In mentioning the brand, Hospital seems to do it all. You have the merchandise, the podcast, the radio show on Rinse FM, the club night as well as your sub- label and licensing company. Was that the plan all along or did one project birth another?
CG: The only plan that Tony and I had was to see if we could make some original music that people would enjoy and respect and that would stand up on its own two feet… but something that was also vaguely unique, not just the music but the ideas and concepts behind it. Whether it be the packaging and design or the way we present and support our music. Seventeen years ago our main focus was “what can we do to keep paying the studio rent.” We had bills to pay and in the first few years you just do what it takes. Whether you work through the night, early mornings you just do what you have to, to build what it is you are wanting to build. We could only think in terms of the music and the ideas behind it. We love concepts, like an idea about an album cover, the tour poster, the logo, and things like that. We did think about that stuff. And that was one of the reasons we chose to roll with the name Hospital. On our fourth or fifth visit to the pub, going through long lists of crap ideas of what to call the label, we finally came up with it and everything else came into place. We just looked at the word and I drew the logo immediately. You know, it’s a universally recognized symbol for a hospital with the H. It was one of those moments when you look at something and suddenly everything falls into place. We were like, you can do an album called plastic surgery, and a sub-label called casualty. We took everything back to the studio and we were like brilliant, and within an hour we had worked it all out. I worked out the packaging ideas, like the plain sleeve with the H on it and that was the kick off point. There was no business plan, there was no “by year five we are going to make coffee mugs.” We wanted to do something creative, and between the two of us we thought we had something that might work out, and god knows what is going to happen next.
So, what exactly do you think may happen next?
CG: The thing is that now it’s very different, of course now we do think in those terms that we previously avoided. Because we of course have responsibilities to our staff, our families, let alone our artists. At the moment, one thing I do want to see happen this year is move premises. I want to see ourselves relocating not just because we need to move geographically but in my gut I know that it would be great for the staff. They are all so extremely dedicated and passionate about what they are doing and they deserve more space. On a more holistic level we are in this for the long haul and I wont ever do anything else and I want us to be the best at what we do. I want us to grow the artists roster, grow the staff team and continue to learn about this crazy business because it is constantly changing. There is always so much to learn. We have to constantly learn about the digital landscape, how to still sell the physical product, sell the tickets, license your product, sync your music to picture, you name it… it is always changing and that’s why it remains fun. We are fortunate that because we are independent we are able to truly do whatever we want to do. We like to schedule 6-9 months ahead. We need it in the office and our art- ists need that in the studio. To think ahead and be like ‘what album is going to be put out in February 2014’ because that makes a big difference to what we are doing in February 2013. But you know, we are a pretty stubborn bunch of people but we are ambitious and we want what is good for the entire company.
So talking about more of the immediate future, the label has made some big moves. You have recently signed Metrik, and Other Echoes who is the brother of Nu:tone and Logistics, both of whom are also signed to Hospital. Can you tell us more about the newest members?
CG: Other Echoes is a very modern signing for us. Not just because he’s not a drum and bass artist, but be- cause we are also being more open minded for the kind of artists that we are looking to sign. He is not signed on a traditional ‘five album deal’ that companies usu- ally do. Nowadays companies need to be more open minded about how you plan on working with an artist. Whether you sign them for just a term or if your think- ing in the mentality of ‘album one, two singles, album two, two singles’ you have to be much more flexible than that. In regards to Metrik, he had a really great year last year. We have been tracking him for a while and about every two or three months as an A&R team we have catch ups where we sit down and say ‘alright, so who is doing it for you?’ There is so much music that we have to listen to at any given time whether it is our Hospital artists, Med School artists or music being sent to us. These days we have divided ourselves up so that between the three of us we each take a principal lead on about two or three artists. There is a breathtaking amount of music to listen to, sift through, process, and contribute to. It can be overwhelming the amount of music that is out there and that is definitely a product of the digital landscape we are in now. It’s very differ- ent than it was ten years ago when you would receive a dubplate or a DAT in the post or by hand, now you just hop on AIM or send a web link. We are aware that in signing Other Echoes people immediately think ‘now hospital is doing dubstep.’ Is he even dubstep? Just because he’s not at a drum and bass tempo? People immediately think since we may have hung out with Skrillex for five minutes now we are going to start re- leasing the stuff. Honestly, it’s growing tedious to me, and the older I get the more frustrated I become with the tags and musical ghettos that people are so quick to occupy. I enjoy it all. If you look at the history of what we have put out, we have been putting out broken beat before broken beat had even arrived. There is so much we have done and at the end of the day you need to go with your heart, and go with your gut, regardless of what Facebook fans tell you. We know that people have their opinions about our label, thinking that we have a certain way of working and that we want people to look a certain way and make a certain sound of drum and bass. But frankly, we don’t give a fuck what people think. We know what we’re doing, and we know that we love drum and bass. Regardless what the outside world thinks, we love it all. We are just excited about original ideas and original sounds. Its funny because no matter how long we do this, people hear Hospital and immediately say ‘you know I love that liquid and melodic drum and bass’ and I am just like ‘do you listen to anything we put out?’ If anyone can be bothered to actually listen to records from every single year we have been in business I defy them to tell us we are a liquid label. We were aware that around 2010 when we started working with Netsky and Camo & Krooked that maybe it was going to be easy to put us in the ghetto of melodic and pop-like drum and bass. All the while people were forgetting about our releases with Nu:tone and Logisitcs. Signing S.P.Y and then signing Fred V & Grafix last year was a great double header for us and proved the diversity of the label’s sound. We could sign ten times more artists than we do sign but we don’t. It used to be one artist every two years now its about one artist a year and that may change next year, but it just has to remain organic and be about original ideas.
You have your sub-label Med School, which is where you release music that doesn’t always fit in with the sounds coming off Hospital, can you tell us a bit about it?
CG: We started Med School in 2005 as a slightly more experimental outlet for our music. We were aware that Hospital held a certain ‘dance floor expectation’ but nonetheless, here at the label we have broad musical tastes and we were hearing some very different music that we couldn’t really release on Hospital. But we became attached to this music and were motivated to support the music and release it. The great thing about
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Med School is that it can operate at its own pace. We are more selective about the releases, but this year we are looking to up the output in terms of releases and signings and starting to view the label as having a much broader musical landscape and being able to run as a younger brother to Hospital.
Back on the Hospital side of things, what can we expect from the label and the artists this year?
CG: We have a new single coming from High Contrast as well as Nu:Logic’s album coming out in March. We will also be releasing the first ever Fred V & Grafix single and we are expecting an album hopefully early next year. We are really excited about all the energy and awareness surrounding those two right now so we want to make sure we get it all right. Other than that in April we are hoping to see a new single from Netsky. May is going to be Danny Byrd month with his album dropping, and then June is going to be when Camo & Krooked release their newest single before their new album, which will come out in September. And already we are working on another S.P.Y album as well as a Metrik single coming out in the summer. We are always working six months ahead, but have to remain flexible at the same time. We are at a point that in any given year we can do three or four artist albums and maybe two or three compilation projects with the Med School schedule operating around that too. But again we have to be flexible. Some artists are ready for an album ev- ery year, others every two or five years. It is important that every artist doesn’t follow the same template rather they just do whatever fits. Maybe they will release four singles then an album. But again that’s another thing, the whole concept of what an album is, is constantly evolving. But I still feel that in my heart releasing a full album is what every artist wants and how they can truly express themselves. I think for most record labels that is going to be the biggest challenge we are all going to face in the next eighteen months. Is what are album projects really? What is the cost and how will they be formatted? We will continue to release on vinyl because that’s part of the history of drum and bass, they probably look archaic to a lot of the wider music business, yet we know there is a market for them. It may be a niche market but it is a dedicated market. I think that if anything is going to disappear it’s the CD. No one really cares about CDs, they care about downloads and they care about vinyl. So this is an ongoing dialogue for us and many labels. We have to be careful that we get our packaging right and our pricing right, and those are the biggest challenges that the music industry faces today.
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