Straight On Recordings The time has come to expand!
On a nice spring evening Richard de Mildt (DJ Luna), Rodney Pilapil (DJ Pila) and Ronald Pilapil (The Scientist) meet each other at their office on the industrial site of Haarlem, a town nearby the city limits of Amsterdam. All being owners of Straight On Recordings, its their task to define their label once and for all. This has become necessary since things are going extremely well for Straight On Recordings, especially on the international market. May we have your attention for a label that is all about giving their producers a break, except when it comes to the quality of the releases.
Straight forward
Straight On Recordings is a label that is purely founded for the artists. They are the reason we started it. In the past, all of us have encountered problems with contracts when we wanted to release our tracks. Straight On isnt about the money. When we make some its nice but the first priority is to release good records. No bullshit, straight forward, thats why we named our label that way. An artist is at his best when he doesnt have to worry about vaguely regulations and bad contracts. That distracts him from the things he does best, producing music, says Richard. And with us, you dont have to wait for nine months to see your tracks released! adds Rodney.
New
The idea of staring a label of themselves came up in 2002. The DJ-careers of Richard and Rodney flourished and they wanted to release their own records. Besides that there was a lack of Dutch hardstyle labels so they had to buy imported records, even though the style was extremely popular in Holland. While lots of starting labels wanted to contract them they decided to start for themselves, together with Rodneys brother Ronald. They had to conquer various problems. The brothers had gained some experience with their hardcore label RNO Records, but that was nothing compared to the challenge they faced now. In the age of the hardcore there used to be a doing it only for the fun mentality, but those days were over. Ronald: Running a label is a tough job. You have to do a lot of promotion and it implies many hours of negotiations with other A&R managers and record companies for the compilations. We dont make real cash, but we have come a long way and as long as the releases dont cost us money were completely satisfied.
Three years later 17 records have been released on Straight On and the sublabel Straight On Black (which contains more experimental records with crossovers to techno and hardtrance, mainly produced by young talented producers). Besides this (at the moment of writing this profile) another 7 releases await to find their way to the record shops. Its obvious that the guys from Straight On have been busy. However, this number does not mean that they release everything that has potential. There is one thing which has priority when it comes to decide whether a record is being released on Straight On and that is quality.
Quality
Ronald: A couple of things are very important to us. We dont want releases that are copies of other successful records. The records we put out must be original. This may imply that not every release is as successful as the first one, which sold over 5000 copies, but we take that for granted. The only thing that counts is that the three of us back up the release. Thats a trademark of Straight On Recordings.
Rodney: Its difficult for producers to release on our label because we are very critical and we have decided that all the three of us have to be enthusiastic about a record. When one of us has his doubts we dont bring it out. On the other hand, we dont care who is behind the productions.
This is quite revolutionary in the world of record labels. In general, unknown producers have a hard time seeing their work released in comparison to producers that already have proven to be successful because the latter sell more on their name alone. Ronald: Everybody has a chance with us! In some cases we coach producers with little experience. This does not mean that we tell them what to do, we only give advice. If a track has potential you have to give it some attention. As a matter of fact, its your duty to do this if you want be successful as a label and you work out of love for the music while demanding quality.
Future
Demos are sent in by mail to Straight On Recordings daily and every one of them is being listened to carefully. Even though hardstyle is merely a Dutch thing when it comes to large parties the most demos come from foreign countries such as Australia, England, Swiss and Sweden. When they listen to them they pay extra attention to the theme and the middle parts. Those have to make a good impression in order for the productions to be taken seriously.
The success of Straight On is not only made clear by the response of producers and fans, it is shown as well by the expansion of the record company. In the nearby future another division is being added to Straight On. This new label will be called Privilige Recordings and it is founded in cooperation with popular Dutch DJs Bas & Ram. Privilige Recording releases hardtrance productions.
Ronald: We will also focus ourselves on other activities like bringing out a Straight On compilation and a DVD of the tour we do with our label. This tour brought us already to Poland and Germany and France and Spain are coming up.
Rodney: When you look at the future when it comes to releases we really aim for the status of being a mature record company. That is our target. In Holland we still have to fight the idea of every release being a hardstyle release because of the fact that is being released on Straight On. That image is going to change. We will put in more variety and we will have techno and hardtrance records under the name Straight On as well in the nearby future. The time has come to expand!
