Since parting ways with their major record label, post-punk outfit The Futureheads have been savouring the freedom and suffering the fallout of becoming totally self-reliant. Ross Millard from the band discusses the impact of illegal filesharing and how the music industry is being forced to change its ways

WHILE MANY MUSICIANS stick to preaching about the environment or berating ‘The Man’ to satiate their political appetites, Ross Millard’s prime concern is far closer to home.

The Futureheads guitarist finds himself a cautious mediator over the matter of illegal filesharing, which has persisted in a legal Bermuda Triangle for longer than anyone could have expected.

As a board member of the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), established earlier this year to strengthen artists’ rights in the digital age, he has to tread the fine line of condemning music piracy without alienating those who partake in it.

“You don’t really want to be Metallica versus Napster,” Ross tells City Times, referencing the high-profile court case which reaches its decade anniversary this April. “And you don’t want to point the finger at fans of your music, when you’re actually grateful that people are interested enough to peruse it anyway.”

Design your label

The topic is even more urgent to The Futureheads since splitting from Warner Brothers subsidiary 679 Recordings. Despite a successful eponymous debut album in 2004, introducing their signature choppy guitars and woven harmonies, tensions surfaced over the release of second album News & Tributes.

“The label visited the studio while we were tying up the loose ends,” says the bespectacled Sunderland native. “They heard the record and were right behind it. Then four weeks before it was due to be released, we started getting panicked phone calls saying they were worried they hadn’t got a single, and asking if there were there any more songs lying around.

“If we’d had that kind of conversation at the right time – six months previously – we would have been more than happy to go back in the studio. It became a political thing, where we decided they’d acted so poorly that we were quite steadfast on how we wanted the record to be.”

Although he’s fond of the finished product, Ross concedes in hindsight that News & Tributes was “commercial suicide”.

“When you’re riding high and practically a mainstream act, you’re relying on radio play to keep you there,” he notes. “That record was made with no thought of that in mind. I think it was perhaps naïve, but I wouldn’t change anything. It’s led to where we are now, and we’ve managed to get ourselves back on track. Onwards and upwards!”

Rather than shopping for another label, the four-piece decided on a course of total autonomy – establishing their own label, Nul Records, to release last year’s This Is Not the World.

Frustratingly, the album found its way onto the web before it hit shelves, although Ross remains stoic.

“It’s just common practice for bands to accept that anything they’ve got coming out will be leaked,” he says. “Every musician I’ve spoken to in recent times has said their album got leaked. It’s almost uncontrollable, you just have to accept it as being part of the process now.”

Bigmouth strikes again

Speaking of uncontrollable, Lily Allen waded into the filesharing debate recently with a typically mouth-over-brain tirade – moaning about her own financial worries and portraying the FAC as a horde of ultra-successful musicians too rich to care if a few banknotes slip through their bejewelled fingers.

Though disagreeing with some of her more incendiary points, Ross also conceded in his blog that he empathised with Allen’s plight.

“My own band have struck out on our own, and we have no cushy mattress of cash to fall back on should our records not sell,” he wrote. “Literally every penny that we make from selling our records, selling our merch and playing live shows goes back into the ‘pot’ for the next record.

“So for every sale we lose to a Limewire/Pirate Bay torrent, the wheels on the bus, as it were, certainly go round fewer times.”

Looking back, Ross maintains that the two stances “weren’t too dissimilar”, insisting his only qualm was Allen’s belief that illegal downloaders should have their broadband completely cut off.

“That implicates too many people,” he states. “If there’s a household of people using one internet connection then everyone’s punished. Also, it’s really criminalising fans of music.”

Instead, the FAC has proposed a ‘three strikes’ punishment – in which a month-long throttle is placed on the offender’s connection if they fail to heed warnings.

“There just needs to be some fair representation between these illegal download sites which are raking in a lot of cash from advertising revenue, and the relatively small revenue streams which are coming back to artists,” he adds.

With the music industry in such a chilly financial climate, coupled with the ongoing credit crunch, does Ross believe that the concept of ‘selling out’ has become dated?

“That’s a difficult question,” comes the reply, “because we live in a fairly depoliticised world these days unfortunately. When a term like selling out was coined, both sides of the camp had strong representation.

“At the moment a band needs to do what it needs to do to survive. If they make some questionable artistic choices it will come back to haunt them, but in terms of how they get their music out there it’s by hook or by crook at the minute. Distribution is few and far between.”

Dumb and fun

It’s not all doom and gloom for The Futureheads however. The band, who head to Dubai this weekend, are putting the finishing touches to their new album. These are “pretty exciting times”,  although titles, mixing and mastering are yet to be finalised as the record’s deadline approaches.

“With the last album, we went out of our way to make something that was fun to play live,” says Ross. “It was very direct and – dare I say – simplistic. For this record there’s still an element of that, and there are some songs which are almost dumb in a punk-rock sense, but there are a lot of other songs which go back to the earlier blueprint of the band – quite technical and difficult, with a lot of time signatures and some complicated harmony arrangements.

“I’d like to think it’s fairly evenly balanced between those two styles. But that’s what The Futureheads have always been about: trying to make the complicated sound simple, or vice versa,” he adds with a laugh.

But, despite the buzz of showcasing a new record, Ross can’t escape the knowledge that plenty of fans will acquire the album without a penny leaving their pockets.

“I think bands are slowly starting to think of releasing an album almost like putting a calling card out there for a live performance,” he concludes. “It might not always be that way, but it think for now that’s how artists see recorded music.'

      EVENT DETAILS:

What: Dubai Sound City, featuring The Futureheads, Doves, The Human League and more

Where: Irish Village

When: Thursday November 5

Cost: Dhs249 per day, or Dhs699 for a three-day pass

Tickets and more info: Visit www.dubaisoundcity.com