Interview by Arianna Govoni
In a period where humankind had to deal with an unexpected global pandemic that has literally caused a lot of distress to the music industry, the resolution and the desire to get involved in such critical situations never failed. Russian symphonic metal act Imperial Age is the perfect example and portrayal of the old saying “Where there’s a will there’s a way”! In the middle of a pandemic that, back then, was spreading rapidly first in Europe and, right after, all around the world, the band led by Alexander Osipov and Jane Odintsova took its chance and brought a 3 hour indoor show where the guys and the ladies has shown off the international fanbase their own determination in the making of a new live DVD, called “Live On Earth – The Online Lockdown Concert”, released back in October 2020. A new opus that was mainly supported by tons of affection toward the Russian band but also by so many, unexpected donations reached by every corner of the globe. We did want to talk about this matter and this new DVD with the two band’s founders.
Hi Alexander, hi Jane, welcome to Femme Metal. It’s such a big pleasure hosting this chat with you today. Unfortunately, the historical moment we’re living since March didn’t benefit humankind at all. I have no clue about the current situation you’re living in Russia, but how the things are going there?
Jane: You know, what we can see that Russia is not the worst place to live. Compared to the other countries, right now, we have almost no restrictions. So, we can walk in the streets, we can go shopping and even, we can go at the cinema. Actually, it’s not that bad but for us, it doesn’t change much because we work from home anyway. Except for the obligation to wear mask when for example, you go buy some food, we didn’t notice any differences at all.
AOR: It’s possible to have some small concerts. Basically, there’s no lockdown.
Ok, let’s talk now about ‘Live On Earth – The Online Lockdown Concert’. It’s been out for a while now, so I would like to ask you what kind of feedback did you get from people after the release?
Jane: You know, we were really overwhelmed with positive feedback from the fans who watched the live streaming. All this led us to produce this DVD because there was any plan in that direction whatsoever. Actually, our plan was to release just a couple of live videos from it. It’s due to great fans’ demand, we decided to release it in DVD. In the end, it turned out to be a great idea because we earn quite a substantial amount of money from its sell.
AOR: Well, the show’s amount 12.000$ while the DVD sell was an additional amount of 20.000$ minimum.
Jane: All things considered, this DVD gave us the change to invest some money in the band by buying new equipment for the band and so, it proved to be a helping hand.
If I’m not mistaken, you’ve been one of the many, or may in fact you were the very first band to lead off the streaming concert initiative this year. Indeed, a few weeks later The Night Flight Orchestra, Katatonia, Insomnium and so many other metal bands joined this initiative, giving birth also to Facebook live streaming directs. What did you recall of your experience?
Jane: I don’t think we were the first that did that because a few bands we’re already ahead of us. Still, it was April and back then, Moscow was in total lockdown and, no venues weren’t working. For example, in order to drive over the city you should have followed an entire procedure to have a QR code. Of course, in times like this, all the systems were experiencing a lot issues with which I had to personally deal with. So, it was a huge quest to get this permission for all the people who worked behind-the-scene in this endeavour. Also, rehearsing was almost illegal, consequently, we had to find a place outside the Moscow area…
AOR: ..and take all the van all the way down too…
Jane: [laughs] we managed to find a secret place just for half the day. It was really a disaster but at the same time, we were still hoping to play our planned shows in UK, including the Download festival. Even if, we kept rehearsing, it became quite evident that won’t be happening at all. In trust, it was a couple years that we didn’t tour in the UK and we really wanted to play there. Then, given the situation, Aor came up with the idea of this live streaming. It was different from the regular live streaming because we decided to make it bigger and more interesting. Anyway, it was very stressful but fun.
What has been the toughest part of arranging a live streaming concert in such a short time? I guess it hasn’t been easy at all!
Jane: For us, one of hardest parts were to delegate everything to one person only which is Natalia, our manager.
AOR: I don’t know how to call her, maybe a multifunctional employee? [Laughs] we call her “many legs, many hearts” because she does everything as the same time.
Jane: So, before that we were managing everything ourselves that includes also dealing with the venues. Having said that, this time we have decided to be just the musicians, therefore, going to the club and play our gig. Actually, Natalia was in charge of the whole off-scene duties such as organising the venue, finding the filming crew, handling the technicians and their technical equipment and overseeing with timings. Lastly, what I can say, she worked amazingly. We can surely affirm that this was the first concert without any fuck-ups.
AOR: I think, we should mention that our bass player was organising the technical stuff and Natalia, the management one. Together they did a great job. Then, the rest of the band came in and that was a really important factor because we managed to focus on the music.
Jane: But still, it was really hectic because you never know if this people are good or not in their job. In general, we always prepared ourselves for some fuck-ups. Unexpectedly, all worked out perfectly.
I must say that, despite the concert has been phenomenal in my opinion, especially for people like me who still had no chance of seeing you live on stage before, there was this lack unfortunately of not having that magic in this kind of context. I mean, everybody is used to have an audience live at the concerts, you see photographers taking pics of the performance, you have the sound engineers and all the people who work for giving a great live music experience, and there’s also that magic you create with the band and the fans. What kind of feelings did you have that day? How much did you feel the absence of the synergy you can create with people during a live show?
Jane: Personally, it was really tough and strange because I’m used to look at the audience and perceiving their reactions from our music and our behaviour on the stage. In contrast, in this occasion while I was watching at the so-called audience, I was able to see just our sound crew and our camera guys busy in their job. And in some ways, they weren’t play any attention on what we were doing on stage. Due to this reason, we have decided to include some live Q & A which also helped us to establish a connection with our fans. At least, this was possible to achieve.
The DVD release has been anticipated by ‘Turn The Sun Off’ live video, which is also the single that starts the performance. How come did you opt to choose a single that is 16 minutes long as an opening track for this new DVD?
Jane: I think that it was partially an accident [laughs]. Honestly, I don’t remember exactly what our plans were but I’m sure of one thing, “Turn The Sun Off”’s begin is full of pathos. And this, it makes one good song to start with. Additionally, this song was released on our début album and it represents our starting point.
Indeed, it seems that you kind of wanted to pay tribute to your fans also in the front cover, where we can see some horns up and the crowd. Was it this a choice you made or was it simply born in a spontaneous way?
Jane: Indeed, it was our conscious choice and to this, it followed some clear direction to the designer. Even if it was a virtual audience, we wanted the audience in front of the stage otherwise it would look quite strange.
I remember that I saw the live that day, in April, and if I’m not mistaken, throughout the three hours of this performance, you’ve also offered the fans the choice of making a little donation to allow you, maybe, of recovering some money for the costs you had for this live show or maybe for having a little economic help during the global pandemic. How would you describe this and the support you’ve been given by the fans?
Jane: Actually, we’re thinking whether a ticket or a donation were feasible. These decisions were well-thought and we took like two days because we wanted to cover our expenses at the best of our possibilities. In the end, I wasn’t aware of the amount until when Aor checked his phone…
AOR: …and Jane fall unconsciously [laughs]
Jane: Yes, it was totally unexpected the amount that our fans has donated us. Eventually, we did the right decision because thanks to those donation, we managed to buy the best mixing console available in the market.
You’ve both formed the band in 2012. Imperial Age is the second most-internationally touring metal band from Russia and the country’s most known symphonic metal act. Eight years after the birth of the band, would you ever expect such a great success?
Jane: I can’t affirm that we were surely expecting it but it was our goal from the very beginning. In that regard, our motto is “if you start to do something, you have to try to aim high”. Thus, when we started our adventure with Imperial Age, we started playing in some arenas and we still in the middle of reaching our goal.
AOR: Yes, I wouldn’t call a great success yet. Finally, I would call that our ground zero, that we have reached zero mark. You know, despite all the previous events, now we are definitely somewhere that looks like something. It’s the dawn of a new beginning.
I hope I’m not going to be indiscreet now, but a few days ago I’ve read something that arose my curiosity somehow. I’ve read that you’ve rejected three record deals or three record companies who were more than interested in Imperial Age. As you know, label’s support somehow can be very important in some case and it cannot be in some others, it depends on the case, but I saw that there are so many metal bands who prefer managing their own business by themselves. What has pushed you to refuse these contracts? Is it due to the way the music business works nowadays? Don’t you like the relationship that labels create with bands because maybe the record companies themselves sometimes are way too demanding?
Jane: It’s not a simple issue to explain. You know, during these years we were always busy promoting ourselves through which we have learned a lot of methods and strategies. Also, Aor spent a lot of money and time to educate himself about these topics. Due to this, he’s so knowledgeable on internet marketing to the point that he knows more than the record labels.
Considering the current situation, we aren’t interested in any deal because we closely plan our actions according to our economic availability and we try foreseen which will be its outcome. On the other end, they cannot say anything concrete in that matter and when they refer about a possible increasing of our stream revenue, we just ask back in which manner they can make it happen and lastly, they cannot offer any concise information. It’s mainly this concern that it’s hindering us on accept a record deal. Additionally, in return they pretend a substantial percentage of our income and in return, they aren’t ready to give us some needed obligations.
AOR: Indeed, they also tell us that they are giving us money [laugh] but we believe differently.
Jane: Right now, we have a stable income and if we are supposed to include a label in our music, we should pay them, not the contrary. In fact, it means that we would have less with an uncertain outcome.
AOR: I give you an example, right after the show, we spent several days taking on Skype with one of the biggest metal labels out there. During the course of the second day of negotiations, I was straightforward with them saying that it wouldn’t work out because we wanted some specific numbers in regards of investment on the band and type of promotion. Afterwards, the day after we receive a more or less concrete economic offer and the major part of it was that they were ready to invest 11.000$ on our next album.
By contrast, they want the rights on our next release for 20 years. At the end, I don’t understand why they wanted to talk with us even after I told them we have collected through fans’ donations 11.500$. This is not a recoupable cost because we have already the amount that they offered us. In essence, they just wanted anyway to recoup it from our share from the deal. It’s absolutely ridiculous. Lastly, our conversation ended by us underlying the fact that if we would have signed their deal, we were surely forced to find ourselves a day job because it won’t bring us any income. Just some time ago, I ended up having a similar conversation another label. Out of this episode, I published an article on the website titled “A Typical Conversation with Record Labels”.
Generally, it outlines the topics that Jane has earlier introduced. They always want their fair of share of money in exchange of their promises. You know, that work for them because they don’t know how to sell themselves and how to do marketing. With their behaviour and through their neglect, they forced us to learn this. At this moment, we have gathered and learned all the right tools for doing it ourselves. On the account of this, we aren’t against the contract but the terms offered on it they should better for us.
Jane: As a matter of fact, our opinion in that regards isn’t dissimilar for the one of Star Ward’s creator George Lucas which I discovered reading through his biography. He always wanted to keep control over everything and we share a common idea on that. In the end, if we win, it’s our victory and if we lose, it’s our fuck up. Expect for ourselves, there will be anyone to blame. We find that self-managing the band is the best way because we want to write the music that we like and not the one that will sell better.
AOR: It’s really good point. By the way, we have some famous friends from a Russian band that actually, they are signed. So, we started to compare Imperial Age’s income with theirs and we’re shocked to come to the conclusion that the label paid them a year later with a 6-month delay. Basically, the way it goes is the money that they earn today, they’ll get it in a year and half and also, it’s just a small percentage of that sum. The final model of the story is that we earn more than them. Practically, we sell more and earn more while them even if they are bigger than us intern of popularity, they earn much less. I find the whole situation absurdly ridiculous.
Jane: However, it makes a sense to have a contract in order to spend all our time doing music and to deal with our organisation that’s starting to be quite problematic up to now. The only downside of it is that right now, we are busy with setting up our small label. Due to increasing volume of work, we have decided to hire more people for delegate all the different tasks.
AOR: For me the main pain in the ass to manage my right, it’s being a good businessman. Even if I’m a good one, I don’t want to be that because I want to write music. So, our solution is to set up this small label, hire people and teaching them how to do the whole shebang. Honestly, this alternative proves to be much cheaper than to be signed to an actual label. Next to it, we can control what goes up and if you look at the roster of a label, you’ll see that they have 5 or 10 big bands which are followed by a variable number of unknown bands. They state always to be proud to be signed on it and my question is “Why is that the case?”. Also, where’s the guarantee that once signed we’ll be up there?
Well, I guess that music business is a quite complicated area of interest. Even too much complicated for that I’m a photographer [laughs]. Actually, I stopped wondering how music business works a long time ago because every time I learn something new on that matter, I’’ve turned to be quite speechless. So, I really thank you for sharing with us your experience.
AOR: I’ll mention another example and this makes to four [laughs]. Well, people are still so used to the fact that record labels are going to always release an album. That’s not the case because there are some in the music business in which album weren’t released.
Why? Simply, due to the fact that the label doesn’t want any internal competition. And essentially, there’s also an important economical factor: the promotional investment on that specific band. Consequently will kill the other band by not releasing the album or by releasing it without decently promoting that album. In another case, can happen that the budget owns, it will be dedicated only to the big bands on their roster. The situation explained is quite common. In the end, we don’t want to be affected by a handful of big bands. So, for that reason, if we sign a contract, we want to state that our money should be invested in our promotion and not someone else. Basically, you can imagine something dirty and it’s already happened. It feels like Hollywood.
Currently, since this bad year is coming to an end, hoping for brighter times to come soon, what will your plans be? Are you working on something new?
Jane: In this moment, we are busy creating our new album and we want to release it this year.
AOR: I wouldn’t say more precisely… [laughs]
Jane: …knowing us, it will take the whole year. Due to a previous experience, when we had set a deadline, it turned out to be so stressful to respect it. We were working at night in order to commit to this deadline. However, this time we have decided to take our time to work on it properly and we want to also rehearse these song before its recording. Currently, we are receiving a lot of feedback on the live version of our last LP “The Legacy of Atlantis”.
In original, this album was separately recorded and with the next full-length, as I said before, we want to rehearse them and record them together. Secondly, we are working on the new costumes linked to the new full-length. In order to achieve that, we are going to the fitting a couple of times per week for trying out our upcoming colaughs. Hopefully, they’ll be ready before the end of the new year because we would like to go further without plans which includes setting up our crowdfunding and then, record our new videoclip
AOR: in that regards, after our call, I’ll go to the tailor to see and check its outcome [laughs].
What do you miss the most in this period?
Jane: The live shows [laughs]
AOR: The reply was quite obvious [laughs]
Jane: I miss touring, I miss playing live and going outside the country. Of course, it’s absolutely a special feeling when you are on tour. Despite the condition, touring on a shitty van is always a tour to remember.
So, Aor & Jane, I want to thank you for taking time to reply to my questions. It has been a pleasure.
Jane: Thank you so much. It has been a pleasure for me too. It has been very interesting.
Links:
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Eleine Official Website
Eleine On Youtube