"The words product and unit are only ever used in jest"

Plateau Records came about out of necessity. I met The Frames while I was still working at ZTT and we got each other’s vibe immediately.

I left the record company in 1999, and they asked me to manage them the day after I left: I said yes and about a year later they were let go from ZTT. So, there we were in January 2000 – five band members, me and Gerry (our sound engineer), deal-less and slightly battered, without a pot to piss in and a little disillusioned even – but with a big heap of experience between us.

I’d done my five years at WEA as a label manager and then five years at ZTT, so I kind of knew what it takes to get a record out. More importantly, though, I was hooked up with a bunch of blokes that can’t half write a good tune and, what’s more, play it live in particularly fine style.

We decided in those early days not to go searching for another major deal – where you will always have someone peeping over your shoulder telling you what to do – but to try to go it alone. We knew it would definitely be the harder road, but we were all willing to give it a shot and re-invest into Plateau whatever was needed to cover all the costs involved in making an album and in keeping a band together, touring and functioning.

The first thing The Frames needed post-ZTT, was to do a new record. They gave themselves total freedom to record it when they wanted, how they wanted and with whom they wanted. For them it was like a breath of fresh air – being able to record internally with David Odlum in a house in Kerry, say, and going to work with Steve Albini in Chicago. That is one of the joys of having your own label and financing your own sessions – you really are your own bosses.

You’re not having to listen to someone asking you where the hit single is (or more likely pointing out the lack of it), or telling you to try a cover version for the first radio record, or dragging you round London with a stylist to spruce you up and make you more fine and dandy-looking for a certain demographic because it’s their cash and they can call the tune…

We obviously had to finance the making of the record, so we gigged and gigged and gigged a bit more. We saved. We ran up my credit card bills to their limits (they’re still there...), we borrowed against gigs and generally begged from family members, friends, girlfriends etc. We did it though, and the label was set up to release For The Birds in March of 2001.

It outsold the previous three albums within two weeks. It is now nudging double platinum in Ireland. We had to get the basics in place for the release, which are a distribution deal and the press and radio promotion. All the other stuff that goes on around releasing a record – whether it’s co-ordinating the touring, writing the newsletters, updating the fanbase, paying VAT bills or actually getting the records pressed – that falls mostly to me. In general, though, with the creative direction of the band and any other big issues, we’d all sit down around a table and talk, and air our views. As we’re all in this boat together, we’re all going to put the hours in, ‘cause any decisions that are taken are going to affect all of our futures.

Right now, we’re back on that bit where we have to get some money together to make the next record, and that’s an expensive business. We’ve invested heavily in touring abroad this past few years, but you can’t sit at home and rest on your laurels or you’d get an itchy arse.

You have to get out there and challenge yourself as a band and as people, and try to bring new folks to the party.

As I started off by saying, Plateau was born out of necessity, specifically for releasing The Frames albums, but in the future who knows? I would love to make enough money to live on and have some under the mattress to be able to re-invest in other like-minded/don’t mind the hard road type people – but I guess that’s in the future as we are still not really that close to buying our own Mercedes each or holiday homes in the south of France…

One thing that I couldn’t have done it without, outside of having a great band AND a very loyal and growing fan base, would be the e-mail list and a computer. Apart from paying Friction pr (who have done, and continue to do, a fantastic job) and spending money on posters and an ad in hotpress around the release of the record, all of our stuff over the past three years has been promoted via the newsletter and word of mouth. Our patrons are the people who keep coming out to the shows and buying the records and we have to take our hats off to those that do.

The shitty bit about having your own label is the obvious one really – worrying about where the money’s gonna come from to pay the rent with/live/make the record/tour support gigs etc – it makes you prioritise very quickly as it’s an expensive game. But it’s something that we all want to be doing and for as long as it makes us happy, then Í guess we’ll carry on doing it.

The best bit about running your own show is probably that the words ‘unit’ and ‘product’ are only ever used in jest…