I suppose the name of Herve
Herbault will not tell you much. But I am sure you definitely know the name of
the French label OSMOSE that has been releasing totally extreme albums during
more than eight years. There’s no place for gothic and doom metal bands in the
catalogue of the label. Just extreme death and extreme black! And everything
was started out eight years ago, when a twenty-two year old Herve released the
debut album of then quite unknown SAMAEL...
Herve Herbault doesn’t like to
give interviews. From the twenty five interview offers that he received last
year, he has accepted only two. Well, we were lucky!
Part I
“All right, let’s put it like
that. OSMOSE was started back on the 1st of April ’91. At that time
I was just a fan of music, of metal music in general. I was also running a
fanzine. And just being in touch with a lot of bands, I also found out there
were a lot of young and talented bands that didn’t get any interest from record
companies. And for them it was really hard to find a record company. So, I just
came up with the idea “OK, let’s try to do it.” I always had an idea of making
a record company of my own, so I decided to make it finally. I didn’t know how
to run it, I didn’t know how much it cost. I am thirty one now, and it was nine
years ago, so I was twenty-two back then. Pretty young. “Osmose” is a French
word, which means that I am in a good combination with what I am doing. “Osmose”
means “one”. The music I produce, as well as the job I do, means “one”. One
thing. To be in a very good relation with what I do.
“To tell the truth, I started
OSMOSE with my girlfriend. And we are the real bosses of OSMOSE. Back then she
quitted her job, she used to work at a factory. Back then in France they gave
money to people who wanted to create their own company or whatever. So, the
government provided some help in case if people quitted jobs for running their
own business. So, she said: “OK, let’s try to do it. We have nothing to lose.” I
used to be in a civil service and she worked at a factory. So, we had enough
money to pay for one thousand compact discs and one thousand vinyl. That’s all.
We didn’t even think about paying the rent of the house, paying for the calls
and so on. Just food and all the usual things in your life. We spent all the
money on those one thousand compact discs and one thousand vinyl. And that
started everything. So, it doesn’t mean that you need a lot of money to start a
company. No! If you have enough money to spend on the “right” band, to do the
“right” things at the “right” time, then you don’t need much money. But you
must be sure about what you do. And you must be absolutely sure that you want
to run a record company. Because the beginning is really hard, but the
following is even harder!
“Back then the metal scene in
France was not really called “underground”. I would say there were not so many
bands producing tapes or whatever. There were companies that mainly ran heavy
metal music or power metal. But not death metal. There was quite a good death
metal scene at that time but with very very few bands. It was the beginning of
LOUDBLAST, MASSACRA, MERCYLESS. Though it was a real underground. And still I
can say that nowadays the death metal scene, as well as black metal scene, is
not huge. But there are in average six-ten thousand hard fans.
“Basically, what was very
important when we started OSMOSE, was the idea to record any band but outside
France. ‘Cos back then no one in France wanted to sell records. We were treated
like stupid! But outside France people were taking us more seriously. I wonder
why? May be we were the only French label that was able to work abroad! And
back then it was our strength, that we decided to work that way. So, we starred
to produce records every three months.
“SAMAEL were invited to play a
show in the north of France. I was in touch with them, as a friend of mine was
organizing the show. He said: “Listen to them, it’s a very good band and they
haven’t found a record company yet.” And this friend of mine didn’t know I was
starting a company. SAMAEL was not supposed to be the first to be released. It
was supposed to be some other band but there were complete delays in everything
and SAMAEL got everything ready, but no one was interested in them. Nobody
wanted to put out the record. So, I met the band and I just told them: “OK,
look at that. We’re building a company. We can put out your record but we can’t
promise you anything. We will produce one thousand CDs and one thousand vinyl
and then we will see.” And that’s how it was. We made a deal for one album like
it was a piece of paper, nothing more nothing less. Everything started out with
SAMAEL. Back then we had very good relations, everything was fine, perfect. And
SAMAEL started to sell well. There were not so many people back at that time
who could believe that SAMAEL could be sold, but it was the real revival of
black metal. ‘Cos back at that time only BATHORY were still alive. VENOM were
dead, MAYHEM were dead as well (This time literally - Ed.), and Norwegian black
metal scene appeared a year after. So, people considered SAMAEL to be the ones
who were returning the black metal scene.
“The selling of SAMAEL helped
us to produce the next records. After we put out one thousand CDs and one
thousand LPs, we printed again five hundred CDs and vinyl and so on. We sold
SAMAEL mostly by doing flyers. And at that time we suddenly got a deal with SPV
from Germany, they believed in us ‘cos we were so angry about the music
situation back then! I got an album of STEAMHAMMER and saw the address of the
label on the back cover. I took the address and wrote them a letter with the
disc of SAMAEL enclosed. They said: “These people are crazy enough, so we must
trust them.” It was unbelievable, but the manager of SPV put OSMOSE on the
distribution list! Back at that time SAMAEL was so different. There was a
revolution made by the bands like CANNIBAL CORPSE. SAMAEL was quite different,
and only SPV trusted in the record. No one else! And at that time we also got a
mail order from NUCLEAR BLAST. There were five or six mail orders in Europe
then. So, they were selling our CDs as well. And it was developing like that,
slowly but surely...”
Part II
“It was like a dream for me to
sign MASTER’S HAMMER. It’s clear. I couldn’t really believe it would be
possible for OSMOSE to sign this band. I
had had all the demos of MASTERSHAMMER even before they released their first
record. I just sent them a deal as we had already been in touch with the band,
and they said “Yes.” So, I was astonished when we got back the contract, I
couldn’t believe the band was on OSMOSE! I was so happy, that we tried to
develop them as much as we could. But there were so many personal problems
within the band! Nowadays the band doesn’t exist anymore. Back in 1993
MASTERSHAMMER was the first band doing symphonic black metal music.
One
day the guys from IMMORTAL sent us a tape. I listened to it and said: “Well,
let’s make a deal.” And they agreed. Back then they were dealing with DSP but
they were not happy with their cooperation due to some financial problems. So,
they decided to sign with OSMOSE.
With
MARDUK it was a bit different, ‘cos they’d asked us to sign them before they
went to No Fashion, but we told them “No” ‘cos we couldn’t do it. We had not
enough space, as everything was scheduled. We couldn’t put MARDUK on the
schedule, we needed at least a year to do that. MARDUK decided to release their
first album through No Fashion Music in Sweden, and ended up with OSMOSE.
“Actually,
we sign bands not for a long term and they have an opportunity to decide
whether they would like to stay with us or they would prefer to switch to some
other label. If we are satisfied with them, we sign them again. Usually we sign
a band for two records. That’s the good thing, they are free to decide whatever
they want. We are currently facing a big problem with the one of “bigger”
bands, they’ve completely fucked the things up! I can’t talk about that a lot,
but anyway you will never know what band I am talking about. It’s one of the
bestsellers of OSMOSE. They have fucked up everything, they are lying to us,
they’ve even ripped us with the recording of their third album. It’s a pity we
have to work with such people, but they just don’t give a shit to what is going
on!.. Some bands like GEHENNAH are no longer on OSMOSE. After two years
of our cooperation they were satisfied with the job we did for them and we were
satisfied working with them, but we lost money during that period! We lost
money, so we couldn’t stay with them, we couldn’t work with them anymore.
Generally, we must sell three thousand records at the minimum. But we sold even
less, you know. I must be sure that I don’t lose money like that with each band
we produce. I can’t continue losing money when I know that I have to pay nine
people! It was a hard decision, I explained it to the bands, paid them
royalties and stuff, and still inform them of what we do...
“Of
course, we had some problems with censorship releasing the albums of these
bands. It’s typical. As long as you are doing with morality, it’s typical that
you have problems. Distributors refused to take records, because of the lyrics
or covers. But we managed it. So far we’ve had enough problems to be able to
say that OSMOSE is experienced. It’s easy ‘cos we are fighting for our bands...
I am not an Anti-Christian or whatever. Certainly not. I just don’t give a shit
about religions at all. But my position is pretty much rebellious towards the
system which wants to ignore this kind of art. We will be releasing records by
all means! As long as it is artistic, I always support the musicians. That’s my
point of view. I will not support the band if they stand for their own personal
problems. I don’t care about personal problems. But so far such things never
happened.
“There
are bands that play thrash nowadays. Then, since I came from that scene, my
first album I listened to, was probably SODOM, I found out there are good bands
that play that music. People call it “retro-thrash”, but I don’t call it
“retro-thrash” or whatever. They just play thrash music and that’s all. We were
the first to do it. No one believed in it, but straight away thrash is coming
back. So, what can I say? It’s not my fault if there are more and more thrash
metal bands coming back! You can also see there are about thirty power metal
bands coming out every month in Germany! It’s a nightmare! That’s how it is,
that’s how it is. And don’t think it is very profitable. Certainly not! If it
were so profitable INFERNAL would still be on OSMOSE, GEHENNAH would still be
on OSMOSE which is not the case. They don’t sell well! So, it’s absolutely not
profitable to sign a thrash band, definitely not! So-called “symphonic black
metal” now works very well, and power metal also does. But not thrash metal. We
have also some death metal bands like ANGEL CORPSE that does it strong, as well
as RITUAL CARNAGE. But still they don’t sell so well. They sell may be ten
times less than IMMORTAL!”
Part
III
“Concerning
OSMOSE, we are considered to be one of the best-paying companies in the world.
It is true that there are not many bands in the underground that can earn
living playing music. It’s clear. They must do mainstream music. They have to
decide whether to do the underground music, the music they stand for, or to do
mainstream music and earn money. For example, MARDUK. They always do crazy
music. If they decide to earn more money, they will play other music and thus
stop being MARDUK. But you never know, people may deny them. It’s very hard to
earn money from the underground music. It is not that easy even for OSMOSE. We
are not even sure everything will work out the way we want. We have some bands
on OSMOSE that can live for money they get from OSMOSE a year or two. Well,
plus correct touring. There are some bands on OSMOSE that are really well-paid!
They earn quite a lot of money from albums and while touring. Good money for
OSMOSE. Of course, I don’t compare with mainstream music. Bands that sell forty
thousand records must be very satisfied. IMMORTAL is the most successful band
on the label. IMMORTAL with the album “Battles In The North” is the bestseller
on OSMOSE.
“Since
the beginning we paid for studios. We paid even for SAMAEL. We didn’t pay the
whole amount ‘cos we agreed with the band to give them some CDs to sell and get
money back. Still we paid some 70 percent of the record. That how it was with
SAMAEL, later we paid royalties to the bands. We have our own style of work: we
say to a band that we offer them to sign a deal, and we offer them the
recording cost, we offer them promotion, which is CDs, advertisements, posters
- whatever they want. And they are paid only from the sales. But we take the
complete risk. So, then we must fight to sell records. And that makes our
strength, ‘cos apparently no one works like that in Europe. We have been
working like that since the early beginning. We are angry when we put out a
record. It must work! ‘Cos we spent so much money on the band, that there is no
matter - we must sell a certain amount of records to reduce costs to zero. But
there were cases when we lost money. I must say honestly, we have put out ten
records on which we lost money. It’s a complete risk. But as we have put out
ninety records, it’s not so much.
“There
are not many people working for OSMOSE. There are only five people in France
and three in the USA. That’s all. There are companies like NUCLEAR BLAST or
whatever, there are probably more than forty or forty five. We have one of the
best salaries for our employees among the French metal labels. Our people are
apparently the best paid and I am very proud of that. In Europe - I have no
idea. Average income of our employees, it is not a secret, is $1700 per month.
“I
had a friend of mine who once visited Milwaukee Metalfest in the US. He called
me from there, and said: “Herve, take a plane, come here right away, you will
see here is such a big demand of OSMOSE in the USA that you will now believe
it!” I said: “Shut up, shut up! I don’t wanna hear about the USA at all!” I
just didn’t pay attention about what was going on over there. And then, a year
after, he came back from the USA, came to our office and said again: “Herve,
you must have office over there. You can’t believe there are so many people
wearing T-shirts of OSMOSE. I must have a look at it, you must go there to see
the reality about your label.” So, a year after, I went there and... I was
astonished. There were so many people who were into the thing we were doing!
So, we decided to open an office over there, ‘cos it was more than necessary.
And everything started out about three years ago. People, who work in the
American office, are very dedicated, they do a good job and we are very
satisfied with them. They work just perfect.
“We
also have Kron-Age branch of OSMOSE. We wanted to create this direction ‘cos I
listen to punk rock, rock ‘n roll, hardcore as well. We didn’t want to do it
under the name of OSMOSE, we wanted to do it separately and created a second
company. Well, it works. We are happy, ‘cos we can provide people with what we
also listen to. We listen to so many different kinds of music!
“We listen to all the demos we
receive. Tapes, CDs - everything. And if we discover a band that sounds good,
and if we really really like them, then we contact them. It’s up to them if they are interested or not in our
offer. What we love to do is to create a ‘name’ band from nothing. Of course,
there are bands already established by other companies. One of the examples is
EXCITER. They asked us if we wanted to sign them and I answered straight away:
“Yes”. I am a fan of this band. But recently we have just signed a new band
from Netherlands. We listened to the demo, it was excellent. And don’t think we
pay a lot of attention to the image! Also, when I listen to a band, I don’t pay
attention to the origin. The true situation is that Scandinavian bands provide
a very good music. Forty percent of all the stuff we receive, come from
Scandinavia. But as well as we got this tape from Netherlands, we got the tape
from Japan. The band’s called RITUAL CARNAGE. We were really into what the
bands did, so we signed them. Without any compromises. It doesn’t matter where
the band come from, do they have an image or whatever, don’t care about the
name until I like what they do. That’s how we work.”
PS:
“I
think it is very important for a record company to start with a “right” band.
Nowadays it is almost impossible. Even if you get the best band, it’s almost
impossible that the distributor will take it to the consideration. I am not
sure that if I quit OSMOSE and create a new label it will work. It’s so hard
nowadays, so different from what it was ten years ago. There are so many
distributors, so many mail orders, so many bands, so many records are out every
month. So, only the strong will survive.”