New Melody Robot Collective Licensing Indie Music to Brands, Anonymously

BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN: It’s been 12 years since a creative team at Arnold Advertising synchronized Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” on that dreamy Volkswagen commercial and in that time, brands and artists have become good friends.

Now, commercial music is all synch licenses and “inspired by” original compositions ordered to sound like a record. Competing directly with licensable album tracks, music houses have adapted by hiring artist-composers who can deliver authentic sounding tracks to the client’s creative direction that also effectively scores picture.

The result is arguably better music for visual media across the board, and a viable new revenue stream for artists who can put energy towards pitching for these jobs. Because selling music to fans is not getting any easier.

Josh Ascalon and Damon Dorsey w/ some of RAD Studio

Still, some artists see the music-for-hire proposition as potentially compromising to their own brand. In the Brooklyn indie music scene – oft-referenced by agencies seeking a piece of cool – bands with critical success may hesitate to sell their sound, or sounds yet-to-be spun, especially while they’re still on the rise.

But what if they could produce commercial music anonymously?

This is the premise of Melody Robot, a new collective of artists, composers, and producers that operate both behind and in front of the Brooklyn music scene.

Melody Robot is run by three young music industry entrepreneurs: composer Damon Dorsey and producer/engineer Josh Ascalon, who also co-own RAD Studio in Bushwick, and music licensing and sales man, Christopher Mazur.

“What led us into this was seeing our artist friends who are gaining notoriety, and out there touring the world, and yet still broke as hell,” says Ascalon. “They’re coming home from tour and crashing on friends’ couches. They can’t afford a place to live.”

“We all felt like there’s got to be a way to make a little more money,” Dorsey adds. “Especially as all these companies are trying to brand themselves with the whole cool, Brooklyn indie-scene thing. And we’re like, ‘Wait a minute, we are that.’ We’re actually making that music. So how do we get in on that?’”

ALL IN THE FAMILY

It all started with RAD Studio, the recording facility Ascalon and Dorsey own and run with musician/producer George Lewis Jr. of Twin Shadow.

Located within the utopian Castle Braid building and arts community in Bushwick – and with three very active owner/operators – RAD is a business that operates more like an extended family. In its two years, RAD has built a name for itself in the Brooklyn music scene working on records with bands like Hooray For Earth, Das Racist, Snowmine, Beige, Chairlift, and more recently The Vandelles and Ill Fits. Stereogum has aired “Live at RAD” sessions (see below) featuring Twin Shadow, Hooray for Earth and Zambri.

“We’ve always been a really close-knit little studio,” says Dorsey. “We are fully commercial, but we pretty much stay within our family as much as we can. It’s like a big group of musician friends – many of which happen to have taken off in the last couple years.”

Another studio might have launched a record label off of this momentum, but RAD is building Melody Robot – a much more direct bridge to revenue in 2011.

With Dorsey, Ascalon and Mazur acting as the producers and client liaison, Melody Robot provides an outlet through which some of these friends and collaborators can now write and produce music-for-hire, and even license and customize existing music to the right projects. And members of the Melody Robot collective do not have to put their name on anything – unless they want to.

“We’re not talking about who is in the collective and that’s really for the good of the artist,” notes Dorsey. “It’s largely why people have joined the collective – because we are discrete about this.

“It’s important to our artists to maintain separation between the commercial work and their image as an artist. Of course, you can guess at some of the work, and who’s behind it, but we’ll never say who’s involved exactly. Unless it’s a need-to-know thing by a client and we’ve all agreed on those terms.”

There’s a kind of reverse psychology to the Melody Robot model. Most music houses push their artist roster pretty hard, even take artists on the road to play sales presentations at ad agencies. By association, the music houses look super cool.

With Melody Robot, however, the emphasis will have to be on the music and sound design itself – an approach that will give the collective’s musicians an outlet for new sounds, ideas that may not fit the direction of their band, for example.

“It’ll be about their actual ability, as opposed to their face or their brand,” says Ascalon.

“I mean, it’s great if you’re an artist and some brand that perfectly aligns with how you’ve already branded yourself comes along and wants to give you a lot of money for your music. But there are more cases where maybe it’s not the most romantic thing in the world to be involved with…and through Melody Robot, these artists will have the opportunity to do that on the basis of their talents, not their brand.”

In cases where that artist co-brand does make sense, Melody Robot can broker these deals as well. In fact, according to Mazur – who primarily handles client relations and sales for the company – Melody Robot also cuts these artists a bigger piece of the pie than they would get elsewhere.

“The unique thing about our collective is that – if an artist is open and legally able to license their existing music through us – we’re offering them 65%, where Melody Robot is taking almost nothing for a finder’s fee. We’re blowing other music companies out of the water with that, because we recognize that they are also branding themselves in that moment. And the artist should get paid for that.”

If the deal is custom music and the artist is contributing anonymously and wins the job, the split is 50-50 – still a generous payout when compared with other music houses.

Of course, these other music companies aren’t exactly short-changing their winning writers – it costs a company significant time and resources to, first of all, bring in a job, and second of all produce it from beginning to end, covering all the associated overhead. With RAD Studio and other projects bringing in revenue, the Melody Robot principles do not have to put all their eggs in one basket with this collective.

“We’re building something new, and it’s inspiring,” says Dorsey. “We’re trying to set a new and different standard and stick to it. Even if it costs us more [in the short term.]”

RAD, NEW SOUNDS

By virtue of the music that’s come out of RAD, the collective aesthetic might be described as one that explores psychedelic and new wave synth pop, and experimental, effects-laced indie rock. This is often dense, distinctive pop songcraft, where the production and songwriting process are totally intertwined. It’s a song and a sound – music that’s both highly textural and melodic.

Since the artists’ names will not be their calling card, Melody Robot will have to bank on its aesthetic, and cultivate that accordingly rather than being an “all styles for all projects” kind of shop. “We realize the one thing we have is our aesthetic,” says Ascalon. “So we’re embracing that. We’d be more inclined to put our own spin on what the client wants [vs. music to order].”

In a world where everyone’s dropping names, if not standing behind a monster reel, this is certainly not the easiest way to build a business. But the partners are confident about their model. They describe what they’re doing as “developing a premium sonic branding option for music supervisors and creative directors looking for the new sound.”

“We do great work,” says Dorsey. “My philosophy is that cream will rise to the top: Clients receive good work, it’s original work, it has a unique sound. And we feel that clients will continue to come to us for a unique sound. And over time, we become associated with the sounds that we’re all already going for in our music. But now it’s part of this growing entity.

“People will know our sound. It comes directly from the source, and you really can’t fake that.”

For more information on RAD Studio, visit http://www.radstudiobrooklyn.com and get in touch with Melody Robot via http://www.melodyrobot.com.

Please note: When you buy products through links on this page, we may earn an affiliate commission.