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“This is about a more organic field of exposure. It’s a longer build, but when you get the listeners on board, they tend to stay and be loyal.”

THE WIZARD OF LEIPER’S FORK

An Illuminating Conversation With Scott Robinson of Dualtone Records, Proud Home of Breakout Indie Band The Lumineers. By Holly Gleason
When Scott Robinson and former partner Dan Harrington founded Dualtone Records in 2001, they weren’t looking for a hit. Robinson was an artist manager who’d played an aggressive role in the development of Arista Nashville’s progressive offshoot Arista Austin out of the belief that there had to be a better business model for “cool music” that didn’t fit the major label paradigm.

Having at one point sold, then bought back the little label that could—three Grammys and 13 Grammy nominations, chart toppers on five different charts (Triple A, Alternative, Americana, Top 200 Albums and Country), Robinson has amassed an eclectic roster spanning the best of what indie music offers, from The Dirty Guvnahs and Shovels & Rope to Victoria Williams, Bobby Bare and Soulhat.

Having enjoyed pop success with Brett Dennen and quarterbacking radio strategies for The Civil Wars and Lindsey Buckingham, Robinson & Co. are now enjoying breakout success with The Lumineers, whose “Ho Hey” is turning into the buzz song of the year. Calling from his home in Liepers Fork, an hour south of Nashville, Robinson had to do a Joe Biden in order to get a word in edgewise with HITS’ former cowgirl in the sand Holly Gleason.

Did you expect the success you’re having with The Lumineers?
Yes and no. I’m not surprised at the fan reaction, but I am in terms of how well it’s doing in this industry we exist in. It’s a very hard time to monetize music, but it’s also a time where you can almost write your own rules.

Are you exceeding your goals?
We’ve been realistic. It’s why we’re here 12 years later. You have to be—or you’ll be out of the business in 12-to-16 months. We’re not in the marketshare business but the net-income business. I’d be naïve to tell you anything difference. At the end of the day, we’re entrepreneurs. A small shop who’s winning in the cracks. For us, it’s still one record at a time; you don’t take that one record for granted even with an act like The Lumineers—because each record sold not only matters, we need to build on that.

What does that mean?
For every dollar we spend, we need two back. Whether it’s actual dollars, or in terms of peer-to-peer exposure, or impact and awareness.

What sets you apart from the big labels?
How and where you respond in this shifting market is everything: We don’t get caught up in bureaucracy. We can respond and shift as things are happening, because we don’t have the layers. We’re also not restrained from trying new media, or giving our music away initially to expose the music, whether that’s streaming or some other peer-to-peer thing that get people interested. On the corporate side, that’s a no-no; they’re more protective of their assets.

Well, if you give it away…
This is about a more organic field of exposure. It’s a longer build, but when you get the listeners on board, they tend to stay and be loyal.

Is there a driving force with The Lumineers?
I don’t think there’s one special variable. Peer-to-peer, new media, press, radio, it’s all there. And they’re touring, which is working. They’re out there. But what’s interesting is the sales—it’s not just singles and downloads. It seems like with most acts it’s either a shitload of downloads and no album sales, or they sell albums but there’s no individual tracks. If there’s one thing now, it’s not screwing up the peer-to-peer discovery world. That’s not totally unique, but it’s honest and transparent—and you can’t buy that.

So basically, you let it cook slowly.
We have the luxury of being patient and letting things develop. There’s no substitute.
Look at Daniel Glass and the numbers for Glassnote. Six hundred thousand Mumford & Sons albums, with no real radio track. That’s all about people believing in Mumford, buying into that. There’s so much deflection for the majors, who need that major hit to succeed. That leaves so much more opportunity for the indies. For the majors, a 100,000-selling record is a fail; for us, if we do it right, it’s a million dollars. That’s a big difference.

Is there a master plan or a template for Dualtone?
Develop the act. We sign very unique, very talented artists who’re all very different. We ask ourselves, is it 10,000, 100,000 or a million that this act is capable of? Then we try to scale accordingly.

So you saw a band that should be gold by Thanksgiving in The Lumineers?
Look, everybody loves a hit! [laughs] Hits make the world go ’round. But that’s not our business. We can’t go from the first inning to the sixth. And I don’t think you can know it’s a breakout artist of the year until you’re this far into a project. We knew with The Lumineers we had a song that was very reactive. They had a placement on a show on the CW, and there was nowhere to hear it except a live YouTube video from a house concert. It got played at a radio station and the phones lit up, which never happens, especially at Triple A and Alternative. You compound what we got from one sync, one radio station, that show—and we didn’t have to wait for critical mass.

And now you’re going straight to Pop radio?
Yes, because it is so reactive! We don’t need to spend a year at AC proving the record works beyond Americana. Every time it’s played, people respond. We spent eight weeks at #1 at Triple A, two weeks at Alternative, and it’s climbing—#25 at Hot AC and moving at Top 40 right now.

Isn’t this fast water for an indie?
We’ve had a lot of major label people up our ass about this band. I’ve asked them all, “What can you do that we haven’t? Honestly, we’ve done more than you ever would have…” They’re a hand-nurtured build, one tastemaker and fan at a time, not throw it out there and if nothing happens in six weeks, onto the next thing. We hire the best people available—when we’re ready and it makes sense. And we can be case-specific, too, which helps.

How mainstream is it?
Well, they’ve done a lot of the late-night shows. They’ve had a strong presence on VH1 through their “You Oughta Know” program, as well as other MTV platforms. The YouTube clip was over a million views before any of that happened, and radio has been there and is building. When you go to the show, it’s an eclectic crowd. There’s hipsters and mainstreamers, some older folks, some kids, college age. In L.A., I thought it would be that hipper than thou crowd—and they were there, but also a lot of just regular people.
What they have in common is a real sense of community. These people remind me why music matters. They’re passionate; it means something to them.

Could it just be a novelty record?
It’s three pieces—and some supplemental stuff. Percussion is a tambourine and a kick drum. It’s rough and lo-fi by design, but on the radio, it stands out. It’s stripped down and stark, but really penetrates. If you listen, it’s simple, but the message is powerful. In L.A., the crowd sang the whole song before the band ever played a note. When the audience was done, that’s when the band played it. So I’d say it’s not a novelty but a career record. Their freshness is real.

And then what?
Well, we’re over 8 million YouTube views. We’ll be platinum on the single in 10 days—and we’re just getting started in Europe, where The Lumineers will be opening for The Civil Wars. All the indicators in England, France, Germany, plus Australia and New Zealand are good for a Nov. 5 release over there. For us, it’s build it till it stops selling. “Stubborn Love” is next here. As “Ho Hey” is climbing the pop stations, we’re going to start this at Triple A and build it there like we just did. “Ho Hey” is kind of the candy; this track is the passion one. It gets the biggest fan reaction at shows. We’re working on a video. Some new music campaigns, some bigger TV opportunities. Next year, they’ll tour on their own. But mostly, just keep crossing the T's and dotting the I's, look for sync placements, new ways to expose them without overexposing them.

Hype kills.
I think so. We’ve intentionally let people discover it, because we know people will respond. It’s the notion of craftsmanship instead of cheap plastic stuff being hurled at you. I’d rather have a Top 5 for 12 weeks than a #1 for a week, because after the #1 plaque and high 5s, it’s over. I want the song burned into people’s consciousness without burning them out on it.

Dualtone is obviously eclectic, but this isn’t your first “hit.”
No, when we first opened we had a #1 country record with “Riding With Private Malone” by an artist who’d had success on Warner Bros. named David Ball. We didn’t sign him because he “had a hit,” we signed him cause it was an interesting record that had polka, yodeling, swing, gospel and old country. And a song that became a hit. I tell people, “If you have a hit, we can bring it home,” but that’s not what we’re doing.

Well, what are you doing?
Signing unique artists we’re passionate about. The Lumineers record is a modern-day folk-rock record. We signed Americana acts like Guy Clark, Chris Knight and Radney Foster. We signed June Carter Cash at 66, and people thought we were crazy. But we won two of our three Grammys on that project. We’ve quietly been amassing 300 projects on our catalog sheet, so we can do a lot of sync placements and repackages. All over the place, but with a strong credibility factor: The Silos, The Reivers, Townes Van Zandt reissues. Not necessarily mainstream, but tasty. It all adds up. We did a spoken-word record we thought was cool and lost our asses. You just never know, and that’s perfect.

And you feel no pressure?
The majority of our indie community isn’t leveraged. We’ve had to dig in. We dig out of the trenches every day, but it’s what we do. Grinding it out is the fun for us, you know? A hit is great, but it’s still build it, build it every day. Everything can go away—always. We know that. But with the majors losing $40-50 million a quarter, we’re not doing that. We’re paying our bills just fine—and that means we’ll get to be here. To me, that’s what it’s all about.


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