What has been your inspiration for starting EyeSeeSound and what keeps you going?

We got bored of music. What was out there being pushed, was predominantly dull derivative blandness. So we figured there had to be better stuff out there, and there is. The reason we’ve done the site the way we have… with this quality control / control freak side to it, is that it seemed like every new site championing the unsigned or DIY or underdog etc., was simply a free-for-all where anyone could upload anything and quickly became an impractical way of discovering great music, because there was, again, a sea of content without quality control… and I understand why they do this, as the idea is is more content equals more hits etc etc., but it’s counter-productive as quickly people will tire of sifting to find a nugget.

So with us, we have our tastes, our ‘voice’ which acts as a guide and as quality control. We don’t expect anyone to like everything as our tastes are eclectic, but you’d be hard pushed to say that stuff on the site wasn’t good music – just some of it maybe not to your taste.

What keeps us going? Probably OCD.

The video content on your website is brilliant but you recently started pushing your DVD EPs – can you tell us more about them?

Ex Libras DVD EP

They are a brand new physical format ahead of their time. They are rather beautiful to look at and to watch.

The basic premise is that they are 5-track EPs of live sessions, because live music for us is far more visceral and pleasurable and real than studio recordings, but with the added bonus of you getting the live session visually too and in some cases you get bonus music videos and studio mp3s, depending on the band. We edit and grade the live session so they don’t look like a normal live performance video, but more stylised, in keeping with our impression of the music and performance.

The audio comes as mp3s on the DVD-Rom.

We sell them at £5 for the DVD (+postage) and £2.50 as digital versions.

And thank you very much for thinking our video content on the site is brilliant, that’s very kind of you and greatly appreciated.

Do you see any value in physical products in music right now?

Yep. I’ll try not to go off on one of my rants, but everytime someone from the McMusic Biz opens their mouth these days to bemoan the state of the music industry it just makes me angry. Firstly, they lie a lot. Secondly, when they aren’t downright lying, they are seriously bending the truth. Thirdly, their businesses HAVE TO perpetually expand otherwise their share price drops and they are spanked by their shareholders. Not, HAVE TO make a profit, but HAVE TO make more profit than they did before. If profit is £500 million but down from £750 million, that’s considered bad… which is, let’s face it, insane.

CD sales may well be down… in fact, music purchases may well be down, but it’s not because of piracy. Firstly, no-one talks about the plethora of alternative entertainment products that people can now buy. There is (much to the annoyance of corporate scumbags no doubt) a finite amount of disposable income in people’s pockets… but the choice of what they can spend that on has grown… thus music will take a smaller share. And i’m sure a lot of sales have dived because the album that the one (or 2) good single/s someone likes comes from is shit, and whereas before you had to buy the album to discover it was shit, now you don’t. You can hear it first, think ‘that’s shit’ and not buy it, but rather the mp3 of the one (or 2) good song/s.

It makes me laugh that by crying wolf over P2P, iTunes, Spotify, Last FM etc., were born and embraced by the music industry, when all those platforms do is help us to save money by not buying shit.

But people still love music, and still want to own a physical product. We sometimes get albums sent to us as mp3s for use on the site. If the album is good, i’ll buy a copy eventhough I have the mp3s. That’s not because i’m stupid, or rich (i’m neither) but it’s because a beautiful album is something I want to own in a physical form, be that CD or vinyl.

If you want to sell CDs, don’t flog them for £10 or £12 or £15. The value of a physical CD is £5 to £7. If your business model doesn’t allow you to sell them at that price, then i’d start looking at alternative businesses to get into, because there is no way the gravy train is starting again on this track.

Downloads I don’t actually think have any value. I’ll never buy an mp3. It doesn’t exist. it isn’t tangible to me. I don’t feel like i have ownership of anything for my money. But that’s just me. Personally I’d be for giving away mp3s and selling physical products.

Anyway, yes, physical products do, and always will, have value… just not enough of a value anymore for the Majors to perpetuate their financial turnover, and unfortunately they’ve got the biggest gobs in the playground.

(sorry, this is a brief little rant about a far more complex issue than I have managed to communicate here… but you asked

You champion the underground but what about bigger acts? If they came to you to do a live session, would you turn them down on the basis of how big their profile is?

We have spoken about this and the answer is we don’t know. It would depend on many different things not least of all the band itself. I think if we liked and respected them enough and it felt right, then yes, we’d probably want to do it. The only thing we do know is that if/when our profile raised and we attracted the interest of bigger bands/labels/PR companies and could get ‘populist’ bands, we wouldn’t change our remit or direction to cash in on that… mostly because most of those bands we’d probably hate.

I’d love to do a live session for Three Trapped Tigers, and one for Tom Waits… and The Phenomenal Handclap Band… and Nick Cave doing the whole of the Murder Ballads album… so if you know Jimmy Saville, put in a word.

From all the live sessions / DVD EPs you’ve recorded thus far, which have been your favourites and why?

Right, I think Ex Libras will always be a personal favourite because I loved their live session, but also because the edit proved to be a real technical nightmare and almost got ditched, and out of desperation it turned into what it finally became, grading-wise, and it now looks great. I loved cutting that.

As for others, well for me, it is more about the edit as I like all the bands. I loved the edit and grading on The Boicotts, and Nuala, on Gypsy Hospital Death March by The Penny Black Remedy. Saying that, I loved the performance by The Good The Bad and I simply adore Sound Of Rum. In fact, getting them in was a big thing as I’d been chasing them for months and I think they’re a phenomenal act and lovely people.

What are your goals for EyeSeeSound?

Not to have to stop because we can’t afford to keep it going. We’re about to launch our production side of things, so we’ll be trying to get that rolling too. But mostly we just want people to realise that through the site they can discover great unknown bands and follow those bands, watch them at gigs, buy the odd CD (usually well priced) and tell other people about them. There is a lot of amazing music around if you can find it, and there is an alternative to the mainstream blandness out there, it’s just hidden away (usually by default rather than choice). So yes, for people to find great bands and for them to make a career out of producing great music.

You’ve started working with the excellent What Would Jesus Drive. Are there plans to start a label properly anytime soon?

How kind, shall be sure to tell them of your compliment.

Ha ha, you mean you don’t think we are a proper label?

I don’t know. We’re doing what a proper label does for WWJD, albeit it on an incredibly small scale, but we’re doing it because we love the band and love the excitement of doing it. I don’t think we’ll ever be a proper anything, that’s not what we’re about. We’ll have ideas, we’ll want to do things, and we’ll give them a go. But we are serious about our involvement with Jesus and working hard for and with them, and so far, they are very happy with us, our ideas, and the fact we are giving it a good go and with the right ethic and mentality. If we have the money and find another band we love, then we’ll make the same offer of help we have to Jesus, and if they like it, great, if not, no worries.

Life is too short to pigeon hole yourself, or feel you need to fit into a certain category so that people will get you easily. Life is here, now, and over soon enough, so just give it a go… I guess.

If you could choose 3 bands / musicians from any era to record a live session or DVD EP for you guys, who would it be and why?

Doo The Moog. They were a local band to us around in the 90s. Fusing folk, with world music, traveller mentality and vibe, and were fucking awesome (and rather colourful onstage).

Nick Cave doing the whole of the Murder Ballads album.

Nina Simone (though she would have to include “Sinnerman” in the session and couldn’t play “My Baby just Cares For Me”).

Though these are my choices, rather than the other 2. Peter would want Phil Collins and Dio. Simon would probably want to do an X Factor cabaret style session with all the contestants who didn’t make it to the final ten.

Name a good song that sums-up what EyeSeeSound are all about.

“Death Is Not The End” by Nick Cave.

To find out more about EyeSeeSound, visit their website.

To grab a copy of their gorgeous DVD EPs, visit the ESS shop.