Paul Piticco, Create/Control

06 February 2012

by Olivia Kim

The world of the traditional record label as we know it is currently in a state of upheaval. In between EMI being sold off in parts to Universal and Sony, the battle against illegal file sharing, and the struggle to find new income streams in an increasingly crowded market place, the record label business has had it tough the past five years. So how does one adapt to these changes? According to Paul Piticco, by taking a radical step forward and creating a record label with an emphasis on letting the artists be the masters of their own destinys.

Piticco wears many hats: Founder of Secret Sounds, Director of Dew Process, Splendour in the Grass Producer and Manager of Powderfinger. Now to add to that, he’s gone and created a new label, Create/ Control. So what inspired this new label? After all, it’s not like Piticco already doesn’t have one, and a very successful one at that.

“One of the philosophies of Dew Process is not becoming a sausage factory for music. We got to a point where 40% of everything we sign to the label has gone Gold or Platinum, singles and albums, so the strike rate is really high,” Piticco explains. “Most people would try to do more of that to grow the business but we ended up just coming to the conclusion that it would be better not to grow the label and let the label stay at a similar size so we could always fill the care, attention, and emphasis we wanted to put into the developing acts. That lead us to the idea of starting another label.”

Create/Control is not just another label, but a label with a fundamental difference. Artists will get to keep 100% of their copyright, there is no formal obligation to stay, and they’ll get a far bigger royalty slice than they did before. In return, the artists will have to deliver the music, with the label not funding the traditional costs of A & R. As Piticco points out: “To get the full service of the record label, like a proper record label – people doing marketing, promotions, doing everything you would expect – while having the flexibility of just doing a distribution deal, this hasn’t really been done before in this country. We think it’s going to be very successful, and we’re going to have a lot of people wanting to be involved.”

Reflecting the major influence the Internet has had on the music industry, Create/Control have chosen to evolve with the times and use this to their power. When asked what kind of technology will be involved, Piticco is quick to reply.

“We’re going to have analytics and a lot of web portals where artists can see what their music is doing around the globe at any given time,” he explains. “There’s a lot of opportunity for artists to manage their own online presence and we’ll provide tools for them to sell music whether it be through Facebook or other social media. We’re building a web platform that almost makes us disappear in between the transaction between the fan and the artist. We’ll be there, but the idea is try to get those two parties as close together as they can in terms of how they listen, share, message one another, buy, sell and stream music - so there’s a lot of investment going in our platform.”

The Internet has led to a flurry of musical acts being discovered at a very young age; some members of breakout bands such as San Cisco and Snakadaktal are still in high school. Piticco sympathises with the often bewildering position young musicians can find themselves in nowadays. “If I was 19 and forced into the national spotlight through Triple J, online or through any form of media and there was an opportunity to further my career, it’d be great to have people around me that knew what they were doing. If for whatever reason I felt uncomfortable or I had a change of heart or wanted to go in a different direction I could, and my copyrights wouldn’t be locked into something for the rest of my career. For young, developing artists it’s very uncomplicated; you can hold hands and you can have a relationship.” The fact that he sees this as a relationship and not a business is probably key to his multitude of successes.

If his previous track record is anything to go by, Create/Control will be a resounding success. Dew Process have artists such as Bluejuice, the Living End, Seeker Lover Keeper, and Grouplove on the roster, Secret Sounds nabbed the mythical Lana Del Rey for her first Australian tour, and also bought the likes of Foster the People, James Blake and Pulp to our shores. With the leaders of the team behind Dew Process leading Create/Control, Piticco assures TMN that musicians will be in good hands. It’s a new kind of label for artists with a new set of expectations.