Milk! Records: Deliberately Poor

Two years after Courtney Barnett started Milk! Records with no expectations whatsoever, it’s now an internationally known platform for Australian music that can raise $5000 in under 12 hours. DOUG WALLEN gets to know the ins and outs of it. Group photo by TAJETTE O’HALLORAN.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] When Courtney Barnett self-released her distinctly modest debut EP back in 2012, she drew a crude logo of spilt milk on the back and christened it the first release of a non-existent label called Milk!, superfluous exclamation point and all. In the two years since, Barnett has grown quickly into an international star, signing overseas deals and gracing The Tonight Show while more and more fans gravitate towards her shrugged-off, diary-like songwriting and equally low-key demeanour.

As Barnett has shot into the stratosphere – before even releasing a debut album – Milk! has come right along for the ride. What started as a outlet merely for her own releases has since accommodated albums by Super XX Man, The Saturday Knights and a tight circle of Melbourne artists including The Finks, Royston Vasie, Fraser A Gorman and Barnett’s partner, Jen Cloher. They’ve all seen increasing success since aligning with Milk! – Cloher’s 2013 album In Blood Memory was shortlisted for last year’s Coopers AMP – and they’ve all chipped in to make Milk! much less of a traditional label than a cooperative effort between friends who simply believe in each other’s music.

There’s a strong family vibe to it, whether in last year’s fundraising Christmas gig at Northcote Social Club or in annual label samplers. It’s also an outlet for music that doesn’t fit the traditional album format, such as Cloher’s recent cover of The Loved Ones’ ‘Sad Dark Eyes’ or her tour EP with the newfound supergroup Dyson Stringer Cloher. It’s less about signing new acts than staying out of debt and high-fiving the work of friends who push each other to write better songs and who appear frequently in each other’s bands, videos and more. Again, like the best kind of family.

The next step for Milk!, as Barnett prepares for the release of her much-anticipated LP next year, is a collectable 10” vinyl compilation featuring a track each by Barnett, Cloher, Gorman, The Finks and Royston Vasie. The pressing was funded in just 12 hours by a Pozible campaign that has since more than tripled its $5000 goal, and all five acts will play at a local launch party at the end of this month. Among the tracks – all recorded over one weekend in Northcote studio Head Gap – are Barnett’s ramshackle, reference-peppered salute to opposites, ‘Pickles From the Jar’, and Cloher’s raw and crunchy full-band duet with You Am I’s Tim Rogers, ‘Stone Age Brain’.

Mere hours before Barnett flew to Queensland for a quick holiday with Cloher and to play Splendour in the Grass, she and Cloher and The Finks’ Oliver Mestitz sat down in their local record shop, Thornbury Records, to discuss a unique micro-label that’s more visible by the day. And, by prizing the self-funded work of kindred spirits over the stereotypical deal-signing, money-generating trappings of a traditional label, one that is taking full advantage of a internet-levelled playing field.

When and why did Milk! come about?
Courtney Barnett: I guess I started it two years ago, when I put out my first EP [I’ve Got a Friend Called Emily Ferris]. It was not so much of a … I didn’t have a very strong idea for it. I pretty much had just recorded something and wanted to put a little label on the back of the CD so it looked professional. [Laughs] Smoke and mirrors.

And then it just kind of grew, and I released my next EP [How to Carve a Carrot Into a Rose] on it, and Jen and I released a [split] 7”, and then Jen’s [third] album [In Blood Memory]. Then I put out The Finks’ first EP [Things Work Out] and second one [At the Royal Witherspoon].

Was there a point where you realised, ‘Oh, this is actually a label’? Or was it like that from the start, after that first EP?
CB: Well, it’s not the most traditional label. It’s kind of something else. I don’t know what. [Laughs]

The website has a phrase about buying direct from the artist. Does that allude to more of a co-op structure?
CB: Well, I guess, yeah. I’m hardly business-savvy – I don’t know all the different words, but basically it’s a place where we can put people’s music and sell it. So it’s the next closest thing to direct artist [sales].

So you’re basically the platform that has visibility and has all the things in one place, for people to find it that way?
CB: I guess so. Yeah. And then all the bands chip in and either help with mailouts or help folding thing. Or, if we’re having a show party, then everyone kind of chips in to do stuff.

Jen Cloher: We had a conversation about “What was Milk! Records?” and with both of us having really busy touring schedules and lots of other things going on in our lives, the reality of being able to function as what I would consider to be a proper label – which is having the money and the time and resources to market and promote people’s work – … we don’t have those resources, and we don’t in any way pretend to. We’d never say to an artist, “Yeah, we’ll put out your album and shit’s gonna happen.” We can put it up on the [online] store and it’s another place for people to come. We’ve got a mailing list, we’ve got a Facebook and Twitter feed, and that’s it.

“The idea is, rather than being a traditional label, being a community of artists in an ever-increasing circle.”

What we found far more interesting about was the community idea. We have a lot of friends who are artists, like [In Blood Memory cover artist] Celeste Potter, or friends who take photos, like Tajette O’Halloran. The idea is, rather than being a traditional label, being a community of artists in an ever-increasing circle. So it’s not exclusive. We invite all sorts of different bands in to do things, and the 10” compilation is just the first sort of idea [in that direction]. So making collectables and curios and limited editions of community art projects, as opposed to a traditional label, which is kind of boring. [Laughter]

And a lot of work.
JC: Yeah, I struggle enough doing that with my own music, let alone having to email other artists about it. I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.

Going back to what you said about it not being exclusive: as the profile rises, you must get inundated with people wanting to be part of it. You must have to start being picky, and spend a lot of time saying no. Has that happened?
CB: [It’s] probably not exclusive in that way. We pretty much don’t take [unsolicited material] – we just work with our friends. Lots of people send us stuff but…

JC: But if they were on another label or something, it wouldn’t be like, “Oh no, we can’t do it,” because you’re on Mistletone or you’re on Chapter. We’re not exclusive in that sense. We’d be really happy to work with anyone that we like. Of course if you’re gonna put in all these hours for free, you only wanna work with people that you like and whose music you like.

Oliver Mestitz: Does it kind of select itself? Like, have you had people asking, thinking that it was maybe something it wasn’t, and then you’ve explained?

JC: As soon as you tell them there’s no money in it, a lot of people go away.

CB: Well, I think it’s that old idea of a record label. Like, “I need a record label to release my … whatever.” Just that old-fashioned [idea]. People think record label and they think money and promo and all that stuff, but it’s just a different world. [Laughs]

Courtney, you’re signed to labels overseas. Has that been interesting, to see the mechanics of how that works versus your own experience with Milk!? Which would obviously be very different…
CB: Yeah, totally different. I spent a lot of time picking labels that really understood where I was coming from and understood what Milk! does, so they’re supportive of everything in that way. Yeah, it’s interesting to take some of those things and put them towards our way we do things.

OM: And is the reason you signed to them that they can do things you can’t do yourself?

CB: Yeah. Like, I wouldn’t know how to release things overseas. I hardly know how to do it here. [Laughs]

OM: But they have the resources and manpower and stuff. I think the thing with Milk! is … I’ve got a friend, Lachlan [Denton] from Ocean Party – he’s got a little Osborne Again Records thing. I was talking to him about it, and you’re basically not doing anything that people can’t do themselves. You’re using Bandcamp. You have a domain name – that’s an expense – but you’re still raising money yourselves, still applying for grants. So it’s not like you have profit or resources or employees that other people don’t have.

“I think the most important people in your career as a musician are other musicians.”

JC: Exactly. And it’s very much that whole ethic of staying deliberately poor, so that all the money we raise goes into the next project. So it’s a self-funded, self-sustaining enterprise, as opposed to a profit-making machine for anyone to get rich. It’s to enrich the music-making community that we’re in. And it’s great: it’s a really good feeling, even having those daggy [group] photos taken the other day. As daggy as it was, there’s something nice about it. I think there’s a real tendency as a musician – I don’t know if you guys have experienced this, but to feel isolated. You can get into that mindset and go a bit mad. So just to have people you can call up and ask questions of and check in with … I think the most important people in your career as a musician are other musicians.

There can also be a competitiveness that creeps in, so it’s nice to have other musicians you can talk to where that doesn’t exist. You just support each other and bounce ideas off each other.
OM: I think it’s good to have those [relationships] where it does exist too.

But not in like a cutthroat way…
OM: Yeah, I know, but I’m saying, on the flipside, every time I hear one of Courtney’s songs, it makes me want to write something [better].

CB: I do that when I hear your songs. [Laughter]

I guess I have to ask about the name Milk, and the exclamation point.
CB: Well, around the time when I was making the logo … it was a quick thing. As I said, I just wanted a little logo to put on the back. I didn’t think it was gonna last forever. It was kind of like a joke about how record labels milk you for everything you’re worth. [Laughter] And then the exclamation point was just that old Frente! and Wham! [thing]: exclamation points for no point. I think that’s really funny, so I stuck one on there. It makes us seem more exciting.

OM: Yeah, I really enjoying typing it, because it’s not often you get to type one’s that necessary. And in the middle of a sentence…

So for the compilation, you recorded everything in one weekend?
CB: We basically split the two days [of studio time] by five and got like three hours each. We said, “Record whatever you want. A B-side, or a song that’s not on the last album, or that’s not on the next album, or a cover, or whatever.” It goes back to the idea of the label being more of an art project. More of a challenge. So I recorded a song that I wrote in the studio. I made my [forthcoming] album right afterwards: we were mucking around in the studio one day and I came up with that song [‘Pickles from the Jar’]. I was like, “That’s not gonna be on the album, but it’s a cool song.” [Laughs] So I did it for the 10”. And you [Jen] did ‘Stone Age Brain’.

And everyone was able to work within their allotted time?
CB: Pretty much. [Laughter] Some of them. But it was cool. It was just that open idea. We said, “Everyone’s free to do whatever, ’cause we’ll be around all weekend. So if anyone wants extra singers, ask anyone else. And if you want someone to play piano, ask.” So we kind of swapped around. It’s just a bit more of a challenge. Every band or artist knows about working on their own stuff, but this was something slightly different. It’s not like it’s a crazy idea…

JC: Often there’s a lot of pressure to “make an EP” or “make an album” or “make a statement,” and you can kind of get caught up in that whole idea of “This is my body of work.” It’s good to go in and smash out a song every now and again and just put it out, and not attach too much importance around it. Whether it fails or succeeds, you don’t really care. And I think that’s how we all felt about the songs on this compilation.

We felt they were really good songs obviously – no one’s gonna go and record something they think is average – but they didn’t carry any sort of pressure. It’s really good, these days as well: albums are still a very important artistic statement, but you can just throw songs out there all the time and people are gonna dig it. Often just a song on its own can do as much as an album, as far as people hearing it, which is surprising.

I think it’s good for you as an artist to keep producing and keep putting stuff out and feel connected. The problem that I’ve had in the past is working away for three years and then coming out of obscurity to release my next album and just feeling like I’ve lost ground.

“I’d gone into a lot of debt and I knew, just from talking to friends, that they were in a similar situation.”

I find that too with writing about music. If an artist hasn’t put out an album in a few years, you feel like people have this amnesia about it. If the cycle between albums gets too long, you need to give these reminders that you exist.
JC: Yeah.

I like the way you recorded the compilation, because usually compilations are just like, “Everyone bring a song you have already.” But to actually conceive everything in that space and period really bottles that specific time and place.
OM: It’s also [showing] what people do differently with their resources as well. For us [The Finks], we have never played in a studio. I record all my stuff usually, so I’d never actually recorded with a band. So it’s really interesting hearing everyone else’s songs, being like, “Oh, that’s what you guys did what that stuff.” Because it’s the same engineer [Burke Reid], same studio [Head Gap], same room. It’s interesting hearing what comes out of that.

Jen, you’re involved with a DIY workshop [I Manage My Music]. Has it been interesting to do that in tandem with Milk! and show people an actual example of that working?
JC: Yeah, totally. I started the workshops about three years ago because I wanted to find out how other artists were able to sustain a career in Australia. Because I’d gone into a lot of debt and I knew, just from talking to friends, that they were in a similar situation. It was kind of this unspoken shame of “my debt.” So I started to make some different choices. And basically, I had this realisation – I was telling Courtney the other day, from the time I started the workshops, I totally changed the way that I release music and look at the business of music.

I apply a lot of the things I’ve learnt at the workshops to this compilation. We played a Christmas show [last year]: we took our door takings and used that to record [the compilation]. We went for an Arts Victoria grant – just a small one – to help with paying for things like mixes and mastering. And then the next level, to make sure we didn’t go into debt around pressing the vinyl, was to put up the Pozible campaign. And whatever we make from surplus sales of this pressing will go into the next project. So it’s got this enduring momentum where you can continue to create without the stress of debt.

That’s the core of I Manage My Music: how do we create art in a country that’s small, but vast in terms of having to travel long distances to do anything, and survive?

OM: I also remember you saying something about educating yourself. Before you started the workshops, you were like, “Alright, I’m gonna read up on law and read up on money.”

JC: It’s a hugely empowering time for artists in the world, because digital technology has created this forum where people can share music so quickly and discover music so quickly, that if you have a song that connects – you don’t know; no one sits in the office and goes, “Oh, this is the song that’s gonna connect” – but if you just happen to write a song, like [Courtney’s] ‘Avant Gardener’, that connects with a greater audience, then you get to sit back and go, “Yes, I’ll sign this. That deal isn’t so good. Who’s this person?”

And that’s the way it should be. An artist should be employing staff to take care of their music, not the other way around. And that’s what’s really exciting about how we find ourselves today. I mean, I know I’ve found that through the whole process of educating myself through these workshops – it was like doing a free three-year course in business – is that I’m no longer disillusioned or depressed or angry.

It’s all up to you. You control it. I think the big problem, if you’re on a label and you’re not happy with things, is that you feel like it’s out of your control. As a creative person, you don’t ever want to feel that you’re trapped or don’t have a say in something that involves your creativity.
JC: Totally. And I think, also, that debt is the number one killer of creativity. Because it takes you away from your work and it just makes you feel depressed, because you just go, “What’s the point?”

The Pozible campaign for the compilation has obviously done super well. Did it surprise you guys that it was so successful so fast?
CB: I didn’t really know what to expect the first day, when it hit the target.

It hit the target on the first day?
CB: Yeah, within 12 hours. I’d never done one. You’ve done one before [Jen] – I kind of watched from a distance. It’s different checking [it yourself]. But it’s essentially just a pre-order for the thing.

“No one’s gonna get paid. Everyone got a free song in the studio.”

So you’ll just press more for the people who paid beyond the initial run?
JC: Yeah. Essentially we’ll press up 500. It’s a limited collectors edition, so that’s part of the value. No one’s gonna get paid. Everyone got a free song in the studio, and you can go and do whatever you want with it [from here]. Milk! Records doesn’t own it. But I guess, yeah, anything else that we make on the Pozible campaign will go towards the next idea that we have.

CB: [The next] exciting project. [Laughs]

JC: Which we’re starting to already formulate.

CB: “Write a song about a piece of fruit.” [Laughter]

I like the fact that it’s going on a 10”. It’s a nice little format that you don’t see much of these days. I know there’s a little section here [at Thornbury Records], but still.
CB: I got a King Gizzard one [of Willoughby’s Beach]. I think that’s it. Have you got any?

OM: Nope. Never heard of it. [Laughter] I was confused. I didn’t know what speed to play it on…

I guess it’s just an EP: a [physical] manifestation of a shorter length.
CB: We were tossing up whether to do it as a 12” at whatever quality – I don’t really understand vinyl all that well. But that’s the thing about 10”s: they make it a tiny bit more collectable and interesting.

It’s good for that, because everyone’s obviously doing 12”s.
OM: Yeah, lame. [Laughter]

Courtney, I know you’ve finished an album, but what are The Finks doing next and, Jen, what are you doing next?
OM: I guess I’m recording an album. It’s just me at home.

So you are The Finks.
OM: I am The Finks. I’ve gotten to a point where I have the live band and we play one set of songs, and then another whole set of songs that are quieter [and] acoustic, which sometimes I play with Sarah [Farquharson], who sings in The Finks. I’m trying to get the quiet acoustic ones done at home, kind of in the same way that the others have been done: just onto tape.

CB: That’s cool, so you can kind of adapt.

OM: Yeah, and when me and Sarah play as a duo, we play a lot of those quieter ones. But then I’ve got this whole other bunch of songs that I play with the band.

JC: I’m spending the rest of this year writing for a new album, and also for a supergroup with my friends Mia Dyson and Liz Stringer. We’re like the Crosby Stills & Nash of Australian pop. They’re both phenomenal musicians, and extraordinary guitarists as well. We did that tour last year and I don’t think anyone really knew what to expect, but by the time we finished the tour there was a really great groundswell of interest and appreciation. I just think it’s something that has the potential to continue and grow. It’s nice to have different areas – to just go and do all different things. I don’t wanna be defined as any one thing. I’m happy to put out a folk ballad and then put out something like ‘Stone Age Brain’ with Tim.

CB: Stuff like that challenges you as a musician. I’ve heard you talk about how playing in that band was so different to doing your own stuff. And even me playing in Jen’s band is a whole different part of brain doing a whole different thing. That’s what it’s about: growing as a musician. That’s what the point of everything is: just to keep learning different things. It’s not about releasing stuff and who buys it and all that shit, even though in a way I guess it kind of is sometimes. But at the bottom of it, it’s the other part.

Was choosing Head Gap [in Northcote] partly for its proximity? You guys are based in Thornbury, so it’s close to home.
CB: That’s one good point. [Laughs]

JC: Oh, it’s a big part of it.

Doing the compilation there and doing the interview here [and the launch at Northcote Social Club], I’m definitely aware of the proximity.
CB: Well, you [Jen] did your last album there, and I did the majority of the second EP there. So I just had a good recommendation from friends that it was a good studio. The first thing I did there I liked, so I just kept going back. I like Neil [Thomason, Head Gap’s owner] and I like the room and the space.

Did you self-record your first EP?
CB: Yeah, at a friend’s place.

So was it a learning curve to go into a studio for the second EP?
CB: Yeah, it was the first time I’d really done anything in a studio. It was cool. It was very different.

JC: It’s weird when you first go into a studio. I remember feeling totally intimidated.

CB: It’s really intimidating.

JC: You kind of get used to it the more you do it. I certainly found Head Gap, with the last album, [very comfortable]. I was certainly more relaxed. I didn’t feel like, ‘Now we’re recording!’

[Discuss last year’s Christmas party and the upcoming compilation launch]

“When someone in that group starts to see some success, it takes everyone else up with you.”

JC: You start to see people become fans of the label. I mean, there’s plenty of good examples of that in Melbourne – and in Sydney. But it’s really fun watching that from the other side. When we did the Christmas party, so many people came up and were like, “We love Milk!” Even at shows I just did last week, people were coming up and going, “I love The Finks. Thanks so much!” Or you’ll get little tweets from people overseas going, “Because of Milk! I discovered this band and this band, and you’re also friends of East Brunswick All Girls Choir, and I discovered them.” So there’s this cool little circle/snowball effect that starts to happen.

And we’ve even seen through the store [Thornbury Records], people ordering The Finks [records] from Canada and Europe, no doubt because they heard a Courtney Barnett song and checked out the label. So it’s cool: when someone in that group of artists starts to see some international success, or big local success, it just takes everyone else up with you. And that’s a great thing. That’s something worthy celebrating.

Well, if you’re sharing everything else – like the responsibilities – you’re also sharing the victories.
JC: Yeah, and it’s much more fun. I think that’s why people have bands: it’s much more fun celebrating success with other people. It’s not as much fun sitting on your own, going, “Oh wow, there’s my whatever on the wall.”

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Milk! Records will launch its 10” compilation on Sunday, August 31 with a 1:30pm matinee show at Northcote Social Club, featuring sets by Courtney Barnett, Jen Cloher, Fraser A Gorman, The Finks and Royston Vasie. Tickets here. Explore Milk! releases here, and read Adam Curley’s longform feature on Barnett from 2013.