Label, artists share mojo

Millionaire Steve Bing is getting into the music business.

Looking to expand the holdings of his Shangri-La Entertainment -- the feature film production company behind Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones documentary “Shine a Light,” among other projects -- Bing has recruited one of the music industry’s heavy hitters, Jeff Ayeroff, to guide his new Santa Monica-based boutique record label, Shangri-La Music, to success.

To be sure, the music industry is anything but a happy-go-lucky place to work these days -- with plummeting sales, major label consolidations and corporate layoffs compounding the pressures of an already cut-throat creative culture.

But to hear it from Shangri-La’s co-founders Ayeroff and John Rubin, job one isn’t focusing on the bottom line. It’s schmoozing with performers, giving face time to artists and devoting, gulp, personal attention to creative marketing plans for acts on its roster -- basically an inversion of the prevailing major label M.O.

“It sounds perverse in this town,” Rubin said recently at Shangri-La’s airy offices. “We want to do work we are proud of with artists we care about and actually want to spend time with.”

Ayeroff, looking less like a label boss than some off-duty Hells Angel, with his long white goatee and dressed in black, added: “Part of the deal is an economic relationship, but we’re interested in a true partnership. We sit on the same side of the table with the artist.”

Exhibit A: The Duke Spirit.

In 2006, just weeks into the British indie rock buzz band’s first U.S. tour, its van was burglarized and all its equipment was stolen. Worse still, at a moment when acclaim for the Duke Spirit was reaching critical mass, the group’s record label, Polydor, dropped the ball -- it failed to so much as distribute the London-based quintet’s debut album, “Cuts Across the Land,” in cities where the band was playing.

“We felt like we were marooned,” recalled vocalist Liela Moss.

Cut to 2008. Newly signed to Shangri-La Music, the Duke Spirit is enjoying the best reviews of its career with its second album, “Neptune” (released on iTunes in mid-January and in stores today). The group’s moodily propulsive single “The Step and the Walk” was the No. 1-most-played song on Indie 103.1 last month.

Reached by phone as the group was leaving Brighton, England, Moss sounded effusive about Shangri-La Music and the positive mojo that has come of signing with the label after misfires with imprints such as Polydor, City Rockers and You Are Here Records.

“All five of us feel galvanized,” she said. “We wanted to surround ourselves with people that have absolute faith in us. And everyone at this label has energy, parity and faith.”

Moss added: “They were incredibly honest, which is brilliant -- and in this industry, a complete surprise.”

The “boutique” imprint, which boasts about a dozen employees, is signing all of its acts to so-called 360 deals in which the label shares a portion of an artist’s revenue streams -- typically, its touring and merchandise profits as well as digital branding rights -- instead of simply cashing in on music sales.

In recent months, such deals have become popular with top-tier, multi-platinum-selling acts such as Madonna, U2 (both of which signed groundbreaking contracts with the concert promoter Live Nation) and the Pussycat Dolls. Though not new -- Robbie Williams signed a similar contract with EMI in 2002 -- until now 360 deals have mainly been the province of established performers with dedicated fan bases, not developing artists like the Duke Spirit.

As part of the deal, Shangri-La must take responsibility for performers’ artistic development in ways not commonly associated with record labels.

“While we don’t supplant a manager, we have to think like one while also thinking like a record label,” Ayeroff said. “We have a vested interest in developing a brand. It’s the idea of helping someone create an aesthetic identity that’s memorable, desirable, seductive.”

The start-up represents a push into uncharted territory for music industry vet Ayeroff -- the onetime creative “czar” of Warner Bros. Records and co-founder of two previous labels, Virgin America and the Work Group.

Working with Bing and Rubin, Ayeroff’s plan is to groom new artists as well as revitalize legacy acts, including Jerry Lee Lewis.

Countering conventional wisdom about the music industry, Ayeroff said: “The sky isn’t falling. Stock prices for major record companies are falling. We have opportunities.”

Again, he cites the Duke Spirit. With its brooding, guitar-laden sound, the group has been compared to post-punk stalwarts such as My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth. Duke Spirit’s frontwoman Moss is often mentioned in the same breath as Grace Slick and Chrissie Hynde.

“Here are four good-looking boys and a charismatic lead singer who can command the stage,” Ayeroff said. “You look at what was done with them before and you say to yourself, ‘These guys were not well served.’ ”

The strategy is for the Duke Spirit to kick off a tour this month (it lands in Los Angeles on May 13) and to aggressively market to fans via the Internet -- to release, say, a live EP before the album’s initial popularity begins to wane. Or to bypass album production and digitally distribute two- and three-song suites of new music whenever the band goes into the studio.

“Ultimately, it’s about serving artists who in turn serve fans,” Rubin said of Shangri-La’s largely unknown three-act roster -- French alt-pop rock group Neimo and singer-songwriter Trevor Menear.

“I don’t think anyone can say what the record business is -- they can say what it was. Us? We’re not stuck in anything formulaic,” Ayeroff added.

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chris.lee@latimes.com