James Kennedy interviews Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins, Bella Union) about his enduring career in the music industry, navigating the digital shift and streaming era, the realities of running an independent label, supporting local music scenes, advice for artists and writing his upcoming memoir.
James Kennedy Simon, thanks so much for doing this, man. How are you doing?
Simon Raymonde Well, thank you very much. After an intro like that, it's going to be good, I'm sure.
James Kennedy Well, we'll soon find out. I feel like it was quite a lazy intro. That's the first time I've ever done that, where I basically pass the buck onto the guest to tell us what they've done. Because you have done so much. Obviously, I've mentioned the two biggies there, you know, the Cocteau Twins and the record label. But you do a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff, man. So what are some of the things I've left out there?
Simon Raymonde There's always something, you know what I mean? I like, I surprised myself at times. And I think I've got a lot of friends who are always quite amazed at why I'm still so interested in what I do, you know, and like, why are you so busy? You're so busy, and I'm quite old now. So you'd think I probably learned how to slow down, but I haven't really. I suppose because I really love what I do, you know, I'm very lucky to be in the music business. I adore it. Of course, it's incredibly frustrating at times. And there's things about it I absolutely can't stand. But the music part, you know, the listening to the discovery of the making of those are all things that I still get a huge amount of pleasure out of. Right. So you've covered it just about but any gaps, we can always fill them in later.
James Kennedy I'm sure we'll fill them in as we go. Yeah, on that point, just mentioned, is that what keeps you going? Because I mean, you have been doing this a long time now, I mean, the label started what 97 late 90s, and obviously, you had a whole career before that as well. I'm sure you've experienced a lot of struggles and hardships and industry bullshit and let downs and screw overs and disappointments along the way, is what you just alluded to, then what keeps you going, just the primal love of the music and the art form, which is essentially why we all get into this in the first place? Is that what still keeps you going now through all those struggles?
Simon Raymonde Yeah, it really is the only thing that keeps me going, because certainly any financial benefit is long gone, that there's not any anymore. So yeah, I think it's because I just do love discovering music, you know, whether it's creating my own or just listening to a SoundCloud that might come in in five minutes time is I keep waking up thinking, today might be the day I'm just, I'm not going to press that link. I'm not going to or I press it and I'm like, yeah, not really bother me, I just don't care anymore. I expect that to happen. But it hasn't yet, which is, I suppose, a blessing. And that's, I suppose, the main reason I keep going, you know, because, as you say, there's so many things that are annoying about the music business. Well, pretty much 95% of it is annoying. Right. But, you know, the bands and the music are the least other things that, you know, I still get a huge amount of enjoyment out of helping new bands because I do management as well now. Yeah. I manage a lot of bands. As well as the label stuff. Not just Bella Union ones, but quite a lot of bands that have nothing to do with Bella Union per se, other than the management side. So I really enjoy the managing as well as the label now because it enables you to help more. You get a label, what do you do? You put a record out. It's like, it's quite simple. Obviously, if the record does well and you build a long relationship with a band, like Beach House or John Grant or Father John Misty, for example, people we've worked with for a long, long, long, long time. That's a beautiful thing because you're building a friendship and a relationship that hopefully will last a huge amount of time. But also the help in the baby bands is what I really love as well, because as a 60-year-old fella and there's been in the music business, I don't know, 45 years or whatever stupid number is, I can pass on some wisdom, I would guess, you know, and I think that is attractive to a young band.
James Kennedy 100%. Yeah. Well, it's the wisdom I want to tap into, to be honest, because, yeah, you've seen both sides and you've seen the industry change as well. I mean, what I find interesting about it, what your artistic career was predominantly in the old model, I suppose we could call it. But then when you set up the label in 97, you were still very much in the old model, but you were just a few years away from the big changeover. So I'd be interested to know what that was like at the time that you were in it, because I came on the circuit. My first album came out 2002. So I was right at the start of the big shift. And I didn't know what the fuck was going on for many years because we didn't realize that we were in this changeover until, you know, with hindsight, you know what I mean? At the time, it was just what the fuck's going on. So what was that like when you set up a label? I'm assuming you set it up pretty much in the traditional model. And then within a few years, everything changed. How did you navigate that?
Simon Raymonde Yes, very badly. Yeah. I mean, you know, it is funny looking back. I've been writing a book over the last six months, a sort of memoir of sorts. And, you know, having to go back to sort of dates and times and remember events like, for example, how long it takes to get a record pressed. Obviously, everyone knows right now how vinyl production is a complete mess and can take anywhere between seven or eight, nine, ten, up to a year to get it made. I was looking back to the sort of early 80s when Cocteau Twins were putting out a record. And I said, we made this record in like February, and then it came out in March on vinyl. And I'm like, I completely forgotten that you could literally make a record in three or four weeks. But just get your head around that for a minute, because all we know about in the last few years is just, well, you can forget about putting it out anytime this year. It'll probably be a year from now. And all the bands are like, really? Oh, okay. Now, that is a shift change beyond belief. Obviously, the reliance on vinyl has changed over the years. Obviously, in the 80s, it was still huge. And then when CDs came along, it sort of dropped off almost altogether. And probably around about the time you mentioned there, 2002, it was still a bit weird to be pressing vinyl. It was just all CDs. And then CDs just fell off the map in the last couple of years. And now we're back making vinyl again at quite a high level. So that's one change. Contracts have changed quite dramatically. Well, actually, they haven't. That's a lie. They still look identical in terms that they're a massive rip-off for the artists. You know, they don't make sense when you look at a sort of standard template contract today. It's actually not dramatically different from how it was in the 80s. But I think what's happened is a lot of lawyers are like, no, we're not signing that. It doesn't make any sense. And a lot of artists are saying we're not signing that. We'll just do it ourselves. We'll put our records out on our own and we'll make 100% of the money rather than sign with you and have some feeble royalty. So good. I mean, it could take us literally all day to discuss the differences between then and now. And that shows you how dramatic it is. Certainly, the finances are way, way, way, way different, you know. There was so much more money available to a record label in the 80s and the 90s than that even in the early, even in the late 90s when Bella Union began. Just putting out the first record was almost my solo record. And nobody really knew who I was, but I was in the Cocteau Twins, so it had a little bit of intrigue about it at the time. And as a result, it sold around 15, 20,000 CDs because there was no vinyl at that point. Now, if you sold 15 or 20,000 CDs right now, you'd be number one in the chart for about a month. Yep. Now, to get in the charts now, to get in the top 10 now, you know, I sold like two or three thousand records. That's it.
James Kennedy It's fucking mad, isn't it?
Simon Raymonde So obviously, the streaming site has obviously taken over massively. And that's a whole other conversation again. But the finances are obviously massively different. And I don't really know how we're still here, because we've survived two seismic, if you like, earthquakes with music, with the finances. We lost 100 grand twice when our distributor went bust and then our licensing partner went bust all within about a year. Wow. 100 grand back in the early and in the mid-first decade of the 2000s, that's a massive amount of money for a little tiny independent. And I don't really know how we recovered from that. It's more kind of stubborn, you know. I don't like giving up and I'm just really, really stubborn. So I had some couple of really great friends who were able to help me out, and that sort of kept the label just about ticking over until we signed Fleet Foxes. And then when Fleet Foxes became like the biggest band on the planet for a few years, that sort of saved the label. Right, yeah. So there's been so many ups and downs.
James Kennedy That's fascinating, man. I had Brian Slagel on the podcast, you know, from Metal Blade Records, he was on a few months ago. He's been in the game about 40 years, so I asked him a similar question. I said, what do you think is the key to long-term success for a band or a label? And he said, the ability to adapt to change, because there's always going to be change. Change is in fact the only constant. So just as soon as you think you're on a winning streak and you're up and running and you're crushing it, a new technology trashes your whole business model and infrastructure, or an economic recession or something completely left field comes along. And it sounds like you've had your own fair share of that. So I think it's interesting that you're describing a similar thing to Brian there. In your case, it's sheer stubbornness, just that refusal to give up and push through and keep it moving.
Simon Raymonde Yeah. I mean, you have to have a huge amount of luck on your side. That's inevitably underplayed as a huge part of how this business is stuck, how this company has stayed in business and this one hasn't. A huge amount of it is down to luck, right? Being in the right place at the right time. But you do have to sort of make your own luck in the music business. You have to just keep going and sort of wade through the mire, you know. You have to get through it. You can't get knocked down by the things that go wrong. You have to just keep dusting yourself off. My wife's now in the business, she works with me on the management side, and she's always saying, how are we going to get through this? And I'm like, it doesn't matter anymore, it's done, you just have to get on with the next thing, right? I'm very used to, because of all the drama from the past, I'm very used to not actually being that affected by something bad going wrong, or seemingly bad going wrong, because really in the grand scheme of things, when you step back from it for a minute, when you're out of the heat of the drama from the artist's side or the label side or the manager's side getting their hair in a twist about it, you once you step back and say, yeah, but in the grand scheme of things, you wake up tomorrow and we'll all still be here and it's still a great record, you have perspectives that you wouldn't have had as a 20-year-old, right? That's what age buys you, you know? So I've got that on my side and I think that enables me not to get too excited when something goes well or too downbeat when it doesn't. Because more often it does, you know?
James Kennedy Would you say that for an independent artist who doesn't have a label, who isn't working with Simon Raymonde, who is completely on their own without a budget, but talented as hell and hardworking and wants to get out there and do their thing—would you say that it's a better environment for somebody in that position now than it was when you started?
Simon Raymonde I mean, in one sense it is, because you're able to do it. When we started, literally today I could make a song in the evening, I can have it online for sale on all the streaming formats, and tomorrow it could be a TikTok sensation, and then next month I could be a millionaire. Yes, the answer is yes to that question. Is it very likely? No, it's probably less likely than it ever was. And certainly back in the 80s, you couldn't do anything like that. Well, you probably could do a little sort of independent release of your own, but not many people did, not until independent labels started cropping up in the late 70s. But wholly different world. I would say it's hard to be specific about it because every artist is quite different. Some bands who've got four people in the band, drum kits, all that kind of thing, they need a bit of help because their thing needs a bit of money, you know? They need to go into a studio with an engineer. They can't just do it in a little room like this. I've got a little room in the back house, I can come and make my music for nothing because I'm just sat here with me, I've got everything I need. But that's not the case for every single artist. Bedroom artist, sure, you can make pop music in your bedroom and be a TikTok sensation overnight. Can you do that with a band who have a slightly different set of parameters going on? Probably not. And that's why the idea of labels not being relevant anymore is a bit daft, because there's a million different people out there all requiring different things. And labels will be great for some artists and not great for others. It's just the way of the world, right?
James Kennedy Yeah, 100%. I mean, that's kind of all I know, really. I mean, I've got a seven-album back catalog and I've done all of my albums myself at my own home studio. Hasn't cost me a penny, apart from a bit of mastering or artwork or pressing costs or something like that. But back in the 70s, I wouldn't have been able to have done that. I mean, I probably could have made the recording if I could get enough funds to get to a studio or something, but then what am I going to do with that master tape? I mean, Mark Chadwick said, what'd you do, weave your own records or something like that, you know? These things were done in big factories and stuff back then. It was big budget stuff. You had to have money. It was physical product. So I'm a big fan of the current system, because my relationships with labels every time I've had one has resulted in either a court case or me being completely fucked over from every angle. So I like the fact that there's kind of a democratization and empowerment for artists now to be able to keep moving despite a lot of the famous music industry bullshit. But the problem is, what do you do to get heard above the noise of everybody else doing that, you know? And that's where I think a label comes in, because a label has got the infrastructure, the experience, the know-how, the budget, the expertise, the personnel, and talented people. And having many hands on deck as well, working your campaign around the world. I think there are many reasons why labels are still essential and relevant.
Simon Raymonde Well, that's 100% true as well. And I think that that's obviously a great part of having a little independent label, is being able to be that bridge between nothing and something. But as I say to all the bands I work with, it's no guarantee. There's no guarantee just because I have a pretty decent contacts list, it doesn't guarantee you anything, you know? So of course there's a hope that it might, and maybe more often than not just about it does work. If I send an email to whoever, Lauren Laverne or Steve Lamacq or whatever, they probably will read it because it's from me, but that doesn't mean they'll like it and that doesn't mean they'll play it. But at least you've got an in to a situation that you're probably on your own. I mean, anyone can find Steve Lamacq's email, it's not hidden, you just have to look for it. But whether he'll listen to it because an unknown artist sends it to him—actually, Steve probably would because he's a good bloke and he enjoys discovering music as much as I do. You have to know these people to kind of know what their habits are, and some people don't answer those, some people don't read those emails at all, and others do, and some do sometimes and others don't ever. You have to be in the business a long time to kind of understand which ones you can approach to get the help that you might need. But as I say, there's no guarantees. I've thought a million times, I've thought, well, Mary Anne Hobbs will love this, and I've said it to her, I'm like absolutely certain that she'll love it, and she's like, no, it's not for me. And you can get very frustrated about it, but at the same time you just have to accept that everyone's got their own taste, and what's my taste is not necessarily anyone else's. And I've learned that over the years, not to be too down when one of my bands that I absolutely love that I've invested all this time and money in is no one else's flavor. It's hard. I can't say it ever gets easier to accept, but I have learned to just get over it quicker.
James Kennedy And you mentioned the power of luck earlier as well, because that is the difference between those outcomes, isn't it? I mean, you can have the best fucking band in the world with the best fucking song, and you put the full weight of your resources behind them, you put the money and the promo and everything into it, and for some reason unbeknownst to anyone, it just doesn't stick, you know? And then you get those bands who just come out of nowhere, they've just got the song that just takes off, they have no label, they might have a cheap diy homemade video that just gets a gazillion views or something like that, and they just take off, and there's just no rhyme or reason to it, there's no format, there's no method. I mean, how do you make sense of that?
Simon Raymonde You don't, you can't, because there's no reason why this did and that didn't, it's just the dots didn't join up. I mean, quite often it's something as ludicrous as, well, we couldn't go on the playlist this week because there were like 52 other records and it just got pushed out at the last minute, or it didn't get the review. The Guardian loved it, but they couldn't review it because they already had three big records and there's only room for two, and something had to give and yours went, you know? It's you miss out on so many things just because your timing was a day off or a week off or a month off. And you shouldn't be saying, well, the band never made it because they didn't get the playlist on Radio 6, but you can look at how campaigns do suffer as a result of that. And this is just because there's so much amazing music out there and so little places for it to be covered, that that's our problem. It isn't that 6 Music and The Guardian aren't great, it's just that there's not enough of them, you know? There's less and less reviews available in The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Financial Times than there ever were. You'd think there'd be more because of the internet. You'd think, well, The Guardian's online presence is massive, surely they can have a hundred reviews a week on The Guardian music page? Well, they don't, they only have a handful. So there's lots of things going against bands, but at the same time, are people really reading The Guardian and listening to 6 Music for discovering their music? Well, I don't know that they are that much. Two million people listen to 6 Music and it's hugely important to those who listen to it, but there's a heck of a lot of other people that you have to sometimes think outside of the obvious places to put your music. And I suppose because I'm of a certain generation, I've grown up with 6, grown up with Mojos, Uncut, or not Q anymore, but Clash magazine. These sort of avenues into coverage are where we do tend to kind of start, but if it doesn't work, you have to be prepared to look outside.
James Kennedy But what does outside look like to you? Because as an independent artist like myself and my peers in my community, we don't have access, we don't have any ins to the mainstream media. We're essentially outside of that club. So the outside to us is essentially just the wild west mess of the internet. And we're trying to navigate that ever-changing storm all of the time, and trying to stay relevant, and trying to conquer new platforms and learn new skills just to remain in people's awareness for more than five fucking minutes before the next bit of content comes along. And like, it could be very overwhelming. It takes a lot of time. It could be very disheartening and very distracting. And of course there was that viral tweet from Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park posted that viral tweet which started a conversation not so long ago where he said, you know, an artist's job is to be making music, playing the instrument, getting better at their craft, playing shows, and not to be constantly creating short-form pointless bits of mindless content just to try and stay on people's news feeds for more than five minutes. That's not our job. And it's all gone a bit mental. And I do agree with that because it is a full-time job making all of this content, most of which has absolutely nothing to do with the music, but all about just trying to keep a little bit of a spotlight on yourself for two minutes. So that is one of the major downfalls of being outside of the mainstream model as you describe it. So I'd be very interested to know how you approach that, how you approach the outside from the label perspective.
Simon Raymonde I leave it up to the artist, to be honest with you. Because I feel like I kind of agree with all of those feelings if you want to be on it and listen, it's all very well to say, well, I should be making music, not doing that. But, you know, we're all different. The kids are different. They grow up with a phone in their hands, you know what I mean? My sons didn't have phones till they were 14, 15 years old. Now probably kids are getting them at 5, 6, 7, 8 years old. So their whole world is all around social media. So for a 16-year-old kid making music, it would be weird if they weren't doing TikTok videos and making posts on Instagram and stuff, because that's their world. That's how they communicate with their friends, that's how they communicate with their audience. And that's why those artists are absolutely massive, because their followings on Twitter and on TikTok and what bring the income in, because that's how their fans connect with them. So it's easy to go, well, they shouldn't be doing it, musicians should be making music. Well, musicians of a certain age, maybe. But the young kids making music, they're making music on their iPhones, you know? They're making beats and playing keyboards, and I think that's amazing. I don't think that's terrible. I also think TikTok's amazing, obviously not the bit that you see with all the daft stuff, but actually if you get into the nuts and bolts of TikTok, you can find and listen to some incredible tunes that you would never find on Spotify. So it's easy to knock it because we only see one side of it, it's just like, oh, TikTok's just for kids, it's just stupid, it's just dog videos. But actually if you spend the time to get into TikTok there are some great benefits to it on the music side. I don't because I'm 60 and I haven't got time, but I know people that do and I know that it's not quite the sight of Satan that people would like us to believe it is. So that's one thing. How I believe other bands should progress is I think how we're going to have to do this in the future because of Brexit, because of the ludicrous cost of visas to travel to America now for artists. They're about to go up to like $1,600 from $500, which is just going to make it pretty much nigh on impossible for a band who are maybe like on their second record just about to maybe go and play New York and go to South by Southwest or something, at that level where their label may be able to help them out or they could do a crowdfunder and raise five, ten thousand dollars to get them to the states. It's almost that point where it's like it's not even worth it anymore because you're going to have to spend 12, 15 thousand dollars before you've even got off the plane. Who can do that, you know, unless you've got a big label behind you? And even the labels now are going, nah, it's too much, the returns are just, there's no guarantee of the returns. So the way I think the world is going musically for a lot of young bands anyway is local. I'm seeing big scenes blowing up locally, that's what I really feel is happening. And you're almost like not even going to go from, let's say a Brighton band for example, you may be selling out 150, 200 tickets in a club, a pub in Brighton. Are you then—because before you'd have gone, okay, well the buzz will now spread and we'll be able to go and play to around about the same amount of people in Manchester. That's not really happening because of whether it's covid or because of the money, the economy right now, people just don't have the money to go out five times a month like they did before covid. Maybe people went out 10 times a month, maybe now they go out three or four times. Everything's changed. We're cutting back because we don't have the finances to go out. So people are not being as adventurous as before in terms of going to see bands. And of course the promoters are suffering badly because of this. So I think what's going to happen is that bands are going to start going from 150 to 200 to 300 to 400 to 500 in their local town, in their local city where they're from, before they even feel confident about taking that next move to go on a tour. Of course, there's going to be a million examples where this isn't true, right? You'll see plenty of bands touring from around the world, but this is in the main, I think this is where we're going to have to go. Don't start getting too adventurous and start booking yourself a UK tour five minutes after you've formed, because only 10 people will turn up to the regional shows. I think you've just got to get really good. In fact, you've got to get fucking fantastic at home first, which is a bit like how it used to be back in the day. You had to be amazing before you went on the stage, otherwise you wouldn't last five minutes. And I think that's what's happening now. I'm starting to see incredible live bands in local sounds. And I think that's very, very encouraging, because people are learning their craft. They're experiencing how to be on the stage, how to react to audiences, and how to put on a brilliant show. And that's actually very encouraging, because I think live music has been a bit off in the last five or six years, probably for obvious reasons, but it feels exciting again.
James Kennedy Well, I love that idea, man. I mean, for me, that resonates very strongly with me, the whole punk rock aesthetic, keeping it real, keeping it on the streets, keeping it affordable and attainable. Taking it back to the source. That's what it's all meant to be about, having that intimate connection. I mean, it all got a bit mental, I feel. We got a little bit off track, didn't we, with the big rock show aesthetic, and now expensive festivals and stadium and arena gigs, when really it started out in the small grassroots venues. So for me, that transit van lifestyle, I still have a very romantic attachment to that world. And I feel like, yeah, that is what it's all about. It's about creating a scene on your doorstep first, getting a buzz going, getting something happening, collaborating with other bands to actually build something on your doorstep, and then export that further afield as and when you can. But that should come when it comes, man. Because certainly now in these times of uncertainty and difficulty, when people are struggling, when there's a cost of living crisis and everyone's pissed off, now is a better time than ever to do what we do best as artists and be able to give the gift that we have of music and good times, or letting off some steam, or having a good scream and shout and a slam dance, whatever you've got to do. That's essentially our service that we provide, you know what I mean? So I think now is a better time than ever to do exactly what you're saying.
Simon Raymonde Yeah, and then the people in the town sort of feel their ownership about this band. I mean, you won't remember me too young, but like when the Stone Roses broke onto the scene back at Manchester in whatever year that was, you know, they were playing to a thousand people in Manchester because they just built up this insane following in the town. And it gives this sort of pride in, they're one of ours, you know? And I think that's probably going to happen a lot more these days. I mean, look, it's not just you, it's not just bands of your size that can't go to Europe. It's bands like the Eels had to cancel a tour recently because they did the sums and they were like, it's just, it doesn't add up. It doesn't make sense. So if a band that big are looking at the numbers and it doesn't add up, then of course it's going to be impossible for everyone else under that level, because you can't even hire a van anymore. There aren't any vans to hire. They're all out. And it's like 110, 120 quid to hire a decent splitter van. And then if you've got to have to stay overnight, how many of you, four of you? Yeah, we'll pile in a room together. No problem. Still going to be probably not short of a hundred quid. Petrol on top of that, 50 to a hundred. You know, it's going to be 500 pounds if you're going to go up north to play a gig and you're probably getting 50 quid for the gig. So where's the other 450 quid coming from? Your merch? Probably not, because you haven't been around long enough to make enough or afford enough to sell. It's really tough being a band right now. And I'm not going to get the violins out, but I think it is a really tough time. And that's why I think these local scenes are probably how it's going to go for a lot of artists.
James Kennedy That makes a lot of sense. I'm certainly seeing that myself. I mean, what would your—let's say so you discovered a band and you fell in love with them and they were starting out and you just thought, yeah, I'm going to throw everything I got into this band. What would, how would you work around that situation that you want to get them out there? You want to get them doing some shows. As you said, given all of the constraints, budgetary and otherwise that you've got to deal with right now, what would your approach be? Would it be to just rinse their hometown, just blast the hometown scene?
Simon Raymonde Well, I'm doing it with a couple of bands that I work with here. I think you've got to take it step by step and you obviously got all—I don't want to work with people that don't, with artists that don't get it. And when I say don't get it, I mean understand what they're dealing with. There's no point having stars in your eyes about this thing and then it all just being a massive disappointment a year later, you come back and you're like, oh, this is a nightmare. I need to tell them it's a nightmare before they step out and do it. You have to prepare people for the worst. So I'm saying to all the bands, you sign to a label, it doesn't mean fuck all. It doesn't mean anything. It just means you're maybe slightly better off than you were before. There's going to be an infrastructure there to help you with some of the things that may crop up, but it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean you're going to sell any records. It doesn't mean you're going to stream anymore. It doesn't mean you're going to get any better gigs. It doesn't mean you're going to get on the radio. It means you might, whereas before it might've been harder, but that's the reality. So just take a step back and just a deep breath and don't worry about it because that stuff is out of all of our control anyway, right? You can't do anything about that. What can you do about it? You can make better sounding records. You can make better songs. You can get better as a live band. So why don't you focus on the things that you can do and I'll try and help you with all the other things, but I'm not a fucking magician and neither is anyone else here, but we'll do our very, very best because we think you're fabulous. And that's the sort of start point for the conversation. And if they're looking at you like, what are you talking about? Then it's probably not going to work. The relationship probably won't work. But if they like totally get it and sort of appreciate that what you're trying to do is help them get from A to B or A to sort of almost B, then the relationship will probably blossom and grow. And that's the way I kind of approach it. Find them a booking agent. That's very difficult right now. There aren't, it's really hard to find a booking agent. Most of them are like, I'm too busy. They're still coming out of this covid time, the pandemic where that's their roster. It's getting back into the world. They're very busy booking shows into the next year. It's quite difficult to find a young, motivated, excited booking agent that will want to work with your band. So that's step one. My job is as a manager anyway, is to try and find that excited booking agent. There's no point just having someone that goes, oh yeah, he does Beach House, oh I'll do it because he's got a good label. That does not work, right? You've got to find somebody that's passionate, hopefully as passionate as you are, or at least has the potential to be as passionate as you are about the band. Will actually come and meet the band, see the band live. There's no point just sending a link of the new record and go, do you want to be their agent? He has to come and see them. Right. So you have to have something going on in your hometown where you can invite an agent down and you have to do it at the moment you know that the band are good enough. Because if they're okay, there's no point inviting a booking agent down because he'll come down and see them, see that they're only okay, not see the potential maybe that you see and go, well, I thought they were all right, but I mean there's 20 bands better than them that I've seen in the last month. Well, that was a waste of time. Then he's never going to come back. So you've got to get them excited up to a point. And then when the band are absolutely bang on ready and you just know they'll knock the socks off of the audience, that's when you put them in front of the booking agent. So it's all about just waiting for the right moment, the timing. And then after that, you just got to hope that the learning curve for the band and the progress is on an upward thing. Hopefully a steep one. Some bands go real quick in that first year or two. They just learn so much and they're so brilliant. You just, they just get it. And other bands just flatline for a while. And you do wonder at that point if you've made an error of judgment, but all of a sudden, sometimes those bands can take off. They just need a little tweak and off it goes. So I don't know what the secret is to it. It's just constantly thinking and talking and with all the people that I work with, whether it's my wife or my staff or the bands, the manager, the agent, whoever it is, just lots of communication. And the secret is it's got to be fun. None of this works if it's a misery fest and if it's just all like, oh god, I don't know why we're—if it's like that, then just go do something else.
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James Kennedy Yeah, 100%, man. You were dropping a lot of really great advice and insight here for bands because it is really difficult out there right now. I mean, it was difficult enough before. I don't think we can blame covid and economic climate exclusively for the fucking shit show that we find ourselves in right now. It was bad before, you know? So yeah, this is really great that you're given such great, experienced advice for people who are out there in quite difficult terrain right now.
Simon Raymonde Yeah, no, I really feel that responsibility a lot. And I mean, even if I do meet a lot of bands and I say, look, I can't help you, I'm not going to be able to help you with the label or even the management side, but I'm happy to talk to you about it because it sort of feels like I need to pay this stuff back, you know? I need to pay it forward or whatever the phrase is. Because I can't imagine what it could be like to be a 16, 17-year-old in a band right now faced with all these obstacles, because we didn't have any of these obstacles. Maybe it was stupidity or naivety, just thinking, well, we just give one tape to John Peel and one tape to 4AD and we'll get a John Peel session and we'll get signed, because that's what happened, that's what we did, and that's what happened, right? So you sort of think, well, this is easy. That would never happen today, you know? You could never just wait outside Broadcasting House and give a tape to Steve Lamacq. What would you give him? They don't exist anymore, there aren't tapes, do you know what I mean? What are you going to give him, a link? Here's my link. It's a very different world, so I do feel sort of a responsibility to try and help as best I can.
James Kennedy That's awesome, man.
Simon Raymonde Yeah, but I don't know whether I'm doing it, but it certainly gets me through the day.
James Kennedy Oh dude, no, totally. Already you've dropped so many truth bombs on this that are just really useful. I mean, I've been through the struggle myself, you know? I've sent you a lot of stuff, I've sent you a lot of sending CDs out right at the tail end of that era when it was becoming pointless and obsolete. So ever since then, the model for me and my friends is just to send out a thousand SoundCloud links in emails and things like that, develop your own one-sheets and web pages. And we know that it just gets lost in the black hole of the internet, you know? We know that no one has got enough time in the day to go through all that stuff, it's just not possible. But then from our side of the fence, what else can we do to try and get our music under people's earlobes? So yeah, it's very difficult, man. So I do really appreciate it, I know that the listeners will really appreciate as well, you being so honest and forthcoming with such great advice.
Simon Raymonde There are some great people in my business who all do feel similarly to me, you know, some great independent labels out there who want to help, it's just the time that you have to be able to do it. Because I don't know how many emails I get every day with links on. Let's look at how many—that's 11,844 unread emails. That's actually the best it's ever been. It's been 40, 50,000 before. I had a bit of a clean out over Christmas. But that shows you the volume of emails that I get. Not all of them are—but I do get a shed load and I always try and listen to everyone. And of course, now I've found that there's a lot of bedroom artists or artists from all over the world sending me instrumental links, instrumental music, and just saying, you know, can I put this out on the label? And it's hard, you know, because I feel like I love listening to it, but I've learned over the years that to be an instrumental artist, just a bedroom artist making instrumental music, that it's just—I mean, there's TikTok and there's Instagram, I guess, but it's very hard to put stuff out on CD and vinyl and sign a band that's just making nice instrumental music. And I always struggle to try and find a way of saying, I like what you're doing, but I don't know what the fuck—I wouldn't know what to do with it, right? I've got Explosions in the Sky, I've got Dirty Three, I've worked with some of the greatest instrumental bands out there, those two are the best that you'll ever see, so I don't really need any more because I've got them. But when it's some guy not in a band, not with other musicians, that's just making nice polite instrumental music that's very lovely, kind of thing you'd probably hear in the background on an ad or something, I have to sort of say, look, I have to be brutally honest, this isn't for me, but have you not thought about going down the kind of TV sync film world? And it is super competitive, but how about some of these companies who might be able to help? Because it's just not good enough to go back and go, I don't like it, sorry, it's not for me. That's not enough anymore, because if you're that person receiving that email, that's just a real hard thing to read, isn't it? You put all this effort into this thing, even if it may not have any life as a release on a label, that doesn't mean to say that your talent can't be put to use elsewhere. So I'm always trying to kind of think, maybe I can sort of push them to this area where someone might get it in that world. I mean, of course, sometimes you feel like you're just sort of paying lip service to it a bit, but I just think it's better than not answering at all, which I know a lot of people do, not answer these emails, they don't reply to artists. I don't like to do that, I won't. I will always reply, but I don't reply if the email is not to me. And I get quite a few times—I don't reply to those, I don't reply to those, I don't reply to those. You know, when you get the email you can even see all the other people that are on it. Haven't quite got it right in terms of you really, I get you need to write a personal email to the person you're writing to, or else you're not writing to me, are you? You're just writing to all of the labels in the world. And I'm not all the labels in the world, I'm just a little guy trying to make my way, you know? So you make an effort to find me and address me as Simon, then I will make an effort and try and listen to music and come up with something constructive. That's the way I do it. If I can sense that the email is not actually to me really, I'm like, well, fuck you.
James Kennedy That's amazing that you do that though, Simon, man. I mean, I've sent my fair share of emails in the past, probably tens of thousands in the 20 years that I've been struggling to do stuff, and pretty much all of them I would venture to say have gone unread, let alone responded to, and let alone responded to with any kind of constructive feedback. So that's amazing effort that you do that, man. I totally know what you mean as well, because at Conic Records I get the exact same thing. I get like an email like, hi Conic Records, oh hi Conic, and then it's just like, check out my band, and you look at the CC and it's got like every other fucking record label on the planet, you know, just like info at, info at, like no fucking due diligence or research or fucks given, just the laziest outreach ever. I know.
Simon Raymonde I do get a couple where they've obviously been doing a lot of stuff and they've gone through and sort of chosen Beggars, Sub Pop, Domino, blah blah, and they've copied and pasted. Of course you're going to copy and paste, I don't have a problem with that. But when they've forgotten to take out "Dear Sub Pop" in the email to Bella Union, that I do always kind of make a joke about, I reply to those because I know it's an easy mistake to make—well, not easy, it's a difficult mistake to make as a band, you haven't really read it probably. But I do still reply to those, but I always like to point it out, like, that's not me, but never mind, let's get to the point. It's difficult, it's very difficult. I actually started a new little imprint in the last year called Bella Union's Private Pressing, partly as a way of trying to combat this vinyl production nonsense, and also saying to bands, I don't need to sign you for 15 years on this, I don't need to give you an advance, and you don't need one, it's pointless taking an advance, just means you owe money to your record label. But you've got this finished record, I love it, I'd like to help get it out there in the world, but I'm not going to press a thousand copies, I'm going to press like 150, 200 records, and I'll make it totally unique. You're only going to be able to buy it from the Bella Union website, can't buy it in the shops. And I started doing a few of these and they've gone really, really, really well. I let the artists do all the digital, I'll help them put it up there, but they keep all the money, keep all the Bandcamp. So really all I'm doing is pressing up a couple of hundred vinyls and when I've sold them all they can have the rights back. So it's not really costing me much, it's probably a grant or something to do each pressing and I can just help get them introduced into the world because of the label's profile. So I've done it with a couple of Brighton artists who their records will be coming out next month, just because I think they're amazing, I want to help them out. And then I know they probably would struggle, like you say, to get signed to other labels because that whole thing is just a mess, trying to get signed by anyone anymore is very, very hard. So yeah, that's another way I'm trying to help. We'll just have to see how it goes.
James Kennedy That's a great idea, man. Yeah, I mean, that's something I will definitely look into myself, because to have that outlay as a small independent artist on top of all of the other things you've mentioned like touring costs and recording and all of the shit that goes with it, to have that outlay for merch or bulk pressing of vinyl or CDs is quite a hit on top of everything else. So I think that deal there that you described, where you keep the digital out of it, you just deal with the vinyl and it helps them get that physical product out there, I think that's a great idea, I'll look into that myself.
Simon Raymonde Yeah, I like it and I only use this one pressing plant that's an eco-friendly pressing plant. I mean, there's no way making vinyl will ever be particularly eco-friendly just because, but this one is based in Europe, it's called Deep Grooves, and I've used them exclusively on all the Bella Union Private Pressing I've done so far, which is about five. So I'm trying to kind of help look at how the world is, there is way too much vinyl out there that's just going to end up as fucking landfill, you know what I mean? The major labels press up way too much stuff that really doesn't need to be pressed up. So I'm concerned about it on one level, but at the same time, I'm 60, I'm not 20, I can't heal the world anymore, you know what I mean? I can only do my little bit.
James Kennedy Well, you're certainly doing that, man. And doing what you're doing now on these interviews and stuff that you do, and obviously we want to talk about the book in just a second as well, you know, that in itself is doing more than your little bit as well. And everything that you've done, jesus christ, whatever your amazing career with the music you've given us and the bands you've introduced us to, you've done more than your bit, so you're doing okay, your karma balance is looking pretty healthy.
Simon Raymonde Yes, I think I've done okay. Yeah, I'm very happy with how things have gone, and could always be better and stuff, but yeah, no, I feel a good balance. Personally as well, like moving down to Brighton from London was a great move for me. I was starting to kind of not enjoy being in the city that I grew up in, and being down here in Brighton by the sea, it's just changed everything.
James Kennedy Oh yeah, it's a great music scene in Brighton as well, it has been for a while.
Simon Raymonde Amazing. And what I love about the Brighton music scene is how generous everyone is. All the bands love each other, and that's not something I ever remember growing up in London. You know, in the punk scene I saw incredible bands every night of my teenage years and through my 20s, but I don't remember any of them being particularly friendly. I mean obviously the Clash and the Pistols and the Banshees, I suppose they all kind of tolerated each other, but maybe the Cure and the Banshees were friends maybe. But yeah, these little scenes like in Brighton, bands truly love each other, they live with each other, they share equipment, they share bills, it's very generous and I do like that a lot.
James Kennedy Yeah, I 100% agree with that man. I had an artist I was working with for many years on Conic Records from Brighton, and everything she did it felt like there was a real communal sense to it, like they all played on each other's tracks, they were all in side projects together and stuff like that, they all did tours together and pop-up shows together and help each other out and live with each other and all the things you describe. It feels like there's a real, an actual proper scene developing down there.
Simon Raymonde It does. And I mean, you get a lot of people go, oh, it's too sceney, everyone knows each other. And I'm like, yeah, and what's your point, you know? Isn't that what we're—isn't that what we need right now? We need community. There's just been such a lack of it, and the country is just a fucking disaster area in terms of how it's run. The gap between the haves and the have-nots is so large that any community where people are just coming together and doing something because they love it and they're supporting each other, I think that's a great thing. I don't think "sceney" is a bad thing, I think it's a great thing.
James Kennedy 100%. Yeah, we need more of it. And that harks back to what you were saying about keeping it local early on as well. I think that if we can invigorate our local scenes again, where we're not in competition with each other, but we're all part of the same healthy community and looking out for each other and helping each other out, musically and otherwise. I mean, as you said, the state of society is fucked on all fronts at the moment, you know. I mean, 12 years of Tory rule will do that to you.
Simon Raymonde Well, yeah, because if you look back—so if you look back to the kind of early 80s when the independent label scene sort of exploded, it was because of the local scenes, you know. Kitchenware in Newcastle, Postcard in Scotland, Factory in Manchester, 4AD in London, all these—there's millions of others—Zoo in Liverpool, and any town had its own label scene and its own label, why? Well, because so many of the people that were in the city, or somebody in the town was like, we've got so many brilliant bands, let's start a label and put some of them out, you know. And hopefully there'll be more of that coming up with this burgeoning local scene that we're seeing happening right now. Hopefully there'll be more little indie labels trying to help out their favorite bands in their hometown.
James Kennedy 100%. Yeah, very inspiring. Very inspiring outlook that is, man, in times that are very difficult. I think that's a great solution which is healthy on many fronts and much more achievable than unattainable for bands, for the reasons that we've mentioned. I know that I promised I would only keep you for an hour and we are getting dangerously close to that point now. There's a few more things I wanted to ask you, so I'm just going to squeeze one in which I didn't mention earlier. You mentioned Satan earlier and we were talking about the major labels, but we haven't yet mentioned Spotify and streaming. What are your thoughts on that, good or bad?
Simon Raymonde Well, a bit of a mixture, I guess. Yeah, you know, Spotify, I'm not a fan of, okay. I'll be honest, don't—I mean, I do have an account, but I don't use it. It's we have it in the house because if you've got friends around and you need—you want to put a playlist on, I guess it's easy. I'd rather just go and get a bunch of records and put them on the record player, but for ease, simplicity, I get it. Streaming ain't going away, right? Spotify is going to be there as a model for a business. I think it's dreadful, right? I think its app is appalling, and I'm just not a fan. But then I'm not the core audience probably, you know? I'm somebody that's been buying records all my life, I still buy as many records today as I did back in the day, I'm a complete vinyl junkie. So Spotify is not—I'm not its target human, so I'm not the person to talk about it. But I think they pay—the pay is terrible. Even if they just put it up a bit, it's still going to be terrible. But, and there has to be a but in here, because I do see the positives of it as well, is that when you have—I suppose the TikTok stroke Spotify thing at the moment is actually very interesting, because if you never listen to a whole song on TikTok, you just hear a bit, what people—what's happening is that people are hearing a bit of a beautiful song on TikTok, coming out of TikTok into Spotify, typing in the name of that band, finding that song, and then streaming the fuck out of it, and then hopefully listening to more and more songs from that band and getting into their catalog. And then I suppose because they're new to Spotify, 15-year-old kids or whatever are starting to discover other things. We can argue whether that exists to drive that, to take you from this band that you didn't want to listen to to this next band that you didn't know anything about that you are now listening to, whether that's right or wrong I don't really want to get into that because it's everywhere we go, right? Being fed something else, whether you're on Facebook being fed an ad because your Alexa overheard you talking about carpets, you're suddenly seeing a thousand carpets. You've done that, you've seen it, I know it happens, they'll tell you it doesn't, it does. Whether you're on Twitter and the promoted ads you get are because you've been looking at a certain type of thing, it's everywhere we go. So why should we be that disappointed that Spotify is feeding us a track they think we might like? It's nothing—I don't know about right or wrong, I don't think it's right, but it is the way of the world right now, so we better just fucking get used to it, right? So on the one side, I'm like, totally antsy about it, and I'm starting to kind of think about deleting all my stuff, I'm like, I'm going to delete it, I'm going to delete it, I'm going to delete my social accounts. But I don't really want to do that right now because I'm about to put out a book and my publisher will be annoyed with me. So I'm going to wait until all the books out and then I'll probably just come off. Spotify, yes, I'm sure Spotify—look, Beach House is a perfect example where Spotify works. They had a viral hit with "Space Song" about a year ago. All Beach House songs stream well, they all stream about 30 million streams an average, which is very healthy. It's not Ed Sheeran numbers, but in my world it's super healthy, most bands I know would love to stream 30 million per track. Something happened about a year ago where a girl on—I think it was a girl on TikTok—had a breakup with a partner and posted this kind of sad video with one of Beach House's songs as the soundtrack to the song. And I'm like, oh my god, it just went viral over the course of the next few months, and everyone that had a breakup with anybody was using this piece of music. And it sort of went from 30 million to 100 million in about two weeks, and then after a couple of months it was at 200 million, then it was 300 million, then it was 400 million. I haven't actually looked for a few weeks, let me have a look right now, I think it's around 600—oh my god, 100 million, my god, right now. And this is just because of TikTok. So am I going to argue against my own band benefiting enormously, audience-wise, demographic-wise, and financially? You know, the finances of going from 30 million—which I'm sure were pretty healthy—to 650 million. It was 550 million a couple of weeks ago, so it's still moving even a year or so after. So you can't argue with how this is revolutionizing artists' income and ability to make money out of streaming. You can't argue with it. So on the one hand, I'm like, I can't stand it, it's awful, it's horrible, I don't like the app, I don't like the way it works. On the other hand, I'm like, yeah, I love it because my fans are making some money out of it. So it's a little bit sort of torn between the two things at the moment, because obviously I see that it's a little bit—I want them to continue making great money and having all that exposure, it's a wonderful thing. That's about all I've got to say.
James Kennedy Well, I think all of these things are amazing if you get that lucky break. Like you just mentioned, when it happens it's fucking beautiful, because they could never reach that audience by being on the radio or getting ads in a magazine, you know, to have access to that global audience that have now discovered their track.
Simon Raymonde No one spent any money. No one spent any money on that, there was no campaign, it just happened. And you've got to say that that is one of the most beautiful things to happen. It's just purely organic. And all the great successes that Bella Union has had over the years have all been that way, right? The Fleet Foxes phenomenon was all organic. Yes, we did spend a load of money at the end on TV advertising that kicked it on again to get up to the kind of million level, but that was when we were up to 300,000 CD sales, we then spent a bit of money to kind of get through to a different kind of audience. Yes, that's fair enough. But TikTok is completely organic, and you have to say that is a very beautiful thing.
James Kennedy I suppose when it comes down to what you said earlier about making your own luck, I mean, when you're just lost in the noise in the pool of everyone else putting stuff out there and you're getting nowhere and you're getting two likes on your posts and stuff like that, then this stuff feels very frustrating and the algorithm is working against you, as you mentioned as well. When you do get that lucky spark for whatever reason that happens and it just fucking takes off, then these platforms are amazing and they can bring so much benefit to artists, you know? So I suppose there's probably an argument there for being able to make your own luck if you can embrace it and just accept the fact this stuff is here to stay and do what you can to be creative and utilize these things, then you're setting yourself up to potentially maybe have that lucky spark.
Simon Raymonde Yeah, exactly. I say that to all the bands, I say, look, that's a perfect example, and I mean the Beach House story, and it is a beautiful one because we had a two-album deal with Beach House at the beginning and the first two records—like the first album did okay, second album did slightly better, but nothing crazy. And you know, at one point when our deal was over, I was like, god, I really love this band, I'm sure they're going to make it, but I can imagine why they might look at us and go, why isn't it happening? Because they were always—they were amazing from the start, they didn't just keep getting better, they were amazing from the beginning. So it was, you have to go to the band at that point and say, I think you're amazing, you're absolutely one of my favorite bands I've ever signed, I want to carry on working as long as possible, sorry it hasn't worked yet, but it's not for want of trying. And you have to just be out there, put it out there. And I think we did that with Beach House and said, look, it will happen, it's just we're hopefully a few minutes away from it happening. And then they agreed to stay with us, they could easily have gone to another label easily. I know 4AD were looking at signing Beach House or considering signing them if they had left, but they trusted us, they stuck with us. The next album took off, Teen Dream became massive, and that's where it all started. So you just have to have a bit of faith, not just me and them, but them in me, and then you just have to say, well, they make fantastic music, so those numbers shouldn't be that surprising. And that's how I'm trying to look at it, because everybody should—Beach House, they're one of the most incredible bands out there, and the fact that their audience has now gone from sort of 35 to 55-year-olds to now sort of 15 to 60-year-olds, it's crazy, it's so beautiful to see, going to a gig now and it's not just loads of old people couples and stuff, it's thousands of girls just screaming, it's just so wonderful. So I have to sort of take my hat off to the streaming services in one sense, because they've allowed this to happen, they've enabled one of my bands to have this great success. So from that point of view, I'm absolutely thrilled. But as a punter, as a participant in it, it's not really my thing. But I don't think anyone would care because I'm not the guy they're aiming for.
James Kennedy Amen. You've given us so much great advice and so much insight and wisdom from your decades in the game, so we thank you for that. Before we wrap up, I want to talk about your book. Are we going to get a lot of this stuff in the book? Have you finished it? What's going on with the book?
Simon Raymonde No, my book isn't a sort of how to survive in the music business book, it's not that, because as you say, I do try and do this every day in my life, trying to help people. My book is really more about me sort of taking a step back and just looking at what I've done. I mean, I wouldn't have done it—I was worried that I didn't want to write a dull book. So I only did it because I'd spoken to Warren Ellis from the Bad Seeds, who's a friend of mine that I've known for many, many years, and he'd just done this book Nina Simone's Gum. And I was writing already bits for magazines and stuff, and he'd also said similarly he'd never had the idea to write a book, but something happened, this event with Nina Simone's gum—I don't know if you know the story, it's too long to go into—but he basically, he and Nick went to see Nina Simone at Meltdown and he sort of became obsessed with this. She'd taken the chewing gum out of her mouth just before she started playing, she stuck it underneath the piano, and then she played the set, and the set finished, but Warren was still thinking about this piece of chewing gum. And as the crew were clearing the stage, he kind of nipped down the front, jumped up the stage, and went under the piano and took the chewing gum off and put it in his pocket and left the venue. And then it just became this thing between him and Nick Cave like about this gum, and it was just like this bonding moment, this symbol almost of significant moments in your life. So that was his sort of starting point for the book. And when I talked to him about it, like I met up with him right where he lives, where we both live, and I found it such a fascinating story and it did inspire me to stop worrying about the fact that my book—I'm a musician writing a book—just write the book. So I did, and I found an agent, I found a publisher, and I wrote the book.
James Kennedy That's awesome.
Simon Raymonde And I had a great time doing it, looking back upon all these things that I've done. And we shall see, it's coming out hopefully later this year or early next year. Book publishing is apparently in equal dire straits in terms of production as the vinyl industry, so I hear it's going to take a long time to get it made, but I don't care now, I've done it.
James Kennedy That's amazing. How long did it take?
Simon Raymonde Well, I think about October last year I had done about 18,000 words, and I thought I'd finished, and I spoke to the agent and I said, roughly what is a book? 100, 110,000 words? And I was like, oh okay, shit. So I went away on holiday with my wife in October for a week and I just basically got up at eight o'clock every morning and I just started writing and pretty much wrote all day. And I got into this rhythm, and then I came back home and I just did exactly the same thing. I didn't have a day off. I would get up at eight, go to a cafe, get my headphones on, start typing, get it all out there, about two o'clock in the afternoon I'd stop and go back home and get on with other stuff, the Bella Union stuff. And then I just did it every day for like—I did like four or five months and I had it done.
James Kennedy That's amazing. Yeah, I had a very similar experience with my first book, which was an autobiography. I wrote the whole thing in just over two months because I just got up every day and at the time I had nothing else going on, so I had three days to just spend on the book. I just got up every day and I just did about half a chapter every day and I just slammed it for two months. And then obviously you got the editing process that goes on for a few months after that, you know. But yeah, I totally relate to that. I found doing an autobiographical type of book a little bit easier in the sense that you know where it begins and where it ends, you're kind of just filling in the middle. So yeah, I can't imagine what it must be like to have to invent plots and characters, that's a whole different world.
Simon Raymonde Yeah, a whole different game. No, I really quite enjoyed it. I sort of got into the rhythm, you know, enjoyed getting up and couldn't wait to sort of sit down and get on with the next bit. I mean, obviously fitting it all in, I've got way too much—I ended up writing like 125,000, so I'm pretty sure the editor will want to chop out lots of it, which is fine by me because I don't know the first thing about it, so I'm just like, here it is, you do what you want with it. But I'm very happy with what I wrote and I printed it out for my wife to read and she kind of sailed through it in a couple of nights, and I know she would tell me what she thought, she does always tell me what she thinks, and she loved it, so that was good enough.
James Kennedy Oh, exciting stuff, man. So have you got a title yet, is it a working title, or you're not allowed to say?
Simon Raymonde Yeah, the title I had before I had the book. I won't say because if we go down the road of why is it called that, we'll be here for another three hours.
James Kennedy Interesting. All right, I'm intrigued, man. So we're looking then I guess at a publishing date of—you said later this year, more likely early to mid next year. Is that the case? Because I mean, book publishing, as I know, takes absolutely forever.
Simon Raymonde Yeah, it's with Nine Eight Publishing, who did the Miki Berenyi book. And obviously Miki is a great mate of mine, and I actually did a Q&A with her at Brighton and Resident when her book came out. And it's a phenomenal book, Miki Berenyi's book, you have to read it. It's definitely one of the best music books I've read in my life. I've read a lot of books and it's not really a music book, I mean half of it is not, it's just so brilliantly written, it's very truthful, it's super authentic.
James Kennedy What's it called?
Simon Raymonde It's Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me from Success.
James Kennedy Oh, I think I've seen that book, yes, right, I know the book.
Simon Raymonde Right, it was like best-selling music book of the year, it was like number one in the Sunday Times, number one in Rough Trade. It's the biggest selling book, in fact one of the biggest selling products that Resident has ever had in their shop in Brighton. Wow. I think they shipped 7,000, so they sold 7,000 in the first week. Jesus. Resident, I think that was 70% of all the whole of the UK's sales in that one shop. Phenomenal. Everything she gets is deserved because it's a phenomenally good book, brilliantly written, and also just very, very interesting.
James Kennedy I'm going to check it out.
Simon Raymonde Yeah, so I'm lucky, and I'm lucky enough to be with the same publisher, and my book's nowhere near as good as hers, but I'm sure having a publisher like them and a publicist like she had will help me enormously, because I think that's part of the game is making sure you get it to the right people.
James Kennedy Well, I think there's going to be a lot of people interested in your life story, because you've got a fascinating life you've led, you know? I mean, you've done so many different things, you've seen so many different changes in the times over the years that you've been doing it. So yeah, I'm personally excited for the book to come out and I'm looking forward to it. I wish it would hurry the fuck up and happen. Hopefully when we get nearer the time, if you grace our humble podcast again and come back on, we can talk exclusively about the book if you're up for it.
Simon Raymonde That would be nice, James, thank you.
James Kennedy All right, it's a deal. You heard it here first, folks, we're going to book that in right now, it's confirmed. Simon, thank you so much for doing this, man. I really do appreciate you giving me your time, I know how busy you are, and thanks for all of the great wisdom and knowledge you've given so freely and advice that you've given so freely to the listeners who I know are going to benefit from that experience and that wisdom so much. And thank you for all of the great brilliant music you've given us as well over all these decades, not just in your own band the Cocteau Twins, but also through the brilliant Bella Union Records. You're going to be leaving a lot of goodness behind, man, in your trail. So thank you so much, and hopefully we will speak to you again soon. Best wishes with everything coming up, and thanks again for coming on.
Simon Raymonde Thank you, James, take care.
Key Points:
Guest Simon Raymonde is a former member of Cocteau Twins and the long-standing owner of Bella Union Records, who also works as a manager for bands.
Raymonde says his continued drive comes from a genuine love of discovering and creating music, even though 95% of the music business frustrates him.
The industry has changed dramatically since the 1980s, with vinyl production now taking up to a year, contracts remaining exploitative, and streaming dominating finances.
Bella Union survived two financial disasters when its distributor and licensing partner went bust, losing £100,000 twice, before Fleet Foxes saved the label.
Raymonde argues that while digital tools empower independent artists, getting heard above the noise remains the hardest challenge, and labels still offer vital infrastructure.
He believes local scenes are the future for young bands, since Brexit visa costs and touring expenses make wider touring increasingly unviable.
Raymonde is critical of Spotify's low pay but acknowledges its positives, citing Beach House's viral TikTok-driven growth from 30 million to over 600 million streams.
Summary:
In this episode of the James Kennedy Podcast, host James Kennedy speaks with Simon Raymonde, former Cocteau Twins member and owner of Bella Union Records. After a brief self-promotion of his own band and album, Kennedy hands the conversation to Raymonde, who reflects on a career spanning roughly 45 years in music. Raymonde explains that his enduring motivation is a deep love of discovering and creating music, despite finding most of the industry frustrating.
He describes how the business has transformed since the 1980s, from rapid vinyl production to today's year-long waits, and from lucrative record sales to streaming-dominated revenues. He recounts how Bella Union survived losing £100,000 twice when business partners collapsed, saved partly by stubbornness and later by Fleet Foxes' success. Raymonde discusses the challenges facing independent artists, arguing that while digital tools empower them, standing out is harder than ever, and labels still provide crucial infrastructure.
He predicts a return to local scene-building due to Brexit visa costs and touring expenses, praises Brighton's collaborative music community, and offers a balanced view of Spotify, criticising its pay but acknowledging its role in Beach House's viral success. He also discusses his forthcoming memoir.
The James Kennedy Podcast is a Society and Culture podcast hosted by musician and author, James Kennedy. Exploring the big questions around health, social issues, the arts, politics, mental health, the human condition and how to navigate this thing called life through casual conversations with scientists, activists, rock stars, philosophers and academics. Please subscribe, leave a rating and support the show.
