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Jason Spiewak head of Rock Ridge Music
Rock Ridge Music is a label operating in future mode. They’re not tied to the old ways of the industry, in fact they’re not locked into the supposed new 360 model adopted by major labels either. Instead, they operate by fulfilling a variety of services including marketing, publishing, management, etc. However, not all services are provided to all artists. With some, they work in a traditional label capacity, for others, they provide specific services needed to fill a void in their clients’ business models. Rock Ridge Music is definitely not just an independent record label working in a vacuum with just upstart or obscure talent, some of their artists are hugely successful and tout significant followings. Well-known names include Sister Hazel and Reel Big Fish. In this discussion, Rock Ridge’s co-founder, Jason Spiewak, speaks with me about his thoughts on the music industry and explains a bit about his label’s approach to music in a new media era.
Tell me a little bit about the transition from your earlier days working college radio to working within new media.
The job that really started me on this path was the position that I accepted at TVT, working with a woman named Christina who was one of my bosses at Artemis Records as a marketing person. Christina hired me based on understanding the music market place from a more traditional sense, with the idea that I could apply that view of the world to new and emerging media. It was a great, great opportunity to learn that world on the fly while working with massive artists, people like Lil Jon and the Ying Yang Twins and Sevendust. It was great because people were willing to return my phone call based on the clout that the acts had, and I got to develop some relationships that way.
TVT was a significant label. It’s kind of interesting that they’ve come across some hard times. What do you think that says about the future of the music industry: one of the top independent labels coming across such difficult situations?
I think the answer to that is less about TVT specifically and more about just what the general climate of the music business is now. TVT had big label infrastructure and a big label agenda- a major label agenda. But we’re living in a indie label world and so it’s very difficult to operate that way for a long period of time, just based on what the spends need to be. You just flat out can’t sell as much product now as you used to be able to sell, so you have to react accordingly.
When Rock Ridge Music was founded…our goal was to make money on our 99-cent downloads. Not to say that we weren’t interested in making money on physical products. We definitely were and we still are. But in 2005, Rock Ridge was 50% physical product and 50% digital, which is about where the major labels are now. So in some ways we were ahead of our time. In other ways, frankly, we just couldn’t compete in the physical world. So it’s not like we weren’t trying to sell CDs; we just couldn’t sell as many as we could sell downloads.
What would you say the percentage of physical versus digital is now, today, for Rock Ridge?
For Rock Ridge, it’s closer to 60/40 digital versus physical. If we’re going to include mobile in that, then it goes even further, like 65/35.
Interesting. Obviously, I believe that your distributor is ADA which is Warner, right?
Correct.
So what would you attribute that level of success and also the skewed numbers on the digital side in an environment where the industry, from what I understand, a majority of the revenue is still derived from the sale of physical products, the CD?
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