What does it mean and what does it mean to be an independent label in Spain? The question has been floating in the air for decades and the answer has varied as the music industry has evolved. In 2024, the context that independent record labels must face implies, sooner or later, sealing agreements with transnational platforms like Spotify and relating to large festivals while producing just hundreds of records; insignificant print runs in a globalized market. It seems difficult to stay afloat and it can be even more so if you operate from the periphery.
In Oviedo there is a label that has maintained the type since 2016. It is called Humo Internacional (previously it was Humo) and was born from the embers of Discos Humeantes, a record label founded in 2008 that released references by Pablo Und Destruktion, Futuro Terror, Montañas, Mujeres and, above all, Fasenouva, the Asturian duo that best exemplifies this record label’s weakness for cutting, dark and epileptic sounds. This fall Humo Internacional is in the news for an exultant business experiment: the rapid launch of ten albums by Dame Area, Tatxers, Somos La Herencia, Cachito Turulo (new project by Ernesto Avelino after Fasenuova) and Olivier Arson (author of the award-winning soundtrack of as beasts)among others.
Pablo Fernández, director of Humo Internacional, defends that this massive edition of news is not a commercial harakiri but rather a success. “Although it may seem otherwise, it is much easier for us to sell albums when they come out at the same time. And not only to the store, but also to the people because you are sending a message that what you do matters,” he says. This is just the latest in a series of apparently suicidal decisions by the Oviedo label whose common denominator is the search for its own path. One that happens to be stubbornly suspicious of the most hackneyed phrase in the business. The one that says: things are done this way and that’s it.
The union that makes strength
The logic of record companies advises distancing the release of albums so that some do not take attention away from others; a policy that assumes that artists on a label compete with each other. Furthermore, scheduling releases means putting some artists before others and a group easily detects whether it is the label’s big bet or the latest monkey. A mass launch, on the other hand, dynamites internal hierarchies and enhances the notion of a collective. “It also helps us position ourselves as a label and send a message that we do things together,” adds Fernández. And, above all, it prevents “each group from having to fight alone with the seventeen million albums that will be released on the same day.” It is ‘unity is strength’ in record version.
In reality, Humo Internacional only applies to recorded music a strategy that it has already explored in concerts. “For some time now, we have taken four groups that release albums during those months and presented them together at a Humo Fest,” explains Pablo. “Suddenly, a group that had 50 people, another that had 50, of which they shared 30 with the previous group, and another that had another 50, together they are putting 400 people in a room. That makes you see that instead of being competitors they are allies.” It is, in fact, the same tactic that the Barcelona label B-Core used in the 90s.
The Asturian Pablo Fernández and the Galician Sara Roca are the brains behind Humo Internacional and the way they became friends explains a lot about the direction the label has been taking. Sara had been organizing concerts in A Coruña since she was 15. Many of them, in the Nave 1839 social center where Pablo appeared one Saturday in 2016 with his group Balcanes. Pablo had already turned off the Discos Humeantes and was an active part of La Lata De Zinc, an associative venue that had just opened in Oviedo when the closure of the squat had left his city orphaned of concerts; and local with which it no longer has any connection). This is self-management context underground from the periphery that would forge Smoke’s character.
Contracts, liquidity and human resources
In the last era of Discos Humeantes, Pablo Fernández faced an uncomfortable situation: no artist on his label could make a living from music, but he did make a living from it. “I thought there had to be another way of doing things so that it would be possible to make a living from what not only the label but also the groups do.” One of the first changes in transit to Humo was the contractual relationship with the groups. “The first contract we signed was inherited from Warner. We didn’t know how they were made and someone gave us one of theirs,” confesses Pablo. Sara reformulated the contracts, making them shorter and more understandable for artists and label and, most importantly, they were no longer linked in time. “We go album by album because a group can believe that today it is fair that I have 10% left and tomorrow think that it is too much. “Any group can leave the label whenever they want.”
Another practice that is not common in Humo Internacional is to advance money to groups to record their albums. “We try not to take over what belongs to the group in exchange for money in advance. We try not to be a bank,” says Pablo. This prudence when managing the economy allows us to face key challenges such as the pressing of vinyl, since factories get paid in 30 days even though these records take years to sell. “For better or worse, Humo never spent all his money. Credits were never requested. We do not live immersed in the illusion of growth,” they sigh.
Smoke’s dream is total self-sufficiency. They would like to press the records themselves “because the big problem for a small label is making more than what you need.” They work with runs of between 300 and 500 vinyls and rarely order more so as not to overwhelm the warehouse. Storage space and economic liquidity are the great dramas of an independent label. Sara points out another: “the shortage of human resources.” They both do everything: “print the t-shirts, prepare packages, the booking“, upload moves to the networks, settle accounts with the stores…”. Not having digital or physical distribution agreements with multinationals, as other Spanish independent labels do, means assuming all the steps in the chain.
Being from Oviedo and not complaining
Operating from Oviedo might seem like a problem, but they don’t see it that way. “If I continued living in Barcelona I would probably have been overwhelmed by the situation. For what we want to build, living in Oviedo is an absolute advantage. Here I have much less expenses,” says Pablo. “I will probably earn more money and be more successful from here than going to Madrid to fight,” he senses. “In Madrid or Barcelona you live permanently projecting an image that helps you survive in that city. Here we don’t live that fight to get our heads. The neighbors walk past the Humo office and think this is a vape shop,” they celebrate.
Sara, who has worked for several years in Madrid, acknowledges that there “you meet everyone and you see how agreements are reached, things are offered and there is more movement, but there is such saturation that the benefits you can get are a bit spurious. They are not truly lasting fruits. Maybe you’ll start playing at festivals because you’re in the music press, but let’s see what happens when you go to Cáceres or Cuenca.” Pablo is also suspicious of that “world of opportunities” that he describes as “poisoned candy.” “It is such an obscene power structure that it makes no sense to want to participate in it. You can only be part of their movement if you feed their movement.”
If you play in a room and 50 people are going to see you, those 50 people are yours. And when you come back, if you did it right, there will be 55. It will always work like that. Although some insist on saying that everything works differently now
Pablo Fernandez
— International Humor Director
Humo Internacional is not an anti-festival label. “We have groups that want to play at festivals and we try. What we don’t do is accept anything at any price. And if they don’t want them, I don’t waste five minutes cursing or complaining,” Pablo explains. Negotiating with festivals without a submissive attitude involves being self-sufficient beforehand so as not to depend on those calls. “We put on our concerts and parties and we have our own festival that, instead of selling 80,000 tickets, sells 300 or 400. If we didn’t pull ourselves out of the fire, we wouldn’t even exist.” From that Oviedo periphery it is easier to understand that a career cannot be based on smashing it in Madrid. “A race is sustained if you have people who want to see you in Cuenca or Santander. If you play in a room and 50 people are going to see you, those 50 people are yours. And when you come back, if you did it right, there will be 55. It will always work like that. Although some insist on saying that everything works differently now.”
Something like a conclusion
Despite that ethereal name, Humo Internacional has its feet on the ground. “We try not to have a very dramatic speech and not make it seem like the world owes us something. Sometimes it seems that the one below is crying because he is not above. The problem would be to believe that an album that sells 50 copies is going to sell 500. I wish our albums sold 10,000 copies and our groups appeared on the cover of El País. Is it reality? No. Are we going to waste our time believing that we deserve it more than someone else? No”, Pablo ditches. “We don’t need anyone to validate us,” they insist over and over again. Of course, having your feet on the ground also means calibrating which battles are not worth fighting. “Could we not be on Spotify? Yes, but it would be like living in the dark when there is light. There is no alternative right now.”
We have been trying to unravel the meaning of record independence in 2024 for a long hour. At some point in the conversation, Pablo doubted whether the “100% independent” flag that his label waves “is more of a tagline than a reality in the world.” in which we live.” But in the minutes of extra time, he points out something like a conclusion: “Being an independent label in 2024 has to do with understanding the space you occupy and growing from it. Not by trying to occupy spaces that do not belong to you or pretending to be someone you are not.” This makes it easier to face the future: “We are so close to the ground that we can start over all the time. We go as far as we can and if we make mistakes, nothing happens because tomorrow will be another day and we will start again from practically the same place. There are no great ideas to conquer the world.”
#Spanish #independent #label #close #ground #start #time
