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“It was never really our intention to run a label as it’s known,” Literal Gold Records president and co-founder Justin Ouellette tells WW. “We’ve always wanted to experiment with what a label can do: what a label’s role and responsibility is in the music industry.”
Along with serving for many years as a graphic designer, Ouellette worked at Normative Records in Brooklyn. When he had the opportunity to start a label with a longtime friend, musician and producer Cameron Spies, he knew their ethos would align.
For years, Spies, known widely across Portland and beyond for his music producing and engineering work (and for his band Night Heron, Whimz and various other projects), has heard many client stories about labels, money and how to “make it” as a musician.
“We ran out of reasons not to start [the label],” Ouellette says. “Especially once we met Jed. Jed’s kind of the secret sauce to everything,” He’s referring to Jed Overly, a musician who is Literal Gold’s label manager and a former artist and repertoire person at Tender Loving Empire Records. Thanks to his experience, Overly knew how to handle all areas of artist development, from scouting artists to shipping records.
“We wanted to do a lot of stuff that wasn’t standard,” says Spies, adding with a sarcastic laugh, “Like, paying bands! Paying bands before the label recoups. Or, not having multiple records that the band is required to record with the label. There are just so many standard roadblocks for bands in their contracts, and they’re written from the perspective of protecting labels rather than protecting artists.”
That’s been how the music industry has functioned since the dawn of the industry. But Literal Gold says it doesn’t have to be.
Overly explains how a typical recoupment model works: “Say a label pays $10,000 to produce an artist’s album. The artist won’t see a dime of that money until the album has made back that $10,000.” For many artists, that could take a couple of years. “But most bands never recoup,” Overly adds. “Which means most bands never see money from that record. So we’re experimenting with a model that says, from dollar one, artists are making money.”
Though they’re still flushing out the specific percentages, Overly gives an approximate breakdown of how it works. In short, when an artist first starts with Literal Gold, they’re making, say, 25% of sales, until the studio recoups back the money it spent producing the record, at which point the tier shifts to 50-50. Eventually, the tier tilts so the artist is making 75% of the profits. “It’s been really revealing, implementing and doing it,” Overly says.
This approach means that when Literal Gold takes on an artist, it also takes on a fairly significant risk. When asked what types of albums the label is interested in producing, there’s only the briefest pause before Spies simply says, “We’ve got to like the music.”
That answer might seem a little cheeky, but it’s the truth—and it’s part of what makes the albums on Literal Gold so solid. A lot of collaboration happens in the studio: Overly might be the secret sauce, but Spies is the chef, connecting with artists and attempting to understand what they’re really trying to create.
One example is Portland-based synth pop queen Shawna Pair. After coming out as trans in 2019, the longtime musician’s sound went through a major rebirth. It was important for her to choose a producer and a label that would represent who she was and to support the sounds she was ready to experiment with.
While Pair showed up at the studio with what she calls “the spirit of every song,” she says Spies helped make them more “drive-y.” “This is the music I’ve been trying to do all along,” Pair says. “I’d only played in guitar rock and shoegaze bands [before], so I just didn’t know the specifics of producing electronic music.” The result? Pair’s debut album, Activator (out Aug. 11), a post-disco synth pop record with mean guitar licks and dancey hooks that spin on repeat in your brain waves.
While Literal Gold tends to lean toward music with electronic components, they’re not beholden to any particular genre. From the disco synth grooves of Bijoux Cone (whose Love Is Trash is out Oct. 20) to the shoe-grunge rock band Soft Cheese to the psych-rock group Salo Panto, Literal Gold focuses on churning out the hits and keeping more money in its artists’ pockets. The label’s experimentation continues.
SEE IT: Shawna Pair’s album release show with Salo Panto and Family Worship Center takes place at Show Bar, 1300 SE Stark St., #101, 503-776-5500, revolutionhall.com. 8 pm Thursday, Aug. 10. $12. 21+.