Behind the Scenes: Interview with NorthSide Records’ Rob Simonds

This is the start of a new series of blogs from Hearth Music focusing on some of the people behind the scenes in the roots music industry. We love interviewing and profiling musicians, but we’ve also learned a lot from the wildly creative and deeply passionate people that put on festivals, run record labels, book venues, book bands, design posters, and any of the other more interesting jobs out there.

To start off, we’re proud to present this interview with the founder of NorthSide Records, and one of the principal founders of RykoDisc, Rob Simonds. I was talking recently with Easy Ed about how much we missed the Nordic roots music that NorthSide used to produce. In the late 90s and early 00s,

NorthSide records were ubiquitous at American record stores, distinguished by the super cool Nordic trad and neo-trad bands they had tracked down, their transparent spines on the jewel cases, and their famous (possibly infamous) “Cheaper than Food” sampler albums that could always be bought for under $5.

For a starving student of ethnomusicology like myself, they were the perfect entree into Scandinavian music. Ed helped me track down Rob, the label head, who’s now the executive director of The Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. I was so curious to know how he had managed to not only corner, but create the market for Nordic roots music, what happened to the label after its heyday, and what his advice now would be for those looking to start their own record labels. Here are his answers.

Hearth Music Interview with Rob Simonds of NorthSide Records

-When did you start Northside Records, and what was the impetus for doing so? What was your background in music and in Nordic music at the time?

Rob Simonds: A brief bio is required for this:

I started my career in the music business by working in record stores starting in the 70’s. By the early 80’s I had gone through virtually every position from basic clerk to store manager, and I made the next step by starting my own wholesale distribution company, importing vinyl records from Japan. When CDs were introduced I was one of the first people in the U.S. to have a CD player (I had my Japanese exporter buy one for me and include it in a shipment), the Sony CDP-101. Soon after I started importing CDs from Japan and Europe, and it so quickly came to dominate my business that in 1983 I sold off my vinyl and became the country’s first CD-exclusive distributor, East Side Digital.

In 1984, as a way to give my distribution company proprietary product, I started a record label with two partners, called Rykodisc. Ten years later, Rykodisc was a $30 million company, with its own national distribution arm, an international office in London, and a publishing division. Since my responsibilities for Ryko included sales, distribution and finance, I was the one in charge of putting together its U.S. distribution company, which was a rather enormous task, and one that ultimately burned me out. By 1995, I was looking to get out and started to cast about for what to do next.

I had started a smaller imprint in the late 80’s (ESD) to release some of my favorite music that was too obscure for the quickly growing Ryko label. In the 90’s as my responsibilities for Ryko expanded, I hired a label manager to run ESD and stepped away from it. So one obvious path was to regroup ESD and take it in a different direction. Ultimately, part of the strategy became starting a sister label, NorthSide, dedicated to the interesting Nordic folk revival. How did I come upon that? As CEO of a national distribution company, one is inundated with people wanting to get distribution for their artists or labels. Rykodisc’s Swedish distributor stopped by one day with a box of a new label they had started dedicated to the folkmusic revival there, called Xource. Once I got around to sampling those discs, I quickly became obsessed with the music. I decided to check out the summer music festivals in Sweden and Finland in 1996, where I got a sense of how active this movement was. That lead to deciding to start an imprint dedicated to it.

-Who were the first artists you signed?

RS: My first deal was actually a licensing deal with the Xource label, and I chose four artists from them for my initial releases: Hedningarna, Väsen, Hoven Droven and Den Fule.

-For a while in the late 90s and early 00s, NorthSide was ubiquitous in world music circles. I saw your releases absolutely everywhere and it really got me into Nordic music. How did this happen? Did you have great distribution, or powerful marketing, or strong connections or a blend of all three? I know that NorthSide had amazing branding. Like those old RealWorld albums, you always knew immediately that an album was from Northside as soon as you saw its CD case.

RS: Nice to hear! I certainly had an advantage since I had been an owner and the CEO of my national distribution company! But I think I had learned a lot through my Rykodisc years about marketing, and creating that strong brand identity was important to me from the beginning. The company started with a pretty solid marketing strategy.

-When did NorthSide Records end? Why and what caused it to end?

RS: Actually, it has not ended. My only active artist at this point is Väsen, but we are in the process of making a new record with them. We still sell the titles that we created with them, through our website, iTunes, and when they tour (which is 2-3 times a year in the U.S.). But the rest of the catalog has been retired. Most of it was based on territorial licensing deals (NorthSide only had North American rights, and they were released on other labels elsewhere, mostly in Scandinavia), and that’s really not a workable model in the digital world. Physical product is easier to keep segregated by territory than digital files!

-Did the label ever make money, or was it more a labor of love?

RS: It was always a labor of love, but most of the individual projects at least paid for themselves.

-At the height of the label, how many people were working for it and did you have offices? Where were you located?

RS: There were 4 or 5 of us in the late 90’s, and our offices were located in the former Rykodisc building in the warehouse district of downtown Minneapolis. When Ryko closed its offices here in 1998 and soldthe building, I structured a rent deal with the new owners. By 2002 I had moved into the basement of my house and was down to one other employee.

-You must have had to travel a lot to connect with all the artists the label released. Do you miss all that travel?

RS: I miss the music festivals in Sweden and Finland. But I still regularly go to music festivals and conferences for my new job at The Cedar.

-Tell me about the Cheaper than Food series of albums. I’d love to hear how the idea for that came about. As a poor college student, I bought the heck out of those and then pored over the liner notes to try and discover new Nordic bands.

RS: When we structured our original agreements we included the ability to use limited tracks on a royalty-free basis for the purposes of low-cost samplers. With no royalty obligations (and just as importantly, no accounting needed for same), we then set out to figure out the cheapest possible price for selling the samplers. The “cheaper than food” tag was actually a running joke at the Ryko Distribution offices about lunch at Taco Bell. That’s what we originally deemed “cheaper than food”! Then I thought it worked as a good tag line for the samplers.

-Do you think that the label may have oversaturated the market? In the sense that you almost created the market by releasing so many albums, but then perhaps there ended up being too many and people couldn’t keep up?

RS: The first goal was to create a new genre called “Nordic.” The large number of titles was an important tool towards that goal. We always knew that a handful of artists would emerge as the viable career builders, and that much of the catalog would end up being one-offs. When we started the label it was still true that you could sell at least 2000 copies of just about anything, and that worked. But then everyone, including NorthSide, oversaturated the market, while the market itself was actually shrinking without anyone really understanding that for years.

-What advice would you give to people wanting to start a record label these days? Do you think it’s possible any more, or is it just too outdated a business model?

RS: My knee-jerk response would be “don’t do it!” But that’s over-simplifying. While I think it’s possible, it would look nothing like the model I’ve just described. But at the foundation of any label there still needs to be an innovative marketing strategy. The biggest mistake is to think that releasing great music alone is enough. It’s simply not, and never has been.

-Do you think NorthSide helped introduce a lot of new people to Nordic roots music? I know it did for me and other friends, but I wonder if that feedback has come back to you in force.

RS: Absolutely. I’ve heard that from consumers, musicians, presenters, and even other record industry people. Even referring to this music as “Nordic” or “Nordic roots” is a testament to the work we did. That term did not exist before NorthSide as it relates to music.

-What were your Top 10 albums that you released on NorthSide? Or if it’s too hard to choose, just give me a rundown of some of your favorites and favorite memories from running the label.

RS: I consider Garmarna’s “Vengeance,” Hedningarna’s “Trä” and Väsen’s “Whirled” all to be landmark recordings in any genre. Those are three masterpieces in my opinion. I think Väsen continue to make incredible music that has impact on the world of acoustic musicians. The Punch Brothers just covered a modern Väsen tune on their new record, for example, and it’s a highlight of their current live set. Other personal faves are Sorten Muld’s “III,” the “Airbow” record with Sven Ahlbäck and Maria Kalaniemi, JPP’s “String Tease,” “Bäsk,” and Mari Boine’s “Eight Seasons.”

-What did you do after NorthSide ended? How did you get into the work you’re currently doing with the Cedar Cultural Center.

RS: I joined the Board of The Cedar in 1991. As NorthSide was winding down, in 2007, they were looking for a new Executive Director. So the timing worked well for me. The Cedar is a 450-seat (or 625 without the seats) non-profit music venue who’s mission is the presentation of world music to increase cultural understanding. Between 1999 and 2008 we had ten Nordic Roots Festivals here where we brought in a lot of NorthSide artists for a full weekend of concerts, workshops and collaborations. It was an amazing run. In 2009 we decided that ten years was about right, and transformed the festival into a broader Global Roots Festival, which serves to start our season with free concerts by great international artists. While the recording business struggles to figure out a workable business model, live music has thrived, and it’s a very exciting time to be involved with that side of the business.

-What kind of work do you do with Cedar Cultural Center?

RS: A little of everything. I still do some booking but have largely handed those responsibilities off to someone else as I work on helping to prepare the organization for its first major comprehensive campaign. In general, I’m the organization’s leader and main advocate. Fortunately, I’m surrounded by a committed Board and extremely talented and dedicated staff. And we have fun.

-Would you consider starting a label again in the future? Or working with a label?

RS: I’m happy with the level of work I’m doing in the record business at this point. I don’t foresee doing much more than that.