First off, just want to thank you for participating in this edition of Infidel Interviews. Could you start off by giving a little information about you to the audience? Whatever you feel comfortable with, but name, age, and where you live would be pretty standard?
First of all I would like to congrats you and the Infidels for the amazing work you guys do. My name is Vitesh and I'm 36 years old and I'm from Lisbon Portugal. I'm a producer at THE KAN hybrid metal project, and founder/manager of Extreme Alliance Records label.
You have a new compilation album which was just released. What was it like putting together the release, and would you say there is any theme to the release?
Yes, Extreme Alliance have just released our 3rd compilation a few weeks ago. I was awesome putting all this artists together in one album, I have been looking for artists all year to release in this compilation. I guess the research work I have to do all year is preety good, it makes me look for new artists every day and listen to lots of music, which I love. It allows me to meet new artists that give me inspiration for my music as well.
What releases do you have planned for the rest of the year?
Stay tuned on our website, we will release more artists during this year. EP´s, albums, singles. Follow us at our Facebook and Soundcloud, so you know about all about our releases.
Organizing a record label takes a lot of work and dedication. What is your long term goal with the whole project?
Well yes it takes a lot of work and dedication definitely. Our main concern is to promote quality artists that for some reason don't have the visibility they should. You know in this world of consumerism its hard to distribute alternative music to the masses, we don't live to sell music and have millions, sure that would be great but that's not our focus, we only want to release good alternative music to our audience. Most of our releases are available for free download so we don't expect any financial return at all, all I can say our long term goal is to get to many people we can and offer them quality music.
What made you decide to make the jump from musician to businessman? Do you find it difficult to balance the two hats?
This is more a passion project than a business. I decided to start Extreme Alliance because i'm a music lover since I was a kid. I played in death metal bands since I was 16 years old, then later on I developed an interest on electronic music, played as a DJ at some psytrance parties and after that I started THE KAN, a hybrid project with lots of influences from breakcore/drum n bass to extreme meta. By that time I started looking for artists of this or similar genres to collab with or just take some inspiration. I realized that there are many good musicians/producers with quality works that should be known by a larger audience, so Ihave created this label to try to promote them the best I can. I guess my 20 years of experience in music helped me a lot to create this label.
What's the current roster 2017 for Extreme Metal Alliance? Of the artists on the label are you actively producing any of them, or are they already established artists looking for promotion?
Most of the artists we release are already established ,they contact us in order to promote their work. We are more a distribution label, if you are an independent artist and want help in distribution your music feel free to contact us we will be glad to help you, but as i said I've been in music for about 20 years now so we can offer you services like mastering, recording sessions in professional studios, recording of physical albums (cd/vinyl), provide you equipment to concerts parties etc..
Creating awesome music is usually only half the battle. What do you offer to you artists as far as mixing/mastering and promotion services? Do you have an in house team for such efforts or do you outsource external people's services? Or is a combination of both?
I usually outsource external peoples services to record sessions. I have lots of connections at professional studios that can provide the artists quality services for affordable prices. In terms of electronic music I do the mastering myself at my home studio if the artist needs. Regarding promotion, we can put your songs on the best digital stores, and promote them worldwide.
How bout when it comes to merchandise. Are their currently any options, or plans to set up options, for merchandise? Do you have any artists in particular you'd want to get designs from?
Yes merchandise is the next step for us defensively. We are working on selling some merchandise from the label and from our artists. I would love to have merchandise for all our artists, that would be awesome. I hope we can do that in this current year.
Who designs all the artwork for your music and the compilations? Do you do that yourself, or do you have artists you work with? And if you work with artists, are they part of the label?
Well I'm glad you asked this, all the designs of my music and compilations are done by a talented friend of mine Ricardo Rosario. He has great skills, and usually he has the freedom to execute his work freely. His works has always amazed me. He knows pretty well what it is the image we want to pass at our label and he executes it pretty well. This means if some of our artists need some graphic work we can provide it. And, yes I can say he is part of the team as he executes all my cover art and I totally believe in his potential.
Have you organized any live events for the musicians on your roster, or is this something that is possibly in the works for the future?
I would love to do some more live events but unfortunately most of our artists are international so its hard to put them all together for a live event, but i expect to do some in the future with local artists. You obviously have to cater to both national and international markets, as well as the the demand for physical and digital versions of the product. How do you balance all of these different markets, and would you say your business is going to focus on a particular market(s), or are you looking to tackle them all diversely?
We try to promote our artists both national and international. I'm from a small country so the market here is small. Our main releases are digital. We can also do physical releases but only to well established artists that will insure us the return investment of doing the physical release. The music your label promotes definitily suits the title of the record label, it's Extreme to say the least. What are some the challenges you've had to deal with when promoting alternative media, and how do you work to overcome them?
Well its hard to promote extreme music .I try to look at the target audience that likes that particular genres of music, and try to the music to them. I do a lot of research on social media groups so I can later promote our label there. Usually the audience of extreme music is very open to listen new original music and accept it pretty well.
Have you had any particular moment(s) that you would like to share, that you would consider to be a crowning achievement in your Record Label's history so far, or moments that you would say truly continue to inspire you to pursue the path?
The release of our first compilation was the most important step for me, it was when i realized that we can do a quality releases with top artists from all over the world, all with them joining us for free. That was something gratifying definitely.
Your label's tendency to promote aggressive and political bands leads me to believe you guys have some pretty strong philosophical and political views. If you had to sum up your general belief structure into a few concise statements, how would you summarize your stance in politics and/or spirituality?
Well that is a big issue loool, I don't believe in this political system as it has a lot of failures. I have a lot of punk influence since I was a kid so yes, one my top phrases should be`fuck the system`. I think we live in a fake world made of fake appearances, we should be more humanized by our so called leaders, and not depend so much on economics and try to relax and enjoy and live a bit more. In an industry that is driven by sales, and consumerism, what are your thoughts on digital downloads (legal and illegal)? Do you feel that streaming and digital download stores aid the accessibility of music? How bout music piracy? It obviously hurts sales in some regards, but it also boosts the access and distribution of the release which could lead to potential fans who do come to shows, buy physical copies of music, and get merchandise? Do you feel there would be enough turn around in that sort of system or are you firmly against file sharing?
I realize that there are some labels that totally depends on sales, in their case my advise is to not be so greedy and try to provide music at more affordable prices to the consumers, so they can buy more original music. In my particular case I don't mind distributing our music for free, or if someone does an illegal download, we want people to listen our music and know our artists, so they can go to shows, buy merchandise, and grow our fan base. Our concern is all about music and the people. If someone really likes your work and want to support you they will buy purchasing your original work to help you.
Thank you so much for participating in this episode of Infidel Interview. Any parting words for your fans, or my audience?
Thank you for this opportunity, all the best for you guys, and stay tuned at our site and social media for new releases, and of course keep following the great work here on the Infidel Netwerk. Glad there are platforms like this doing quality service for us all, congrats!
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