12 MusicWeek 27.04.12
THE BIG INTERVIEWRICHARDRUSSELL RICHARD RUSSELL ON...
Dizzee Rascal Standout XL album: Boy In Da Corner (2003) We used to have a venture with Mo’ Wax and there were two guys there, Toby Feltwell and Nick Huggett, who were starting a short-lived new imprint called Platinum Projects. They brought in the White Label which Dizzee and Cage had put out of I Luv U. Listening to it for the first time was such an
incredible moment. I was so pleased to hear a British voice making a record like that. I found out he made the beat himself and I just thought he was out of this world. I felt grateful, in fact. UK rap has always been a thing of real interest for me. Dizzee kicked the
doors in for everyone. It really needed doing and I’m very pleased we got to play a part in it. Boy in Da Corner is a masterpiece, an unbeatable piece of work. It’s a landmark classic British album of any genre – and incredibly deep given his age at the time.
VAMPIRE WEEKEND Standout XL album: Vampire Weekend (2008) They are still underrated. They gave us our first No.1 in America which is obviously a significant thing for any label. But I don’t think they get quite the credit they deserve for how innovative their records are. They are very literate but very entertaining and very catchy. They hark back to a great era of pop
and New York music like Talking Heads. They’re not the flashiest band in the world – but they’ve got an audience who have a real connection to them.
JACK WHITE Standout XL album: Get Behind Me Satan, The White Stripes (2005) In terms of being consummate, talented and multi- faceted, he has amazing depth. But he also offers great pop songs and concepts. He’s an extraordinary performer and a great record producer, too. It’s way more that you could ever really expect in one person, apart from maybe
Prince. His new solo record is fantastic as well. He’s a complete one-off.
RADIOHEAD Standout XL album: In Rainbows (2007) Radiohead have become an artist from which there is an immense amount to be learned. Their career is a benchmark of how to navigate through what can be quite a murky industry and yet stay true to what you believe. I was blown away by Thom’s solo album, The
Eraser. Records which are basically just electronics and vocals are a very hard thing to do well. He executed that brilliantly. Looking at their other albums, to me, In Rainbows is really outstanding. People get as much from it as they get from a great Beatles record. It’s that good.
Gil Scott-heron Standout XL album: I’m New Here (2010 - produced by R. Russell) I wasn’t scared when I went to meet Gil in jail - but I was scared when we first went in the studio together. Making I’m New Here was incredibly meaningful for me personally, but I did doubt my own ability a few times. The thing is, if you’re frightened of something, if
you recognise you're frightened of it, you can push your way through it. People get in trouble when they are frightened of things and they don’t realise it - that’s when they start behaving in weird fucked-up ways. I had all sorts of record industry-type people saying: “Oh it’s
really great that you’ve given him an opportunity.” I thought: “He’s given me the opportunity!” He’s one of the greatest artists of all time, He has 15 albums, and all of them are good. It’s a magnificent body of work.
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it got a shot at being important?’” Russell’s “close-knit” workforce at
XL are given a great deal of creative power. Signing artists is often a team effort, while the role of product manager and A&R are not treated as separate jobs. The boss likes his staff to stay “closely involved in a record throughout its life”. Welcoming colleagues to enrich his artist-
centric, fastidious strategy has allowed Russell and XL to diversify into new and enjoyably uncomfortable areas – whether the libidinous electric jolt of Peaches, or the raw electric blues of The White Stripes. The signing of Damon Gough, aka Badly
Drawn Boy, was an important milestone in the widening of XL’s scope away from Russell’s dance heartland. The singer-songwriter rewarded the label’s support with its first ever Mercury Prize in 2000 – a feat later repeated by Dizzee Rascal (2003) and The xx (2010). “Damon’s The Hour Of Bewilderbeast was a
turning point,” acknowledges Russell. “He had a nice sort of skew-whiff way of looking at the world, which I really liked. Until then XL was a dance
label – there was nothing wrong with that. But you can definitely get bored once people start thinking of you as being one particular thing. Badly Drawn Boy helped us start existing in different worlds.” Those different worlds soon included The White Stripes’
breakthrough third LP White Blood Cells and Dizzee Rascal’s industry-shaking debut – two records which showed like never before XL’s propensity to unleash records in unfamiliar genres that would go on to sell millions. None of this risk-taking would have been
possible, acknowledges Russell, without the steadying involvement of Martin Mills and Beggars Group in XL’s operations: “Beggars and Martin take care, very efficiently, of a lot of functions – and do so with a lot of dedication and a lot of love. That has enabled me to think clearly about the creative stuff and about getting it out in the world in a strong way. It’s a fucking nightmare to put a record company together, it’s like trying to put a band together. You need to look after the magic of it – and this structure is definitely how it’s meant to be.
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