Directors of Australia’s newest vinyl plant, Neil and Kathy Wilson see vinyl as a huge opportunity for independent musicians to boost their revenue and expand their fan base.
Before opening Brisbane-based Suitcase Records just six months ago, Kathy and Neil Wilson both held corporate careers: Neil working as an architect with big property developers and Kathy creating high volume content for SEO with huge travel companies like Expedia.
While the pivot from corporate to cultural icon production seems a big one, Kathy said the pair had long been vinyl fans and kept hearing about how critical vinyl is to musicians.
“Yet with the surge in demand, there were lead times of more than a year,” she told Blank Street Press.
Then they read about a pressing plant in the USA that started up despite the owners having no previous vinyl pressing experience.
“We discovered that when vinyl was overtaken by CDs and went into hibernation, there was an enormous amount of lost knowledge.”
So Kathy and Neil decided they wanted to become the new vinyl experts and move with the industry into the future.
“My husband and son headed over the to UK to learn from a fabulous plant over there called Press On and we've been learning every single day since,” Kathy said.
It’s no secret that vinyl is experiencing a huge resurgence in popularity. Kathy says that she hears over and over again that people love vinyl because it is the opposite of what most of us experience in our modern day to day lives.
“It is tactile and physical and slow.”
“You have to take the vinyl out of its sleeve, place the needle and wait for the music to start. Then you listen to the music the whole way through, exactly how the artists planned it. No skipping. No rushing. Just a few moments of enjoyment,” she said.
“We have quite a collection ourselves and when we have friends over for dinner, we sometimes lose them to the record collection. There is so much memory and emotion in every album and it never fails to light people up.”
The other reason Kathy believes vinyl is so popular is because music lovers understand that if they want musicians to keep making art, they have to support them.
“It is almost impossible to make enough money to live via streaming but merch sales like vinyl can make a huge difference,” she said.
Suitcase Records is one of only three vinyl pressing plants in Australia right now. Kathy says there was a lot of lost knowledge when the vinyl downturn happened and as a result, a lot of the big labels have in recent years produced a lot of their vinyl overseas.
Now though as there are enough plants in Australia to sustain the market.
“We are increasingly seeing a demand in local production which we are very supportive of,” she said.
But records are still expensive, right? They’re expensive for artists to press and they’re expensive for fans to purchase. Well, Kathy’s position (and might I add, mine too) is that records are incredibly great value when you consider the team of talented and passionate craftspeople that go into making each one.
She breaks down the process… “once we receive the audio files, they are sent to Masterdisk in upstate New York who are legendary names in mastering and vinyl. Scott and Garrett are the craftsman who cut our lacquers.”
“Once the lacquer is cut, it is sent to NiPro Optics who have also been in the industry for decades and who create stampers which we put in our Allegro II machine which creates the records. That doesn't even take into account any of the artwork like the labels which get printed over in Holland at specialist printers.”
“We are all about ensuring the highest possible quality and are honoured to work with some of the best in the entire world,” Kathy said.
For artists wanting to press vinyl, Kathy says it’s important to consider what it is you’re trying to achieve.
“Is it the feeling of seeing your work made tangible? Is it a way to reward your fans? Is it a way to finance your next project?”
“Vinyl isn't right for everyone but I can promise that there is no feeling like holding your own vinyl in your hands.”