Interview with Craig from Moral Dilemma

Moral Dilemma
Originally uploaded by magic.lorne

Moral Dilemma are a London 3-piece punk band who started out a few years ago playing in squats around the capital. Last summer they released their debut full-length Right To Remain Silent. The band defied many people by managing to record all eleven tracks in less than a day, as this was all the time they could afford with well-known producer legend Pete Miles. They wanted to do the album justice by releasing it properly, with a full case including artwork. However, they found this increasingly difficult with the climate of labels wanting to take a risk on a smaller band, so eventually they found a way to self-release it.

Click below to read the interview.

Did you find it hard to find someone to distribute your album after recording it?

It was pretty hard at first just to get the album pressed up, mainly due to us having no money. It took us a year to get together the £300 to record with, after that we were skint individually and had no money in the band tin. As a result, we approached a lot of labels, and they either didn’t have the money, or it just wasn’t the right time for them, or they just didn’t have the balls to put it out. So we just saved up and played more gigs.

The distribution wasn’t too hard for us, it was just a case of knowing the right people. We went to a mate who works at a pressing plant and he was owed a favour by Plastic Head [Distribution], so it made sense to go with them. It would get our CDs in shops and our deal meant we only had to pay half of the pressing costs for a thousand CDs, which was the main reason we went with them. We couldn’t afford to press it up properly by ourselves, and we felt that we deserved to have a CD in the package with all the artwork rather than just a CDR.

Do you think smaller labels are struggling?

Smaller labels for punk bands are struggling. It seems from the outside that even the most successful bands on the biggest labels are doing really well financially, but the reality is they’re not, mainly due to the punk scene and the country being so small. We found it hard to find a label mainly because were not really a safe bet to put out, the climate of the punk scene musically at the moment in terms of the bands that fill the 300+ capacity venues tends to be very American influenced/ poppy/ ska music, or just bands who listen to far too much Rancid – and we don’t sound like that. So from a label perspective, it’s not a good bet to invest money into a band like us, as its more of a risk as to whether or not we would make the money back for the label. Which is fair enough, but makes our lives a little harder to get bigger gigs if we want to play them, and get our album out there.

We only have a distribution deal, whereas a label promotes and advertises the album which we don’t have the backing for so its a lot harder for us than say a band on Household Name [Records] to get people to here us and get them interested in what were doing.

Do you think it’s going to get harder for small bands and labels to sell records with downloading becoming more popular?

Yes and no. It seems to me that downloading music with sites such as MySpace is all still in its early days, to an extent.

It’s a positive thing because people who have never seen us and probably never will due to geographical reasons will be able to here us and have access to our songs. Which is a total head-fuck when you get e-mailed a compliment from some guy from china who you’ve never met!

But it seems to be a good way to get your band across, and I hope that if people hear a few songs then they’ll go out and buy the album so bands can get money to record again and help keep them going. But having said that most people who listen to us probably don’t have any money anyway so I don’t blame them for downloading it if they want it. I just hope they make a friend a copy as well.

It is going to get harder for labels and bands with downloading in the sense that you may sell less records, but you’ll probably have more people coming out to the gigs and knowing the songs – which, to me, is far more important. I don’t really care if they bought the album or not. I don’t see downloading in the same light as stealing a CD from our merch box, which has happened in the past.

As a consumer, do you download music?

I do download music, but I also buy a lot of music too. Usually what I’ll do is download a song or an album by someone I’ve heard of and want to check out, and then I go out and buy the album if I like it. Or I’ll download stuff of bands who I have almost everything by and want to hear the whole back catalogue (I’m obsessive compulsive like that, I want to hear what the lead singer sounds like brushing his fucking teeth).I tend not to download something if the bands on a small independent label, as I know that my £5 or whatever goes towards guitar strings, pot noodles, and just keeping the band making more music.

Having said that, downloading doesn’t hold the same satisfaction as buying say a Billie Holiday record by chance because its 50p in Oxfam and falling in love with her voice. As a consumer, it’s not as rewarding or exciting for me. I’m pretty sentimental about my music collection, and it’s a little bit harder to have that attachment to a file on your computer.