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From the Top: Interview with Disc Makers' President, Tony van Veen
Disc Makers president
Tony van Veen touches on downloads, major labels, and the life expectancy
of CDs.
How do you think the advent of digital downloads and new technologies
will affect the CD market in the short and long term? Especially for
indie artists?
There’s been a clear impact, for major label and independent
artists – though in my opinion the impact on each has been quite
different. Major artists rely on name recognition to sell units. Name
recognition is their biggest strength, but with regard to downloads
– the illegal kind – it’s also their Achilles heel.
Clearly, music fans go online in massive numbers to find free content
to download, and that cuts into major artists’ profits by reducing
CD and paid download sales. On the flip side, for independent artists,
downloads are a great tool. Independents don’t have name recognition
yet, and can use the internet – and downloads in particular
– as a tool to become more widely known. By offering free downloads
off their own site, or even by seeding Peer to Peer networks with
free tracks for others to find, downloads are actually a way to increase
name recognition. And of course, selling downloads on sites like iTunes,
Napster, and DigStation.com provides a revenue opportunity.
So how long will
CDs be around?
For a long time. Overall CD sales are declining slightly, but the
ones taking the hit are the major labels. Independent CDs are still
growing. Think about it. As difficult as it is for independent artists
to get radio play, distribution, and promotion, their main opportunity
to make money from their music is by performing live and selling product
– both CDs and merch – at their performances. You can’t
sell a download at a gig. That takes CDs. I foresee independent CD
sales to keep growing for many years to come – with the simultaneous
growth of download sales.
What do you consider the most exciting developments/opportunities
for independent musicians?
How technological advances have opened doors for artists and given
them access to resources they never would have had even 10 years ago.
It starts with recording, and some of the great tools available on
the desktop today for quality recording, mixing, and mastering. Programs
like ProTools, Cakewalk, and even Apple’s Garageband are examples
of this democratization of recording.
As that’s happening, professional recording studios and producers
are now actively wooing independents at rates they can afford, so
great quality recordings are definitely in the artist’s reach.
Furthermore, technology has broadened artists’ opportunities
for performing and promoting themselves, as well as generating revenue
through publishing, and licensing for film soundtracks, TV, and video
games. Sonicbids and Taxi are two prominent companies that empower
artists in those areas, and there are others out there.
And while physical distribution through bricks and mortar music stores
is still very difficult to secure, online distribution and sales through
sites like CD Baby have made it possible for artists to sell product
worldwide. And download sales through major sites like iTunes and
DigStation continue to enhance artists’ sales channels.
If you were back
in college today, trying to make it with your band, what would you
do differently?
I’d pay a lot more attention to the business side of being an
artist. When I was performing, all I was interested in was writing
songs, rehearsing, recording, and performing. The business side –
booking, promoting, getting radio play, etc. – was a distant
second to the artistic side. Yet, it’s a huge factor in an artist’s
success. We looked at music as a fun diversion, not a job. That led
us to doing the fun parts, and not the hard parts. This has nothing
to do with technology. It’s as much true today as it was when
I was performing in the ‘80s.
Would you try for a major label deal?
Ah, the elusive major label deal. So many artists aspire to it as
a way to easy riches. But the odds of success are extremely small.
When we performed, we never focused on getting a deal. We were a hardcore
band anyway, so getting a deal kind of went against our whole reason
to be.
In this day and age, my recommendation to artists is to do as much
of it yourself, for as long as you can. Build your fan base, build
your buzz, tour the country in a van, and build up the number of CDs
you sell. Once you have a track record of selling thousands of CDs,
you can negotiate better terms if you have the opportunity to sign
with a label – major or indie. Major labels present an opportunity
for artists with a track record: they provide access to promotion
and distribution resources that you just can’t get on your own.
Of course, we have many customers who don’t aspire to a label
deal. And many don’t even perform live – they’re
songwriters looking to sell some CDs and maybe get a publishing deal.
That’s a different music career, and one that can be lucrative
as well.
The internet has already dramatically influenced the entire
music business in so many ways. As the new breed of music fan is increasingly
internet savvy, how do you see that impacting how indie bands market,
sell, and interact with their fan base?
The internet is such a great communication tool. It’s cheap,
even free, to set up your own web site, and get onto other sites like
MySpace that get you in front of thousands or tens of thousands of
potential fans. It makes it super easy for fans to let others know
about you, and folks coming to your site get to see and hear you.
This wasn’t possible 10 years ago.
The tools online that enable artists to manage their mailing lists
and send email are incredible. Between email and blogs, artists can
now communicate regularly with their fan base at virtually no cost.
An artist’s challenge is to get fans to know they exist. The
internet can help with that. But even more so, artists need to remind
fans who know them that they’re still around, that they’re
performing, that they have a new recording out. The internet is an
incredible tool for those kinds of communications.
What drew you to Disc Makers in the first place? It was a
much different company back then.
It was. When I started here in 1987, Disc Makers was a small regional
company pressing vinyl and duplicating cassettes. I was a drummer
in a band, and wanted to work in the record industry. I had to support
myself, so I couldn’t afford to do an unpaid internship at a
label, studio, or radio station. Disc Makers allowed me to get into
the record business and pay rent.
It was a great fit, because the company president, Morris Ballen,
had just decided to start focusing on independent artists. I was the
customer he was focusing on, so I was able to bring my understanding
the indie music scene to Disc Makers. And with my business education
on top of that, I was able to contribute and help to grow the business.
Looking forward as the president of Disc Makers, what do you
see as the most exciting new possibility and area for growth?
There are several. Optical discs continue to grow at double-digit
rates. And as we continue to grow and develop our in-house services
and processes, we should be able to continue to improve our delivery
times, which are already the fastest in the industry. Most packages
are now done in just 10 business days – start to finish. We’re
looking to improve that. That will make our services more attractive
to artists, who are always in a hurry to get their product out on
the street quickly.
The second opportunity is to continue to deliver orders in smaller
quantities. Our online Short Run Self Service program allows artists
to order as few as 100, 50, 10, or even just one CD or DVD. This has
been an area that has grown very strongly in recent years.
We’re excited about our offering digital downloads with DigStation.com,
which gives artists a free page that sells their downloads for just
99¢ – 70¢ of which goes right to the artist. We’ve
also been successful with the launch of our custom Merch program,
which offers artists an easy, affordable way to get custom-printed
shirts, hats, and more to sell at their gigs.
What do you see as your biggest challenge?
As we continue to get bigger – both as a player in the marketplace
and literally in terms of the growing number of employees –
keeping Disc Makers in touch with our indie roots is going to require
an active effort. When CDs first hit the market, we were in a different
building with maybe a tenth of the staff we currently have. Now we’ve
got a number of outside sales offices, a full replication plant, and
almost 500 employees.
Of course, this growth has served our clients and has enabled us to
do all the things we do today. But with this growth has come the inevitable
need for us to grow up, as a company, and new policies and procedures
have replaced some of the looser ways of the old days. It’s
part of our getting better, but I recognize we can’t let that
undo the fabric of who we are. We have to cultivate and nurture the
indie music roots that define us.
Not that it should be such a difficult a task. Just take one walk
through our building and you can see we’re flush with independent
musicians, artists, and thinkers. Our holiday party, DMPalooza, consists
of 25 bands made up of Disc Makers employees playing the night away.
We’ve managed to stay true to ourselves through growth and change,
and our job will be in continuing to deliver great value, quality
products, and friendly service to our clients.
In January 2007, Tony van Veen took the reigns as President of
Disc Makers, having served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing
for nearly a decade. He joined Disc Makers in 1987 as a marketing
associate and project manager upon graduating from the University
of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Tony played drums, recorded,
toured, and released a few projects on vinyl and cassette with several
underground rock bands while in college, and also ran a successful
small independent record label for four years.
