There are countless ways to land a label deal. But few are more effective than the time-proven formula of hard work, performing and pointed execution of social media. Certainly it’s what worked for Richmond, VA artist Lucy Dacus.
“We were on EggHunt Records, a Richmond label,” Dacus recalls. “It’s run by Adam Henceroth. We got that because we opened for Manatree, another of his bands. Adam approached me after the show and said, ‘Let me know if you’re working on anything.’ We’d just finished our album and were going to put it on Bandcamp, so we showed it to him. He agreed to press 300 vinyl copies, which was cool because we’d planned to go to South by Southwest.
“When it came time to get a manager officially, the choice was obvious.”
“That’s what started the album’s visibility,” the artist continues. “Our single ‘I Don’t Wanna be Funny Anymore’ was put out on TheFADER. com. The same day it was picked up by Stereogum and I got dozens of emails from various labels. We were approached by about 20 before we heard from Matador.
“We played a show in Atlanta and Gerard [Cosloy], one of the label founders, came to see us,” Dacus explains. “We found that we had very similar ideas about how artists should treat their responsibilities and what a label’s role is. It seemed like a good fit; it felt right from the beginning.”
With respect to management, Lucy Dacus went with a friend who’s also in a band but has more industry experience. “When it came time to get a manager officially, the choice was obvious,” the singer says. “A lot of the early communication with the labels was to me personally. That felt good because I wanted to read first anyone who was asking for my attention. When things got serious, I brought it to Tyler [Williams].”
No Burden dropped digitally in late February and was re-released more recently. The physical album is slated for Sept. 9.
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