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These past few years have been ripe with malcontent over the abuse of Internet technologies from both artists and labels.? How have file-sharing technologies impacted the sales of your products?

Heckman: Those file sharing technologies obviously effect sales. The first six or seven years in business all of our bands grew in sales release after release. That is not the case any more.

What steps have you taken to combat the trend?? How would you rate your successes thus far?

Heckman: Not much. Moral persuasion and some promos were copy protected. Some people are going to buy music and others will steal it and come up with any imaginable excuse to justify it. Illegal downloads and copying of albums are theft. The technology and the companies that produce these technologies certainly have the upper hand.

How are you adapting to the development of iTunes and other MP3 stores?? While some believe this is a solid solution to pirating, do these MP3 stores make a large difference for small labels?

Heckman: We will be up on all the legitimate sites soon. Revenue will be insignificant at first, but eventually may become a relevant revenue stream for the label and the artists at some time in the future. However, as much of a problem as illegal downloads are, CD burning is much more of an issue and the press never seems to point this out.

Looking back 10-to-15 years, underground labels had a definite reputation built through their rosters.? Looking at the original Wax Trax! line-up or that of Zoth Ommog, a listener had a basic idea of what to expect from a purchase.? Is this type of reputation important to your label?? Or is it more important to diversify your roster into different markets?

Heckman: Yes, that is very important to us and I think we have accomplished that. I think things are different and the scene is a little more diversified and therefore so is the label.

As you know trance and synthpop have fused with this music and now we have futurepop bands, but we still have lots of evil dark bands too. Quality is of utmost importance. Of course people have differences of opinion as to what is quality or not.

What is the most time-consuming task of running a label today?? Do you think this is similar to 10 years ago?

Heckman: Metropolis is a record label and a distributor. I deal with about fifty bands, fifty labels, twenty or so distributors, and have my staff to manage. Communicating with everyone in a timely fashion takes up most of my time. Ten years ago, just like most other labels in this genre I was a one-man operation. So in those days I did everything.

What are your views on artist development?? What are the key criteria you look for in evaluating a new prospect??

Heckman: We will work with a band for a few albums and I do expect them to reach a certain sales level over time. However, if your question means my input into their music that just does not happen. They have total creative control. That is their job and mine is in manufacturing, marketing, and distributing the release properly. When it comes to evaluating a new band again it is quality and do they have a sound. It's not like I say, "Yeah that is going to sell," because in most cases I honestly do not know. I sign quality bands, do my job by properly promoting and distributing their music and the public makes the decision as to who sells.

How do you promote your artists and what seems to be the best way to do so?

Heckman: Well I could go on for hours about that. It just is not that simple. However, things have changed a lot. Believe it or not I first heard Skinny Puppy and Nine Inch Nails on MTV. Think about that. And other bands like Front 242 and Front Line Assembly I heard for the first time on college radio. Needless to say videos are a waste of time, because no one will play them.

When I first started 10 years ago I think college radio was the most important promotional tool but that is not the case. Radio is important, but club play, retail promotion, and Internet promotion are more important these days. Club play is the most important and then you have to follow it up with retail promotion so the fans can actually buy the music. That is the short end of it. Like I said I could go on for hours, but I don't have the time.

With tours becoming increasingly difficult to fund for small indie labels, where do you focus your marketing campaigns for your artists?

Heckman: Tours are too expensive; particularly for European bands to come over. Only a handful of our bands can come over. So again we have to rely on club, retail, Internet, and radio promotion. If a band reaches a certain level of sales and popularity then they can come over and tour.

How much of the money from CD sales, and from touring goes to the artists and how much goes to actually running the label?

Heckman: As far as touring is concerned most tours do not make money. However, if there is a profitable tour, all the profit goes to the band. Please note that over the years I have spent well in excess of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of my own money to bring these bands over here to tour and only a small portion was recoupable against band royalties.

Regarding CD sales I cannot legally tell you what I pay my artists as that would be breach of contract. However, I do give the bands good advances and pay the highest royalty rates in the industry. Sometimes our royalty rate might be as much as twice the rate some other labels pay. I would not have all the bands on my label that I do if I did not treat them and pay them well.

How many CDs, on average, do you give away for free with each release?

Heckman: To cover press, retail, club DJs, and radio DJs, record releases parties, etc., we will send out between 700 to 1500 promos depending on the size of the band.

Distribution seems to be a challenge for most small labels. How do you make sure fans can actually find and buy your label's CDs?

Heckman: Most new Indies have the problem I did when I started as no major independent distributor would distribute for us, so we did it on our own. Now we have both our own independent distribution and large independent distributor ADA, which is owned by Warner Brothers. Having that large independent distributor is important for getting our releases in the chains.

Again, this is one of those questions where I could go on for hours. The main thing is that over the years we have built up an efficient infrastructure. I have sales people, a sales manager, a general manger, we send out P.O.P (promos, posters, postcards, etc.) and we spend lots of money to have these releases properly placed in the chains. These things just don't happen on their own and you need to work at it. A lot of new labels just don't have a clue and do not put in the effort. They think they can sign a good band, manufacture it and of course it will naturally sell. Obviously it does not work like that.

A large issue facing underground industrial music is the difficulty in introducing new music to the next generation or even to existing fans.? What steps need to be taken to find new fans?

Heckman: As I said before, club play is the most important. The fans are out there in the clubs. I wish the DJs would take more of a chance. I think most clubs are more concerned about keeping the dance floor packed than playing new music.

With the cyclic nature of musical taste, where do you see music going?

Heckman: I think music will go darker again. If you take a look at the early years of Metropolis it was dominated by bands like Front Line Assembly, Numb, Project Pitchfork, Evil's Toy, Mentallo and the Fixer, and Wumpscut. Much darker and heavier than most of the more popular bands these days. However, you never know.

What is the single most challenging obstacle facing the music industry as a whole that hasn't been addressed by anyone yet?

Heckman: Well, it has been addressed but not enough, and it is CD burning. There is something like 12 blank CDs sold for every prerecorded CD sold. Definitely half of those CDs are used to copy music. Bands are losing out big time on their royalties and mechanicals.

Business in general can be evaluated from countless directions.? What do you think is the strongest area your label performs in?

Heckman: We are a highly efficient and professional organization. We are very dependable and I think that counts for a lot.

Improvement in what area do you believe your label could benefit the most?

Heckman: Marketing. I have tried many different things to try to cross this music over and reach other audiences with very limited success. However, that takes big money and big risks. I am the sole owner of Metropolis Records and believe me I am a risk taker, but I only have so many resources (money). Therefore, I am not sure that I can successfully improve upon our marketing expect in a very limited and incremental way.

Over the past five years there has been a high bankruptcy rate for small labels.? What does this say about them, the market and the future?

Heckman: I am not sure what that means about each individual label that went out of business. Some labels that have gone out of business were rather large. Some were not managed well, I am sure. Some probably just had bad luck and were screwed by a large distributor that went bankrupt. I lost a couple hundred thousand dollars when my rather large distributor when out of business three years ago.

However, the industry is certainly not in good shape right now. Again, because of CD burning, sales in the industry worldwide in the last four years have declined approximately 40%. So, of course lots of record stores, chains, distributors, and labels have gone out of business. Almost half the people in the record industry have lost their jobs. On top of this, because of declining sales, a lot of chains have tried to adjust and have made bad decisions, which just exacerbates the situation. The future will be rough but the lucky, strong, and smart will survive.

In the future there will have to be nice balance between physical and digital distribution and CD burning must get under control. In my opinion there should be some levy on the technology giants that manufacture the hardware and software that helps in pirating of this music and the copy rights they infringe on. This revenue should be split with record labels, artists, songwriters, and publishers.

What is your vision for your record label? How are you different from all the other labels out there and why should independent music supporters put their trust in you?

Heckman: I have actually attained my vision in the music business. I wanted to become the premiere record label in the genre and make a decent living at what I was doing. I think that was accomplished early on in the label's history and now it is a matter of maintaining it and surveying in one of the most difficult businesses to be in right now.

I don't think that we are that different. All good independent record labels have a slightly different story to tell. The thing that distinguishes each label is the music. We do electro / industrial and other great labels are doing other types of music.

As far as the fans trusting us I am not quite sure what you mean by that. However, we do release quality music if that is what you are asking. If you are into Electro / Industrial. SynthPop, FuturePop, or even Gothic rock we have artists that the fans out there should be interested in and enjoy listening to.

What long-term goals are you trying to achieve in the coming years?? Any plans for expansion??

Heckman: Just survive and take incremental steps to grow in other territories and make sure that our legal digital distribution is in place and running well. I listen to a lot of different music and over the past three or four years I have gone back and forth thinking about launching another label. However, after what I have gone through and what the industry has gone through in that time period, I just lost interest in doing another label. I just want to do what I am doing and continue to do it well.