Big. It was quite a surprise. It was great to get involved with that.
Did it open you up more to the U.S. market?
Yeah, it actually did. We still get some really strange calls on how those songs are followed by the fans. The “Nip/Tuck” tune was a big one because it was a big segment of one of the tracks. We’ve got a whole other little fan base from that work. We’re very excited about that.
Owning your own record label (Hipbone Records) must give you unlimited creative license. Do the business responsibilities interfere with the artistic process?
Well, there are so many hours in a day and you have to make sure you can tackle a little bit of everything. It’s almost a curse and a blessing… Yes, it is. Anybody running a label --it’s a crazy thing to do but we do it out of the love of music. You have to keep your foot on the gas pedal all the time.
Is Open Door secondary to your ownership of Hipbone?
No, it’s not secondary…Open Door is very special to us, but Vicki and I are very active in running a lot of other things at the same time. You can see on Hipbone Records – we have a couple of artists out right now that are really good and are getting some play time — and we have to run with that a little bit. For example, we have an artist named Alexis P. Suter — we produced and recorded her entire record. As producers you still have to be “out there”—with all we have going on, this [Open Door] could be a hard thing to get off the ground, but we know it’s one of the best projects we have out there and we have high hopes for it.
And I noticed you're located in Brooklyn, which is a real hotbed for musicians these days...
Yes, we were on the lower east side for a number of years and then we moved over to Red Hook, Brooklyn after 9/11. There sure is quite a bit of great art going on down here…it’s changing by the minute. The Siren Music Festival held in Coney Island keeps getting better and better every year.
Article comments
1 - Jumpin' Jordan Lee
I say "Yes" to "So Close To Beautiful" by Open Door. Sensual music, inspiring music, universal music -- I take the trip whenever I can. I will not remove it from my car CD player -- I will not! Cannot recommend this CD enough -- to friends, lovers, enemies, politicians, grocers, cabdrivers, et al. Listen for yourself, hear it for the first time and know that you are indeed so close to beautiful that you can almost touch it!