'We Hit A Brick Wall With Radio'
When epic rockers CODES signed to EMI, it was widely expected they would sweep all before them. But the young Dubliners found Irish daytime radio impossible to crack. Their manager explains how a bright young group with global prospects were hamstrung by what he sees as the conservative culture of the Irish music business.
Peter Murphy, 22 Nov 2010
Here’s the case study. You’re a young indie-rock band called CODES with a big sound and an exceptional, choirboy vocalist. You record a couple of independent singles – ‘Edith’ and ‘This Is Goodbye’, which breach the Irish Top 40. You self-finance your debut album, Trees Dream In Algebra, which involves demoing in Cardiff with Manics man Mike Haver, and album sessions proper in Modern World studios in the Cotswolds.
The finished artifact secures a 14-month licencing deal with EMI Ireland. Pretty soon you’ve got major support from MCD and its sister companies; the album is released and secures a Choice Prize nomination; loads of media coverage and major festival slots follow. There’s only one problem: the bouncers at the daytime radio ball won’t let you in. Then your label decides not to extend your contract to the end of the album’s natural lifespan. In anyone’s language, it’s a baffling state of affairs.
CODES manager Karl Bergin has some things he wants to get off his chest. Over the course of an hour-long conversation he tells a cautionary tale for any ambitious young band looking to find its audience over the airwaves. He is completely and utterly frustrated at the way in which a band, widely rated as one of Ireland’s hottest prospects, have been stymied by a lack of daytime radio support.
“We signed up in March of last year,” he recalls. “We liked the label’s approach, we liked the way they didn’t want to change anything. They heard the record, they liked the look of the band, we liked everyone within the label, they were good people. I’ve known Willie Kavanagh for a number of years and he’s a straight-talking person, the kind of person I like to work with. The band were photo ready, the album was ready, everything was done, it was a case of releasing the first single. So ‘This Is Goodbye’ was re-released, and that’s where the difficulties started.”
What kind of difficulties?
“We just hit a brick wall with radio. I think everyone was genuinely surprised. When you sign a deal and get a promoter, as we did with MCD, who’ve been absolutely amazing, and you go to a radio station and they don’t see what you see, and they’re a minority, you stop and go, ‘Oh’.”
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