Room Thirteen talks to Keren McKean, manager of The Mill, a unique project that gives emerging bands in Scotland the chance to play a top venue and benefit from a promotional package including a live video and a having their tracks mixed by Tony Doogan. Selected tracks are available to download from The Mill website.
Tickets for The Mill events can be obtained for free by visiting the website here. Check the site for gig listings.
R13:How did the idea for The Mill come about?
Keren:It was initiated by the marketing company in London who wanted to do it for emerging music, so they pitched the idea to Millers Genuine Draft who recommended me and I took my point of view on what would help the bands so we developed the idea of the videos, initially it was just going to be one static camera but we realised it would be far more useful to the bands if it was a usuable video so we got another couple of cameras. And Tony Doogan was brought in because instead of giving the bands a straight recording, we wanted to have a producer who really knew what he was doing and Tony’s the best person in Scotland. Everyone in London, the marketing agency and Miller Genuine Draft, all listened to what The Mill team had to say and what would be best for the bands.
R13:Have you had a lot of positive feedback from the bands?
Keren:Loads, they get so much out of it. The videos are all over the place, Twin Atlantic have had over 7500 hits on their video which is a great success for them and they’ve ended up going on and doing a full length video. The videos pop up everywhere as lots of these bands can’t afford it and with us they get Tony Doogan producing it, there’s no way that they could afford it so it gives them a great opportunity. We have a really good conversation with them before we book them so we try to tie it in with what they’re doing. We’ve got an ad van that drives around Edinburgh with a promo for The Mill and there’s a different track available for download on it every time we send it out, so when The Brother Louie Collective were realising their single a while ago we sent the ad van out with The Brother Louie Collective song on. It just makes the marketing campaign stronger for the bands and they don’t have to pay for any of it at all! The bands often seem confused that there’s no catch, we’re not like a record company that hang onto their rights or anything, they can do what they want with the material.
R13:The shows that I’ve been to so far seem to have been really popular, would you say that live music is still popular at the moment despite the recession?
Keren:Absolutely, I don’t think live music ever really dies, there’s always a place for it and although everyone keeps saying the music industry is dying, it’s not, it’s the record industry that’s dying. There are lots of gigs on all the time, although quite a few festivals have gone down this year but generally they’re just taking a break and planning to come back next year because of the recession, people like Connect are discussing that. I think it’s quite important to note that they’re acknowledging the recession but not giving up. Actually I think The Mill does even better as it’s a free gig and people know they’ll get quality music.
R13:Scotland has always had a great music scene, do you think that’s because there is an infrastructure in place to support upcoming bands or the Scots are just a talented bunch?
Keren:I think there are a lot of talented people about and a lot of ambitious people about, you can see the difference the whole way down the country. When we organise a gig we put bands in touch with each other and here they try to help each other, but when you get to Manchester area you find that bands will share a backline but only a drumkit; they don’t make it so easy for you, and by the time you’ve got to London they won’t share anything and it makes it very hard if you’re a wee band playing a gig in London. In Scotland that doesn’t seem to happen, everyone seems to help each other. We’re lucky, we have far more successful bands than we should have considering the size of the country! One interesting thing is that Edinburgh is doing quite well now; Glasgow has always been very strong and won the City of Music accolade, they did a survey that said there were 127 gigs per week in Glasgow, but Edinburgh is starting to pick up too.
R13:How do bands go about getting involved in The Mill and what are you looking for?
Keren:Everything is done through the website, we have an A&R team of nine of us based in Glasgow and Edinburgh who are all based in the music industry to some degree so once we get a submission we take it to a meeting and discuss whether or not the band are at the right place as we can’t book them again and have bands come back again every few weeks so it needs to be the right time for them, eg. if they’re releasing a single or there’s a campaign that they want some help with. The A&R team include Sharon Stephen of Columbia Records, Yvonne McLellan who was a scout for V2, Ali Davidson who is A&R for Warner Records, Malky B who DJs for us, David O’Hagan from Mercury, David Murray in Edinburgh, Derick MacKinnon who writes for The Scotsman and manages various things and then Matthew Quest who looks after the hiphop side of things and myself, I consult for various management companies. So everyone has a lot of experience and when bands apply the whole team listens to them and even if we don’t have a slot for them it could be that someone in the team has another gig for them or want to use them for something so there are a lot of folk that you get to just by sending in your email.
R13:What makes a band stand out to you then?
Keren:We have such a variety of bands at The Mill so it’s different all the time. Songwriting - no matter what if you’re not a good songwriter you won’t get away with it. They also need to be very on the ball because when you’re doing a live recording you can hear all the mistakes so you have to be very well rehearsed. We look for people who have got an idea about what they want to do and are developing a strategy, instead of just saying that they want to do a gig, they need to know why they want to play a gig and make sure that there is a reason and they’re tying together their press and gigs and radio all at once. We look for bands that are organised enough and have thought things through and we don’t really invite bands back so we want them to be at the right stage and able to help themselves.
R13:Are the majority of bands from Scotland?
Keren:Yes, we’re based in Glasgow and Edinburgh, we really want to help Scottish bands right now.
R13:What advice would you give emerging bands wanting to get their name out there?
Keren:Bands need to be aware that distribution is so much easier these days because of things like MySpace and iTunes, 15 years ago bands could hardly ever get a distribution deal and get their records in the shops but now they don’t face that problem but they have to market themselves. They have to communicate with their fans and tell them what they’re doing but the opportunities are there for them now, bands just need to be proactive.