The Holbeck Underground Ballroom (HUB) is a creative space on the outskirts of Leeds city centre. Housed in five interconnecting railway arches and a fairly large courtyard, this warehouse-style blank canvas was a perfect setting for Fina’s 1st label party. Doing it all on a ‘for the love, not money’ basis, they decided that entry was completely free.
The line up consisted of Cottam (Aus), MAM (FINA), R.Cary & J.Were (Hush House) and label bosses Simon Morell and Matt Long. With a chunky sound system and a musical offering of deep vibes and low-slung tech, it was hard not to stay on the dance floor.
Chat with Fina label bosses Simon Morell and Matt Long
What got you both into playing and creating music?
SIMON:
It was my sister that got me into it really. Then I started to buy vinyl, a friend had some decks and I just started playing about.
MATT:
I used to play the drums back in the day, then I got into DJing when I was in sixth form; I was in bands before I got into the DJing side of music. Then at uni I started putting nights on, which followed by Ralph Lawson giving me a placement job working for 2020 vision. Everything really developed from working on that placement year with 2020.
Is that how you got involved with Ralph then, as you three are now together working on Fina?
MATT:
Yeah, I obviously met Ralph through university, and Simon and I met at Bestival.
SIMON:
Matt and I have always had mutual friends in Leeds. I knew Ralph from Basics and then from doing a night in London called DDD where Ralph used to play for us regularly. So that’s kind of how we all got to know each other.
How did DDD come about? I heard that was pretty successful down in London.
SIMON:
DDD originally started in Leeds. I was doing events with Craig who I ran the HUB (Holbeck Underground Ballroom) with. We did those for a bit in Leeds years ago and then we moved it to London. It just kinda started off as an underground house party with only two hundred people, then it just grew and grew and grew. We settled at the Key which is in Kings Cross where it kinda blew up even more.
Has creating your own label always been on your list of things to do?
SIMON:
Not really, ‘cause with DDD and putting on other nights it sort of takes up a lot of your time. So we were concentrating on the events side of things which we did for about eight years and then when that came to an end Ralph suggested that Matt and I should get together and set up a label.
MATT:
It has taken us time though to get it off the ground. It’s been over a year before we got to this party. We’ve tried to not just jump straight in.
SIMON:
It’s kinda just like built up; the first year was quite important to us not to jump in straight away and do loads of parties. We wanted the label to be nurtured and have time to grow a little bit by itself until people got to know what the label was about. This year we want to develop more with the parties and get the word out.
What would you say is the concept behind the label image, the name and the music that you are trying to push out?
SIMON:
Ralph was quite an important influence when choosing the name. We kind of passed a few names round and landed on Fina.
MATT:
Was he going to call his daughter a similar type of name? His wife was pregnant at the time with his daughter and the name evolved from that…
SIMON:
Yeah, we sacked the name off for the kid and used it for the label! Matt and I have a similar taste in music and it’s quite important that we didn't want to be another 2020 label, we wanted to be quite independent from that.
MATT:
Which we definitely have really.
SIMON:
I think we've established that we’re quite different in our sound; I mean we’re predominantly deep house as well, but I think we are influenced by a lot of different aspects.
The releases up to now have a distinct style with hints of deep house and disco. Is that something you will continue to push? Or are you also looking towards other styles in the future?
SIMON:
We’re already dipping into a lot of different styles, like the EP that’s out at the moment: the Steffen Deux track is quite a traditional 1990’s deep house track. It’s like what I was into when I was really young. Obviously the disco sound is quite prominent now so that has crept its way in, but it’s changing all the time. We don't want to be pigeonholed with a sound; we want Fina to be established as its own across the board. Not too strict, I mean people are open to different sounds these days. Some kids are into the disco grooves, others are into techno but they all go to the same parties. Like Matt with MonoCult: the lineups that they have are sort of across the board.
What future releases can we get excited about?
SIMON:
The next EP’s coming from Simon Baker. Matt’s just been dealing with Francis Inferno Orchestra from Australia.
MATT:
He’s just done an EP for us and he's playing at Sonar with us as well.
SIMON:
We've also got something from Tom Taylor who's done a really good low-slung 110 disco number which is wicked. It’s not really important for us to have a release out every single month if you know what I mean.
Quality not quantity?
SIMON:
Yeah, good quality, you can stretch it out a little but as long as it’s good. Got about four EPs on the go at the moment and then obviously we’re getting more and more stuff coming in.
Can you tell us a bit about keeping the concept of pushing out three or four track EPs and not the single releases that we tend to see nowadays?
SIMON:
It’s just important for us. We’ve always released on vinyl, we’re not just a digital label. We release on vinyl two weeks before it comes out on digital, so if we’re releasing on vinyl we need to have three or four tracks on there. It’s good cause we want to give our punters, I suppose you call ‘em... what do you call ‘em?...
MATT:
Our fans!
SIMON:
Haha, our fans. Just you know, it’s good to get a good variation on an EP and I think the artist will want to do that as well, it’s better for them to have more music out then say one EP.
What are the future plans for the label?
MATT:
We've just had a meeting today to be honest, mainly about kicking off some more Leeds parties and also parties down in the capital.
SIMON:
So we’re gonna be doing minimum eight events a year between Leeds and London. Moving onto maybe doing some back rooms with 2020 and maybe some bookings abroad. Just really trying to get the brand out there, showing people what we’re about and obviously getting to DJ off the back of it.
That’s always the main goal really to get to play out and play your own music to people...
SIMON:
It’s a stepping stone when you’ve got your own label to do gigs and it also helps when we’re playing out every week to push the brand. If the parties do well then the label does well, it all feeds off each other and vice versa.
Has it been a stressful process getting the label together?
SIMON:
It takes a lot of time and the record industry is not what it used to be, you don’t make loads and loads of money off releases like what you might have done back in the 90’s when it was vinyl only. But we really enjoy it and it’s good that we’re doing what we want to do.
MATT:
To be honest with you, we’re pretty laid back.
SIMON:
There have been drawbacks, but it’s not been bad. No real issues; obviously we want every single to be the best it can be and the sales to be good, sometimes that might not happen for various different reasons. I think you’ve just gotta keep plugging away and the more we've gone on, the more people have started to take notice of what we are about.
With the upcoming Simon Baker EP, did he already have these tracks ready to go or were they specifically made for the Fina label?
I’m really good friends with Simon and he sent them over in June after a talk. We were talking about doing an EP for ages and he let me listen to a few tracks that he had just finished and I jumped on them straight away. Absolutely loved them and thought right, we’ve gotta have that. He was a bit wary at first ‘cause we’re a new label and he’s an established act, but he just ended up letting us have it. He’s a good friend and he’s really behind it as well, really likes what we’re doing.
Be sure to check out Fina’s website and Soundcloud for past releases, events and news:
Website: http://www.finarecords.com
Music: http://soundcloud.com/fina-records
Venue: Holbeck Underground Ballroom
67-71 Bath road LS11 9UA
http://www.facebook.com/HolbeckUndergroundBallroom
Photograph c/o: Mark Webster (www.markwebsterphotography.com)
