Bleepwatch

[David Keifer interviews Chase Lanier and John Romero (aka typogra) of Custom Music Records]

Custom Music Records is a relatively new net-label run by Chase Lanier and John Romero (aka typogra). Their first official release came out in 2005 and they’ve already put out nineteen more. During the past week Chase and John were kind enough to take some time from their busy schedules to talk about some of the various aspects of running a net-label.

Dave: There’s a really high energy level in the Custom Music catalog. And a lot of humor, too– there’s a kind of comedic mayhem running through the whole thing. Do you guys deliberately look for musicians with a good sense of humor, or does it just sort of work out that way?

Chase: I think when we first started CMR we relied on humor quite a bit, but it wasn’t as if we deliberately set out to do that. We started with a few projects like the first typogra and A+ releases, both of which I would consider to be a little on the silly side. We, alongside our friends JAP&Ease, shared a similar mindset while recording our respective projects and that set up the basis of the early Custom Music sound. Now when we are looking for musicians we aren’t focusing so much on those aspects, but more on the fun factor of releasing music. So I think we are trying to maintain our chaotic and varied sides rather than being overtly silly when working on new projects.

John: Yeah, some of the CMR (especially the earlier releases) might be interpreted as silly. I guess we went in that direction from the getgo because neither of us have super-serious personalities and we wanted to add a little comic relief to our netlabel. The site is slowly becoming a little more serious nowadays, and releases are becoming a bit more focused. But, I feel it is important that the content on CMR stays pretty varied, and we try to maintain a balance between both serious and fun projects.

Dave: How about the actual running of the label– the day to day or week to week stuff, do you guys have fun with that?

Chase: I think that part is the most fun really. I enjoy releasing my own projects, but working with other artists is probably my favorite aspect of the site. Whether it is lining up release dates or looking for new artists to bring on board, I always find the activities that go on behind the site very rewarding when we finally get to feature the music. And we try to keep it both fun and fresh by having a new release every two weeks or so. So that helps out a lot.

John: Yeah, the site is a blast to work on. My role with the site has been to work on the website’s visual content, and updating the site when needed. Chase keeps in touch with the artists and manages everything else. Nights before releases are especially fun– Chase will come over and I’ll update the site and then we’ll go for a drive and listen to the new release while eating a nice snack. Its a lot of fun.

Dave: Every two weeks– that’s a really busy schedule. How do you go about finding new artists? Do you rely a lot on submissions?

Chase: Yeah, it is busy but keeps us active. A far as new artists, we have hooked up with many of our artists through submissions, which is another highlight of running CMR. When we started receiving demos and working out agreements with artists, it started to really feel like we were headed in a good direction. So I would say 1/3rd of our projects come from submissions, another third from people who we approach, and the last third from people who we are directly affiliated with.

John: Two weeks isn’t really too stressful; it seems to have worked out okay so far. With regard to finding new artists, Chase mentioned that we may ‘approach’ an artist, which is really rewarding when it works out. I (and Chase) like to keep an eye out for un-netlabel-signed artists that make music that seems fitting for the label. If theres a particular artist that seems really interesting, I’ll tell Chase, and then he approaches them with the hope that they’ll want to be a part of the CMR family.

Dave: Is there anything in particular that attracts your interest in an artist?

Chase: It is difficult for me to pinpoint exactly what I look for when looking for new artists. In most cases their music usually just feels right for CMR. I know that is a vague answer, but since our main focus is keeping our catalog varied, we really have to rely on our gut feelings. So if the music is good and fun, and also somehow fits our idea of what CMR is about, then we try and get something going.

John: Thats absolutely true. I think it is also important that the artist’s personality clicks with ours. We like to maintain strong relationships with our artists, and it is easier to find someone that seems to be on the same page as ours from the start. There have been a couple of times when we have had some people who we couldn’t get along with.. and it hurt the final product in the end. So finding someone who seems pretty like minded from the start is key.

Dave: I take it you guys were friends before you started the label– how did you come to meet each other?

Chase: Yeah, I guess we’ve known each other for around 8 or 9 years now. We went to the same high school, and one day I was listening to music loudly in the parking lot after school. John came up to me and we talked about the music I was playing and things really took off from there. We were acquaintances before this, but I guess this is probably where our friendship really began. We both soon realized that we each liked to spend our time working on various projects - websites, visuals, music, and so on. So we have pretty much been working on different things together since then.

John: Yeah, we’ve known each other for a while. We were always interested in trying to start and work on various projects, but CMR was kind of the first thing that really worked out for the both of us. And it’s an extra bonus that we still live close to each other, so its easier to meet up in real life and discuss the site/work on it, etc.

Dave: I really like the Custom Music site– there’s a load of music and it’s all easy to get to. And the design has a really friendly vibe. Do you guys have plans to incorporate bulletin boards or podcasts or any other kind of stuff like that?

Chase: John definitely tried to make the site easy to navigate, and I think he was really successful in that aspect. As for the design, we are about to switch that up a bit. He can tell you a bit more, but our main focus is still easy navigation.

John: When I made the CMR site, I wanted to really make sure it was easy to jump to any particular release at any time. We had a brief site before the current (light blue) one, and it wasn’t as easy to navigate. So when we had about six releases, I made the site how it is now. But that was almost a year ago, and since then things have really changed as far as having several new artists and releases. I think my visual work has changed up a lot since the blue site was launched, so for a while now I’ve been entertaining the idea of giving the site a different feel. I enjoy the friendly design of the current site, but I think sometimes the feel of the site doesn’t match or reflect the feeling of the released content. And I’d like to change that a bit. I think the important thing, though, is keeping a certain ‘custom’ feel to the site, like keeping the easy-navigation, menu and the colorful ‘custom music’ marquee, so it isn’t totally foreign to our returning visitors. Not that I dislike the site as it is now, I just think it is more about my vision of the site having changed quite a bit from when we only had 6 releases. As far as Podcasts are concerned, it is something we’ve thought of, and probably something we are going to do very soon. But it is less likely that we are going to do a bulletin board… mainly because of the extra level of maintenance required.

Dave: What do you think sets Custom Music apart from other net-labels?

Chase: Like we’ve said before, we pride ourselves on having a wide variety of electronic music, rather than only releasing chiptunes, hip-hop, or what have you. I’m sure other labels probably do this too, but I think mixing various genres in combination with our visual aesthetic gives us a unique product.

[visit CMR at custommusicrecords.com]