ODESSA RECORDS
The SiS Label Interrogation by Mike Randall

Paul Finn is busier than you. On April 21, after an impressive career on both the business and creative sides of the music industry, Finn added a new title to his resume – label owner. With the release of Ascenseur Ouvert! by The Kingsbury Manx (of which Finn is also a multi-instrumentalist), Odessa Records became a tangible reality at a time when the future of the industry has never been more cloudy. But if anyone has the ability to weather the storm, it’s definitely Finn.

A quick scan of Finn’s credentials reveals a list of tenures at the greatest imprints in all of music, let alone the indie rock arena. His career began at Touch & Go as in intern in 1997, which ultimately led to a full-time gig at Drag City, where for three years he performed responsibilities ranging from mail-order to shipping and receiving. Leaving Chicago for Chapel Hill, N.C., in 2001, a blind call to then-Merge publicist Martin Hall resulted in a staff gig there, capping one of the great musical employment triumvirates possible.

Of course, Finn also has his band, whose budding success and prolific early-to-mid 2000s output required full-time concentration and ultimately demanded his departure from Merge. With a desire to get back into the label world but still keep his band going, the idea of Odessa came to Finn in 2008 as a means to fulfill both. Through the label he plans to release records by The Kingsbury Manx, as well as a slate of both new and established bands, like Waumiss and Americans In France.

Finn checked in with Stranded in Stereo just after Odessa Records became official to let us know why the industry’s status isn’t as dire as most believe, which of his former employers is his biggest professional muse and what he’s up to with Wilco’s Mikael Jorgensen. Did we mention he also has a full-time job and a family?

SIS: Why did you start Odessa Records?

PF: I love music and being active in a world that I enjoy. But specifically, there are a lot of bands that I want to release records by that no one else seems to be working with.

SIS: When and how did the label go from being a thought to a reality?

PF: The label has been in my head for a very long time. It started to become a reality late last year, as I was finishing up the Americans In France and Impossible Arms records. At that time I was looking into producing records, and those were my first two projects. But upon finishing the records, this question came up: what now? I liked the records and bands so much I decided that I was finally about to start a label. The producing idea inadvertently led me to starting a label.

SIS: Crazy time to start a label, eh? Is it as scary as it sounds?

PF: It is a crazy time to start any business, but I think you just have to go through with your ideas in the name of art and not worry about things like the economy; it makes you have to work harder, but that’s okay. I also think the “doom” of the record industry is greatly exaggerated. Things aren’t necessarily as bad as people seem to think. It’s just that the industry was booming for a time, so now we are returning to a more reasonable and level field. But that’s just my take. I don’t think bands will stop recording or labels will stop releasing or fans will just stop buying music. We’re just on a different point of the arc and things are changing, but it’s not necessarily all bad (news).

SIS: What has it taken to get the label off the ground?

PF: A lot of time and money -- mostly time. I’m sure it’s different with every label. But you definitely need at least a little bit of money saved up. Even if you spend as little as possible, manufacturing alone can be relatively expensive. And there’s so much more to it than manufacturing. Manufacturing is just a small part of the equation. I think it would be very hard for me to start doing this if I didn’t have experience at other labels.

SIS: What obstacles, if any, are you confronting?

PF: The fears of the industry. Across the board everyone is worried, so getting your record out there is a little more difficult than it was a few years ago.

SIS: What are your goals for the label?

PF: To continue to work with great bands and release between 3-10 records every year, for the rest of my life.

SIS: How will you measure success?

PF: Everyday I get emails from fans that seem to be happy that the label exists and eagerly awaiting the releases I’m putting out. To me, that is already success. Financially speaking, it would be nice to build things to a point where it can sustain itself, so that I can continue to release records and not have to worry about where the money is coming from to get a record that I love and want to release manufactured.

SIS: What have you taken from your experiences at Merge, Drag City and Touch & Go that you’re applying to Odessa? Did one of them serve as a blueprint for what you’re doing?

PF: Every single one of those labels has influenced how I am doing things. If I had to choose one as a philosophical blueprint, I would say Drag City. The bottom line was always about the art and not about making money. Whether it was an artist who sold really well, or one who didn’t sell so well, each one was treated with utmost respect and given the same consideration. They aren’t afraid to take chances and seem completely unconcerned with keeping up with the Joneses. In a similar way, I just want to work with artists I respect and admire and once they are on board I will work my fingers to the bone for them. At all three labels mentioned I watched the people there work tirelessly because they believed in the music and that was its own reward.

SIS: Why does one label succeed and another doesn’t?

PF: I’m not sure but the two biggest reasons are probably the mismanaging of money or not putting the proper amount of effort into their releases. On the other hand, there really is no accounting for why one thing works and another doesn’t. There have been plenty of labels run by good people who put out great records that still ended up closing shop.

SIS: Why are so many indie labels succeeding?

PF: I’m not sure. I think there are probably a lot failing as well. Success is also subjective. To me if you release even one great record – even if it barely sells anything, that’s a success.

SIS: Seems like you’re running this show entirely on your own. How is the label structured? Is there anything you’re not doing?

PF: Yes, and no. I work closely with an outside publicist, Martin Hall, who I knew from my Merge days. He handles a lot of the press responsibilities. I recently started working with a great radio promotions company from Athens called Team Clermont. They are great to work with and have a lot of integrity and energy. My wife, Kelly, helps me with day-to-day stuff – especially the accounting, and I couldn’t be doing this without her support and belief in the label. Friends and even the bands kick in with helping out on some of the boring stuff – stuffing envelops, etc. I don’t have any employees per se, but there are a few trusted individuals who I pay on a month-to-month basis. One of them is Gordon Zacaharias, who is responsible for designing the website and helping me with that side of things - I don’t know what I would do without him! Then there’s Mary Gunn and Casey Burns, who I hire on a project-to-project basis for design and layout. So there definitely is an extended Odessa family; it just so happens that most of them are freelancers.

SIS: How is your time divided between the label and Kingsbury Manx?

PF: Very carefully, it’s been a little tough lately. I work a full time job, so a lot of my label work is done early in the morning and late at night, so it makes rehearsal challenging. Somehow we manage to make it work. Luckily the guys are understanding and have a vested interest in my schedule being crazy, so they work with me.

SIS: Is there a certain sound you’re going for with the bands you sign?

PF: Not in particular. I can’t explain what the common thread is. I want to have an eclectic label – not necessarily in the sense of covering every genre, but I don’t want to keep releasing the same record either. When I hear a band I want to work with, whether at a live show or from a recording, something just stands out and grabs my interest – often the songwriting itself is the first thing I pick up on.

SIS: Why would a band want to sign with your label?

PF: So far, because they know me as a person and know how far I’m willing to go for them in an almost insane way. But I don’t offer any money up front or any guarantees of stardom. If I believe in the record I have a process and I’ll follow that process to the T to ensure I am doing everything I know how to do to get it out there. But I’m also learning as I go. The industry has changed a lot since I last logged man-hours at a label.

SIS: I read that Mikael Jorgensen from Wilco is working on some remixes for you. How did that relationship come about?

PF: I grew up with Mike in New Jersey. We have been in a few different bands together over the years – starting back when we were basically teenagers. We’ve kept in touch over the years, even though we’ve both moved several times. Music has always been our main common ground, as enthusiasts and as collaborators.

SIS: Can you talk a little about the upcoming releases?

PF: I could talk about them for days on end! I have listened to each of these three records (Americans In France’s Pretzelvania and Ripped In No Time by Impossible Arms will be released May 12, in addition to Ascenseur Ouvert! ) hundreds of times and still can’t get enough. I think the songwriting on the Americans In France, and Impossible Arms records is great and reminds me that music can still be new and interesting even though people say its all been done. I love to sing along with these records and I think the lyrics are funny, insightful and creative all at once.

I’m also excited about the stuff I have coming up later in the year – a full length by Inspector 22, a Spiderbags 7”, a full length by a brand new band called Wild Wild Geese, who I am going crazy about. Then there’s the CD issue of the Waumiss record (featuring the aforementioned remixes by Jorgensen) – I loved that Waumiss record so much, so to be a part of it now is thrilling. Then there are bands like Rongo Rongo, who I think are just great. I wanted to release an EP they self recorded last year, but they seem more interested in starting a brand new one and getting that one out there, so we’ll see how that goes.

SIS: What’s next for Kingsbury Manx?

PF: We are doing a short tour in May to promote the record up the east coast, then we’ll do the odd weekend out of town show here and there, continue to keep playing locally every month or so. But the big news is that the next record is basically already written and we are determined to start recording it by the fall so that we can have another record out in 2010. That would be an amazing thing, because there has always been a 2-4 year gap between records. But we are ready to make Manx 6 and it’s going to be different than anything we have done so far – quite a departure and it’s all happening organically.