interview: Wry

Interview with Mário Bross, guitarist and lead singer of Wry, Sorocaba's band living in London since 2002. This interview was made by email at 10 of may of 2005 for a college project and published at Mazzacane.

Wry let some songs available for download on it's official site. What are the advantages and disadvantages of it?

It makes possible that more people get in contact with your songs. And you can use internet to release b-sides, live recordings, remixes, etc.
We intend to sell our single via internet by a fair price, soon.
The only disadvantage we see on it, is if someone hear the song, don't like and don't to buy/listen anything else from the band.
But, in a generic view, authorized music on internet only brings advantages, without any doubts.

How are major record labels reacting in Europe to these "illegal" downloads? Like when a band's cd is available at web even before it get a "physical" release, like happened to Oasis's and Weezer's last albums.

There aren't many things you can do about it, this usually happens because someone close to the band put these songs on the internet. And, sometimes, it's just marketing, to make the band to appear at the news, etc, before the album is released. The Subways, a band which is gonna explode and is close to us, had their album stolen too, everything was at Josh's (drummer) laptop. It got the internet but they didn't care so much about it.
So, there aren't many options. The money spent trying to get the criminal computer is worse than sell a few cds less.

Do you believe bands like Franz Ferdinand and The Killers would be so famous as they're today without the use of peer-to-peer and sites like Rapidshare?

Maybe people didn't know how to sing all the songs when these bands got on tour. In these mentioned cases, image and that big hit should travel through all the world even without internet. They would be famous anyway, that's what I think.
But, if you think about a band a little more alternative, like Bloc Party or Kaiser Chiefs, I agree with your point of view. Before their albums were released and lots of people all over the world know their songs, djs are playing them, from São Paulo to Tokyo. Internet is evolution, it's the future.
There's no way to negate that it is good for all the bands, understand?

Today, is it crucial for indie bands to put their songs on the internet, available for download?

Of course, you have to be part of it or you'll be left behind. I can see, five years from now, all this technological evolution will triplicate. As they say on the Bible "you cannot buy or sell if you do not have an email"... or something like that. So, it's essential and it's easier than it was a few years ago.

Does the traditional copyright law work with Wry's songs? Had you ever win money with reproduction, execution or any other use of your songs, as these laws pretend to do?

Some of our songs play daily, even three times a day, at some radio stations (in Brazil), for more than 50 cities, and we haven't see the money, never never, not a single cent in our banks counts.
But i guess it happens because we're from underground and we don't have a big manager involved with our work.
I have friends, from others bands, that say this works, slowly, but works. I would like to see it working to Wry too, but, by now nothing is happening. We'll see how this year will be, we think everything will be "in deep blue". By the grace of god!

Wry - jesus beggar

photos: studioeleven