Music Talk : Music Industry Interviews, Advice and tips for DJs & Producers · Grahame Farmer

Music Talk 070 - Interviewing R&S Records founder Renaat Vandepapeliere

·1 hr 28 min·5 clips

Renaat says starting R&S was "stupid" because the majors kept saying no.

1. Music Talk with Graham Farmer focuses on R&S Records founder Renaat Vandepapeliere and the label's 40-year history. 2. Graham Farmer hosts the interview, and Renaat Vandepapeliere is the founder of R&S Records, a Belgian label based in Ghent. 3. The episode asks why Renaat still runs R&S Records after four decades and what "forward-thinking electronica" means to him now. 4. Renaat says his first musical memories came from his father's radio, where he heard jazz and classical music late at night. 5. He says he wanted to be a drummer, built a kit from washing powder boxes, and still follows drummers every morning. 6. He names Claude Schultz, Kraftwerk, Jules, and Emmanuel Gotching as early electronic references, then points back to 1950s BBC experiments. 7. He describes launching R&S in a market ruled by majors and huge independents and says the idea was "stupid" to people around him. 8. He recalls trying to play tapes to a German A&R who stared at the ceiling and then telling them, "I'm going to do it myself." 9. He says the early operation meant a home studio, heavy debt, sleeping bags on the floor, and a 20-square-meter apartment. 10. He tells the story of asking Belgian radio for a late-night show, getting rejected because the music was called "shy," and then setting up satellite broadcast instead. 11. He says that pirate-style broadcast reached Germany, France, and Belgium and helped open a path for underground house on radio. 12. Renaat argues that there are no boxes at R&S, only artists who have something to say and are honest about their music. 13. He says he stopped the label in 2006 because he no longer felt free and did not want to be trapped as "a techno label." 14. He rejects the idea of predictable A&R formulas and says he would rather hear debate around a release than safe agreement. 15. He explains that he likes artists he can disagree with, and says the relationship has to work like a marriage with respect and consensus. 16. He tells a Billy Cobham story, including Cobham coming to his home, playing with Miles Davis and Aretha Franklin, and later jamming on a drum kit in Switzerland. 17. He says one drum-and-bass release came from Skeleton Keys by the first Bookham album, and another planned session with Billy Cobham never happened when the artist did not show up. 18. He says In Order to Dance 4 was completed three years earlier, redesigned as a special collection, and includes a one-copy box with a 40-minute unreleased Underworld track. 19. The interview sounds loose, argumentative, and detail-heavy, with Graham Farmer steering while Renaat answers in long stories and sharp opinions. 20. Listeners who like label history, drum-and-bass, and artist-led A&R will get the most from it, while people wanting brief genre talk may skip it.

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