So, did you guys know that Elijah Wood is a HUGE indie music fan and now has his own record label? Here's a short interview with him about the significance of the name, Simian Records, and why he decided to start a label in the first place. Oh yeah, and he's just signed Apples in Stereo.Article courtesy of Filter Magazine. http://www.filter-mag.com/index.php?id=13989&c=2 He's a Believer! Elijah Wood Puts on a Monkey Suitby Patrick James | 03.07.2007A smoking-hot gypsy-punk girlfriend and an outspoken affinity for Billy Corgan aside, as far as the music world is concerned, Elijah Wood is just like the rest of us: a fan. At least he was, until he recently became an exec. In a collaborative effort with a revived Elephant 6 Collective, Mr. Wood will release the latest album from the Apples in Stereo this February on his newly founded and aptly named Simian Records. We say “aptly named” for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that the first cassette he ever owned was The Best of the Monkees, which, by his own admission, he “wore the shit out of.” Here the Guide called on Mr. Wood, a man of literate rock virtu and exceeding passion for all things musical, to shed some light on all this monkey business. What’s new at Simian headquarters?I’m actually in the editing room at the moment finishing up an Apples in Stereo video. Video? So you’re quite involved in every facet of Simian.Well, it was never going to be a vanity project. I’ll definitely be involved in as much of the process as makes sense. Getting your hands dirty, as they say.I don’t know if I’m going to get my hands fully dirty. It’s extremely important to know when to step back. It’s not my record. I just want to facilitate the band. The whole interest in wanting to do this in the first place was simply out of love of music and wanting to put out music that I believe in. Why call the label Simian?It relates to my childhood. When I was younger, my mom referred to me as a monkey because I would climb into cupboards and was constantly scaling things. That monkey theme has carried throughout my life. And the name is relatively benign in that it doesn’t necessarily make reference to any specific kind of music. It doesn’t really speak for the themes of the label. It’s just a word, almost totally detached from meaning. When I conceived of doing this, I wanted the label to be indicative of my taste, which is kind of all over the place. Give us some examples.Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of old soul, like Irma Thomas and Etta James. Betty Davis. Also a lot of blues; I recently discovered Hound Dog, and that stuff is fucking incredible. I love Field Music, the band from England. I saw Witchcraft the other night, so I’ve been listening to them lately. So you’re not chasing any particulars?If I found or discovered a really incredible bluegrass singer-songwriter tomorrow and I thought it was awesome, I’d release that. There’s a band out of New York called Eloise & the Savoir Faire that I’m a huge fan of. We’re planning on a full-length record and probably a preliminary EP with them. It’s nice to begin work on something else beyond the Apples because they were a finished product. To start something with Eloise is really exciting. And it’s a totally different kind of music. I think, largely, categorizing music has always been a bit tired. Like, for instance, the “indie” genre?The thing that’s frustrating about people referring to bands as indie is that people have forgotten what it actually means. There are a lot of bands on major labels who are being referred to as indie bands. That’s definitely the case with “emo.” People started going apeshit for that term and then emo was done. Apeshit indeed. Does that mean indie is done?It’s not going anywhere. As long as there’s quote-unquote independent music, there will always be the label. And you’re not leery of starting Simian at a time when Tower Records is going out of business?We’re slowly approaching the end of an era, but I feel like music itself is being, and will always be, distributed. So the means don’t really matter?Well…not as much. There’s nothing that anybody can really do about it. It matters, and I really hope we don’t see the loss of the record store for the same reason that I don’t want to see the loss of the movie theatre. Going to a record store and talking to a clerk and getting a recommendation is so much more meaningful than getting a recommendation from iTunes. But Amoeba Records in Los Angeles is constantly packed. Constantly. I don’t see it truly dying off anytime soon. This article first appeared in Filter's Good Music Guide January/February '07Here's the link to the record label's site.http://www.yeproc.com/artist_info.php?artistId=11076&page=
(I'm sorry. I couldn't resist!)
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