If the film Rushmore were made recently, Max Fischer would probably be founder of the Digital Music Society.
The actor who played him, Jason Schwartzman, would be at least. When he’s off the movie set, Schwartzman injects his creative mojo into his online music project, Coconut Records. Songs from his first album, Nighttiming debuted on MySpace before hitting the iTunes Store. And most recently, Coconut Records songs appeared in the free iPhone rhythm game Tap Tap Revenge.
Following Weezer and Nine Inch Nails, Coconut Records is one of several tech-savvy artists experimenting with the internet, gadgets and games to boost sales in a rapidly declining record industry. In an interview with Wired.com, Schwartzman and DashGo digital label manager Ben Patterson shared their philosophy on digital music, as well as the overall impact of tech-driven distribution methods.
Wired.com: Coconut Records is on Twitter, MySpace, iTunes and the
iPhone. Do you plan to try out any other digital distribution methods
to promote your music? I
know Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo had a YouTube song-collaboration project,
for example.
Schwartzman: That
was so cool…. like a YouTube chain-letter song. That’s like the idea
of collaboration on steroids. I had the exact same idea, but Rivers
stole it.
Wired.com: Really?
Schwartzman: No.
I
also had an idea — it was something called iSongs,
and it was like this world where you could buy music and movies and
audiobooks and
all that stuff. And then Apple came out with iTunes, and I was like
Steve, you fucked me on this. And you fucked me on the iPhone. It’s
a touch phone and it’s called the iCaller.
Wired.com: Do you own an iPhone yourself?
Schwartzman: No. I can’t.
Wired.com: Why not?
Schwartzman: My thumbs are not agile enough. I’ve got little tumbler hands.
Wired.com: So you’re a movie star and a
former drummer in a popular band. Why did you feel the need to promote
Coconut Records through an iPhone game?
Schwartzman: I’ll let Ben go first.
Patterson: We started with just being an
indie release and not having buckets of marketing cash. We wanted to
get music out any way possible and one of the great things about
working with Jason is he’s really embracing new ways to share music
with people.
It’s
increasingly crowded to get music in front of people; it’s super easy
but super hard at the same time. You can compose on MySpace, but you
have to get a lot of people to go there. So you can put things where
it’s not quite
as crowded and you have a little more shared voice and visibility.
We
try to find opportunities to share channels like that, and one of the
ones that’s become really strong in the past six months is
the Tap Tap Revenge game. It really popped up sales for us on iTunes…. West Coast at some point was the second most downloaded track on Tap Tap Revenge.
Schwartzman: A more abstract way to support what Ben
was saying is, it’s almost like a thesis for the Coconut Records
project. The whole thing started in just a homemade, small way,
and it was really just a joyful experience to make the first record. We
wanted to release the music in the way that it felt to record the music
— in a way that just felt fun and involved.
[The record] was
made quickly, and it was made in a gut reaction. When I made the
first record, I didn’t even know I was going to put it out. It was the first time I tried to record a bunch of songs in a blast. It
was recorded just for my ears, my girlfriend’s ears, my
brother’s ears, but certainly not for the public. And when Ben became
involved and we talked about how to put it out there, we said we’d have
to put this out in a way that it was just like how we made the
recording — no hard work or restrictions.
That’s the great
thing about releasing music in this way. [The internet] is like a big
pond, and if you manage to do it correctly it’s astonishing, it’s this
drop of a pebble and the ripples kind of go.
Patterson:
To expand on that a little … what I find is awesome is every day I’m looking at a
Twitter stream for Jason, and looking at blog hits and stuff. Every day
you see people who are discovering Coconut Records for the first time.
It feels really nice for me. It’s not something where you’re all
about one release date. It’s all about continually introducing people
to music and getting them to share with others.
Schwartzman:
That’s ultimately the fun thing about doing
it this way. I have released my second record [Davy], and we’re Tweeting it
out for people, and it’s incredible they’re able to receive it. You can
keep building and it’s so cool that someone can discover it.
That’s one of the odd things about the internet. It’s the most instant
thing in the world, but you just have time with it. It’s been
fascinating.
Another thing is, I don’t really tour. I don’t even play live. Really all I have is
releasing music, and that’s kind of what I do. That’s
why the internet is like my tour.
Wired.com:
Coconut Records started out as a digital release, but eventually you
started selling physical CDs. How did you get people to buy
CDs if the album was available on the internet first?
Schwartzman:
Another thing about Coconut Records is I know I’m never going to sell
as many records as someone who’s a really big artist who has a lot of
money…. I’m not in the same league as those people, and that’s fine.
And when it came time to print up physical CDs, we were very modest
with how much we wanted to print up.
My girlfriend’s idea that I
stole was, if you’re going to only print so many CDs, and the artwork
isn’t very elaborate, you can’t charge people so much money for
nothing. So we took a Polaroid picture for each CD we sold [for the
first 2,000 people who bought the CD]. So when people bought the record
they felt like they had something special; no one else had the exact
same thing they did.
I think it’s really cool to put out a
record where on one hand, digitally anyone can get it in the world, and
hopefully be able to as long as that lasts. But physically there are
less copies of it and they are totally individual and special. It’s
like traverse terrains simultaneously.
Wired.com: So what’s next for Coconut Records?
Schwartzman: I’d
like to do some more stuff for this record, I guess in some ways like
the first record. I made the record so quickly, and I would be really
excited about putting it out and letting it build [virally]. I’d also
like to do some videos and be a bit more connected to people than
before.
In terms of music I just have to write some more songs. Hopefully, I’d like to make another record this year.
Patterson: I think Tap Tap Revenge
has been a great platform. I look forward to continuing to work with
those guys, and I think working with Jason has been phenomenal.
Schwartzman: It’s going to only get better, Ben.
Photo Courtesy of Boom
