Australia’s independent music industry conference Indie-Con Australia returns to Adelaide in July to address the issues facing the independent music sector.
In 2019, Indie-Con welcomes (as one of two keynote speakers) Thaddeus Smith, co-president of bustling New York indie label Mom+Pop Records.
Can you explain your role at Mom+Pop and the work you do?
I co-own the company with Michael Goldstone. We’ve owned it together since 2012.
Goldie founded the label in 2008, after a storied A&R career at Epic, Dreamworks and Sire/Warner, working with some iconic artists over that tenure, and brought his artist-first approach to launching this business. We both work on all areas of creative and marketing. We feel we have complementary skills and it’s a collaborative process.
The great thing about our partnership, which I think extends to our label culture overall, is there isn’t a me-first approach. We don’t tend to measure things in terms of solely individual achievements (who signed an artist etc.), because everything is a team effort.
The diversity of Mom+Pop’s roster over the years, starting out with Sleigh Bells and Metric, to Andrew Bird, Neon Indian, Courtney Barnett, Flume, and then Alina Baraz and Tash Sultana, ultimately reflects the scope of both of our tastes. Mom+Pop’s company culture reflects our commitment to doing good work and treating our artists and staff as family.
What issues and topics will you be discussing in your keynote at this year's Indie-Con?
Whatever they ask me! But seriously, I look forward to speaking about our story, in growing Mom+Pop over the last decade from humble beginnings, and the (many) lessons we’ve learned along the way. We like to say we’ve made every mistake, but rarely the same one twice.
Why are conferences and summits like Indie-Con so important for independent artists and companies?
Community. As independents, we are by definition smaller companies and teams. These opportunities to come together and form lasting relationships, share knowledge and experience, and find collaborative partners are critical.
In a time of rapid change and innovation in the music market, our ability to learn and adapt is an advantage. I’ve learned more, over the years, from informal conversations with contemporaries at conferences like this. We’re more collaborators than competitors these days.
What have been some of the major advances for Mom+Pop so far in 2019?
It’s been a continual evolution every year, it seems. We pride ourselves on learning as we go, and being open to adapting and improving what we do as the business and music evolves.
There’s never been one way we do things in terms of what artists we work with, our flexibility in suiting a release strategy to a particular artist or record. Over the last few years leading up to 2019’s release slate, we’ve grown our digital infrastructure significantly.
We now are direct to all DSPs, globally, in terms of marketing/ pitching relationships, delivery and backend, and finance. We feel this shift has allowed us to grow and truly own our relationships around he world, and is extremely beneficial to our artists.
We’ve also invested in a global strategy and marketing & promo infrastructure, which is designed to build on stories that start in our home, North American market and embrace growth potential in several key markets: Asia, Australia and NZ, LATAM, and the UK and Europe. Both these investments have enabled us to release many of our new releases globally in '19.
Creatively, we are thrilled to welcome a number of important artists to the Mom+Pop family, including Tycho, FKJ, Caamp. We’ve seen new artists like Jai Wolf and Ashe grow on 2019 releases.
We are continuing a successful Tash Sultana and Courtney Barnett album cycles around North American summer '19 touring, and continuing to work Alice Merton and Sunflower Bean album cycles into their second years. We’re excited to announce some new artists in the coming months.
We’ve also recently promoted Hallie Anderson and Jessica Page to Co-GMs. The promotions are well deserved and speak to their expertise running Marketing and Digital respectively, as well as nurturing and growing our marketing staff.
Mom+Pop houses its fair share of Australian artists; why is a New York-based label so interested and invested in artists from the other side of the world?
Both Goldie and I have always thought about music as being borderless. We’re proud to work with artists from Spain, Germany, France, the UK, and of course Australia.
Today more than ever, music streaming has broken down geographical barriers and music is shared globally. There’s something unique about what’s come out of Australia, however. Maybe it’s triple j and Double J, providing such a great platform for artists to be heard.
Perhaps it’s something special about the culture that encourages creativity. Or it’s just innate good artistic taste.
How do Australian independent artists stack up against those in America?
We come across so many exciting new Australian artists. It’s not a question of competition, as much as access and geography.
Where streaming allows the music to spread across the world, the geography still means Aussie artists have to travel great distances to play shows in the US or Europe. There are logistical hurdles to being able to really tour outside the home continent.
That said, the ones that are able to get their music heard globally and sort out a way to tour are doing well. It often takes making the commitment to those first couple trips to lead to finding the agent and label team that artists ultimately will need to compete in foreign markets.
What is your opinion on the current health and strength of the independent music sector in general?
It’s exploding! In the sense that, a decade ago, it was far more difficult for new artists to get heard or breakthrough before streaming.
For us at Mom+Pop, we’ve prioritised our relationships with the DSP partners. They are incredibly important, complex relationships that go far beyond play listing. We handle this all directly now, and we’re fortune our scale allowed us to invest in that infrastructure.
We also have a commitment to robust press and radio campaigns, and we’ve been able to break songs and albums. Overall, it’s easier for a new act to generate real fans now and not rely on the industry or media gatekeepers.
For labels, the playing field is more level. We used to be heavily dependent in America on our ability to get CDs stocked at big box stores, and to get on the radio – both areas where indies were disadvantaged. The iTunes Store was the first step toward the democratisation of access to stocking and selling music.
Now, the challenges are different for indies. Niche artists who have small, but dedicated fan bases can’t sell the same number of physical albums, and the streams don’t make up the difference. At the same time streaming gets the music heard by more people, so live fan bases grow. So artists need to do more live dates.
Congratulations on the tenth anniversary of Mom+Pop in 2018; what is your vision for the next ten years of the label?
We’re going to keep doing it. How we do it will probably continue to evolve, but we’re having more fun than ever and working with meaningful artists. We’re doubling down on working directly with partners.
