Mechanic’s Violent Heavy-Metal Strategy

It’s hard to be a conspiracy theorist when it comes to the music business. Give us three industry execs--and you’ve got an argument. No one can agree on how to package CDs . . . how to price new superstar albums . . . or what to do about Tipper Gore.

And now, while record company bigwigs are weeping about record piracy and wailing about the prospect of digital audio tape promoting widespread home taping, what is one of the savviest young execs in the business doing?

Taking out ads offering rock fans bootleg cassettes for free!

Meet Steve Sinclair, the 34-year-old heavy-metal Wunderkind who helped discover Megadeth and Slayer and recently founded Mechanic Records, a new metal-underground label that has a three-year distribution deal with MCA Records. Sinclair realizes that heavy metal has replaced punk as the new underground music--and he has loads of intriguing theories about how to promote it.

“You have to understand that it’s the kids who generate the underground following for these bands,” he explained recently. “Metal fans are incredibly passionate and devoted to their bands, so they discover the new groups before anyone else. There’s a whole network of tape traders out there, who collect and swap tapes--and get the buzz going about a hot new band.”

With that in mind, Sinclair plans to generate some heavy-metal buzz of his own. He’s going to let potential fans have a listen to the first album by his latest discoveries--a San Francisco thrash-rock group called Violence-- before they even make it. Violence has just spent a day recording a demo tape featuring most of the songs they’ll eventually perform on their album.

Instead of jealously guarding the tapes, Sinclair has taken out ads in the upcoming issues of several rock magazines offering to send a free cassette demo to anyone interested.

It’ll be hard to miss the ads--they’ll feature the Violence logo (the band’s name in front of a crumbling brick wall) with the motto: “The cutting edge draws blood.”

Conventional industry wisdom holds that easily available pirated tapes would severely cut into album sales. Sinclair doesn’t buy it. “For years record companies have been cursing pirated tapes--I say, why not use them to your advantage? The kids will still buy the album, with more polished performances and better recording values. The demos will just whet their appetites.

“People have to understand--the music business has gone through all sorts of radical changes in the past few years. For example, you’d be a fool to sign a group today based on the prospect of breaking them through radio airplay. Radio is totally out of touch. And if you’re going to have a major band, they’re going to be made by the intensity of their following, not by a bunch of corporate decisions by some radio programmer somewhere.”