. At that gig and they played as well. And I always thought, you know what, let's let's you know, I never dropped things. I just always if it doesn't happen, I just put it to the side and then I revisit it later. But I revisited it and spoke to the boys and management and Toulou and yeah, we put it too single deal or with a few other things. It's it's it's a good deal. A couple of new singles to coincide with that tour, and I love Cold as well. They're a great band. That's going to be a killer tour on. Yeah, and I heard it's selling really well as it should. Yeah, it's exciting, very good. All right. Well that about rounds it up. But I've got for you to day. But I'm sure we'll be in contact in the near future because there's always advancements going on with Golden Robot Records. So whenever anything else happens, to Mate gives a yell and we'll have more. I will, Chris, And I know you're busy in and I appreciate you taking the time for us, and I appreciate the support as well. Thank you, buddy.