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  Will Ashon Interview
interview 0544 added 09.11.07 words:
Kane
technical:
Spoon
Big Dada - a place called home to musical mavericks, wayward geniuses and rapping Dadaists. Where a gold disc and Mercury Music nominees reside and UK Hip hop has never sounded less like UK Hip hop. You might find dead dogs two mixing it up with gangsters and an unemployed black astronaut, or maybe you’ll witness the adventures of the lactating man. Well, maybe it’s not quite as fantastical as that list of select BD tracks but the last ten years have certainly been quite the fairy tale story for Big Dada’s Big Dada, Will Ashon. Kane caught up with him to find out more…
Despite hesitancy to make any brash mission statements - by Wills own admission, “you can probably guess, there’s no method to our madness!” The results have always been transparent– progressive, lyrical driven music of the highest caliber. With such an eccentric and often contradictory roster of artists - from the soulful eloquence of Ty, though to Diplo’s baile funk experimentations, cLOUDDEAD’s psych-pop and all the way back round to grime pioneer Wiley – Big Dada’s releases have covered every shade of Hip hop and the musical bridges, however tenuous, in between.
How did you hook things up with Ninja Tune in the first place?
It was fairly random to be honest. I interviewed Peter Quicke (the boss of Ninja Tune) a couple of times, and once for Muzik magazine alongside John Moore (of Coldcut). And then I bumped into him at an old school friends wedding reception, she was marrying someone who Peter knew. So having met him a few times previous I approached him with this idea to start a label. At the time I wasn’t very well connected, in fact I was completely unconnected, but Peter just struck me as a nice guy who would listen to what I had to say. We arranged to go for a drink after that, and he was like “yeah, ok, will give it a go..” and we started with a single at a time. Pete put up the money so there’s always been an element of risk involved for him, but he has always fully supported our ideas and allowed us space to do exactly what we want.
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Be honest about every record you might sell and budget accordingly so you might break even or even a little bit of profit on top
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Were there any labels that influenced you when you were starting up Big Dada? Was there a plan of action?
 Not massively. I was definitely influenced by the underground scene in NY at the time, prior to that the L.A underground of the early 90s’, groups like the Freestyle Fellowship, the Good Life scene but no labels as such. You could say Rawkus but they came out around the same time as us, I was really into Company Flow but this was obviously quite sometime before Def Jux. I knew of Peanut Butter Wolf and the Stones Throw setup having been sent a few 12s’ about a year prior to starting up Big Dada, but we were trying something slightly different. So I’d prefer to think of them as contemporaries rather than influences.
What’s your process when it comes to signing an artist; do you use specific A&Rs’ or will you take on people more organically? Is there set criteria to the acts or is it flexible?
It really varies, that’s kind of my responsibility, and even now where I’m not the label manager anymore it’s still something I handle. I’ve never been super active, going out there and searching for stuff, or trawling myspace trying to find the next big thing. I had been a Hip hop journalist for 3 years prior to starting the label, so I knew pretty much everyone in London and I knew MSI Asylum and people like that so the first few releases were already connections through journalism, and then, of course you get introduced to other people. I think the only person I’ve signed purely off a demo sent in was Diplo. I could be wrong but as far as I remember he’s the only one where it was an unsolicited demo that arrived in the mail. And Diplo sent me Spank Rocks demo, and even Juice Aleem who’s been with us from the start was introduced by Bandit from Asylum, he said you’re going to like this kid and he gave me his number and we met in a McDonalds in Brixton. And we sat there talking about weird Ultramagnetic MC records and stuff.
As you can probably guess by looking at our releases, there’s no method to our madness! It’s just got to be exciting. I always know when we’ve found someone because I suffer from this nervous panic of missing out on them to someone else. “I’ve got to do it now!” Whilst some stuff you may just be indifferent about, I mean the thing with selling records is that it’s such a difficult business you have to be convinced by an act, you can’t be half-hearted about it and just expect the record to sell.
Talking of which, was there anyone you regret not signing?
 Erm, no, not massively. I’m sure there must be but I tend to forget them quite quickly to be honest, ha,ha…It’s the best way to be about it, I mean it’s interesting, people talk to me about Wiley and he was someone I wanted to sign at his first record with (XL) when Grime/Garage was first breaking but the economics of it wouldn’t work for us. After Oxide and So- Solid and others achieving top-10s and number 1s’ even there were major labels interested and we couldn’t really compete with them financially. So we had to wait.
As an independent, British label, releasing predominantly black music what’s been the biggest obstacle you’ve faced over the past 10 years?
Erm…that’s a tuff one.
How about major radio station play? I don’t think there’s been much of that.
Maybe, but if there’s a groundswell of support round an artist there should be radio play. I mean if you look at Roots Manuva he’s always track listed and I think his last 4 or 5 singles have all gone top 40.
But he’s an exception, which I don’t think is really fair. I mean look at bands like The Feeling, what the hell is that about?…
Ha,ha. Maybe, but I genuinely believe if a British artist came out who can sell 40 – 60,000 albums without radio support they would soon be on the radio selling as much as 4 times that within a month of radio support. The problem is that there is a certain amount of indifference to it, if people want guitar bands – they want guitar bands and there’s not a lot you can do about that. Except try and build your spending around realistic expectations of what you’re going to sell rather than thinking you’re going to sell 100 – 500,000 records. Be honest about every record you might sell and budget accordingly so you might break even or even a little bit of profit on top. But obviously, radio hasn’t really helped, but it’s also an easy excuse. Will adopts a donkey, E-aw style voice, “Radio 1 never supported me and if it wasn’t for that I’d be a superstar”. Well there may be an element of truth in that as Radio 1 support all sorts of crap they probably shouldn’t, but, people have tried with various supposedly credible black British artists and it just hasn’t worked for whatever reason.
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The new Roots Manuva album should be out in the first half of next year, I’ve heard some of that and it’s sounding amazing
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That’s a very diplomatic response. I was hoping you were going to slag off Jo Whiley…
 Ha, ha. I don’t know why I haven’t you’ve obviously caught me in a good mood; I’m not going to slag off Jo Whiley today! It’s not her anyway to be honest, the presenters are muppets, it’s the producers who decide playlists. I do think it’s interesting though, I mean you look at the BBC, which a public paid for service yet I don’t think it really reflects the attitudes of modern Britain.
No, not at all.
And then you look at 1Xtra, which is modeled on a commercial American broadcast station. Why would they do that? It makes no sense to me.
Which artist took the most persuading to sign a deal, and the least?
Ty took quite a lot of persuading actually. I mean Roots Manuva could have signed with almost anybody after Witness, so I was very pleased he re-signed with us.
And the least?
Well it’s quite often a case of us strongly recommending they get a lawyer to look over the contract first as we don’t want someone coming back to us a year later saying “what about this, what about that?” “It’s a contract – you should get it checked!”
As much as anything, I think that in the industry were known for being reasonably straight, royalties get paid every six months if there’s royalties to be paid. Re-signing Rodney was a big thing for us, he didn’t take much persuading but the people around him did.
Wiley was obviously a big signing for BD recently; do you listen to stuff like grime?
 Yeah, I was listening to it on white label. I’m not a hip hop purist by any stretch. If I’m honest I think the problem with grime is that the pioneers, the people that brought it into existence are still the leaders in it. There’s stuff coming out but a lot of it’s quite generic, it doesn’t seem to have evolved much. I think it’s maybe to do with the fact that there was a lot of money flopping around in it for a while. People started using it as a way to make money out of it rather than any love for it. Whereas with UK hip hop in the mid-90s’ there was absolutely no money to be made out of it and you only did it for the love. I mean there’s still not really much money now, but prior to Roots Manuva’s album (‘Run Come Save Me’) going platinum no one thought they could quit their job and make money out of UK hip hop. So it was purely about doing something because you cared for it so much and wanted to express your own feelings and creativity rather than making music for the marketplace.
And what do we have to look forward to from BD over the coming year?
 We’ve got loads of good records coming up. The new Roots Manuva album should be out in the first half of next year, I’ve heard some of that and it’s sounding amazing. I’m excited about that and we’ve got Speech, our first female signing who’s going to record her album with Wayne Lotek in Australia. She’s been knocking around for a few years now and we offered her a deal a couple years back but it wasn’t right for her at the time and now she’s come back to us. She’s got a very quiet voice, she’s in her early 20s but she sounds younger, she has a very subtle, distinctive sound that could work well with Lotek. Then we’ve got something with Xrabit who’s got a few emcees’ he wants on his album but were still sorting out the paperwork so I can’t really say much more, I don’t want to jinx it. The new Cadence Weapon record, and another 2 or 3 albums that are between the contract to agreement stage, so it’s still fairly hush-hush on those. I don’t want to say much more as it could fall through so I’d look like a right muppet or it could piss the artists off, but one’s British and the others are L.A based.
You used to be a journalist, what do you think of the current state of rap journalism and the music press in general?
To be honest I don’t follow it closely anymore, when you’re in that world it’s all engrossing. I glance at them but I don’t read them cover to cove, and I mean that in both the Hip hop ones and the more general stuff. All I’m really interested in now is if were on cover, if were in this or that. So, I’d say the state of music or rap journalism is, generally, we should be getting more coverage! Ha, ha. No not really, we do get good coverage.
"...I always know when we’ve found someone because I suffer from this nervous panic of missing out on them to someone else..."
I knew you wrote and released a book but I didn’t quite realize how literarily inclined you are. Would it be fair to say writing is your first love?
I guess in some ways, hopefully it’s something that’s reflected in our releases where we’re a label with a real lyrical emphasis. I wrote a book before I started writing about Hip hop, which wasn’t released. But they're not mutually exclusive – you can love both of your children the same.
Tell us a bit about ‘Clear Water’?
 Yeah the paperback is out now, well it was originally a paper back but now the paper back of the paper back is out, if you follow. I’m sure I could try and find an even more difficult way to make a living. Clear Water was basically the result of me sitting in a room on my own for a year. It’s difficult to explain what it’s about, I need to think of good pitch…
Are you reading anything good at the moment?
I’m reading ‘Against the Day’ by Thomas Pynchon, which is a monster. I’ve been reading it on and off since Christmas but it’s over a 1000-page book. Not ideal for the tube, but highly recommended.
Finally, what advice would you give to a young person looking to start his or her own independent record label?
Wow. Fingers on the holsters dude! No, not really, I started at an easier time in a way, but I’d suggest going into it with a clear idea of what you want to do and how you’d go about it. Alternatively, sell DVDs’ or something, you’d make more money!
Big Dada’s 10 year compilation album, ‘Well Deep’, is out now as well as a DVD featuring every music promo ever made by the label. They will also be celebrating with good old fashioned knees up at the Elektrowerkz on November 16th
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Kane
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