Major pain

The Killers' attorney on signing a major label record deal

By Newt Briggs

Rick James once owned 365 suits--one for each day of the year--even though he never wore suits. The Rolling Stones netted $51 million last year by charging an average of $158 per ticket. Before declaring bankruptcy in 1996, MC Hammer owned 17 cars, a Boeing 727, a Kentucky Derby racehorse and an 11,000-square-foot custom home overlooking the San Francisco Bay. Seriously, though, it's all about the music.

The music business, that is.

As Robert Reynolds--the lawyer who guided local rock hopefuls The Killers to a reported seven-figure, multi-album deal with Island Def Jam last year--is quick to point out, major record labels are essentially lending institutions. They loan musicians money to record, tour, print merchandise, hire lackeys and the like, but in the end, they expect a generous--sometimes, usurious--return on their investment.

This, of course, is not groundbreaking information. In his essay "The Problem with Music," Big Black frontman and indie producer extraordinaire Steve Albini compared the process of dealing with a major label to slogging through a 60-yard-long trench full of shit. At one end of the trench is a group of wide-eyed bands, and at the other is an industry executive. All of the bands charge into the muck at once, but if one makes it to the other side, the stone-faced flunky tells it to turn around and start over. While Reynolds is not so bleak in his assessment of music industry politicking, he does concede that a label can force a band into a position where it has to choose fame over any shot at fortune.

"There are a lot of deals that you can get into as an artist that will just wreck your chance of ever making any money," Reynolds says. "A lot of times, a label can dump you, and you won't get a thing."

A former musician himself, Reynolds says that eager bands should draw up a partnership agreement, trademark a unique name, record a good demo and shop it to the right people. After that--assuming a band has skills--it's simply a matter of coming to terms with the reality of selling out.

"Once you decide that you want to pursue a deal with a major or an indie, you have to recognize that you're not just making music for yourself anymore," says Reynolds. "You're trying to create a product, and you have to start thinking in terms of business. What songs do people like and why? Can I write more of those songs? What can we do to improve our show? What can we do to become a more marketable commodity?"

That said, it doesn't necessarily behoove an artist to jump into a deal just because the money is right. "You don't want to sign to a label just because it's a label and it want to give you money," Reynolds says. "You want make sure that it has the same vision that you have about your image and sound and marketing and publicity."

On the other hand, he says, the music industry is in an unprecedented funk, and offers don't come as fast and furious as they once did. "Bidding wars definitely aren't what they used to be. This is probably the worst economy for music that I've seen in my lifetime."

Perhaps the best solution is to retain competent legal council. It may sound like the antithesis of the sex, drugs and rock `n' roll lifestyle, but it's better than being picked clean by a swarm of industry vultures. David Lee Roth, the patron saint of hair-metal, once said, "Rock `n' roll is not so much a question of electric guitars as it is striped pants." Swap "striped pants" for "ambitious attorneys," and he's right on.