Psychedelic Spotlight : Fruits de Mer Records Interview (Part 2)

In the second part of our interview with one half of Fruits de Mer Records, Andy Bracken, we find out, among other things, what keeps them doing what they do and what the future holds for this truly unique, yet slightly demented, label.

HFoS – You only release the singles on limited edition, coloured vinyl (which, incidentally, look good enough to eat). What made you choose this particular format over, say, a compilation CD?

AB – Now, now, don’t get me started. I’m not a fan of CDs, and downloads don’t actually exist.

Thanks for liking our vinyl – that’s grand. We just choose colour combinations that feel right at the time. You never really know what they’re going to look like till they arrive at the door.

7” vinyl is what us “over 35s” grew up with, so I suppose there’s a certain nostalgic affection there from our viewpoint. But aurally and aesthetically, there’s no comparison between a CD and a vinyl record.

Essentially, though, we’re releasing music in a format that we like to buy in.

HFoS – All the releases have gone on to sell out. Who makes up the Fruits de Mer audience?

AB – Not quite all! We still have a few copies of a couple of releases left. Pop over to www.fruitsdemerrecords.com for all the skinny on those and future releases. And I urge people to join the mailing list (send your email address to info@fruitsdemerrecords.com). I see the day coming where we’ll be a mailing list only label.

Geographically, we’re selling approximately 45% in mainland Europe, 45% in the UK, and 10% elsewhere. The States is the toughest place to crack. Don’t get me wrong, we have a handful of really loyal followers there – good people – but it’s tiny – less than 3% of sales. The vinyl culture isn’t the same in the USA as Europe, and there’s that attitude of “wanting to be associated with success,” which is hard to overcome.

Demographically, the majority of our customers are just like me and Keith. Male, 35+, music obsessive’s, long-standing record collectors etc. There is a healthy smattering of females there, though, and younger people who are so hungry for new music and discovering sounds from the past – that’s smart, gives me a real buzz.

HFoS – Although the limited edition status, like a Wembley cup final, make the releases that little bit more special, will there come a time when Fruits de Mer Records are putting out full production runs? The fact they always sell out so quickly suggests there might be a demand for it.

AB – To be frank, I simply don’t want it to get too big. It’s already a lot of work, and I have no desire to deal with distribution companies and the like. They’re all going out of business, anyway.

The best thing about our label(s) is the interaction we get with our customers and the people, like yourself, who support us in the media. That makes it all worthwhile. Thank you for your support, Nick.

The biggest thrill, for me, is putting out a new record, announcing its availability to our mailing list, and getting 100 messages in 24 hours from people I’ve never met, but feel like I know. I know that if we expand, that side of things will be lost, because we’ll be spending all our time posting stuff out and dealing with the administrative side of things. Small is beautiful, as I keep saying to Keith in a re-assuring tone…

HFoS – Vibravoid’s excellent Pink Floyd tribute EP, What Colour is Pink? was released this month (April). Is it true that, despite hitting volume 10, you’ve yet to make any money on the Fruits de Mer venture?

AB – The money’s an irrelevance – as long as we just about break-even, we’ll carry on. As long as people want what we do, we’ll carry on. As long as we find interesting bands to cover tracks, we’ll carry on.

HFoS – What then keeps you doing what you do?

AB – It’s terribly clichéd, but we really do “do it for the love of it.” I’m the luckiest bloke in the world. I run a label with my best mate, Keith, my wife fully supports what I do, I have a customer base second to none, some great contacts in the media, I get to deal with some wonderfully talented musicians, who also happen to be smashing people, and they all appreciate what we do.

If more people did what they’ve always dreamed of doing, instead of buying in to all the societal and media sponsored bollocks, the world would be a much better place. We even did a free cassette to our regulars at Christmas – 12 tracks donated by all the bands we’d worked with in 2009 (Alison O’Donnell gave us a Flibbertigibbet track, for example). We just gave them away as a “thank you” to people. Commercial suicide, but it’s that kind of ‘fuck you’ attitude to the perceived rules. What happened to that, eh?

HFoS – There’s a 12″ LP out in June, titled A Phase We’re Going Through (Cover artwork looks great BTW). Who’ll feature on this and what songs will be covered/reinterpreted?

AB – Indeed there is! It’s a cracker, as well, 11 tracks that were, could have, or should have been ‘phased’ back in the 60s. The track listing for that pearler shall be:

(original artist in brackets)

The Campbell Stokes Sunshine Recorder – ‘Baby, Your Phrasing is Bad’, (Caleb)

The Chemistry Set – ‘Silver Birch’, (Del Shannon)

Rob Clarke and the Wooltones – ‘Mind of a Child’, (Clouds)

Cranium Pie – ‘Little Wing’, (Jimi Hendrix)

Geese – ‘Point Me At The Sky’, (Pink Floyd)

The Luck of Eden Hall – ‘Love is Only Sleeping’, (The Monkees)

The Marshmallow Staircase – ‘Plastic Fantastic Lover’, (Jefferson Airplane)

Permanent Clear Light – ‘In the City’, (The Who)

Sidewalk Society – ‘Red Chair, Fade Away’, (The Bee Gees)

The Swims – ‘My Clown’, (July)

Zombies of the Stratosphere – ‘London Social Degree’, (Billy Nicholls)

And the artwork was done by Brian Langan of The Swims from a brief I gave him. He’s a smart, talented artist and he grasped exactly what I wanted to achieve. There are references to all the tracks in this psychedelic melee – brilliant.

HFoS – Is there a temptation to put the album out on CD and go down the Amazon/iTunes route of distribution?

AB – Nope. I’d simply get no pleasure from “selling” someone a download, and very little from a CD. I’ve done a couple of CDs and I wish I hadn’t bothered. We sell 3 times more vinyl than CDs when both are offered. Why would anyone shell out for a CD, when they can just wait a while and get a free download via torrent, or something?

And I have no problem with people downloading our stuff illegally. Ultimately, these people aren’t music fans. My theory is: anyone looking for an illegal download is never going to buy a physical product, so just let them have it and maybe they will tell someone who has a soul…

HFoS – What’s does the future hold for Fruits de Mer Records (deserved world domination aside, of course)?

AB – Ha! Thank you. Nah, as I’ve probably made clear by now, I’ll always keep it at a level that is manageable and allows us to interact with the punters. We’ll keep going, in a similar vein, but perhaps pushing the boundaries of the sphere we operate in a little. Got to stay fresh, you know? And we have our next six or seven releases planned and at various stages of coming together.

Besides, at the moment it’s difficult to expand. There aren’t the media outlets, in printed form or radio, to take it much further. I don’t think the music business has ever been so closed – all that bollocks about the internet levelling the playing field, eh?

There are signs of encouragement, though. MOJO recently reviewed the Us & Them release, and Classic Rock has picked up on the upcoming Vibravoid EP. Most encouraging is that Ian Harrison at MOJO came to us and asked for a review copy. I have absolute respect for the guy for that.

HFoS – It would be unfair to ask which release so far has been your favourite, so tell us some of your favourite psychedelic acts/tracks from the multihued mists of time.

AB – Too hard, and it changes on a daily basis. I mean, I’m sat here listening to Midlake’s The Courage of Others, having just listened to CAN’s Delay 1968, and prior to that I had Traffic’s Mr Fantasy on the deck.

One thing I know: there are only four artists I buy everything by. Don’t need to hear it – just hearing about it is enough. They are Eddie Cochran, Syd Barrett, Nick Drake and The Fall. Between those four, just about every other song ever recorded can find some common ground, anyway.

HFoS – Finally, if you could have any artist or band in the world – dead or alive – from any period of time, to do a Fruits de Mer single/EP, who would it be and what tracks would feature?

AB – Good question. For me, Eddie Cochran. No hesitation. Keith would go for…hmmm, let me see: Stevie Marriott squaring off with Daltrey, with a Moon driven Who mentalling up a Pretty Things track. That’d be my guess. Shit – that’d be good, wouldn’t it?

And on that note, we leave Andy and ourselves to ponder just how good a showdown like that might really sound.

HFoS wishes to thank both Andy and Keith for taking the time to answer our questions and helping to set up the interview. We wish them and Fruits de Mer Records the best for the future and hope that they keep on doing what they’re doing.

You can find out more about Fruits de Mer and also order these wondrous nuggets of cylindrical ethene derivatives from the Fruits de Mer Records website.

Part 1 of Fruits de Mer Records interview

Don’t just read and applaud. Subscribe to the rather splendid RSS Feed

feature, prog rock, psychedelic rock, psychedelic spotlight