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By Karen Bliss - JAM! Music, Canoe.ca
A new Canada-only, limited-edition, two-CD Swollen Members set, entitled "Heavy," will drop October 21 (Mad Child's b-day) and will feature cover art by comic book king Todd McFarlane, who directed the Vancouver hip hop group's video for "Breath," featuring Nelly Furtado.
"This is an album that's being released in Canada only," says Jay Clark, the group's manager. "It's a double disc, limited-edition release (50,000). One disc will feature all brand new exclusive tracks; the second disc is a DVD that will feature videos, live performances and backstage footage. 'Heavy' is to thank all the fans in Canada for their support, before they go and release an album for the rest of the world."
The album, which will be released through the group's label, Battle Axe, with Canadian distribution through Nettwerk/EMI, will be different from the one that Virgin Records in America plans to put out internationally in the first quarter of 2004. Battle Axe/Nettwerk/EMI will release it in Canada.
While Heavy will be recorded entirely in Vancouver, Swollen Members' MCs Mad Child (Shane Bunting), Prevail (Kiley Hendriks) and Moka Only (Daniel Denton) have been living in Venice Beach, CA, since the end of January, where they've been working on new material for the still-untitled Virgin release.
The group's resident producer and touring DJ Rob The Viking (Robin Hooper), as well as Jay Clark of Nettwerk Management, recently moved there too.
"We're at a point in our career now where in order to continue meeting the goals that we've set for ourselves, being down here and being seen and seeing exactly what is going on in the scene -- because it's a little bit different -- we have to immerse ourselves in the culture of what's going on down here musically," says Prevail.
Past and present Swollen Members collaborators Evidence of Dilated Peoples; Nucleus, a producer and junior partner in Battle Axe; Abstract Rude, Aceyalone, Mr. Brady, Son Doobie, and Buc Fifty all live in California, some as close as four blocks from Swollen Members' new digs, others as far as San Diego.
"There's so many more people here and so many more people doing hip hop and making music in general, and a lot of what we've been influenced by over the years has come from here," says Prevail. "We have a lot of great friends here and we have an opportunity to come down here and work with people that have different experience (from us) and, in some cases, more experience than what we're able to expose ourselves to at home."
Adds Mad Child: "It's the next logical step. Just a new vibe. I love LA and I love Vancouver, (but) I think in order for us to really get a buzz here, we have to be here."
In Canada, it could be argued that Swollen Members have gone as far as they can. Battle Axe is certainly the most successful hip hop label in the country and the group alone boasts scans of 41,200 for 1999's full-length Balance; 101,000 copies for 2001's Bad Dreams and some 65,000 for the b-sides collection Monsters In The Closet, which featured the brand new track, "Breath" with Furtado.
Since setting foot in the Venice Beach community, the guys have been productive, interrupted only by tour commitments in Canada, first with Avril Lavigne, then occasional clusters of headlining dates.
They have remade "Breath," keeping Furtado's vocal, but changing some of their own lyrics and using a new beat produced by the Bass Brothers (Eminem). The song will be re-titled "Breathe" for inclusion on its Virgin debut.
"It's more upbeat perhaps," says Prev of the song. "Nelly's part is still exactly the same, but we thought we should update our version to match her level of quality. The new version is more U.S. acceptable."
While it's too early to say whether new versions of their Canadian hits will end up on the U.S. album, Prev says they might try messing with a few more. "Because people haven't heard them down here as extensively as in Canada, we're going to work on remixing the beats so they have a more appealing sound for the format of what's getting played on radio down here."
The group is currently collaborating with The Matrix, the hit production team, which has co-written with Avril Lavigne, Mooney Suzuki, Lillix, and Liz Phair. Everlast, with whom Swollen Members worked on its first album, sang and played some acoustic guitar on another track for the guys.
And Evidence of Dilated Peoples has provided some beats for other songs.
"Ev's always been amazing at pointing us in the right direction, and just giving us that veteran feel," says Prev of Evidence. "So not only is he producing beats for us, he's also helping make something different for us."
Rob The Viking will be producing some tracks as well.
Meanwhile, Mad Child, whose Vancouver Battle Axe office has six full-time staff, has opened a headquarters in Venice Beach, operated out of his rented house by director of sales and marketing Kevin Kocher.
As dedicated to business as he is to rapping, Mad Child, who founded Battle Axe in 1996, struck a label distribution deal (for priority releases) with Virgin for the world, excluding Canada. In 2001, he worked out a unique 50-50 joint venture deal with Vancouver's Nettwerk Productions for the group's releases in Canada.
The label's developing releases are being handled by over 15 independent distributors around the world, including Caroline Distribution in the U.S. and Sonic Unyon (non-exclusively) in Canada. Until the next Swollen Members album is released on Virgin, this arrangement will stick.
"We have a first option on all Battle Axe releases for all territories outside Canada," says Virgin's Dean Serletic in New York. "We anticipate the next release after the Swollen Members album will be a Moka Only solo album."
Mad Child, an astute businessman, who knows what he wants in a deal, talked to many labels over the past year before he worked out the Virgin deal.
"One of the reasons I went for this is the albums are not cross collateralized, meaning that if one album recoups and one album doesn't, they don't recoup from the album that did. So they are completely separate," Mad Child explains. "It's a project-by-project basis as far as recoupment goes, which is very important. That wasn't part of the other deals that we were offered, and that was a concern of ours.
"Having full vinyl rights is crazy, and getting to keep Canada is crazy, and getting to keep our back catalogue is crazy. We own those masters. The only thing we won't own is if one of our older songs ends up on the new album, then we'll be handing ownership over to Virgin."
As for Battle Axe releases, this year, there are nearly 30 in line, 17 of which are confirmed on the schedule. Among them are Sunspot Jonz: Don't Let 'Em Stop U (Aug. 12); Abstract Rude: Showtyme (Aug. 26); Oddities: The Scenic Route (Sept. 9); Shabazz the Disciple: Book of Shabazz (Hidden Scrollz) (Sept. 23); Swollen Members: Balance Instrumentals (July 29); plus new albums from DJ Drez; P.E.A.C.E.; Brassmunk (outside of Canada); Chase Phoenix; and Sweatshop Union.
Already out over the past year are Rob the Viking: Beats To Pillage & Conquer By; Moka Only: Low Down Suite; Son Doobie (of Funkdoobiest): Funk Superhero; Battleaxe Warriors III; Swollen Members: Monsters In the Closet; Sweatshop Union: Local 604; Buc Fifty: Bad Man; Lyrics of Fury: Volume Two; Mr. Brady: Dirty; and two instrumental albums by Swollen Members: Bad Dreams Instrumentals, and Monsters in the Closet Instrumentals.
July 21, 2003 [Canoe.ca]