{"id":29154,"date":"2016-03-25T15:30:55","date_gmt":"2016-03-25T14:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/?p=29154"},"modified":"2016-03-25T15:30:55","modified_gmt":"2016-03-25T14:30:55","slug":"interview-alex-esser-founder-hmwl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/interview-alex-esser-founder-hmwl\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Alex Esser (Founder – HMWL)"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the music industry tries\u00a0to pace with modern world digital sales, one label is taking a deep breath and trying something different – House Music With Love. HMWL is a Swedish outlet that houses\u00a0a series of techno-inspired sub-labels. Taking on\u00a0an interesting approach, they are\u00a0prospecting\u00a0in the field of\u00a0‘providing sales-figure support’ for artists.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Similar to Soundcloud, everyone who releases on the label receives\u00a0their own personal login that allows them to easily track each\u00a0stream and download generated by their tracks. The back end offers a further breakdown of territory and services and this is the first offering of its kind, as far as we can tell, by any independent label<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This new bit of transparency will help artists track the commercial progress, their revenue,\u00a0and will lower the opportunity costs of chasing such numbers from the label. As such we created an open dialogue with\u00a0the team behind the\u00a0label,\u00a0\u00a0in order to uncover the initiative surrounding their concept.<\/p>\n

“Basically – we release House Music With Love, but our vision is to work according to seven additional principles”<\/span><\/h3>\n

Who is behind HMWL? When did it start?<\/strong>
\nHMWL started off as a music blog\u00a0and club night concept in southern Sweden in 2008. In 2014, we transformed it into a proper digital and vinyl record label. HMWL is run by Alex Esser, Paul Sonkamble, Jesper Aubin and Bjo\u0308rn Widmark, all with diverse backgrounds. One comes from the underground techno scene, another is a web\u00ad-developer, a third comes from a major record label, and another\u00a0works as a journalist. We all love good electronic music: it\u2019s a dream team!<\/p>\n

What is the label\u2019s musical mission and outlook?<\/strong>
\nBasically – we release House Music With Love<\/em>, but our vision is to work according to seven additional principles:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. We release top quality electronic music<\/li>\n
  2. Our artists are real people, not just facebook pages<\/li>\n
  3. We put artists before profit<\/li>\n
  4. We are a small boutique label with a personal touch<\/li>\n
  5. Our blog is our trust spiral: we promote other good artists and expect nothing in return<\/li>\n
  6. Every release is a story told<\/li>\n
  7. We go an extra mile<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Tell us about the various different sub labels you have \u00ad what is the difference between them all?<\/strong>
    \nHMWL is the mothership releasing strictly dance-\u00adfloor oriented house music. With Love Recordings hosts a more broad variety of electronica, future soul and chillwave including artists like CANVAS, Neeco Delaf, and Swim. HMWL Presents is a singles label for up\u00ad-and-\u00adcoming electronic producers. Finally Heartbreak Records completes the circle releasing dark techno cuts on vinyl format.<\/p>\n

    What brought you to\u00a0the decision to offer sales insight for artists?<\/strong>
    \nMany artists we meet report that sales insight\u00a0seems like a rule, rather than seeing it as an exception for labels to not bother\u00a0sending\u00a0quarterly reports to the artists. Most label bosses – especially in the techno and house scene – seem too preoccupied to do that; stating that the artist should rather be happy to get released and focus more on live gig revenues.<\/p>\n

    Did you always find yourself being chased for this info by artists? How did you deal with it in the past?<\/strong>
    \nNot really, we\u2019ve been sending royalty statements to all our artists since day\u00a0one regardless of how much profit they generate. But the new artist login provides\u00a0the artists some visualization tools to\u00a0track every single stream and download generated by their tracks. This is sorted by different territories and services, which give the artist\u00a0a full overview of how their productions are generating income over time.<\/p>\n

    How have artists reacted to it? Are they pleased?<\/strong>
    \nThe artists are very pleased, and confirm they\u2019ve been looking for more transparency when releasing on other labels. As one of our artists said, \u201cIt\u2019s not about if your music makes you \u20ac6 or \u20ac6000, it\u2019s about\u00a0the concept of having full insight on where your tracks are being played or downloaded, and how they recoup over time\u201d.<\/p>\n

    \n
    \n
    \n
    \n

    Is there much money in music sales these these days (excluding promotion, artwork, and so on)<\/strong>
    \nIt varies with every release. However, our goal is to display only positive figures in our catalogue. Some tracks generate quite a good amount of recurring revenues, especially if you stack the releases or license the music to another label. We are in for a long-run win-\u00adwin, as we split royalties 50\/50 with our artists once the tracks recoup.<\/p>\n

    Do you pay artists up front or just give them a % share of sales?<\/strong>
    \nWe do not\u00a0pay in advance, instead we\u00a0pay for all the costs like mastering, mixing, artwork, video and invest heavily in promotion. Once the costs are covered we pay 50% to original artists and 20% to remix artists.<\/p>\n

    Will you make decision on whether an artist releases more music with you based on how their music sells?<\/strong>
    \nWe are always looking for high quality tracks. Sales history is irrelevant, although we are well aware that releasing several singles from\u00a0the same artist typically\u00a0generates additional revenue for the previous singles.<\/p>\n

    What has the label got coming up – what are you working on?<\/strong>
    \nWe\u2019ve got a bunch of releases we are looking forward to. First off, a Swim remix package which includes new remixes by Rivet and Franskild. Second, an EP by Simina Grigoriu – which we think is great, and another fantastic house EP by Drumcode artists John H & M.E.E.O. Through our ‘With Love Recordings’ label, we have\u00a0new stuff by Neeco Delaf, and finally we are soon to sign a very talented Swedish Electro-\u00adpop artist who goes by the moniker\u00a0–\u00a0Mountain Bird.<\/p>\n

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    Website <\/a><\/span> Facebook <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As the music industry tries\u00a0to pace with modern world digital sales, one label is taking a deep breath and trying something different – House Music With Love. HMWL is a Swedish outlet that houses\u00a0a series of techno-inspired sub-labels. Taking on\u00a0an interesting approach, they are\u00a0prospecting\u00a0in the field of\u00a0‘providing sales-figure support’ for artists. Similar to Soundcloud, everyone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":29215,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"audio","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3971],"tags":[9044,9043,4538,6917,6635],"class_list":["post-29154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-audio","has-post-thumbnail","category-interviews-london","tag-alex-esser","tag-hmwl","tag-interview-london","tag-label","tag-royalty","post_format-post-format-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deephouseamsterdam.com\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}