Interview: Dustin Watson of Disposable America
Disposable America is an independent record label founded in 2012 and based in Allston, Massachusetts. I chatted with founder Dustin Watson on what it’s like running the label in a DIY space.
photo via disposable-america.com
Kristen: How did you get started with Disposable America?
Dustin: I was booking shows in the late oughts and wanted to get a little bit more involved in the music scene and so it seemed like a way to step into the scene to offer some managerial skills that bands might not have.
K: So what's been your biggest success so far with the label and your biggest failure?
D: In terms of success as an album getting out to listeners, Horse Jumper of Love’s self-titled was the bedrock to them being the band they are now and has seen more cassette represses than anything else we’ve put out so far. On a level of personal fulfillment, getting to work with the band Infinity Girl was probably that for me. They were a band that I really admired for many years and I approached them about working together and was flattered that they had heard of my label and wanted to work together. Not sure which direction you're asking the question in, but both of those.
And then, the biggest failure in something getting out there to the masses, there have been a few of those. Especially at this level, it can be hard to predict whether or not new listeners will find an album. We’ve had a few releases where a band decides to call it quits during the album rollout or shortly after the album drops. As great as the record might be, it can be hard to spread something to new ears when the band is no longer active and only the label is shouting it out, so it loses steam. I don’t typically think of those releases as failures, more-so just lessons learned in running a label.
K: How has being independent helped you and how has it hurt you? Do you feel like it's helped, or hurt more?
D: I think it’s a 50/50. It gives me a little bit of freedom in the sense that I sort of do whatever I want with what I choose to put out, and how I choose to do it, which also is a little bit double-edged. To get ahead in the music industry, you’re supposed to play the big music industry network game. If you don't, there are roadblocks in your way, which make it harder. Everything from getting music onto playlists, to getting on bigger tours, to getting blogs to write about you organically. Larger labels are established in a way where they can kind of offer guaranteed pipelines into Spotify playlists or Pitchfork reviews, all of those things obviously helpful in reaching new audiences, but those same doors are often closed to indie labels and artists without a ton of hustling, emailing, and luck.
K: What do you wish you knew at the beginning that you know now?
D: Definitely how much email running a label takes. And maybe that it would be a good idea to get somebody else involved early on. Sometimes I take wild chances on releases that somebody else might have talked me out of, and I don't want that to happen. So at this point, I don't think I'm able to bring somebody else on, but it's also a lot of work to do 100% of the emailing and 100% of packing orders, a lot of the design work, and booking and stuff. Maybe if I had started a team early on or had a second person helping me, it would have helped in the long run.
K: Yeah, of course! How would you define DIY when applied to the business side of running a label?
D: Everyone’s definition of what counts as DIY or what is expected of an artist-label relationship is different, so I think you have to be transparent and get aligned with whoever you’re working with. Personally, my motivation isn’t to exploit somebody else's art, it is to be a platform that helps them to amplify it, with an ethos of we're here to work together and hopefully build something together.
K: Who are your dream artists to work with? Any level if you could pick or choose anyone.
D: A lot of my favorite bands like Q and Not U and Black Eyes were on Dischord Records, and I think it would be really cool to put some of their albums out on cassette for the first time ever. It seems like maybe an achievable dream one day if I were to actually try to figure out how to do that.
K: My last question is what can we expect from Disposable America in the future?
D: I'm trying to get weird moving forward. It has been a lot of indie rock over the years, even if that’s a massive umbrella of totally different sounds, but the goal recently has been to continue expanding way beyond that.
K: Yeah, it's more fun to kind of like hop around different genres and not limit yourself.
D: Totally! I realized that after a few years of doing this that I don't listen to only one vein of music, so why would I want to pigeonhole the label? Sometimes people ask why I’ve put out certain albums and I can tell they’re disapproving, but there are tons of “true believers” who seem to find things they appreciate across the spectrum of our discography, which just kind of bolsters my decision to continue doing my own thing. It makes me proud and keeps the whole thing interesting.
Check out Disposable America's releases on Bandcamp here!
Follow: