Dan Ozzi talked with BrooklynVegan about his upcoming book, Sellout:
Yeah, I think, you know, obviously record labels are in the business of making money, and they tend to put gasoline where the kindling is. So something that’s said in the book a lot by many people is that record labels put out like 100 records a year, and the president only gives a shit about the two that are doing well. So in a case like Rise Against, yeah I’m sure the president of their label didn’t even know who they were, until they started looking at the SoundScan numbers, and they’re like, “Wait, this band that we put no money into seems to be selling how many copies on their own? Maybe let’s put some marketing money into them.” So I think all these bands that signed to major labels thinking the people who worked there were just going to make them into stars were really naive. The ones that seemed to do the best were the best that went to a major label and were like “We’re gonna work really hard until the boss takes notice.” And Rise Against is probably the best example of that, workhorses who eventually did well enough to get the attention of people who could loosen the purse strings.
I’ve read about half of the book so far, and it’s very good. If you grew up listening to these bands, or arguing about who sold out in the AbsolutePunk forums: it’s a must read.