'We Hit A Brick Wall With Radio'

Here’s the case study. You’re a young indie-rock band called CODES with a big sound and an exceptional, choirboy vocalist. You record a couple of independent singles – ‘Edith’ and ‘This Is Goodbye’, which breach the Irish Top 40. You self-finance your debut album, Trees Dream In Algebra, which involves demoing in Cardiff with Manics man Mike Haver, and album sessions proper in Modern World studios in the Cotswolds.

The finished artifact secures a 14-month licencing deal with EMI Ireland. Pretty soon you’ve got major support from MCD and its sister companies; the album is released and secures a Choice Prize nomination; loads of media coverage and major festival slots follow. There’s only one problem: the bouncers at the daytime radio ball won’t let you in. Then your label decides not to extend your contract to the end of the album’s natural lifespan. In anyone’s language, it’s a baffling state of affairs.
CODES manager Karl Bergin has some things he wants to get off his chest. Over the course of an hour-long conversation he tells a cautionary tale for any ambitious young band looking to find its audience over the airwaves. He is completely and utterly frustrated at the way in which a band, widely rated as one of Ireland’s hottest prospects, have been stymied by a lack of daytime radio support.
“We signed up in March of last year,” he recalls. “We liked the label’s approach, we liked the way they didn’t want to change anything. They heard the record, they liked the look of the band, we liked everyone within the label, they were good people. I’ve known Willie Kavanagh for a number of years and he’s a straight-talking person, the kind of person I like to work with. The band were photo ready, the album was ready, everything was done, it was a case of releasing the first single. So ‘This Is Goodbye’ was re-released, and that’s where the difficulties started.”
What kind of difficulties?
“We just hit a brick wall with radio. I think everyone was genuinely surprised. When you sign a deal and get a promoter, as we did with MCD, who’ve been absolutely amazing, and you go to a radio station and they don’t see what you see, and they’re a minority, you stop and go, ‘Oh’.”
So what kind of feedback were they getting from radio programmers?
“The common one that Irish radio is fantastic at putting out is, ‘It doesn’t fit with our format’, which is the most open-ended answer that you can possibly come up with. And when you ask them to explain what exactly that format is, effectively it’s a collaboration of people who sit around a table and they decide what goes onto a playlist. It’s a form of lottery, which is fair enough – but it doesn’t make it any easier when you’re not part of that lottery.
“One thing I’d love to go on the record as saying is: I have absolute admiration for Phantom and Today FM and the way they’ve conducted themselves in the Irish music industry. My problem with radio in general has been RTÉ and to a certain degree FM104. I find RTÉ’s approach archaic and that’s the number one reason they continue to haemorrhage listeners. I’ve exchanged e-mails with (head of 2fm) John McMahon, who I believe is an extremely nice guy, and none of this is personal. This is a business. Overall I found daytime radio in 2fm to be an absolute nightmare, nonsensical."
The isolation of Irish artists isn’t solely down to 2fm.
“That parliamentary debate which was chaired by Tom Kitt,” Karl adds, “where nine million was reportedly paid out in royalties in 2008 and less than 750,000 of it went to Irish artists – that speaks volumes.”
It suggests, in effect, that less than 10% of the music being played on Irish radio is Irish.
“I came into the music industry in 2004,” Karl says, “and the concept of downloading was there, but it hadn’t caught onto the same extent that it has now. So I’ve had difficulties accepting the fact that I grew up with such quality radio, and the bands around at the time were quality, and they were played on radio. And then all of a sudden I equate radio with what I call Bebo FM, listening to Gaga five times an hour, or if I switch to another station, she’s there again, or it’s the obvious ones who are there.
“But I think radio as a business model at times is incredibly flawed. Whether you like them or not, The Script played in the Sugar Club in 2008 to less than a hundred people, and they’re going to headline Aviva next July. That brings humongous employment and massive revenue to this country. It’s a classic example of what happens when you back a band on radio that rise – and that ultimately benefits radio in numerous ways. They talk about playing up to listenership and advertisers – the bigger you make bands, the bigger venues they do, the more money they’re going to spend on advertising, the more people you’re going to employ. It’s not rocket science.
“Taking CODES as an example, you’re not looking for people to play your records as a favour. You’re going, ‘Look, there’s a complete package here, there’s a promoter, a label, a Choice-nominated music act’. And that’s where the headbanging comes in. That’s where radio shoot themselves in the foot. RTÉ have an enormous hold over the Irish music industry. As Ireland is going through the current economic climate, it’s difficult to say, ‘We need to close the doors and not let anyone else in’ without sounding like a racist, in terms of protecting the industry, like the Canadian and French do. But if U2 started today, I wonder what would happen? Radio decides for and on behalf of the Irish listener what we listen to. And that pisses me off, when so much quality Irish music is neglected
“Sure, we have other means of doing it now with YouTube and the internet, but the power of that daytime thing, where it’s decided what we listen to... Talk about a democratic concept of radio – well, that’s bollocks.
“The three singles we put out, they were pretty radio friendly singles,” Karl continues. “Certainly ‘This Is Goodbye’, for me and everybody at EMI, was a no-brainer. I have to point out as well, that exceptions like Dan Hegarty and Cormac Battle are brilliant, night-time radio is fantastic and you should be grateful when you get it. We appreciate what they’ve done for us, and we’ve always been a band that says thank you. But when you don’t get the same backing between 7am and 7pm, you’d love to say, ‘Look, we’re not turning up with an album in a cardboard sleeve – there’s a band there’.
“If I was on my own in this war I’d probably say there’s something wrong with me, but I’m not the only voice saying this, so there clearly is a problem.”
Bergin has a point. ‘This Is Goodbye’ had surefire hit written all over it, a Manics/Radiohead/Muse sized three-minute beauty. The idea of such a tune being arbitrarily passed over in favour of more X Factor pap sounds bells of doom for all Irish musicians. So what happened once the album was released?
“Well, we went with two subsequent singles, the album received massive press for the Choice Music Prize, and then I was building towards a very big summer season of festivals, and we couldn’t have asked for any more. We were festivaled out by the time September came around. But we had only signed certain terms of contract with EMI, and that expired at a time when we had been massively exposed to the Irish market. And I felt that was the time the label should be going, ‘Now we need to push this’. We were going, ‘All this work has been done over this summer, and you’re walking?’ It was a strange one.
“The term had finished,” he adds, “there was no stab in the back or any of that. What I suggested to them was, ‘All this work has been done, we signed 14 months ago, that’s the length of the agreement, but right now more than ever is when we need you to step in and go: Let’s drive this. This band has been massively exposed in this country’. And they chose not to. Which is their prerogative. But it didn’t make sense.”
Were there any factors cited for not extending the contract?
“There was no falling out, we never rowed once. We might have had one or two differences over artwork, but if that was the biggest problem we had, fine. But I think CODES were very much mis-marketed. They’re not a poppy chart band, and I think at times because of the way the industry is, particularly now, major labels want to cling onto that dream: we want to make them into the biggest thing in the world. That’s everybody’s dream, and you’re allowed have that, but there’s a reality with it as well. Niche marketing and underground stuff is what’s needed more than ever now. Sticking up a few Facebook ads – you’ve gotta be cleverer than that.
“But it’s definitely something we’re gonna do differently in round two. The less obvious market is what we’ll go after. CODES are a band of enormous substance. They’re here for the long haul, not the short-term fix. We’ve already had BBC Radio in Scotland in there going, ‘Wow, love it’. We’re receiving good feedback from the UK media. We were also selected last year as one of HMV’s ones to watch in England along with Marina and Ellie Goulding. And we still think Trees Dream In Algebra has enormous legs. We’re looking forward to a new start.”

CODES play the Button Factory on November 27.