Grady's Big Ben Richardson

Indie Recording and Digital Downloading vs the Record Deal

LA Magazine said the Austin, Texas band Grady has enough low end buzz and slide guitar to shake down the walls of the Alamo. Here's what's shaking from a Big Ben himself...

We had to cancel our last tour because our drummer had a stroke. You can't keep playing in a band like Grady after a stroke; you have to kick it out 110% every night. Nina Singh replaced Billy Maddox and she fit right in.

Grady's grown since the first album Y.U. So Shady? , which wasn't really even meant to be a record; it was just something we'd put together as a demo. We recorded the whole thing and mixed it in three days. We made up about a thousand copies, slapped a cover on them and drove around Austin throwing them off the back of the truck. We took it into the studio and remixed it a bit, put a decent cover on it and started selling it. Warner Brothers in Canada put it out north of the border.

Digital Downloading vs Record Deals

Our first drummer Chris Leyton left the band after the first record. Then we went with drummer Billy Maddox on the second record, A Cup Of Cold Poison. We recorded the second record without instrumental overdubs live. A Cup Of Cold Poison was a success even in the digital downloading age. People are paying to see shows all the time. It's not the music industry that's in trouble, it's the record industry.

As a recording artist on a major label, the record company paid for all the costs of the recording, but our royalties covered that overhead. If a CD sold for $15, I would receive as a royalty about $1.50, or 10 per cent of the purchase price. If the CD cost $15,000 to record, I would have to sell 10,000 copies to break even. If it cost $150,000 to record, I would have to sell 100,000 copies to break even. Needless to say, I never made a penny on the two CDs that I recorded on a major label.

If I record an album that costs me $15,000 to record and I pay for it myself and then put it on iTunes as an independent, for every CD that I sell on iTunes for $12, I make $8. I have to sell 1900 copies to break even. After that, every sale is pure profit. Also, I own the master recordings, not the record company.

This is a much, much better deal for me, and a much worse deal for the record company. I have made money on digital downloading, versus having made no money on a major label. People have always downloaded songs for free. Remember the uproar from the majors in the 70s, when the cassette and the walkman came out? It was going to ruin the record business. People would just tape the album and everybody would lose money. Steve Jobs, the owner of Apple Inc., has shown that people will spend money on music if it is easy and convenient (not to mention hip, which Apple is and Warner Music is not). It's just marketing.

We just got a new manager, who also manages underground acts that don't get on the radio or get a lot of mainstream publicity, but the bands still sell records and sell out their venues all over North America. I first heard Johnny Winter play guitar and saw him play at the Montreal Forum when I was 12 years old. I did sound for Gordie Johnson's Big Sugar for the last three years. Gordie is an incredibly talented guitar player, singer, writer and we've been best friends for 20 years. I love playing heavy music, stomping my foot on the floor and making it count.