Interview with Paul Willeme for Dark Entries, August 2003
How do you look back on these 10 years & 60 Drones?
With pleasure, and a bit nostalgic. These were 10 years of discovering many great artists and sounds
from all over the world, of getting in touch personally with many people and making friends, andfinding out the existential importance of music for myself. Nostalgic because when I started
everything was working on snail mail, after a while you got lots of letters every day, and flyers weresend around like crazy. It’s hard to imagine this now, but the whole thing worked quite well... and it
was really sort of undergroundish.
Surely it was a lot of work to build the label and keep it running, but it never seemed like “real” work.
It happened because it’s what I do with my life, it’s NOT just a sort of “buisness”. So I see the wholelabel-project on two levels: what it could mean for the “outer world”, as a small cultural manifestation
or objectivation, and the meaning for my “inner world”, as a transformation of strong inner desires
adn motivation.
It doesn’t seem to me that 10 years have already really passed, and still I’m excited about any newdrone 7” that comes out. 10 years is nothing, if you regard it as a realization or manifestation of arather timeless cultural “idea”: the communication through atmospheric “thinking” and feeling.
One of the aims of the label is releasing unknown & starting artists rather than the establishedones. Most of the artists who had a release on Drone Records are quite well-known names now.
Must be satisfying?
Yes, it is indeed, and this is really one of the aims & approach of the label (to release the moreunknown or new artists). But it’s not a dogma. To see some of the projects presenting on Drone
suddenly getting more and more attention is a bit like “spreading the word”. Drone always only doesone 7” of each project so it can always be only the first or a small instigator for others to follow. But
there were also Drones of excellent groups that stayed totally unknown afterwards, like the wonderful
hungarian HIDEG RONCS, or dutch INDRA KARMUKA. Some also did only one or few releases
under a special name (like ERDWERK) but developed further and work under other names thesedays. But in general it seems, the release on Drone serves as a kind of starting-point for many, and thismakes me very lucky.
How do you feel about the compilation that will commemorate the 10th anniversary? Why is itreleased by Tumult & not by yourself?
It’s NOT a 10th anniversary release ! Tumult Records from San Francisco offered it a long time ago
and I thought it’s a good idea to put out tracks from drone-releases for the first time on CD (as thereare still people without record-players existing, haha). I liked the idea to have this released on a totallydifferent label from the US. For me it would have been way too much work to release something likethis on my own, I want to concentrate further on the vinyl-series.
Are you satisfied with the tracklist? Were you involved or consulted on the choises of projects
included?
I am indeed satisfied, I gave Andee (Tumult Records) the full decision on which tracks he wanted touse. I don’t see myself as a “owner” of this tracks or this music.
Most of the tracks included span the years 1997 to 2000, & almost all of the Drones 30 to 43. Any
specific reason for this?
The choose was finished a few years back, so no newer material since then was included. The labelowner had serious private obstacles to overcome,so the whole was set back for some time...and as I
said, the tracklist was a personal choice of Tumult Records. I see it as an additional possibility for theDrone-projects or the Drone-idea to get attention, I didn’t want to create the “perfect product” basedon my own choice. I’m sure the final product will be very nice.. also Stephen O’Malley (Lotus Eaters /SUNN O:)) is doing the artwork, so it will look very good !
How do you decide who gets a release on Drone Records? Do artists send you their music, or do
you contact them with an offer?
Both ways are possible, but these days I receive very much demos so usually it’s this way now.

Are there any artists you would have liked to release but who refused?
Yes, but I don’t want to go too much into detail. There were some projects I contacted who wereinterested first, but out of different reasons the release wasn’t realized.
Where will Drone Records go now? Will you maintain the concept for another 10 years?
Yes, as long as there’s good new drone-music around, I will probably going on with it. But whoknows what the future will bring? Maybe I collect stamps in 5 years from now? Or latex-clothes?
(private note: didn’t we have the discussion before, eheh ?) At least I can say I’m not bored at all. Andfor the listeners it’s the same I hope.
What will happen in the near future on the label?
This month (August 2003) sees re-releases of three drone-EPs, by TAM QUAM TABULA RASA
(actually a very old one from 1995, appeared as DR-10, but as the group is quite active again thesedays..) , TARKATAK (DR-34) and one that got quite famous by argentian group REYNOLS (DR-42).
Due for September are new drones by NO XIVIC (Finland), ENTRELACS (US/France), CHRISTIANDERGARABEDIAN aka C.D. (Spain) and EMERGE (Germany). After that fixed plans are alreadymade for SOLEILKRAAST (France), CISFINITUM (Russia), OVUM (Sweden), etc.. a list that should
never end!
To end with, the Drones have become an item for collectors. What’s your opinion about that?
hmmm...collecting as a phenomena has interesting inner-psychological implications, and it also shows
at which degree we have all internalized a thinking that is based on VALUE (in Marxsunderstanding), we can’t view on things as mere things but always see them also as an equivalent tomoney. As a consequence, one could even say: in capitalism, real art is not existing - what is created isalways a “product” similar to others, with an inherent value expressed in money. It is hard to imagine
an art-product with no money-value (and that’s what I mean when I say we have internalized valuethinking, as the basic principle of capitalism). I think now that’s one of the basic motivations of Drone
Records – the urge to release music-art that is not based on value, that has a value you can’t measurewith money. Although I know it’s not possible it’s the idea what counts.
Concerning Drone: at least it was not the intention at all to create collector’s items when the firstDrones appeared. But then e-bay wasn’t existing, and the whole scene was smaller, and to sell 200
copies of a totally unknown experimental project wasn’t that easy. Now I see that with the special
concept (handmade or selfmade covers by the artists, colour-vinyl, lim. first edition) Drone 7”es cansurely become collector’s items after some time, something you can’t prevent... and I don’t want tochange the whole concept only because of this reason... and what can I say, I am a collector myself,
but there are boundaries... I hate this e-bay money-making with certain release-strategies (no names
here, but you all know examples I guess), “famous” people bring out stuff that is limited and crazily
priced and sell single copies on their own on e-bay for even more... but I think Drone is still very far
away from this: when Drones appear, they don’t cost you a million, and if you order directly in time
there will always be enough copies (best thing is to get a subscription). Also, there will always besecond editions pressed when there are enough requests, so that the MUSIC (and that’s what counts inthe end, right?) will stay available.