Doomtree Members Speak About Business Side of the Crew
DTR’s Dessa and Lazerbeak chop it up about the behind-the-scenes grind that keeps their Minneapolis machine rolling.
In a recent interview with Minneapolis’ City Pages, Doomtree’s Dessa and Lazerbeak took some time from talking music and touring to discuss the work that goes on behind the curtain, speaking on the group’s business dynamic and what roles each of the crew’s seven artists and one intern play in keeping things on track through their evolution as musicians and as a successful independent label.
“We do what excites us, all of it under the Doomtree banner,” explained Dessa, the sole female of the collective. “More than anything, Doomtree as an LLC is instrument, not an end in itself. We make art and developed a business to support it — not the other way around.”
The two discussed how each of the crew’s members has adopted a specific role on the business end of their operation. Most of these, they said, just evolved naturally from what each member gravitated toward as their initial strong suite.
“I took on handling the money early on, since at the time I was probably one of the stingiest penny pinchers around,” recalled Lazerbeak, one of the group’s most-prolific producers. “At that point it was just a cash box and a ledger, but now it’s much more of what I imagine an accountant’s role to be.”
Dessa also explained that their roles have often become so specialized that they aren’t even sure how to do all of the things that other members routinely take care of. Offering an example, she explained, “[I] have no idea how to order t-shirts. I don’t know who we use to manufacture them and I’m not sure what sort of quantities ever seem to be appropriate. But I do know how to write and send a press release.”
Dessa and ‘Beak laid down more knowledge, from their experience operating like a corporate entity — which Dessa says was decidedly a poor decision — to which of the label’s records have sold the most — the self-titled crew album and Dessa’s 2010 release, A Badly Broken Code.
Read the full interview on City Pages’ website.
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