Some might think launching a label merely 8 months into your DJ career is crazy. Because, well, it is. But Max Chapman doesn’t regret jumping head first into the deep end. He and label mates AJ Christou and Mark Horsey freely admit they’ve made a lot of rookie mistakes along the way. But then again, no agreement is easy when you’ve got three competing personalities in the mix. Yet Max reasons that the combined trust, expertise and experience he and his fellow Resonance Records’ honchos bring to the table is exactly why the label has been able to cut through the noise, stand out, score chart topping releases straight from the start.
You started Resonance Records along with AJ Christou and Mark Horsey, how do you know each other? The first time I DJed was in Manchester after my first release, which was on a Manchester based label called Electronique Digital. I met AJ that night and kept bumping into him whenever I was in Manchester. As a natural progression, we became friends, and then both developed the idea to start a label. Mark and AJ were already friends who had discussed the idea, so we all formed together and started Resonance Records.
Where does the name originate from? I like alliterated names. I wanted the name to begin with ‘M’ and call it “something Music.” Or to begin with ‘R’ and name it “something Records.” Resonance is one of the dials on a synthesizer that I see every day. It’s also the quality in a sound that pierces you. When something resonates with you, it means something to you, so we thought it was the perfect name.
Between the three of you, what experience did you have with regards to running a label when you started? Absolutely nothing, we went straight into the deep end. From another DJ’s point of view, they’d think it’s quite mad starting a label 5 months into your DJing career. But at the same time, I was very hungry and luckily it’s worked out all right. We had a lot of friends with some great, unreleased tracks, and we just started from there.
What’s behind the decision making process between the three of you? Is there a struggle? [Laughs] One of us will love something, one of us will think it’s all right, the last will hate it. And it’s the same thing over and over again. But we’ve learnt to trust each other. I play slightly techno/house, where as AJ is full on techno, and Mark is deep house, which means we all have our own area to cover when signing tracks. And that is why the trust in each other we have is so important.
What have you come to learn since then and what mistakes if any have you made? I’d be lying if I said we hadn’t made an abundance of mistakes. Jumping in the deep end like that, there were so many things we hadn’t realised we were doing wrong, especially with releases. For example, if you release on a Monday on Beatport, that’s how you qualify for support like banners and getting featured in the must hear tracks section. We didn’t know that for seven releases, so we were releasing on Beatport with hardly any support.
What were the deciding factors around launching your own label a mere 8 months in your DJ career, why not wait a while longer? I was such a hungry person at the time. When I first had my breakthrough, I wasn’t aware of a lot of things in this scene, such as the labels or how anything worked. I was very lucky, which made me excited and hungry for more. Any normal person would have waited a few years to do it; it was crazy and mad to jump in like that, but I’m glad I did it.
What would you say to someone wanting to start their own label? Do your research and have enough information behind you to make it work without a lot of stress, like it was for us. But at the same time, if you feel you are ready, you are going to have so much fun doing it. At the end of the day, the time is right when you think it’s right.
What are you looking for when you sign someone to Resonance? When we sign a track we want it to be a good, solid track. It doesn’t matter what style it is as long as we think it’s produced well and it’s going to get people moving in the genre it’s fit for. One of my favorite things to do is sit and listen to all the demos we get through because it’s exhilarating, especially when it’s an artist I’ve never heard of. They could be the next best thing.
How much influence do AJ, Mark and you have on the artists? The number one thing is I want the artist to be happy. If they sign a record or records to the label, they get treated extremely well. We usually give them a gig straight away and get them on the next available party. We try and treat our artists as we would want to be treated if we were signing to a label.
Your first release was a hit, right? Can you tell us about it? It was a 7-track sampler, all various artists, and the bestselling tracks were No Artificial Colors’ “Girl Get Down” and Clinton Houlker’s “Party 2nite.” They both reached number two and three on the Beatport chart, and that was our first ever release.
How many artists are currently on your roster and how big are you looking to grow? We have 52 that have already been released, and scheduled over 2 years.
What’s in store for Resonance Records in 2014? Any fresh news you can reveal to us? The next release we have is Mark Jenkins EP called ‘Feel You’ with a DJ Leeroy remix and a Baade remix which is myself and a friend, Dave Whall. Then we have Michael Jensen’s EP, we’ve been really lucky to get a Richy Ahmed remix, Him Self Her and Alex Jones.