Hot Seat: Nic Warnock, R.I.P Society
“Not independent.” When those two words were shot out at the 2012 AIR Awards as Lanie Lane took a prize, the independent music community found its rogue. R.I.P Society Records owner Nic Warnock was the source. He wasn’t identified until he outed himself with a column he wrote for Crawlspace. Today, he admits his heckle was a “drunken reaction” to his surrounds. Controversies aside, it proved to be an eventful night for Warnock: R.I.P Society Records’ Royal Headache took out the Best Independent Album award for their self-titled set.
Since launching the label in 2008, Warnock’s done things his own way. And it’s reflected in his label’s punk and underground releases, including those by Raw Prawn, Circle Pit, Zond, Dead Farmers, Woollen Kits, Boomgates, Straight Arrows, and Bed Wetting Bad Boys, in which he’s a member. In 2011, R.I.P Society was voted best Independent Record Label in Mess & Noise’s Reader’s Poll. Warnock’s been described as “anti-industry.” It’s unlikely he’ll ever be described as “not independent.”
So you play in a band, run a label, work in a record shop and you’re a director in Sound Summit. You’re a busy lad.
Yeah, I need to stop doing so much stuff. But I can’t because I worry if I don’t do it, then no one will do it. Even at the record store, I do extra hours corresponding with people I think are doing good stuff on the other side of the world, figuring out ways to get their records over here in a way that’s affordable. I have this fear of missing out. If someone else was going to start another label that did as good a job on releasing records I want to release, I’d be happy for them to release them.
How did you get your start?
It was something I was toying with. The band was developing from free-form or crude, amateur-y but charming sounds. A lot of bands were developing from that type of scrappy performance, that tends to be a little more deserving of an official release. A lot of bands were doing CD-Rs and tapes, but they were flogging them only to their immediate group of friends. It felt like things in the underground in Sydney and across Australia were becoming well-developing and formed in their own unique strange ways, and just needed more visibility. So that was it. The Circle Pit 7″ was supposed to come out on another label — or maybe even a couple of labels were interested — but it never eventuated. Also a new record label that was essentially a marketing exercise for a huge clothing company wanted to do a CD EP, the idea of which horrified me. I had some money saved up, I’d been doing Honours year at uni and living in quite a cheap house, so I thought, “I’m going to put this record out.” That was in late 2008, early 2009. I learned a lot from all that. It was easily the most difficult record I’ve ever had to release: from the pressing plant, to the method of printing the cover, to dealing with the actual band — even though I was a part of it at that time. It was much smoother sailing from them on. The idea of doing a label had been there, but not for very long. It’s not something I dreamed of doing as a teenager living in Cairns. Or ever thoughts of doing as a primary activity of my week.
How much of your savings did you plug in?
It was like $1,000. At that stage I was living a pretty inexpensive life. I was a student living in a cheap room in Ultimo, that didn’t have a window but was cheap and had a skylight. I could walk everywhere I wanted to go. I’d always been a thrifty person, I don’t really like anything or spend money on anything other than music. I don’t desire any of those artefacts of sophistication or adulthood. I just really like records. I spruik now for the not-cheapest beer, but that’s about it. I can’t sympathise with bands that need to do a Pozible campaign to release their records, that can’t come up with the money to put out a record that sells, considering I’ve been able to do it about 40 times.
How does your label operate?
A lot of the time, how I’m going to release the band’s record hasn’t really been discussed. It just seems to make sense and it happens. Usually it’ll be people I’m friends with and I’ll mention it in a pub or a show, and we go and do it. With vinyl, they get 15% of the pressing immediately. Generally this works out to 50% of the profit margin if the entire pressing sold out. Figuring out royalties for vinyl would be a nightmare as I don’t have a distributor, there’s so many variables. With CDs and digital, I pay their royalties as soon as I get a statement and payments from the distributor.
What are your thoughts on streaming music services?
I think they’re awful. They’re promoting a really complacent approach to listening to music and discovering music. I don’t think they’re conducive to good culture. It’s too convenient and there’s not an intensive interaction with it, it’s just something in the background. I think streaming services are awful, though not from a monetary point of view but from a cultural point of view and the way people engage with music.
Five years in, you’ve won a Mess & Noise poll and Royal Headache took an AIR Award last year. What is it about the label that has worked?
People relate to, maybe, the no-compromise aspect to releasing records. Obviously I haven’t done things from a careerist hyperbole pandering perspective, which most of the industry does; they cater to knee-jerk reactions. People relate to the label because I release what I think is important and interesting, even if it doesn’t penetrate the media immediately. And most of it doesn’t. In Australia, most of the records I put out, only 10% are being deemed “relevant,” though I’ve been invited to speak at three different music conferences this year. Most of our bands have never been asked to perform at an industry event. Essentially, I release what I think is interesting, and there isn’t a space for it in Australia. I never really have to fight anyone off for these releases. And if I do, the people trying to release the records give something to the band which is extremely unappealing to them. No compromises for the sake of the music has really worked in my favour. I don’t have a website, I’m not very good at the Internet, I’m not very professional with my press releases, and I tend to say things with a dark-humourist tone to publicity and press. People relate to that and it signifies that it comes from a lineage of independent, underground music culture. They remember it from reading old fanzines, or from previous labels they’ve enjoyed. I’m just continuing in that tradition which the actual record industry has been trying to squash for many years but keeps rearing its ugly head up.
It’s been said you’re an “anti-industry” guy, but you’re being pulled into it by virtue of your speaking at those three industry events.
In Sydney, community radio at the time and established venues were pretty dismissive of whatever I thought was interesting. There was that DIY mentality — I had to create my own outlet to get the music I liked out there. And build all my own relationships. There was no ladder climbing, like the bands were trying to get support slots, or working their way up. It was creating our own hierarchy, or removing the hierarchy, and just playing. It’s more of a community than a hierarchy. There are great people trying to go good things within an institution. Sometimes I can see the value of these things in the music industry. As a label and the things I work with, I have a self-deprecating quality about them. Even myself, I have to curb that self-deprecating quality. I realised there are people out there that get a real kick from the music I believe in, and it really resonates with them and talks to them; I should try to reach those people. Any outlet is a good outlet to do that.
Have the majors tried to bring you on board?
There have been offers for distribution. By major labels or even bigger Australian indies, distributors have tried to poach me. Which is strange. It’s like they want to poach me in case there’s another Royal Headache record in the pipeline. None of them care about Constant Mongrel or The Native Cats. It baffles me when they do want to ask about it, because I don’t know how they would release most of the things I’ve released or am going to release.
Your heckle last year at the AIR Awards was one of the talking points.
The article I wrote in response to that drunken heckle, I think AIR is a good organisation and I understand why they have to incorporate those sorts of labels into their awards ceremony, but it was a drunken reaction. It made me really angry being in that room. Seeing all those people giving “thumbs up for independent music.” I felt it had nothing to do with independent music culture.
You’ve written that the music culture in this country is bland. Is that a sentiment you still feel?
Oh, yeah. Extremely so. The Australian music industry for some reason gets behind things that will embarrass five years later. Particularly with the more established end. The established music industry has not really ever been the place for championing what I think is the important Australian music culture. It’s always been up to retrospective or validation from overseas, for all the things that I think is the important Australian music culture. Go to the U.S., they know more about stuff like old Aussie hard rock and early punk, and stuff like your M Squared and Scattered Order stuff, and placed more importance on it than people do here. I don’t know why. I really hope that I can try curb that mentality that the Australian music industry has, that you have to be a reaction to what’s happening overseas, or have a particular level of bland present-ability. That’s what I really dislike about things that the Australian music industry tends to want to push and get behind. This personality-less, bland present-ability… and it has to be digestable. I find it really boring.
What big projects are coming up?
The Venom P Stinger reissues have come out. I licensed that off Drag City. That’s a prime example of an Australian act — one of the best ever — that sound uniquely Australia and they sound like a band from the bottom of the world. They’re formulated in an organic matter. They’re a fascinating, brooding art punk band that I love. There’s a particularly Australian approach out there. Again, no one really cared at the time but it took a lot of enthusiastic Europeans and Americans for it to get a reissue, and hopefully for it to get some of the recognition it deserves. We’re doing a label showcase at The Factory Theatre on October 20. We’ll try and challenge the people who like the challenging music into seeing there’s still a lot of life left in rock ‘n’ roll, and get people into rock ‘n’ roll to check out something stranger. Around the same time, I’ll have a few new vinyl releases out there. They’re three of the four strangest records I’ve ever put out.
On that note, where do you want to take the label?
I know exactly what I’d like the label to do. On one side I’d like to be able to release a universal record full of pop songs, rock ‘n’ roll. To release a record that by all means would be listened to by a lot of people and have a universal appeal. Like a Royal Headache. The Native Cats should be that but haven’t happened yet. On the other hand, I’d like to be an outlet for music that falls into the “other” music category. Things that a bit more decrepit, or strange or generally challenging or unusual. I’d like the label to operate for those extremes and everything in between. And, yeah, not really have to abide by that tradition of growth and “success” that the record industry has. I don’t mind putting out records that only appeal to 300 or 400 people in the world. That’s fine by me.