Canada’s Mathew Jonson & his renowned label Wagon Repair have become one of the preeminent figure in today’s electronic music scene. Interview with Adam Boothby (CEO of Wagon Repair) & Mathew Jonson below:

Could you introduce yourself?

MJ: I’m Mathew Jonson. I’m writing this interview from the Olympic Games in Vancouver.

AB:I’m Adam Boothby, Chief Operating Officer of Wagon Repair, writing from our London office.

Running a label / being an artist in 2010 seems very adventurous for a lot of people: what do you think?

MJ: It’s been challenging for sure. We’ve made some pretty big changes in the last year. Our main change is that we are focusing on albums from now on instead of singles like we used too. This is actually pretty cool because it is pushing the artists to release albums. My brother Nathan has his first album coming out in the beginning of May and I will have my first commercial album coming out June 7th as well. We are also releasing our 2nd Cobblestone Jazz album March 30th so its going to be a really busy summer for all of us.

AB: Running a label is definitely adventurous, especially in 2010. In fact, adventurous is probably the perfect word to describe the experience. Having worked closely with countless labels over the years, two things are constants: 1) small record labels don’t really make money. 2) money comes second to love of music. When you think about adventure, this is it – new and unknown, potentially dangerous – but exciting.

Do you think a label is still relevant in 2010 and beyond?

MJ: Of course it is. Labels are the way that someone can always trust a certain taste of music. Its great that these days anybody that wants to can release digital music. It opens up so much freedom for up and coming artists. But personally I think that the majority of unsigned artists are unsigned for a reason. Without a label to make taste calls as a music buyer I’m left looking through a bunch of stuff I would rather not hear.

AB: Publishing art will always be relevant. I think that small labels are a fantastic way for talent to rise up and share their creativity across a wide range of media and to an international audience that they would be hard pressed to reach on their own. Essentially, I believe that small labels are an integral part of fostering the growth of an artist, and art in general, and this can only be relevant.

How the label’s role evolved during the last couple of years?

MJ: It’s growing stronger and stronger. Its great for the artists involved to have this outlet to release there music. We release music that is very open minded and we try not to stick to genres so this leaves a lot of creative freedom for the artists we sign.

AB: I’d say the one of the label’s primary roles of functioning strictly as an outlet for a small group of friends has changed from the early days as we see more and more great artists come aboard. At first, it was pretty much built around small group of Canadians – Mathew Jonson, Konrad Black, The Mole, Mike Shannon, Cobblestone Jazz, Hrdvsion, Loose Change – and then of course there was our good friend from Denver, The Missing Link. This started to change after our first 20 EP’s, and we started to really embrace outside talent and our family grew and grew. Our other primary role has not changed – put out music and art that we like without worrying about trends or critics.

Internet has changed a lot of things in the music business: faster communication, new way to monetize music but also piracy, overload of contents and more difficulties to get consumers’ attention. From your experience what are the pros and cons?

MJ: Well this is why you need a label. It manages all these things. Its great that technology allows us so many things but I think its really important that if people keep stealing all their music then the artists and labels can not afford to keep going. The difference in cost between buying a piece of vinyl and a digital file is huge. There is really no excuse to steal music when now it can be so cheap if you go the digital route. 1.99 euro or whatever a track costs is nothing. People used to have to pay 12 euro for a single with 2 tracks on it and this can get expensive of course. Times are changing and I hope the general population will understand that stealing music only hurts the music they love.

AB: The internet is a double-edged sword for the music business. On the pros side, it helps us by making daily things easier and faster (can you imagine actually going to the bank, or mailing masters anymore?), helps us market and connect with our fan-base via various sites (wagonrepair.ca, myspace, facebook etc.) and has opened another revenue stream in the form of digital sales, which is great. Here’s where the double–edged sword comes in. As music has gone digital and much more accessible and convenient, the vinyl has suffered. The problem with this is that the 12” EP is an absolutely vital staple of the small record label. This format allows the relatively small funded record labels to get their physical, touchable product into stores a few tracks at a time, without incurring the possibly hefty fees and administration required to put out a full album.With the slow, absolutely painful death of vinyl, record labels are being forced to abandon vinyl altogether as the high manufacturing costs and the low sales are just too much to absorb. Once relegated to the digital world entirely, small record labels get lost in an endless amount of music (as opposed to the limited space in record stores) and their odds of success are lessened.

As for people taking time to upload to share sites or download from them without compensating the label and artist for their work – shame on them. People need to realize that although they may go and see the artist perform live as a result of their downloads, most small labels don’t make any money off artist bookings and rely purely on people buying their music. Don’t fool yourself – every cent counts in this game. Without this much needed income, labels are not able to survive and artists’ loose their outlets.

How internet and the new media had changed your way of running your business? How do you use it on a day to day basis?

MJ: It makes it so that we don’t really need one central office. I work from Berlin. Adam my C.O.O. works from London. Our A&R people are constantly traveling meeting new artists. Without the net none of this would be possible.

AB: Internet is king. It really is amazing how much faster everything happens. When I was running labels back in the early 00’s, I remember having to fax almost everything and we would spend a fortune on international shipping. Nowadays, I don’t leave my desk and if I do, I can still be emailed on my phone. As long as I’m awake, we’re open for business.

How much money could you save by using more digital in your day to day operations ?

MJ: You save a lot just doing digital but when it comes to having a physical medium like a cd or vinyl its not the same. Digital files are not really so romantic. You can’t give someone a bunch of digital files as a present like you can a cd for instance. But for things like sending out promo’s etc it helps a lot in saved shipping costs.

AB: You can save a fortune by going all digital. No cutting, no test pressings, no artwork, no jackets, no sleeves, no design, no shipping. Sounds great, I know, but because this is so easy and so cheap that anyone with a laptop can do it with little personal and financial investment, the digital market has become saturated and the average quality has suffered.

Is it important for you to use digital services to have a smaller impact on the ecology of the planet?

MJ: Of course. Digital business is great for the environment.

AB: Definitely. Paper sucks.

Your records are available on physical and digital formats: do you think there’s still a place for both?

MJ: When you do albums its important to have a physical format. It is certainly what I prefer when its something I really love.

AB: The tangibility of vinyl and CDs is something that digital can never offer. It’s the same story (pardon the pun) with eBooks. Although loading your novel into a reader is easy and saves lots of space, it’s just nothing like reading an actual book.

What is your position regarding illegal file sharing as a label (rapidshare, p2p, blogs…)? How do you deal with this?

MJ: I have our lawyers send torrent sites a mail if our tracks are on there. Most of them take it down after they know that there will be legal action against them if they don’t. When it comes to individuals sharing its pretty hard to control but hopefully people understand that they are only hurting the music business if they steal tracks and then decided not to.

AB: I am completely against it. What really gets me is people who take their time to upload to share sites so our music can be downloaded by free by anyone. Ironically, this is often done, as claimed by many site members, for the love of music. If you want to burn a CD for your friend, go ahead; but don’t take the time to give away our music for free to people that you don’t know. It only hurts the industry that they profess to love.

More and more content owners asking bloggers and music media to not rehost their music so they can keep up with the stats. Do you feel it is a fair request ?

MJ: Its not something I have thought about.

AB: I’m not even sure what that means!

Do you have an idea of the percentage of the physical toward the digital? Are you going on digital only releases?

MJ: We are doing CD’s for all the albums and also some vinyl as well from time to time.

AB: It depends on what percentage you are talking about. Sales wise, digital has never reached what we could do when it was vinyl only. Perhaps on some records more people have downloaded than purchased the physical product, but the profits from those downloads are so much less that is is comparing apples to oranges. I don’t think we will ever do a digital only release, but it’s hard to say for sure given the climate.

How do you keep contact with your fans? Through your site, community sites, newsletters…? Which tools are you using to commmunicate throught internet?

MJ: I talk to most people directly on Facebook and Myspace. Other than that its interviews like this one, blogs, online magazines etc…

AB: These days, it mostly comes to me via email and I try to respond to everything that comes in. Myspace has seemed to turn into people spamming about releases and tour dates etc., which is a drag.

Any recommended music sites (services, shop, blogs…)?
wagonrepair.ca
k7.com
whatpeopleplay.com
beatport.com

Thanks a lot to Mathew & Adam for their time.

Also visit Wagon Repair Fairtilizer profile & Myspace.