Interview: Warren Hildebrand's Eye for Detail
By Zack Baker, Editorial Director
Orchid Tapes has become known for quality, in both the music the label puts out and the care it puts into each of its physical releases. From the packet of tea and candy that comes in every shipment to commonly including prints of photos taken by the artists, Orchid Tapes is known for putting together truly special releases.
ACRN recently spoke with Warren Hildebrand, the label’s founder, about what makes Orchid Tapes so special, how its family or artists came together and his own musical career as Foxes In Fiction. Check out the extensive interview below for all of the details.
How would you describe the “mantra” or philosophy behind Orchid Tapes?
Warren Hildebrand: I might ramble a little bit about how exactly I feel about the label if that’s fine [laughs].
I guess the central idea to Orchid Tapes is that the things that we try to release and the people that we try to work with, we try to keep things in this aesthetic of not really adhering to any particular genre or style of sound. Instead, we try to look for things that feel really pure and genuine and come from a place of wanting to create something and experience something lasting. We really want to put out good art and good music and we really don’t want to put out things that we feel kind of sound like another band or adhere to a particular trend. On a deeper level, we want the things we release to be functional. We hope that things we release connect with people’s lives in a meaningful way. Like if they’re going through a really hard time with anything that they’re experiencing, we hope that the things we’re releasing can maybe guide them through that in a sense.
This kind of relates specifically to the music I make but I think it really does carry over to the label in general, but we just want to be a positive force in peoples’ lives and be that thing for them if they don’t have it in any other place.
One of the things I’ve found in researching this odd little subculture that’s grown… I don’t even really like calling it bedroom pop any more because it makes it seem-
[Laughs] Yeah it’s kind of become a tired label, I understand.
Exactly. I’ve kind of realized that it’s not bedroom pop because it’s lo-fi, it’s because it feels intimate. To me, the thing that unites all of this music is the feeling that the artist is making you a part of their world, they’re talking directly to you.
Yeah, that’s something we go for consciously. We feel kind of like a family as a label, and it’s always an amazing thing when people can feel included in that sense of family that we try and cultivate.
Orchid Tapes definitely feels like a family now, but early on it was just you. Orchid Tapes kind of spawned out of a need to release your music as Foxes In Fiction, what was it like in the beginning?
They were pretty modest beginnings. I started Orchid Tapes out of kind of just a selfish desire to have a vehicle to release my own music as Foxes In Fiction. It was at a time when I didn’t even really know that many musicians and I was living in Toronto and was pretty busy with University at the time. The only real musicians I knew were in Toronto but were really more based on the Internet, this was back when MySpace was still kind of a social hub for musicians. It’s where I ended up meeting Mat Cothran of Coma Cinema, Rachel Kelly of R.L. Kelly and Dylan [Khotin-Foote] of Happy Trendy. That was kind of the genesis at that point, we ended up being really close friends. At that point I wasn’t even releasing music by them, but it just kind of planted the seed of what would be the later incarnation of Orchid Tapes.
For the first couple of years it would really be--I mean I wasn’t really established, so I don’t think too many people trusted releasing music on a lesser-known label because there was another label that had just gone under pretty recently called Arcade Sound. So I think everybody was pretty reluctant to trust new up-and-coming labels, I did a lot of smaller releases with people who approached me but it was less of me approaching other people. It went on that way for a couple years. I never liked the end of my time living in Toronto, I wasn’t even doing much with the label and there was even a passing thought that I would kind of drop it.
It took me moving to Brooklyn and moving in with Brian [Vu, Orchid Tapes co-owner] to really rejuvenate the label. I was approaching things with a renewed sense of interest, and Brian brought an entirely new perspective with his ideas and his sense of design. We started doing things again full-force, and it was at that point in mid-2012 that the second chapter and current incarnation of Orchid Tapes came together. That’s when I really started working with people like Mat [Cothran] and Rachel [Kelly] and eventually Sam [Ray, of Ricky Eat Acid] and all of the people who are now the “inner-circle” of Orchid Tapes.
It’s been through a lot of up and downs. It’s weird to think that even just two years ago I was considering just shutting down the label because there just wasn’t much going on with it. I think the move to New York and being closer to the people who actually live in this place and being able to organize all the showcases we do here was probably the best decision for all people involved. I didn’t really have that accessibility living in Canada, even with the Internet. It just wasn’t a possibility, not to shit on Toronto or anything [laughs]. Moving to Brooklyn was definitely the best decision at the time.
There definitely is that inner-circle to the label. How do you approach bringing on new bands to the label? Do you think it can be kind of intimidating for newcomers to try to join this tight-knit group?
I don’t think so. We’re pretty selective with the new things we decide to work on and release. Like I mentioned earlier, making sure things follow the loose moralistic aesthetic we have for music but also for the fact that we don’t wanna… I don’t know. It is like a family and it is like a close-knit familial intimate thing and I don’t want to do anything that would change that too much.
But at the same time I have no reluctance bringing in new people, that’s how new friends are made and that’s how we’ll eventually try and expand. I don’t think people are necessarily intimidated. I know some people like Mat [Cothran] might be kind of intimidating like on Twitter [laughs]. But I mean we’re all a really nice group of people and I’m always into releasing new music by new people on Orchid Tapes. We’re doing a release by somebody from Japan who none of us have even met before, but he is just one of the nicest guys ever and makes this incredible ambient music, I’m really excited about that. We’re doing a bunch of new releases by kind of further-reaches outer-ring Orchid Tapes people who are within our radar but at the same time are new to the label. We’re really excited about it. We’re not a cult or something [laughs], we’re not gonna cut people out just for the sake of preserving some kind of sacred ideal. Does that make sense? [Laughs]
You’re welcoming, but careful. Orchid Tapes means a lot to you!
Precisely, we’re really careful about the things we want to put out but we’re always open to doing cool stuff. We’re pretty inclusive, even though it may not seem that way [laughs].
You mentioned all the releases you’ve got coming up, and it looks like you have a really exciting year ahead of you. What’s the vibe like inside the label?
We’re just super excited. We kind of took a step back and looked at all the releases we’ve got coming up and realized that all of the records that we’re doing over the rest of the year are the records where these artists are really coming into their own. It’s kind of everybody’s first really mature release, which is exciting. It wasn’t anything that we planned, but it seems like everybody really stepped up their game to the maximum degree with these records. It’s not really something we ever anticipated, and to see the consistency and level of quality throughout all of the albums that we’re going to be releasing is really exciting.
We’re doing Alex G’s record in a couple of months and it’s just the best thing I’ve ever heard from him. It’s amazing, everybody’s going to freak out when they hear it. Just kind of overall for this record, the production is so much better and his songwriting has gotten so refined. It’s just so much more emotionally direct and everything works so well within the album. It feels like--It’s my favorite thing he’s ever done. And I hope other people feel the same way.
You just hit the four-year anniversary of Orchid Tapes and released Boring Ecstasy in celebration of that, what did that landmark mean for you?
It was kind of a point where we realized we could look back on everything we’ve done and realized that we have a pretty extensive history of releases with a lot of people. It just felt like a really special time. We had just done our first vinyl release with Sam for Ricky Eat Acid and it felt like we were coming into this era that was really significant and really real. We wanted to make something to commemorate that so we started planning Boring Ecstasy just a little bit after we finished up Sam’s release, we wanted to time it so it came out right afterwards.
We just really put everything that we had into making sure that it turned into something really special and I think everybody who made music for it did too. I’m hoping it can be kind of a landmark for everybody involved and everybody who listens to it to look back and be like, “This is kind of the time Orchid Tapes really started taking itself more seriously than just a tape label,” and realizing that this is a very formative time. It’s the landmark for when things begin to develop more and more intensely in the future.
It really does feel like Orchid Tapes is coming into it’s own, it has an identity now and people who are paying attention are aware of that. Where do you see the label going further in the future, even years from now?
From a developmental point of view we definitely want to continue along the same trajectory that we’re on now and not… This is kind of presumptuous to say, but we don’t want to just have a ton of hype around it all of a sudden and become this big thing really, really quickly and then just burn out. We want to do things in the same way: where things are spaced out over a reasonable amount of time and we spend a lot of time and effort perfecting each release and making sure everything is really perfect. We want to stay on the side of quality as opposed to quantity. Just continue as we have and develop at a really natural pace, letting people come and discover our music. We don’t want to get too big too fast because that’s not how we see ourselves. We just want to grow as it develops and not overwhelm ourselves with too many releases or too many projects.
On the other hand, we’re really interested in trying to get things like distribution and maybe getting our records in record stores, and doing more showcases in places all over, not just the States but around the world. Those are our loftier ambitions. They’re things we want to end up doing, but by continuing along the line and hitting that balance between the vinyl releases and the tape releases. We want to keep releasing really solid music and hopefully keep the family together and happy.
I talked with Sam Ray about your attention to detail, and I think that’s what makes Orchid Tapes stand out against labels that are somewhat similar. Why has that become such a key aspect of the label?
I think it’s just because it’s something that Brian [Vu] and I really care about. The fact that there are people out there who would even want to listen to our release is an amazing thing, but for people to take the step further and spend money on the physical product is such a special thing. I don’t know if people realize how valuable of a transaction that is. When so much music is available out there for free, spending hard earned money on a physical thing becomes an amazing and kind gesture, at least to us. So when people do that kind of thing we really want to make sure that not only is the actual record and everything top quality, but that we do other things to show that we appreciate it and that we care that people are supporting us. It’s like you said, there’s so many other labels and there’s so many different ways that you can start a label really easily.
But people still want to to support us and buy our stuff, and I’m kind of baffled by it every time it happens [laughs]. We’re just very genuinely appreciative. Brian and I both have a background in studying visual art so we spend a lot of time researching and figuring out ways to make everything more visually exciting and artistically pleasing. It’s just a combination of those two things.
For most of the artists on the Orchid Tapes roster, they started making and releasing music on a very personal level. As an outsider it’s kind of hard to judge how that process changes when they join a label, how involved is “the label” in the actual process of writing and recording a record?
It’s on a case-by-case basis, but we’re very hands-off by default. We want people to have all the creative freedom they want to just work on their own record, but at the same time I know in specific cases I work pretty directly with people for help with the actual process of recording the record. Every instance is different, like for Alex G’s record I stepped in and helped him with a lot of the mixing stuff and gave him a lot of notes. There were a couple of parts--I kind of felt like an asshole doing this--but I made him go back in and re-record some guitar parts because there was digital interference and had to assure him that it would sound the absolute best if he did it. There are instances like that where I feel like it would really benefit the record where I’ll actually say something or recommend a change.
I don’t feel like it’s too much of an imposition because I’m a musician first-and-foremost and a label operator second. I think when I do those kinds of things people take it in grace and know that I’m only doing it to try and benefit the overall sound and not because I want to make it a more commercial sounding record. On the other hand, with the new Julia Brown record Sam was working on, he would bring his laptop over and I was actively collaborating on some of the songs. It wasn’t at all a result of me being like “The Dude from Orchid Tapes,” it was just us working on something as friends and him wanting to collaborate with me as a musician because he--I at least hope he respects me as a musician, at least a little bit [laughs]. Maybe.
In that dichotomy between yourself as a musician and a label runner, where do you see your own music career going?
I want to have a lot more of a focus on it. I’ve been working on a record that I’m releasing in September, and I’ve been working on it for almost three years now. It’s kind of the biggest thing that I’ve ever worked on in my entire life. I’m pretty happy and pretty proud of it. It doesn’t matter to me if anyone hears it or if anyone cares, but I hope that it does things for my music as Foxes In Fiction. I’ve always cared about doing a good job and making things that affect people on a very positive level. I just really hope that happens, I want my ambitions as Foxes In Fiction to match my ambitions with Orchid Tapes, and I want to catch a balance between the two.
Do you think hitting that balance has gotten tougher as the label has grown?
So far no, it hasn’t really been an issue. I’ve been able to make both work and it’s kind of nice to have one and the other. When there’s downtime between either Foxes or Orchid Tapes I can always fall back to the other and put a lot of work and energy into that. It’s good because Brian and I are becoming workaholics when it comes to these kinds of things, and I don’t really like to take days off.
There’s always something to do, so it’s kind of good actually. When I was living in Toronto I was going through these weird periods of stasis where I didn’t have anything to do for Foxes or Orchid Tapes and was spending all day in bed and getting really depressed, and that in turn made me not want to do anything related to either. So I think I’m definitely the kind of person that needs a lot going on to flourish and feel motivated as a person. I’m really not the kind of person that gets overwhelmed, and I like having a lot of challenges on my plate. It’s been a blessing to have so much going on with both Orchid Tapes and Foxes In Fiction, I’m in the best place with both of them which is making me really happy. And that’s furthering both through this positive reinforcement cycle.
