With a roster of high-profile artists booking sold-out tours and gaining ARIA nods, as well as highly successful ventures overseas, such as a packed-out Miami beach party, Sweat It Out looks to be the quintessential Australian record label success story.
However, this nominee for the best Australian indie label of 2012, which now encompasses a publishing and agency wing, started from humble beginnings, if not the humblest – a simple spare room in the home of now A&R Director Matt Handley.
To get the skinny on one of Australia’s busiest indie labels, which now boasts a roster featuring the platinum-selling Yolanda Be Cool, as well as Parachute Youth, RÜFÜS, What So Not, Ac Slater, and more, and how they came to be so, we caught up with Matt to give us all the details.
Early Beginnings
I have been with Sweat It Out from the beginning. Myself, AJAX and our other business partner, Jamie Raeburn. It was 2008. Vinyl had pretty much died, but there were still CDs and Beatport was only just really taking over where DJs got their music.
Punters were still going to the shops to buy music, though I’m pretty sure the pirates were in full swing. As I recall someone saying, the music business had gone from a really good business to an okay one.
Sustainability
Well, we actually never really started the label to make money, so using the word “sustain” is probably not the right word given we have actually never done any kind of business planning (for better or worse). We basically each put in $1,000 and started in my spare room.
Luckily, the acts we’ve signed have gone on to be quite successful, which in turn has led to our business growing. Having said that, we obviously work very hard on music we are passionate about, some of which we know will not make a cent, some of which we hope has some commercial viability – and I guess sustainability for the label.
The Sweat It Out Story
I was the lawyer at Central Station, Jamie was my boss, and AJAX was the coolest cat in the industry. He wanted to do mix CDs, so I did the licensing for them and we then decided that rather than just do mix CDs, we should start a label. And so Sweat was born.
Jax had his eye on a young Miami Horror, who had this throwback ’80s electro rap group called Gameboy Gamegirl who we signed. Their EP was our first release and believe it or not, also our first Beatport No. 1 with ‘Sweaty Wet/Dirty Damp’.
So the label was off to a good start, but then the company that owned Central Station went bankrupt, which left us homeless for a little while, but also made us realise that we didn’t even own the label yet. So it was kind of a blessing in disguise.
We re-ignited the label from my spare room with that little investment each and signed cats like Act Yo Age, Oh Snap, Wax Motif, DCUP. When Americano got big, we had a nice little injection of funds, which meant we had money to pay for videos and stuff.
Up until then, we had really only ever paid for mastering and art. And from there, we have obviously built the team and vibe to what it is today which we are very proud of. We miss AJAX every day but hope he would be happy with where things are headed.
The Sweat It Out Vision
The vision was and still is to release music we love. Whether it be music made for a Berlin basement of 100 people, or a banger made for a festival of 20,000, or a chillout tune made for an after-party of five. If we love it, we have always been down with it.
Networking
As an overall statement, it’s awesome to see how supportive everyone is in the dance music industry in Australia. I feel like everyone from all the different labels are genuinely happy when someone on another label has success. Same goes for all the artists.
Everyone supports each other, goes to the shows of their mates, etc. I love the family vibe that we have going on at Sweat. At the recent Porsches video shoot, we had all the guys from RÜFÜS, What So Not, and Yolanda come down and support.
It was a really cool feeling and definitely something we are proud of. In some of our contracts, we even have the option set as “Nil, but it would be nice to keep it in the family” [laughs]
A Day In The Life
Not sure there is an average day, to be honest. I think we don’t really take anything too seriously, or at least, even when we are working very seriously on something or something very serious, we still do it with a smile.
Proudest Moments
Last year, watching RÜFÜS at the Enmore after a sold-out national tour. That gave me tingles. Same with watching the live stream of What So Not absolutely annihilate Coachella. Getting an ARIA for Americano was pretty cool. Our pool party this year in Miami was pretty epic.
It was crazy to think our little label had enough swag to host a packed-out pool party on the beach at South Beach when next door, people like Skrillex are doing the same thing. And to think that 1,500 people chose our party over all the other options.
And generally, just seeing acts grow from when they come to us all shy and stuff, to playing on huge stages around the world is a great feeling.
Life Lessons
Be nice to everyone. They are definitely going to turn up again and again, so you may as well get on with them. The industry is small! Oh, and house music will always come back.
Alternate History
I had set up Handley Legal. I even had some clients. Luckily, I got too busy with Sweat and Yolanda and had to let them go.
Back To The Future
I think the future of Australian music couldn’t be brighter. There is so much talent and I think now more than ever the world is looking to us for new artists and even new sounds. As for the business in general, streaming is really closing the gap with digital sales, but I don’t think the streaming fees are a satisfactory replacement.
But let’s see. The business has always been responding to “the end”, so I’m sure “the end” will keep staying at arm’s length from where we are at, I hope.
