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Cinemetal

SPEAKING OF BEING A METAL INSIDER: BEHIND THE SUIT AND TIE DOCUMENTARY WILL DELVE INTO THE METAL INDUSTRY

 Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 5:00pm by

While we’re on the topic of the No Label Needed contest and series, our friend Dan Rodriguez at Metal Insider reports that Behind the Suit and Tie, a long-in-the-works documentary at the metal industry, is finally being readied for release. This is obviously different from your average Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey because it’s not aiming to tell you about the music you already know and love, but, rather, to give you some insights into the business side of things.

Here’s the trailer:

Looks fascinating, doesn’t it? The ninety-minute DVD should be out sometie in June; we’ll give you a release date as soon as we get one. In the meantime, check out a list of some of the people interviewed for the film:

  • Brian Slagel (Metal Blade Records)
  • Jason Lekberg (Epic Records)
  • Doug Keogh (Roadrunner Records)
  • Carl Severson (Ferret Music)
  • Paul Conroy (Ferret Music)
  • Ray Harkins (Century Media Records)
  • Al Dawson (Earache Records)
  • Missi Callazzo (MegaForce Records)
  • Alan Becker (RED Distribution)
  • Burt Goldstein (Big Daddy Distribution)
  • Eddie Trunk (VH1 Classic, Q104.3, Sirius XM)
  • Pat Egan (Re Records)
  • Ralph Graupner (Indevent Music)
  • Gary Susalis (Music Choice)
  • Ged Cook (Demolition Records)
  • Bryan Mechutan (Demolition Records)
  • Lee Barrett (Ascendance Records)
  • Adam Watson (Plastic Head Distribution)
  • David Ellefson
  • Erik Rogers (Dangerous New Machine)
  • Tairrie B Murphy, Mick Murphy
  • Rob “Blasko” Nicholson (Mercenary Management)
  • Rayny Forster (Moshpit Tragedy Records)

-AR

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jake-Ryan/596440962 Jake Ryan

    the song at the end of the video sounded like My Ruin but i cant find the song..anyone know?

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Keith-Brown/537636633 Keith Brown

      dude, it shows the song name…

  • iolanach

    This does look pretty interesting.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Cefaratti/542463984 Chris Cefaratti

    Pat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Honeynutzz

    I’ll download it :D

  • DustintheWind

    That’s basically a who’s who in independent metal… this will definitely be very interesting

  • toddski

    i hope they focus on the guys from metal blade / ferret / century media.
    plus a bit of distribution / intelligent musicians.

  • Amjad

    Tri-pod: $175.00

    Clamp Lights: $20.00

    Vellum placed over clamp lights to soften shadows and even out light distribution: $3.00

    Having a metal documentary that DOESN’T look like my Mom shot it: Fucking Priceless

  • Watt Par

    Seeing Ellefson so butt hurt makes me wanna never buy a Megadeth album again.

  • nick

    If I want something I should pay for it. Sure, if I actually want it. How will I know unless I hear it? I can wait around until a band streams an entire album to decide or download it right away and decide if it’s good enough to buy. But that’s beside the point. What I’m interested in is the spirit of copyright law.

    It seems to me that content producers feel they should be the only ones to define what copyright looks like going forward. Especially the larger players like Disney, Universal, etc. I keep hearing stories in the news about how rife piracy is overseas (hell even in Mexico City) and how foreign governments need to crack down. Even where there are trade agreements it’s important to realize that all people hold varying opinions on the value of media content. And even in the western world values are changing because of technology (the internet, cd burners, iPods).

    Lets look at it this way; if I borrow a book from a library, read it, and never feel the need to buy it since I’ve already read it, am I a thief? What if I borrow it many times and read it over and over again? I would say no in both circumstances. This gets to why we value library’s, because it allows everyone to have a participatory role in the surrounding culture.

    Think to yourself how many metal releases there are every week. Can any of us be expected to buy every one of them regardless how great or crummy they are? Now being a band or label and knowing you are competing with so many other acts surely you would understand there will be people who may be interested in your music but simply won’t buy it. You can then either chastise them for downloading it and being cheap bastards or whatever or you can use any exposure to your advantage by touring and selling merch or something else yet to be thought of. One option only sours people to your band and the other has some potential to make money.

    • Kill All

      The library analogy is brilliant, and I agree that bands should take any exposure they can get. If anyone likes the music, they will come out to the show and buy a shirt, or a hoodie, or some other type of merch that can’t be downloaded.

      Besides, we all know bands don’t make money on selling cd’s, their labels do. Unless they own their own label (ie: Radiohead, NIN) or are unsigned/DIY, the band’s album is owned by their label. The money to be made is in the live setting.

    • :f pete

      you sir, are correct. this is the future of the music industry. besides exposure, labels are obsolete.

    • Vince

      I get what you are saying, but your analogy fails as there are relevant differences between a library and downloading music. Libraries have due dates for books, whereas downloads are permanent. You own that copy, and there is no regulatory power to cap the amount of digital copies you make on it. I think a better analogy would be scanning books or copying them. that does not seem to happen. perhaps as many have said this is because authors have no other means to make a living, and therefore cannot acquire money via live tours. readers must support their authors some way. just like how we will buy merch directly from bands. support their message, and musicianship. Making music to superflously make money is the worst type of corruption that taints an art form. if this documentary is about the business side of art, i want absolutely nothing to fucking do with it. water it down for the masses, increase profits, put media/societal wants ahead of integrity and one’s own message and creativity. thats prob what its about. or im an idiot. fuck all those bands. dont even care about musical contributions of bands like metallica or megadeth. but hey, its all about the money baby

    • g

      I think one thing that usually gets overlooked when you’re talking about music piracy is convenience. If there was an online music store that functioned similarly to the big music torrent sites like What.CD, but that operated on a flat subscription fee, people would pay for that.

      The subscription model is key because it encourages the same mass consumption that internet piracy allows rather than having to carefully pick albums or single songs off iTunes – music fans just aren’t going to get that kind of exposure to new music by listening to 30 second samples off iTunes, its just encouraging the same old model of finding new music which revolves around playing it safe because every download costs money.

      These indie labels benefit from the mass downloading on the internet because it allows music fans to check out 100 records and find the 1 that actually broadens their musical horizons, the 1 that they’ll listen to over and over and go see the band live and buy a shirt, etc. The iTunes model still fundamentally revolves around singles and mass promotion of a band and radio play, not exploration and experimentation.

      Sure, some people are always going to want a physical copy of their favorite records, and these well-organized torrent sites actually lend themselves to that because you can check out tons of records in lossless quality and find the one that actually inspires you to order the CD or vinyl or whatever, without having it pushed on you.

      Music is just too subjective and people’s tastes too varied for traditional creative property models – people don’t want to pay for music when they listen to the album once or twice and say “Meh, that was alright” when the option exists to listen to something to where they’re sure its worth their money. And even then some won’t pay for it, but that sale was never going to happen most likely, so whos loss is that?

      The point is, indie record labels need a well organized, one-stop online music shop that operates on a subscription model and has a strong community user base. They could learn a lot from the user culture and motivations behind sites like (the late) Oink or what.cd.

      • toddski

        Have you checked out any of the research done into subscription based models? I suggest you do before hoisting it as the holy grail that will get people paying for music. This includes subscription software like Spotify, Rhapsody, last fm, or even ISP taxes on download. Obviously they aren’t the same as a community website, but they do offer some advantages in their own right.

        While subscription isn’t inherently a bad idea, it does raise some concerns. Part of the problem with such a service is distribution of royalties, and the royalty rate/uploading fee that the website will undoubtedly have to place upon an artist.

        Enticing fans to actually pay for music again is an uphill struggle, does a subscription service to indie record labels give them that incentive? Do you think a large community driven website, which is really quite a basic idea in 2010, would give enough value to a substantial amount of music fans in order to even meet its running/staff costs? Keep in mind that fans are more likely to want to communicate with the musicians they love than the record labels that represent them (this isn’t true for all genres).

        Nowadays music (in the form of mp3′s) isn’t scarce.. if the supply is virtually unlimited then why should anyone pay for it? If there’s nothing ‘special’ about the product then what will give everyday music fans the incentive to spend money on the music rather than downloading for free? This has nothing to do with morals any more, and if anyone says it has, then I’m afraid peoples morals appear to be changing.

        Basically, don’t be so sure that even if such a convenient website opened that people would be willing to pay. There have been various studies on this very topic.

        In terms of a musicians perspective, some are finally seeing that they can outsource to smaller operations (promoters, booking agents, distributors, manufacturers, studios, etc) and get work done for a reasonable fee – without having to give away any of their potential earnings. The musician risks their own money, but if they are a success then no one else takes away from their profits.

        Now, if you had have been talking about artists providing a subscription service via their website to their loyal fans, closing the boundaries and giving fans a reason to buy into not only their music, but their world, then yes I would agree that subscription could work for an artist.

  • toddski

    Not sure the library analogy totally works since libraries are funded usually by a combination of government money, and a whole lot of lobbying by the local arts council (at least in the UK) in order to raise money for new books etc. I can see more and more libraries being forced to close due to the insurgence of e-book piracy, but anyway, the library analogy doesn’t really matter I suppose. I guess I can see where you’re coming from.

    You are right that copyright law (in terms of music) is outdated now, as you said peoples (especially the newer generations) mindsets and their valuation of music has changed.
    You’re also quite right about piracy in countries outside the ‘major media economies’ (USA + western europe + japan). You can look at the mass ‘illegal’ downloading of music in Spain the effect it has had on spanish artists as a whole. Not to mention Russia, China, etc.

    That said, I don’t particularly think copyright law can be enforced in this day and age anyway. Also I think it can have a positive influence on society generally (check out the various research done into that if you want), so there are definitely good aspects to it.

    Where were we.. oh yes. There is a lot of shit music that is made within the metal scene (especially if you want to bring generic deathcore into consideration), but, luckily metal has a headstart on many other genres in that its listeners are active in buying tangible products already (merch).

    Basically, you are right that copyright law needs to be re-evaluated, and that bands should understand their users, rather than trying to alienate them like various record companies/RIAA have been doing with commercial music so far.

    If anyone is actually into this stuff then I suggest visiting the various ‘music business 2.0′ websites/blogs, there are loads of them around with various ideas/strategies of how to survive in a piracy fuelled world – just be wary for the conmen and do your own research on the figures some people give out.

  • http://www.metalmaniacs.com Mike Riddick

    Very interesting…looking forward to this documentary…

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jason-Lekberg/779008102 Jason Lekberg

    Reading comments like this make me upset, but I’m hoping that this film will help to educate. I think the real problem is a lack of understanding of how the industry actually works. Yet everyone seems to think they are an expert……

  • Adam

    I’m tired of rock star’s bitching that it costs money to make so we should have to pay. I agree we should have to pay but honestly, for how many independent artists/bands are making music for free (or nearly free) and the production quality ISN’T balls, I think if these rock stars want to make some money (or at least spend less for the decreased earnings) maybe they should economize their process.

    I respect Ellefson but come on dude, if you choose to spend hundreds of thousands to record an album when you could do it for LESS than 1000, then that’s YOUR loss if it doesn’t recoup.

  • ERiK

    Can’t wait to see this dvd. It’ll be refreshing to hear people that actually know what they’re talking about giving their insight to the music industry.

    I’m so sick of listening to cheap metal fan’s who don’t have a clue about anything whining about paying $10 for a cd. What losers!

  • nick

    The Library analogy works when you think about the end user and their motivation to buy the material after already being exposed to it. I tend not to re-read books (or even re-watch movies) music is different in this respect of course but if we are going to speak generally about copyright and supporting authors, directors, musicians I think the analogy still works.

    I don’t know what it’s like in other countries but here in the states libraries are often the largest source of media for many people (besides tv). As far as I’m aware a library only has to pay for the number of copies of a work they want to put on loan, the price is not subject to how many people borrow it. So a publisher will only see $20 for a single book regardless of how many people read it. The same is true when you borrow a cd. Keep in mind that although you have to take it back, you can continue to borrow it as often as you like when it’s available. So while it may be inconvenient to do for music this is exactly what I did throughout high-school when I was too broke to buy music and before the internet changed everything. Every other week I’d go to the library and renew my loan on A.I.C.’s jar of flies. It’s hard for me to see how the minor inconvenience of going to the library once in a while to renew a loan is ok whereby burning a cd for a friend is not.

  • http://www.myspace.com/fallenfew BobFish

    In my opinion the real crux of the issue is the ownership of the product. One (slightly hippy-ish) way to look at it is that the music you produce is not owned by you, it was a moment of enlightenment which flowed through you at a specific time. This is how creativity feels to me. If you look at it this way then the problem of controlling your product disappears and all you have then is trying to share this moment with others. This makes CD/Vinyl/DVD sales utterly unimportant and getting out there gigging drives you forward. Hopefully people will appreciate your artistry and give you some money/food/lodgings somewhere along the line. You’ll probably be poor, probably no one will make any money and you may have to lick gravestones for nutrition.

    But hey, there’s worse things to do with your life.

    I obviously suck, and don’t live in the real world. Ignore me…

  • Harold

    Im gonna only buy CD’s now and NOT go to concerts or buy merch. We are in a reccession and I gotta cut my entertainment cost’s somewhere, and CD’s are the cheapest compared to Tickets and T-shirts

    What I don’t understand, is this Doc all about their views on illegal downloading? Is that the only form of profit from these companies that matter to the bottom line? Does this Doc explore that?

  • cool-new-ways

    I can’t wait to buy this DVD it looks bad as fuck and yea that is a new My Ruin tune i just looked them up they kick ass