Since 2005, underground artists come to have incredible Music Videos to take them to the next level with affordable budgets. Labnoise has created a place to support the artists who want to push their creativity in music and share ideas with others. Hear what Labnoise had to say about the music scene in Montreal and their future.
Q. First off welcome to Morburn, how you guys feeling?
Full Course: Feeling great man, first off thank you for having us.
Conquistador: The feeling is great since I feel Labnoise is reaching a maturity level in what we do and it feels empowering, especially our confidence, we feel like we are finally to take on bigger challenges and more creative and groundbreaking projects and ideas.
Q. What can Labnoise do for an artist or company? Tell us about your services.
FC: We can help in giving a face to the faceless.
C: We started with a simple idea, to promote local talented people who had very little opportunity to expose their talent to the world, and we basically put a big mother of all mothers industrial spotlight (killing the Hydro bill) on the artists the best way we can. Meaning we give them incredible visuals, great marketing promo, and link them with the right people in Montréal to help them advance in their career..
FC: as of right now the main service we provide is video production (filming, editing, producing, creating, script writing etc.)
Q. Now you guys have been in around for a while, what have you learned about the business side of things so far?
FC: We'll tell you once we've learned it, just playing, what I've learned is that it's hard to make money where there is no money, fact is there isn't any money in the Montreal hip hop scene as of yet, so right now we're operating off of passion, I also learned that passion doesn't pay the bills. I learned that some people operate of the strength of their word and others operate off contracts. I learned that some of the people you never expected anything from can sometimes help you the most.
C: We learned many things, we learned the excitement of loving what we do, get paid and re-invest in our company to make even better visuals and bigger ideas for the next projects. We learned to work with many different people, we learned to delegate tasks and sub contract to people who take pride in what they are good at. We learned very big highs in accomplishing very successful videos, and we learned from our mistakes with some that did not work as well. We learned to network with people from the industry and the most important thing we learned is to put our pride aside and always think of the bigger picture instead of focusing on the little negative things that may have bother us a bit.
Q. Growing up in DG you guys know how tough it can be for the youth. You're now in a position to help some of these cats out through music, how rewarding is for you to be doing what you love and giving back at the same time?
FC: It's a great feeling, but I don't view it as giving back, and honestly we haven't done that much yet, we did a project with Jeunesse 2000 awhile back, we are currently in talks of working with them on another project this summer, we shoot the NDG YMCA but like I said we don't view that as giving back, we view that as our duty, if you are in a position where you are able to assist someone who can use the assistance and you chose not to do it that's on your karma.
C: Well, maybe it's something that being from DG makes you care and take pride in our neighborhood. Since the early start in 2005 we were more than happy to focus on the youth and do our part in helping get opportunities that I didn't have when I was their age. I only found my way in my late 20's so I admire when the young cats are already focused and have aspirations to do great things with their life. So we worked many times with the local YMCA, YOUTH CENTRES and community based video projects by donating our time and knowledge to the kids. It's very rewarding to think that sooner than later they will do their own production companies and so on instead of being another statistic in the streets. like Matt Damon said in my favorite TV show "Entourage" "IT'S FOR THE KIDS MAN"
Q. What sorts of obstacles or advantages does a company such as yours face operating out of Montreal?
FC: Our primary advantage is the internet, people the internet can be your best friend if you treat it right, without the internet chances are our product would not be viewed, as soon as we upload a video it becomes available for the entire world to see at their own convenience.
C: I always like to start with the positive; Montreal is a great city with so much diversity and focused on the arts. So it is very easy to have access to great talent, great locations and great places to get the equipment at very affordable prices. In a way I'm surprised Montreal is not as strong internationally in the movie making business competing with Hollywood or other great cities but I think the same issue with we face on a smaller scale, is budget. Montreal is rich in knowledge and expertise but poor in Money. I can not even count the amount of times that artists wanted a "Hype Williams" type of video and expected it to be free in exchange for promo, GTFOH!
Montreal has everything so good that when its time to make money circulate our attitude is "I know you, why should I pay" and it's not just us, only in Montreal do people get upset when they show up at 1 am and bitch about guest list to get in for free, in Toronto you can even make it in the front of the line and you got to pay like $30.
Only in Montreal you show up to a radio show expect free promo, interview and feel insulted if they turn you down, try doing that in New York's HOT 97 my new thing "Get the fuck out of here" ha-ha - good credit is good, property is excellent, investing on your business is a must. Montreal thinks very small and that's why it's taking so long for things to get going here. Most artists rely on grant money from the government and burn that money with no remorse because they feel no loss if their project is unsuccessful with the public.
That's why many artists are making Montreal look bad, the big labels in the States don't deal with grants or as I call them "government bail outs" when your own money is on the line, you make sure you get back a return or you take responsibility on your failure, not apply to the government for another failure in the making. We are proud to say we never dealt with any loans or Videofact grants, but if the day would come that we need it, we are not stupid, we will take the money and make sure we triple the worth to be able to continue to operate.
Money is supposed to be making money, a music video is not a "self steam feel good about myself look in the mirror" expense, and it's a promotional tool to sell a product. And the last thing about my rant ha-ha. they are starting to be many talented up and coming directors who will cut their own legs to get famous or be known, my advice is to be patient and never back down from what you feel your art and time is worth. We sometimes also struggle with this, but saying no is sometimes very hard especially when others seem to be doing so much work, but we still in the philosophy that quality will always have the bigger payout over quantity.
Q. Who were some of your mentors? Were there any directors, musicians that inspired you creativity coming up?
FC: I've always liked people that thought outside of the box, whose work had no restraints or limits. People like Spike Jonze, Johnnie To (badass Asian producer), Melvin Van Pebbles (Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song) and Robert Townsend (Hollywood Shuffle) for believing in their own respective projects so much that they funded it themselves. On the real, I have to give it up to Kwite Sane man, back in the day we came up on the same street but you never saw him, all I heard was that he got these turntables and that's all he was doing, so when I see his name on all these flyers spinning at all the after hours spots, concerts etc.. I know it's not a coincidence or by chance, the dude put his work in, same thing for the Team Canada DJ's these guys put in work and just last February they played the Olympics. You need to see people make it to realize that it's possible, hard work does pay off.
C: Being from NDG, the New York vibe for hip hop has always been there, so the 90's were great for me, Wu Tang really inspired me with their visuals Specially GZA's 4th Chamber video with the lighting, explosions and Warrior flags. By the Way I had to get a vhs tape from Jersey every so often just to be able to watch Hip Hop videos, Sorry Music Plus, 30 min a week was really sad and depressing to watch. "Can it be so simple" from Wu-Tang introduce me to Hype Williams and it was a wrap, mixing cinematic visuals and music was a match made in heaven for me. It inspired great work from Little X like "The Blast" by Hi Tek & Talib Kweli.
Watching Pete Rock's & CL Smooth videos still stand well in 2010 and those videos were made almost 20 years. Dave Meyers had a groundbreaking style like videos from Missy Elliot, but I really liked his work with Korn, Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock. Mark Romanek is like the grandfather of modern music videos and he still does it better than anybody I know. I also loved all the Dr Dre and Snoop videos for being so raw and funny at the same time, I think we need to bring that style back. And the Musical side, everything from 90's early 2000 is good with me, I lost track after 2005 maybe because I got more interested in the growing scene in Montreal.
FC: Oh yeah, shoutout to MC J and Cool G, Shades of Cultures, these were DG/MTL cats that were on TV and doing it when things weren't so accessible.
Q. What are you Top 5 music videos of all time?
FC: I don't know what my all time videos are but my current top 5 are
1 - Luv sic by Shing02 (Japanese people running crazy in slow motion)
2 - M.I.A. I don't even know the name of the video but it's sick
3 - RJD2 - 1976
4 - Erykah Badu - Window Seat (she takes it back to essence with a REAL Booty)
5 - Pharcyde - Running (dilla production, brothers playing croquet sipping lemonade)
Q. Creativity is something that you seem to have in abundance. Is there ever a creative clash between your vision and the artist's visions for a video?
FC: Fortunately for us that hasn't happened yet, but then again we take every step to try and assure that it doesn't. When an artist approaches our first step is to sit down, listen to the track and then trade conceptual ideas for the video, it's not like we take the song and map out the visuals on our own. The artist is involved every step of the way, they have to be, because at the end of the day regardless of the visuals the work has to be representative of the artist.
C: most of the time, the artists were impressed with our vision, but sometimes there are disagreements and our job is to make sure the artists are happy, like I said we try to throw our ego as much as possible and think of the big picture.
Q. Fly Girl by NBA is one currently on rotation on Much Vibe, how does it feel to have a video get exposure nationally?
FC: honestly, it feels great, I feel like we just got our first foot in the door. The fact that that project was done independently and made it that far is a good feeling.
C: It feels incredible, here you have 2 guys from DG with a vision and now we broke a major wall in the industry and we did it with hard work, perseverance and help from people who were willing to help give us a chance and believed in us. It feels like is the beginning of many great things. We feel like we are in our second phase of our bigger picture and goals that we would like to accomplish sooner than later. We just have to keep focused and keep having fun doing what we do.
Q. Can you talk about some of the projects you have on the horizon?
FC: Step your bar game up is blossoming into a nice little series, each week we get inquiries from more artist that want to step, and I have to say so far they all have, what I like most about the series is that it’s really putting the artist in your face, you’re hearing them spit unmastered, no background vocals, just the artist and the beat. We’re in the process of finishing up the Break Bread video (Pay$o and Borden – Live for the Moment). We should soon begin working on IBlast’s new project (what we like about IBlast is that he comes with a plan, he already has ideas for the video we just have to fill in the blanks and bring it to life). We’re working on my project due at the end of spring.
C: We also have a major, major project coming up, but that one is in the vault with top Labnoise Security on the job. When the project will be ready to be announced you will be one of the firsts to know about it hehe.
Q. Morburn would like to thank Labnoise for chatting with us for a bit. Look out for the next video coming soon to a T.V near you. Labnoise, do you have any last words for the massive?
FC:Yeah, Support your Artists and independent media!!!!
C: I would like to thank everyone who follows us, and who support what we do. We will do the best possible to continue to bring great quality entertainment to represent the city of Montreal and beyond. Also a big Shout out to Morburn and their staff to give us the opportunity to share our thoughts with the world and we wish you continued success and growth because this is another great element of the industry that Montreal desperately needs!
Keep watching and stay tuned for many new classics in the making!
