10MusicWeek 13.07.12 THEBIGINTERVIEWSHABS JOBANPUTRA
A RELENTLESS ASSAULT W
Shabs Jobanputra on the resurrection of a ‘distinctive’ label
LABELS BY TINA HART
hen Sony announced back in January that itwas breathing newlife into the defunctRelentlessRecords label, those
in the knowwould have been looking out for one name: Shabs Jobanputra. The exec steered the imprint to its
greatest heights around the turn of the millennium, breaking acts at the centre of theUKgarage scene includingCraigDavid, ArtfulDodger and So SolidCrew. Itwas also home to, among others, Joss Stone,KTTunstall,
Jay Sean,CageTheElephant and SethLakeman. When the venturewas sold toVirginRecords in 2009, Jobanputrawent on to become president
ofVirginRecordsUK. During his time at the label they signed Swedish
HouseMafia andDeadmau5 (both on full 360 deals), aswell as ProfessorGreen,RollDeep,
YouMeAt Six andEmeli Sandé.He also oversaw successful albumcampaigns fromacts includingRobbieWilliams,EmpireOf The Sun,LauraMarling, 30 SecondsToMars, JamieTand Katy Perry. NowJobanputra is back atRelentless – taking
charge of the label under the SonyMusic banner in
2012.Artists already signed to the imprint include ex-XFactor contestantMishaB,Rude Kid,MistyMiller and recently-announced act TheOtherTribe. MusicWeek visited Shabs at SonyUK
HQand discussed his plans forRelentless, its newcrop of stars and the label’s impressive heritage fromthe last 15 years…
Are there any big lessons you’ve learnt since the last incarnation ofRelentless – has anything massively changed? For me it’s always just going to be about creative exploration and trying to further my creative boundaries; working with things that I wouldn’t have obviously worked with like CageThe Elephant, Seth Lakeman or YouMe At Six. The interesting thing now is that artists and lawyers are much more keen than they were to do deals that are team-based – we’re all sharing in a
partnership.They know things are shrinking but to get a deal working with a record company as a musical commercial partner is often integral. Before it was the record companies just being the people who pay and then becoming the bad
guy.To some extent that seems to be dissipating - people now know that we’ve all got to work together.
Do you have any newambitions this time? To make Relentless a creative driving force that has new music at its fore and is exciting for me as much as anything
else.That means being involved in things I love and I’m passionate about, then hopefully as a team we can be galvanised. It feels like Sony’s a really good place for the label... I think Relentless will be a good addition to what’s going on here. Sony has a good team of people around the world which I think will understand what we’re doing and vice versa so generally it feels quite good at the moment – fingers crossed.
Andwhat are your international plans? The days of just having just a UK plan for an artist are over.When we sign acts we’re effectively [global] as soon as they go online – [this] is an international brand we’re looking at exploiting.We want to work with our artists across all the key territories. When you just have a UK plan that’s when it
falls apart – we have to have a digital strategy that works for that and that’s hopefully what we’re trying to build here.We’re incubating artists online, not just in the UK.
You already haveMisha andRudeKid on
board.Are you going for an urban-centric roster withRelentless again this time around? We’ve signedMistyMiller who’s a singer- songwriter.We’re making her record now.We’ve gotMisha and we’re about to make new
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