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THE BLUE HOUR LOUNGE

PAFC Interview with Pete

From January 2000

Where do you see Little Dog Records and The Dog Bone in 10 years?
I see them on the forefront of this wave of internet/record companies. I think we will be continuing to make, manufacture, and sell music. I think in 10 years we will probably just be downloading product and we will have very little inventory. CDs will be gone and we'll have hand-held devices that you download your music on and carry around. For a company like us, if we don't have to invest in inventory, that is just huge!
I hope that in 10 years we are maxed out computer-wise and at the front edge of it-streaming video and audio as a radio station, a TV station with interviews and videos and anything and everything: Music, pictures, art, poets and artists that we've discovered. Creative people that probably never had an outlet to the public and that more and more people will traffic to our site, basically because of our taste. We are educated, musical, and artistical people so hopefully they will trust our taste and come to us without us having to spend millions of dollars the old school way to convince them what we have done, signed, promoted and produced is great! People aren't stupid-they'll know that it's really good.
I won't have to do like major record companies that spend tons of dollars to fool you that it is good, hammer you over the head with it and then have one song with one artist and then go away. Those days are over with. You still are going to see it, but believe me, we have crested that wave.

What do you think will be the Internet's Impact on the Music Business in the Next Few Years? The internet allows us access to individuals. As more and more people are hooked up to the internet, internet servers and corporations that are involved will realize that computers are far too sophisticated devices. They have more power than is necessary for what everybody wants to do with the internet-that is to exchange information, check email and surf the net. If you don't need to do art work or music or record music you won't need a sophisticated computer, so they will get cheaper and cheaper. They'll become palm pilots, hand-held devices, cell phones, and free computers that AOL is starting to give away if you hook up to their service. Eventually everyone will be on-line, so consequently a lot of the marketing for music will be done on-line. Little Dog will hire a full-time person just to work at the computer, marketing LDR product, linking as much as possible for free, putting up free banners-any and all aspects that you can imagine for those of you that use the web.
There will still be some conventional means of marketing, but I think it will be falling by the wayside as the years progress. More than likely, I think the people that can make music are the ones that will survive, such as engineers, writers, musicians, and the artists. The brick and mortar people who can put the building together will be the ones that survive because they'll be making the music and will be back in control of their music. We'll be seeing a lot of interesting/creative stuff that we haven't been able to get before-it was unable to be marketed because a record company wouldn't sign it. Just basically, the structure of an old school record company-big business' structuring of the record industry--will fall by the wayside. More and more everyday, as this goes on-it could be 2, 3, or 5 years, I don't know-it'll be quicker than I think-people will be able to buy one song at a time, down-load it on little devices that they'll carry around and listen to their favorite music.

For Little Dog it's incredibly advantageous - obviously. We have a studio, a loyal fan base that is growing all the time, and we've been on the internet for quite awhile. The people that we've dealt with, the high majority, have been very supportive and we have been very appreciative of that. We have a great staff here. They are people who love music-God knows, nobody is making any money. They are doing it for the right reason. So I think everything is coming our way and I'm extremely excited about it.

With country music sales in decline, how do you think that will impact independent record labels?

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - It's a true country heartbreaker: Sales of country music declined 4.5 percent last year even as sales for the record industry overall jumped 6.1 percent. (AP-NY-01-07-00)

Country Music, as I believe it, is beyond a decline-it doesn't exist. If you are talking about the type of music being made in Nashville that is called Country Music being in decline, then that is an exciting prospect that I enjoy seeing happen, because it's basically pop music. If they are going to make "pop records" why do it under the guise of country? Get into the big pool with the big boys in New York, LA and London and be competitive and put up competitive dollars to compete with them. Well, they are with some artists and that's fine; I just hate the fact that they all saunter down to country radio land or wherever you call it and say, "Yeah, we're Country." Then they make a record that they purport is country and take up space in the country files in the record racks and the radio stations while "real country artists" that are proponents of this American art form are pushed by the wayside.

Country Music as we know and love it-Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Hank Sr., Lefty Frizzel-that style is going to be marketed to a smaller audience, but it'll probably get healthier as people can hook up and find it. Right now it's difficult for the average person who isn't a musicologist or an ultra music fan to find it, but it's going to get easier. It won't just be limited to right here; the ones who want to will buy it all over the world because the internet will hook up the whole world-which it has. Consequently, for little record companies, this is where you are really going to see "real" Country Music.

I've said this before, but in the 60s and early 70s, every major label had an authentic black/blues artist on their label and eventually all of them have been dropped, passed away, or not picked up. I think B.B. King is the only one left who has somewhat of a major record deal. So where's Blues Music today? Well, outside the small resurgence of Susan Tedeschi, Jonny Lange, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd and of course Stevie Ray Vaughan-but Stevie Ray had to pass away and get that kind of press before people noticed him, even though he was doing well with sales. Consequently, Blues records are made on tiny little labels and blues fans seek them out.

There is a whole blues network of magazines and web pages that work it. Country Music is headed that way and the Country Music that we know and love will remain healthy, but it'll be in that format and it won't be as widely accepted as it was in the past. I think it'll come out of the trough as younger people are more encouraged to perform that style of music and when we get some new young blood. The whole way of marketing music will be changed in the next 10 years where we will be able stream video at Little Dog and we'll have a Little Dog Radio Station broadcasting music for 24 hours a day. That way, if we sign on a traditional country artist and we have enough traffic, it could be overwhelming-it could be right back to where it was.

Right now there is no country music-as far as mainstream America is concerned-what I hear is not Country Music!

Do you feel hopeful that country radio will start seeking new artists from independent labels? No, not at all! They're a huge big business conglomeration. You have to understand the majority of those people working what is called "country radio" are people who came from Talk or Rock or any other format of radio-it is just a job. They ended up there because of the success of it when the ratings were really high. They will never play independent artists and consequently they are going to shrink as they are doing now.
With the advent of digital satellite radio, you'll have a mini dish in your car that you won't even see-that'll be embedded in the car. You'll pay a subscriber's fee just like the mini dish at your home and be able to get any radio you want. Initially, it'll be cable dish-type stations-like, there'll be 900 of them or whatever and you'll just go to the Classic Country station or there will be five Classic Country stations and there will still be a bunch of those commercial ones out there, too.
They are still going to thrive to some degree, but the face is rapidly changing. When that happens, radio is going to suffer the same changes as major record companies-it's over with. The stranglehold it has on the public will, too, go away. The money buys them the watts to broadcast and cover large areas where the little stations that are playing traditional Country Music are never heard because they don't have the power-especially in major markets. Well, that is all going to change because the way music is broadcast is going to change.

Does Touring with Dwight interfere with your business at Little Dog Records?

To some degree it does-obviously we have a great staff here: Dan, Tank, and Blake (who was out there with us has come on as a part-time help-he started as an intern from USC). I have good people here and of course I'm in contact by phone a couple times a day minimum, but I love being on the premises because of general business I can take care of.

This summer when we tour with Dwight I think it'll be much easier for me to run Little Dog than it was last year because the staff is better and we have trimmed our ship and we are being very streamlined in the way we operate and our commitment to what we are doing. So, that part of it will make it a lot easier for me to go on the road-everything will be tweaked.

I'd rather be home to run it, but I definitely can do it from the road because everyone pretty much has autonomy here except for spending money-we have to talk about that-other than that we all come in and "think tank."

If you won a $20 million lottery, would you give up your music career?

NO, not at all! I never got into music for the money. Nothing I'm doing in music, whether it's playing guitar, producing records, writing songs, working at Little Dog-none of the things that I've done have ever been motivated by money. I do this because I feel this is what I'm supposed to do. I feel comfortable doing it.

My mother worked everyday, 30 years in a factory at Chrysler's and she worked 5 days a week with 1 week off a year then 2 weeks off a year. I think you are supposed to work. If I have days off in the middle of the week, I start to feel ill. I don't like sitting at home on a Tuesday afternoon watching daytime TV-it makes me ill. So, I like being here and I would be here.

If I had $20 million I don't know-I'd like to have a jet just so I could fly to Mexico whenever I want to. Other than that I'm fine.

If you were not in the music industry, what would your career choice be?

Career choice-I have no idea. I coached my son's basketball team when he was in 6th grade-that was fun.
Having to pick another career... that's a horrid thought!

Would it benefit Little Dog Records to have a branch office in Nashville?

No, it would be an extreme detriment--it would just be awful!! We are not involved with that at all. I wouldn't want Little Dog Records to put up a shop there in any way. Again, with the internet, there is 'no place'--you know what I mean? We could run this from La Paz, Baja California, Ojai, anywhere.

There is some convenience being in Southern California just from musicians and travel and major media areas, but everybody will just be hooked up by phones or faxes. Actually phones and faxes are over with too. You'll just look at your monitor, you'll see your partner or whoever you are working with and just talk through your computer over the net. It doesn't matter where you are.

For me I don't think it would be fun, I wouldn't like it, I'd feel like I sold out!

What is the process of creating a soundtrack for a movie?

Basically it is to get as close to a final edit piece of film as you can, sit there and watch the film--sometimes you'll have music that will go under the dialog, but the majority will be some sort of transitional pieces. I think it's a process of creating melodies and themes that create atmosphere that either lend with a specific character or lend to a specific mood in a scene. It's a very free way to work as opposed to writing songs or being in any other conventional mode.

You have to know Time Signature because you are going to end up trimming bars and things will be in unconventional lengths. They might still be in 4-4, 2-4 or 3-4 but they might not be full, like an 8 bar--they could be an 8 bar pattern but with an extra beat-things of that nature. You are going to have to compose little sequences for those lengths of time and some of it will be free form and ebb-and-flow. It's an extremely free compositional environment to be in and you have to think in an extremely free compositional way when you work in that environment.

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