Interview: Steve Strode - Cruel Nature / Fret!
As regular readers will know, I've got a lot of love for Cruel Nature records, consistently releasing challenging and thought provoking music on limited edition tapes. There aren't that many labels of which I dig every release but Cruel Nature is one...their roster covers angst ridden post-punk, sublime tracts of bucolic psychedelia, brutal power noise and pretty much everything in between. Steve Strode, the brains behind Cruel Nature is also one third of Fret! and he very kindly spared some time to answer a few questions for the blog. I strongly urge you all to head over to the label's Bandcamp page and check the goodness.
Congrats on Cruel Nature, it's a label that is consistently releasing high quality, challenging music and a definite fave of the blog. How did it all come about?
Thanks very much! And thank you for all the support you’ve shown the label, it’s much appreciated.
The label started in 2013. I had been involved with another label in the early 2000s and following a little break from that, I wanted to get back into running something that was purely DIY, unconstrained, with the ability to take musical risks and with fairly inexpensive running costs.
Why tapes? I personally dig them as a very valid format for releasing music...I think a lot of that is fueled by nostalgia....but some people 'don't get it' so are you not limiting your audience?
So there is a nostalgia element. I’m from the tape generation and as a teenager got involved in the tape trading community, where we’d swap tapes of live recordings, demos of our fave bands, through ads placed in zines and such like. Philip Best from Whitehouse once sent me a tape with a Swans show on one side and Charles Manson on the other. I remember that tape well as it had a hand-made photocopied cover with a picture of a penis impaled by a knife, on it. Quite a shock when that fell out the jiffy. It’s probably still at my parents’ house somewhere.
As the years passed and the format dwindled, I still bought a few releases on tape and was aware of labels (such as Matching Head) who were stoically releasing them; but it was only when I chanced upon Jon Collin’s Winebox Press outlet and the amazing boutique tapes he was releasing, that I got interested in them again. So, I asked Jon about his supplier, bought a box load of multi-coloured cassettes, home-dubbed the first release and the label was born.
Aside from the almost fetish qualities of them, you can do quite a bit artistically with the inlay, shell designs and packaging to create an all-round aesthetically pleasing product (check the latest Mirrored Lips tape). They’re also a lot more commercially appealing than vinyl: you’re not forced to have large minimum quantities when releasing something. So great for taking risks.
I think CN already limits its audience through the music it releases. Sure, some releases are more accessible than others but the majority aren’t 6Music fodder (or would be overlooked even if it was), so I don’t think using tape is limiting it that much further – especially as they come with a download code and digital format option. I’ve released stuff on all formats previously and have found that tape is proving more popular than the others.
How do you go about choosing what artists/albums to release?
There’s no strategy to it. I either hear or see a band I like and approach them, or something sticks out amongst the masses of demos I get sent. I’m not focused on genre, theme or popularity, it’s all based on whether I like it. I sometimes wonder if the eclectic nature of CN could be a limiting factor, as you see other labels working within a preferred genre or theme. But it seems to be working.
A bit of an unfair question but what is your personal favourite amongst CN's releases?
Bit of a cop out but I really can’t say as I don’t have one favourite that sticks out. It’s like when you have kids, they’re all different in their own way, but you love them equally (cringe)
Working closely with Mirrored Lips must have been an experience...a band from a country with historically draconian censorship laws, they come across as an 'angry' band.
CN is a global label, so I’ve worked with artists from many countries and it’s not the first time I’ve worked with Russian projects. But there is a mutual affinity with Mirrored Lips which has grown since the first CN release “MOM” came out. They are really easy to work with. When making a release, everything comes pretty much ready to go with no hassles with the masters. Fortunately Sasha (who is the main contact with the band) speaks excellent English, which makes the communication smooth. I’ve done nothing to improve my Russian though, which is shit really. Doing the tour was good fun and an experience in that I’d never organised a tour that large for two bands before, and having two groups of strangers spending every waking hour for 7 days together, travelling miles between shows in a van, could have been pitched as a reality TV show. But we all got on like one big family. It was also a blast seeing them perform every night. Such energy and stage presence. I think they won over the UK with that tour. What was also interesting, from their perspective, is how the UK audiences are more attentive to the music, where as in Russia people come along to jump around and it’s much more physical and active. Possibly because they were new to these shores, or maybe we’re just more reserved.
I guess they do sound like an “angry” band and Lyusya’s (the vocalist) delivery is engaging, intense but can be intimidating. As I have no idea what they’re singing about, I asked Sasha, and the subject matter on the new album includes weakness in a big city (like Moscow), the Holocaust, love for their “mothercity” Nizhny Novgorod and a child’s view of life in the suburbs …
The UK 'noise' scene appears to be a vibrant and healthy one especially in the North East...do you think geographical environments influence music scenes or is it a more 'political' thing?
That’s a tough one to answer. What makes a vibrant and healthy music scene? The ability for creative communities to exist, spaces to play, rehearse, develop and evolve? Politics will certainly govern that. Particularly where venues are being overhauled due to gentrification and art spaces are being redeveloped for commercial purposes. Understandably though, the geographical environment you exist in and the emotions it raises can also influence the music you make. Life is art is life. One for a thesis. One to discuss over a few pints.
The music 'biz' is a notoriously fickle and frustrating thing....running a label must be rife with headaches and arseaches?
CN is pretty much outside of the music ‘biz”. Doesn’t even figure on the radar, so I’m unaffected. I’ll leave that to the likes of Pharrell Williams.
What's next on the release list? Anyone you would dearly love to release?
So the August batch will be a North East special coming from Summer Night Air, Lovely Wife, Watts + Drooping Finger and Blackdamp – a project from Gary Lang (St James Infirmary) and Cath Tyler, influenced by traditional mining songs.
As for anyone I’d would dearly love to release? I’m not going to jinx it by naming them (as I’ve done that before with other bands and it’s since fallen through), but I am in talks about doing a tape for a band who were one of my faves in my late teens. The only clue I’m going to give is that they came out of the New York no-wave scene and were contemporaries of Sonic Youth. Contact was first made 2 years ago, although during the last few months, it’s started getting more frequent and more promising, so here’s hoping.
Your own band Fret! (another blog fave!) mixes a lot of different genres and sounds in the music....what music influenced you as a musician?
There are two albums that influenced me the most: “Bad Moon Rising” by Sonic Youth and “Psychocandy” by the Jesus & Mary Chain. Alongside them, I think the other influences come through in the music, which you’ve touched on in your reviews: AmRep, Blast First, Touch & Go, 60s psych, surf, rockabilly. Obviously, Cath and Rob bring their own influences, which makes it pretty genre-bending.
What's next for Fret!
There’s a live split tape coming out later this year, of ours and Mirrored Lips shows recorded in Reading, on the March tour.
We’re also currently working on new material for the “difficult” second album. It’s proving a bit slow though and we tend to end up having lengthy improvised proggy jams. So it could result in being an album of long repetitive tracks. It needs more riffs!
And there is a tour coming up in November (with Lovely Wife) taking in Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Brighton, Reading and maybe some other dates.
Cheers Steve!
Congrats on Cruel Nature, it's a label that is consistently releasing high quality, challenging music and a definite fave of the blog. How did it all come about?
Thanks very much! And thank you for all the support you’ve shown the label, it’s much appreciated.
The label started in 2013. I had been involved with another label in the early 2000s and following a little break from that, I wanted to get back into running something that was purely DIY, unconstrained, with the ability to take musical risks and with fairly inexpensive running costs.
Why tapes? I personally dig them as a very valid format for releasing music...I think a lot of that is fueled by nostalgia....but some people 'don't get it' so are you not limiting your audience?
So there is a nostalgia element. I’m from the tape generation and as a teenager got involved in the tape trading community, where we’d swap tapes of live recordings, demos of our fave bands, through ads placed in zines and such like. Philip Best from Whitehouse once sent me a tape with a Swans show on one side and Charles Manson on the other. I remember that tape well as it had a hand-made photocopied cover with a picture of a penis impaled by a knife, on it. Quite a shock when that fell out the jiffy. It’s probably still at my parents’ house somewhere.
As the years passed and the format dwindled, I still bought a few releases on tape and was aware of labels (such as Matching Head) who were stoically releasing them; but it was only when I chanced upon Jon Collin’s Winebox Press outlet and the amazing boutique tapes he was releasing, that I got interested in them again. So, I asked Jon about his supplier, bought a box load of multi-coloured cassettes, home-dubbed the first release and the label was born.
Aside from the almost fetish qualities of them, you can do quite a bit artistically with the inlay, shell designs and packaging to create an all-round aesthetically pleasing product (check the latest Mirrored Lips tape). They’re also a lot more commercially appealing than vinyl: you’re not forced to have large minimum quantities when releasing something. So great for taking risks.
I think CN already limits its audience through the music it releases. Sure, some releases are more accessible than others but the majority aren’t 6Music fodder (or would be overlooked even if it was), so I don’t think using tape is limiting it that much further – especially as they come with a download code and digital format option. I’ve released stuff on all formats previously and have found that tape is proving more popular than the others.
How do you go about choosing what artists/albums to release?
There’s no strategy to it. I either hear or see a band I like and approach them, or something sticks out amongst the masses of demos I get sent. I’m not focused on genre, theme or popularity, it’s all based on whether I like it. I sometimes wonder if the eclectic nature of CN could be a limiting factor, as you see other labels working within a preferred genre or theme. But it seems to be working.
A bit of an unfair question but what is your personal favourite amongst CN's releases?
Bit of a cop out but I really can’t say as I don’t have one favourite that sticks out. It’s like when you have kids, they’re all different in their own way, but you love them equally (cringe)
Working closely with Mirrored Lips must have been an experience...a band from a country with historically draconian censorship laws, they come across as an 'angry' band.
CN is a global label, so I’ve worked with artists from many countries and it’s not the first time I’ve worked with Russian projects. But there is a mutual affinity with Mirrored Lips which has grown since the first CN release “MOM” came out. They are really easy to work with. When making a release, everything comes pretty much ready to go with no hassles with the masters. Fortunately Sasha (who is the main contact with the band) speaks excellent English, which makes the communication smooth. I’ve done nothing to improve my Russian though, which is shit really. Doing the tour was good fun and an experience in that I’d never organised a tour that large for two bands before, and having two groups of strangers spending every waking hour for 7 days together, travelling miles between shows in a van, could have been pitched as a reality TV show. But we all got on like one big family. It was also a blast seeing them perform every night. Such energy and stage presence. I think they won over the UK with that tour. What was also interesting, from their perspective, is how the UK audiences are more attentive to the music, where as in Russia people come along to jump around and it’s much more physical and active. Possibly because they were new to these shores, or maybe we’re just more reserved.
I guess they do sound like an “angry” band and Lyusya’s (the vocalist) delivery is engaging, intense but can be intimidating. As I have no idea what they’re singing about, I asked Sasha, and the subject matter on the new album includes weakness in a big city (like Moscow), the Holocaust, love for their “mothercity” Nizhny Novgorod and a child’s view of life in the suburbs …
The UK 'noise' scene appears to be a vibrant and healthy one especially in the North East...do you think geographical environments influence music scenes or is it a more 'political' thing?
That’s a tough one to answer. What makes a vibrant and healthy music scene? The ability for creative communities to exist, spaces to play, rehearse, develop and evolve? Politics will certainly govern that. Particularly where venues are being overhauled due to gentrification and art spaces are being redeveloped for commercial purposes. Understandably though, the geographical environment you exist in and the emotions it raises can also influence the music you make. Life is art is life. One for a thesis. One to discuss over a few pints.
The music 'biz' is a notoriously fickle and frustrating thing....running a label must be rife with headaches and arseaches?
CN is pretty much outside of the music ‘biz”. Doesn’t even figure on the radar, so I’m unaffected. I’ll leave that to the likes of Pharrell Williams.
What's next on the release list? Anyone you would dearly love to release?
So the August batch will be a North East special coming from Summer Night Air, Lovely Wife, Watts + Drooping Finger and Blackdamp – a project from Gary Lang (St James Infirmary) and Cath Tyler, influenced by traditional mining songs.
As for anyone I’d would dearly love to release? I’m not going to jinx it by naming them (as I’ve done that before with other bands and it’s since fallen through), but I am in talks about doing a tape for a band who were one of my faves in my late teens. The only clue I’m going to give is that they came out of the New York no-wave scene and were contemporaries of Sonic Youth. Contact was first made 2 years ago, although during the last few months, it’s started getting more frequent and more promising, so here’s hoping.
Your own band Fret! (another blog fave!) mixes a lot of different genres and sounds in the music....what music influenced you as a musician?
There are two albums that influenced me the most: “Bad Moon Rising” by Sonic Youth and “Psychocandy” by the Jesus & Mary Chain. Alongside them, I think the other influences come through in the music, which you’ve touched on in your reviews: AmRep, Blast First, Touch & Go, 60s psych, surf, rockabilly. Obviously, Cath and Rob bring their own influences, which makes it pretty genre-bending.
What's next for Fret!
There’s a live split tape coming out later this year, of ours and Mirrored Lips shows recorded in Reading, on the March tour.
We’re also currently working on new material for the “difficult” second album. It’s proving a bit slow though and we tend to end up having lengthy improvised proggy jams. So it could result in being an album of long repetitive tracks. It needs more riffs!
And there is a tour coming up in November (with Lovely Wife) taking in Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Brighton, Reading and maybe some other dates.
Cheers Steve!
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