The Tufts campus has always been full of student bands — some looking for fun with their friends, others taking a music career more seriously. The WMFO radio station, a long-time staple of the Tufts music culture, now has the means and the manpower to aid those few serious bands looking for a music career: The station is starting its own record label, On the Side Records.
Led by Executive Director Adam Russman, a junior, the record label starts up this fall and will kick off with a live concert featuring student bands this Friday night in Hotung Café — an event that will hopefully lead to one lucky band being signed to the label. Russman and others have also been listening to demo tapes for weeks now, looking for two or three bands to eventually sign.
"We're in such a position on campus where we can be looked at as a source of up-and-coming music," Russman said. "That's what college radio is about, going underground and finding new music. We want to help these bands get to the next level."
The bands that win out will get a one-year contract with On The Side, free access to WMFO's recording studio, the chance to record an EP produced and managed by Tufts students and will participate in a compilation CD. Russman is also working on hiring band managers for individual bands, to work on booking gigs at local venues and spreading the word about bands' EPs.
Russman described the new label as a logical move. "It just flows naturally for WMFO to have a record label. We're already playing all ... students' music on our radio station. Why don't we sign them and get them to work for the station?" he added.
Fueled by funds, equipment and experts
Junior Andy Sayler, the new general manager of WMFO, oversaw the project over the summer. He said the record label has been in the works for over 10 years, but said that the station only recently acquired the funds and equipment necessary to put the plan into action.
WMFO last spring received almost $30,000 from the funds that the Tufts Community Union Senate recovered from the campus's recent embezzlement scandal. This grant allowed the station to upgrade its recording equipment to the level of other basic studios around the city. Thanks to the recovered funds, On the Side can also charge less than Boston recording studios.
Sayler explained that the WMFO recording studio can charge $30 an hour, compared to a basic Boston recording studio's fee of anywhere between $50 and $100 an hour. Tufts and local bands can pay to record a demo even without being signed to the label.
Along with the new equipment, WMFO also used the money to hire audio engineers who will work with bands on and off the recording label. Sayler described audio engineers as the glue holding together any good recording studio.
"Audio engineers are the guys on the other side of the glass making everything sound good. The music will sound terrible if the guy running the board doesn't know what he's doing," Sayler said.
Russman and Sayler recruited audio engineers out of Tufts' electrical engineering department, in the hopes of exchanging money and experience for the engineers' expert advice and work in their studio.
"We are paying the engineers who are working with the bands, so it's kind of like an internship for them," Sayler said. "However, they are just getting their start, so we don't have to pay them ridiculous amounts of money like we would in a normal studio."
The record label also came about in large part due to Russman's drive to start a business through the WMFO station. He was assistant general manager last year, so he had experience handling the business side of music.
"I feel like it's something that I can own, with the help of Andy [Sayler] and others," Russman said. "It's a huge challenge, but I want to start it up and have it succeed."
Searching for the sound
When asked about what he was looking for in the bands playing on Friday, Russman described the key ingredient as something that couldn't be put into words — an X-factor that moved him.
"I'm personally looking for an original sound," Russman said. "It doesn't even have to be a very developed or mature sound, but I have to see some potential there."
Sayler is ideally looking for bands that consist of likeable members with a talent for music.
"We're going to pick bands that we like with people that are willing to sit in a room for 10 hours and listen to a track until it's perfect," Sayler said.
The marketability of a band was less important to Sayler, who said it's the label's job to worry about getting people to listen to their artists' music. "I'd rather take a band that I like and figure out how to make them marketable … than take a band that's marketable and figure out how to like them," he said.
In terms of the type of music that the record label will represent, both Russman and Sayler agreed that anything goes.
"I told them to bring [to the contest] whatever they think is best. That being said, I would like them to play original stuff," Russman said. "However, if they're covering a song, they need to put a completely different spin on it. It doesn't show anything about talent to cover a song like it is."
Most of the people who will be judging the bands this Friday have been associated with WMFO for some time. Because of this knowledge of bands on the Tufts campus, there could be some bias when choosing bands for the record label.
"I've seen a couple of them perform before," Russman said. "I've met with all of them, but I'm not very familiar with them."
But Sayler indicated that knowing the band's previous work wouldn't help them in getting signed to the record label this Friday.
"I'm hoping that they don't play what we've all heard before. I want to see some ideas for when we make the EP," Sayler said.
Bringing On the Side to the fore
What comes next? Sayler claimed that he will eventually phase himself out and hand the reins of the record label completely over to Russman, simply because he already has to run the WMFO station. Russman, along with the help of individual band managers, will sit down with the bands and work out how they want their EP to sound.
Sayler described the process after signing bands as a very personal, band-by-band-tailored experience. If bands have songs to record already, then the process will happen within a matter of weeks; if not, then bands will have to write new songs before even getting in the studio to record.
Russman didn't seem worried about the amount of effort and commitment starting up a record label will take. Instead, he seemed more worried about sustaining the business after he graduates.
"We really have to figure out the process of training the next person to take over when I graduate," Russman said. "In a business, you can't skip a beat like you could with other student organizations."
Sayler expressed less worry about finding students to take over for Russman, simply because, like so many campus organizations, WMFO sees leadership changes every year.
"We know how to ensure continuity," Sayler said, "We have a lot of experience with this."
