Why Norway's Indie Recordings chooses old-school collaboration to help guitar bands

"I kind of knew from a very young age, I wanted to be like a record label executive," Indie Recordings Managing Director and partner Erlend Gjerde tells us when we sit down for a quiet(ish) moment at Oslo's Tons Of Rock Festival. "I was listening to records and following Roadrunner Records especially. I was looking at which records Monte Conner was A&R'ring."

Even as the young drummer in fast-rising Norwegian metallers Stonegard back in the early 2000s, Erlend's instincts were to work with developing bands in a different way to being just a musician.

"I was, and I still am really passionate about the A&R role how much it can influence a band's record and the career path of the band," the Oslo native explains. "And so that was always in the back of my mind."

In his early 20s, Erlend had joined three friends in Oslo band Stonegard, which quickly brought him into contact with some big names from the metal world. "We were lucky, we were able to do some great shows in Norway," he tells us. "The head of Live Nation was talking about taking us on as a manager – he was giving us all these amazing shows, opening for Black Sabbath and Korn , Slipknot, System Of A Down, got to meet all my heroes at an early age. So that was that was amazing."

When Stonegard folded after two albums, Erlend started another band but also began to look at other parts of the industry he could work in too, and that's when a role opened up in the warehouse of Indie Distribution – founded by brothers Erik and Espen Røhne. At this point there was no record label – it was purely distribution.

"I took that opportunity and just got a foot in the door and starting to learn how everything is put together, explains Erlend about joining in 2006. "That was packing records and shipping stuff while the fax machine was spewing out the orders. I was running the warehouse and finding all the CDs, vinyls and shipping them out."

At its height as a distributor, Indie was dealing with 350 labels and had a huge warehouse at a point where physical music format sales were starting to decline. The company saw the writing on the wall and decided to pivot into signing bands and putting out records themselves as Indie Recordings.

"That was not putting bread on the table," admits Erlend. "So Eric and Espen were focusing on the distribution, making sure that business was running. And they told me, 'You can start putting out these records, you can see if you can get something going with this'.

The brothers brought in around 10 bands to start with, then Erlend was brought into the conversations around potential signings and A&R. It proved to be a very savvy move – Erlend is now the Managing Director and partner at Indie Recordings with huge success developing and marketing a range of heavy bands in Norway and overseas, while signing foreign acts including Cult Of Luna. He's still playing drums too – following time with the acclaimed project Wardruna he has gone on to success with the excellent Djerv.

Indie Recordings has released gold albums by Kvelertak and black metal icons Satyricon – the former proving that a Norwegian band singing in their native tongue can appeal far and wide.

Last year I witnessed firsthand how Indie Recordings' investment in bands is paying dividends with a show from the fast-rising punk rockers LÜT and duo Pil & Bue . They're an inspiring team of passionate people and at a time when there's cynicism and doubt around the role of record labels in a changing industry, Erlend brings a musician's perspective that can help Indie Recordings' signings realise their potential.

We sat down to talk about why the A&R role still matters for guitar bands and how Indie Recordings helps them achieve their creative potential.

There are easier ways to make money than starting a record label – what was the motivation to start Indie Recordings?

"I think I can speak for all of us in that it comes from a deep love of music and heavy music. We would love nothing else than for that to be what we do for a living. So that's the main drive. And then it was seeing around us all this amazing domestic talent – both new emerging talent, but also Norwegian talent at the time being on foreign record labels.

"So we wanted to create a Norway-based record company. Bands that in the past wouldn't have a proper alternative – they would have to find a German or UK label to be able to have a metal release in Europe, they couldn't find it on a Norwegian label. So that was our goal – to create a strong Norwegian record label with a plausible pathway to also create international success."

Having been in a band yourself, you have seen things from a musician's perspective. Were there things you wanted to do differently on the label side that you felt you might have benefitted from when you were a young musician?

"A hundred percent. And the main part of that would be the closer dialogue to the records. That was not the case when we started the label. At that time, it was very similar to what I had experienced in bands at least – that most labels are run and still are run where artists are very autonomous, and they are creative in their own space. They deliver more or less a finished product to the label, sometimes also with artwork and photos. Then the label is the distribution sales and marketing vehicle for the product.

"This was the case for us until we transitioned fully into being a pure record label. Then I was running the company from then on, so I was working with some artists that had absolutely no interest in having any dialogue, which is okay. There are a few artists that we work with that are just true artists – they're fully capable of taking care of themselves. They don't need the kind of attention, A&R and guidance that some other others do. But the new generation of bands that we're working with, that we signed in the last seven/eight years, it's much more of a collaborative effort.

"We observe the band, and we initiate a dialogue with them. And obviously, there's some very strong talent there sparking our interest. But there are also things we see that if we could adjust those things, we think it would have an easier way of succeeding.

"Then we have a conversation with artists, because not all artists are interested in that kind of dialogue and that is totally fair. But there's no point in us picking up a band that comes to us with something that is almost something we can believe in. It must be something that we can 100% believe in. We're a small team, everyone needs to be 100% invested and 100% believe this can go all the way if we're gonna get behind it. So then the artists need to just tell us if they want to have that conversation. And if they want to be in a collaborative effort to try to create the music, the visuals, the imagery, to make us feel confident about it. And for us to feel that we can succeed in doing our job. Because we want to perform for artists, but we can't do that unless we feel that this is it."

Do you feel this is a Norwegian indie approach, or looking back to an earlier time for record labels?

"This is how the record industry started – this was how it was done back in the day. When they made records from the inception of the record industry, making records was so expensive – there was no room for error. It had to have a very high likelihood of succeeding. So they weren't taking chances with this stuff. A&R and executives, sometimes on too many occasions, they were deciding too much as well.

"But it's not a new thing – it's a thing from the past that I think is important, and at least for us as a label it's the right thing. And for me as the label guy, it's the way I need to have it for me to also feel motivation and passion for what I do. So I'm sure there's a gazillion different ways to go about running record labels, and they all have different philosophies. And I'm not saying that this is better than the others, it's just that this is right for us."

Is Indie Recordings now one of the biggest independent labels in Norway?

"Indie Recording is the biggest rock label.  Actually, Indie Recordings just became a part of a new bigger label. We started a new record label in Norway now called the Sounds Like Gold , which has consolidated as of now the three biggest Indie labels in Norway under one roof. Being announced in the fall, there are four or five more labels also in the pipeline. So we're building really, really strong Indie labels to the point where the different labels will be sub-labels under this new label."

What prompted that move?

"It was sparked by the realisation that if you're going to perform well for the artists as a label, you need to be able to fill deep knowledge in very specific topics. And to have that you need specialised resources and manpower that is not spread too thin across different tasks.

"So we need deep marketing specialists, deep social media specialists, we need the best accounting, we need a super royalty system; we need to make sure that artists to feel that economics and royalties are all very transparent. All this requires a lot of resources so it's about pooling those resources. They're creating systems that can be applied across all these labels, and these labels will operate in different genres but they can utilise generic forces that are not genre-specific."

Will Sounds Like Gold also give you more negotiating power with streaming services?

"Yes."

There's some discussion around streaming services and their relationships with artists. Are you concerned by what you're seeing in some areas of this side of the industry?

"It's a two-folded discussion, I think. I'm very concerned that tech companies and music companies are holding the bargaining power of how music should be sold, consumed and monetised – that is not okay.

"I'm also chairing the organisation for the independent record labels in Norway, and through that we're working with Impala. And IMPALA [Independent Music Companies Association] is a trade organisation for all the indie labels across Europe. We are doing a lot of lobbying towards the EU Commission and we're working hard politically to influence lawmaking around these areas. So yes, we're very concerned about that.

"On the other hand, we fully embrace streaming as by far the superior consumption of music. We love physical, but it's super expensive to make, and it's bad for the environment. You have to ship it on containers, you have overstock, you have broken products. Margins are extremely slim. So physical product, to me it's very much a marketing tool.

"A lot of artists are also very concerned about having their vinyls – it's the embodiment of their music for many artists. So we create physical products and especially vinyl for, if not all then at least 95% of our releases. But maybe 20% of them make us good money. The rest are breaking even, and some are not even breaking even.

"So when we're doing our budgeting, physical is not a part of it. Streaming and all the ancillary revenue streams – they are. Because as a record label you're getting money for radio play, you're getting money for songs consumed through TV – there's all these different revenue streams. Also, as a part of consolidating all these labels under one roof, when you do that you build a bigger market share within these collecting societies. This gives you a bigger part of the black box money, which is money generated by music that they can't find the proper rights holder to [money from sources including streaming services, radio airplay, and public performance]. So there are a lot of upsides to consolidating a bigger volume of rights."

With the A&R side involved in the way Indie Recordings works with a new band, how do you strike a balance between guiding a talented artist to make them realise their potential, and not threatening their artistic identity?

"There's always a reason, in the beginning, why we're attracted to them. So, for example, there's a band with a couple of amazing songs. They also have a couple of not amazing songs. And often, they can be quite different and they can point in different directions, but they're still songs from the same band.

"I usually ask them, 'Do you love all the songs?' And yeah, they love all of them. And then I ask them, 'These specific songs can enable us to do a great job for you – we can hopefully create something. Can we focus on them? Can we can we not do the other songs?'

"Artists can have a very wide spectrum of music that they can get behind but very often, it's a case of focus. We can very often get behind something that works. It might be a very harsh, like, non-commercial thing, that is the right road for the band – if it's super progressive, for example, but very strong within its subgenre. That can be the right way, and maybe the commercial songs are the wrong way for them. But often they have to choose either way – they can't do both."

The DIY ethos in music that modern technology has allowed is great – musicians can make albums themselves, but the role of the producer and the record label in providing guidance to artists so they can make great music can be huge. Do you find the newer generation of bands are perhaps not as aware of this potential and the positive impact of outside opinion?

"I think it's a very case-by-case situation. There's new artists taking the world by storm on TikTok every week and obviously, they know what they're doing. So in some instances, 100% that's the way.

"In other cases, I would say if you're within the realm of more traditional rock and metal styles, I think producers can add a lot and it's just about experience. As an A&R or record producer, you've been around for so many years and you've had so many successful projects, but you also had so many unsuccessful projects. You've made errors. And I used to tell this to bands – we can help you not repeat the mistakes that we've made in the past. There's no reason for you to go on and make the same mistakes that we did two years ago because we tried this it didn't work out. Now you want to go down that road? We've experienced that six times. That road is not working. Can we try something different?

"Also, artists that may pop up with an EP or a couple of songs, and they do well very fast, even though they break through on their own earlier, it doesn't mean they're able to continue on that path successfully over the years on their own. Because that second or third album, or even that first album, after those first couple of successful songs can be really difficult.

"So I would I say for any band, or any situation in life, getting more heads involved, and listening to people with more experience than you, that is the way to go."

And a label can take some of the pressure away from an artist so they can focus on the creative side.

"For an artist today, it's already too much with the pressure of tackling social media – which has to be artists driven, because audiences see through it. If it's like a generic marketing company running the artist's social media, it's not working. It has to be done by the artists. So that alone combined with music is enough for the artists.

"So I would say as a general thing, running your own record label, organising PRs, organising distribution, mail orders, all that stuff – it's few artists who are able to successfully build a career from scratch doing that. And most of them that do, an album or two into their career they usually knock on the neighbor's door and ask for help, because they're tired of it.

"It is a trade to be a record label. And even if you're an artist and you're doing it yourself, then you're running the record label yourself. So there's a lot of roles behind the scenes and it's a lot of tedious work. Like registering songs in all these different societies, making sure that it's pitched perfectly through the through to the DSPs like Spotify, etc. There are tons of minuscule tasks that have to be done for every single release – every song that comes out. It's not just a case of put it on CD Baby and pitch it on Spotify for artists and expecting success. That's a very naive approach."

One thing that's been observed in the UK is that working-class musician success is becoming a rarity in any mainstream guitar music. Oasis might have been the last big working-class band to break massively in the mainstream. Do you feel Norway can support artists better? The state can offer means to support musicians who might not be able to afford to pursue it otherwise?

"To be honest,  I think it's a double-edged sword because it also takes away some of the pressure to be commercially viable from day one. You can prop up a project that maybe doesn't have the right of life for a long time before it caves altogether. But if you have a project that is evolving in a good way, having that government support – enabling Norwegian artists to go on European tours, take on support tours, which are ridiculously expensive these days, totally. Without it, as a country, we would not be able to export as much music as we do.

"That said, one of the biggest Norwegian artists commercially, Kygo, I don't know if he ever got a penny from the Norwegian state. Of course, he's operating in a different space and he was doing his thing online, then he got signed to a major and they picked up the bill and took it from there. But say a band like Leprous , who are not on Indie Recordings – amazing band – and  I don't know how much and if they got support, but I would think that for them, it would be a good tool to have in the toolbox in their early days before they got to the level they are now. Because they've been touring relentlessly for a decade, and that is incredibly expensive."

Is it correct that the Norwegian government makes grants available for artists to apply for?

"There are different deadlines throughout the year. So you can send an application, and you have to make your case, and you would have to say, 'I've been offered this and that tour', and submit an invitation letter to take part in this tour. Submit your budget, and you can be chosen to be amongst those that receive that support.

"The chosen ones are typically those that make it likely that receiving the support will contribute to audience growth, and to bring them on the pathway to be self-driven in the future."

Do you feel that live performance is still the number one factor in proving yourself as a young upcoming band?

"It depends on the genre, of course, but on the rock side of things, yeah 100% it's a live thing. And I'm sad to say but social media too – it's crucial."

With social media do you think it's not just about frequency but finding the right kind of engagement?

"I think it's about finding your people. And your people don't have to be the biggest group of all, they just need to be really into what you are doing and be what we call superfans. So you can engage them in multiple ways.

"During the year you can sell tickets, you can sell records, you can sell merch, you can sell experiences. You can give them stuff that they want from you that they're willing to pay for, and that enables the artist to create an economy for themselves."

And the superfan is the priority as an artist because they can support you day to day, even though you're obviously trying to appeal to new people as you go along?

"Yes, I find that if we try to launch bands that are not substantially rooted in a community – that they don't have an organic fanbase that's really into them and behind them, it rarely works out. Yeah. It's driven from those first 10 people who are crazy about this specific band.

"And those fans talk to their friends, and the audience starts growing. It goes from 15 to 30 to 100 to 500. Suddenly, you're selling 1500 tickets, and there's some good money in that show. And then you can invest and you can travel outside your town to play shows. It's that ripple effect."

Do you hear any common pitfalls you notice upcoming artists make when you're listening to their songwriting – something you have to advise them on?

"I would say that its actually arrangement for me. Often there's a very good song in there, and there's a very strong hook, but I'm quite often surprised by the lack of attention to arrangements. And people can fall in love with certain parts of a song but it's almost always too long.

"A rock band can come in with a seven-minute track or a six-minute track, but it's really a four-minute or maybe even look at 3:30 track. And when you condense it, and you peel away all the intermediate stuff, and the part that the drummer really likes or that part that the bassist really shines on, then it's there."

And that can be an area artists are really precious about so it must be quite challenging?

"To be ruthless, yeah, it is. But when you as a listener lose attention to the song, it's gone. It's game over. It just needs to hold you. The song needs to take your hands and hold you through the whole song until the end. And we're watching Tool later tonight, they can do it for 50 minutes. I'm holding their hands all the way through! But not all bands can do that, and not all songs are set up to be that kind of song."

There's a lot of talk about attention spans being shorter nowadays but when you think about the shorter, impactful arrangements of The Beatles , it feels like it's always been that way for certain styles of songwriting.

"Maybe that's why I'm so obsessed about arrangement and cutting the crap – because I grew up on The Beatles. With my parents it was a Beatles home. So I watched all the documentaries – I've watched it all. And I saw all the interviews with their producer, George Martin . It was always about getting down to the point. And I remember, in an interview George Martin said that one thing I was really proud of when he produced them was that you could you can identify any Beatle song within the first two seconds of the track starting. They have a unique identity.

"So they were way ahead of their time. They were doing compositional magic at a very early stage of pop music, but they were ruthless when it came to arrangements. It was so condensed and so to the point – if the song only had 1:55 in it, the song was 1:55. So I think that's something that we spend a lot of time with artists discussing if there's too much information or too much stuff."

Indie Recordings has grown as a label, but what are your ambitions moving forwards?

"To put out fantastic records. To be part of rewarding creative processes with artists and being able to have rewarding conversations, not for the sake of influence, but where needed influence music to the better for the artists and for the project. That is my main goal.

"Of course, I would also love to see the label be able to take on bigger acts. That said, my priority has always been finding fresh talent and I've tried to help develop it into something more than signing an already established act, and to earn from just making a good financial decision. But there are some very well-known acts out there that I would love to work with. So maybe being able to check off some boxes in the future with artists that I deeply respect."

And these aren't necessarily Norwegian bands?

"No, they could be international as well. Yeah. But I've checked some boxes, you know. We we didn't work with Turbonegro on new material, but we were able to license their back catalogue. Having the Turbonegro records with an Indie Recordings logo, that was a big moment for me. Also, developing and being a big part of Oslo Ess, who played mainstage here today. That's a big one for me. And we also put out the first two Wardruna records. I played in Wardurna actually – I played the drums . "

I was recently watching a clip on YouTube of you playing a show with them actually! Wardruna, and Kvelertak have both been interesting success stories overseas. And with Kverlertak they're a band that has had success singing in Norwegian. What are your thoughts on that, are you looking beyond the home market with a band like LÜT, for example?

"A hundred percent – Kvelertak proved that, And I think LÜT can be the next one. I think music can just transcend all boundaries. It's a bold phrase, of course, but I really think when a band can transmit or convey that energy that Kvelertak did, and LÜT is also doing that, it doesn't matter about the language. It taps into something much, much deeper in the listeners. And, you know, you just want to run to the store, buy a six-pack, crack it open and have a beer. When something gives you that feeling it doesn't matter which language it's in ."

In the UK perhaps listeners can be too cautious about that.

"The UK is difficult. It's a difficult market. It's the promised land for all of us non-UK citizens. It is where you want to go and to have commercial success as a band. It's kind of the home of pop music and the home maybe heavy metal. But you're not opening the door too much.

"I can say this, we would love to have more UK talents on Indie Recordings. Send us music. Of course, we need to spend time there as well and look for the talent. We have a lot of UK bands approaching us, of course, but I don't think it's impossible for a label from Norway to do a good job in the UK either. The way it's set up today, as we discussed before, around the artists, their communication and their superfans, the tasks that the label puts forwards don't have to be situated in the same market as they are. So UK bands, bring it on."

• For more information visit Indie Recordings and Sounds Like Gold