achievements to date. I recently had the chance to ask Sonny a few questions about why GSL works, how he chooses the music he releases and where it's all going (intro and interview by Justin Bates).

1. What are your musical influences? What inspired you to start GSL?

The band who really motivated my passion and obsession with music were a lot of the "post-punk" UK bands like Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen. When I was a little kid, like 10 years old, I really loved the Beatles and AC/DC, Ozzy, stuff like that. But the early eighties UK stuff, which I started to become aware of around 86-87, really got me excited and came along at just the right moment for me. After that came more aggressive punk and hardcore stuff: Minor Threat, etc. As far as starting bands and eventually releasing music myself, I think my single biggest influence was probably Dischord Records. They made it seem do-able and the quality of their releases was (and still is) always top-notch.

2. How has being a musician informed your role as a label owner?

I think it's helped me to empathize with bands a little more, and maybe to relate to their concerns and actual needs more accurately or intimately than someone perceiving the lifestyle from behind a desk. I have a lot of useful experience I can pass on to do with touring, booking, etc.

3. GSL has been around long enough to have experienced some significant changes in the music business (consolidations, bankruptcies, Myspace, iTunes, iPods, MP3s etc). Have these things affected you? How do you stay relevant and what defines your success?

It gets harder every year to stay relevant and honestly, the profit margins are getting slimmer all the time. The costs involved in exposing, let alone "breaking" a new band these days are staggering and there are factors involved now that never would have occurred to me 10 years ago. Publicists are crucial to every release - hiring a publicist to help broaden awareness - or else you're just lost in the shuffle and glut of material being pumped out all the time. People are being bombarded by media and information and all you can do is try and compete in that bombardment. Stores now operate the same way as magazines and sites like Pitchfork in terms of "exposure" - even the indie shops are offering schemes where labels essentially buy placement for their product in the shops' sales bins. It's incredibly hard to expose unproven and unknown bands, especially ones who don't fit neatly into an accepted sub-genre of something or other. Some bands create awareness of themselves outside of "the media", and that's what makes all the difference. For years I listened to the majors complaining about downloads and felt kind of smug in the relative safety of the underground. Around 2005/2006 that began really changing for us. The ipod has killed the CD and more than any other single factor, really inspired the overall shift in the culture that has moved a great deal of attention off of the underground during the last few years. There just does not seem to be a comparable degree of interest in genuinely "alternative"/non-mainstream music in the U.S. these days, from my perspective. Adjusting to the situation has been a guessing-game and really put the brakes on what I considered the adventurous spirit of the label in years past. "Success" is a relative term now. These days success for a new release is selling (not shipping - actually selling through) 1000 copies of something within the first 6 months. And it's not happening that often.

4. Does GSL represent a sound, community, aesthetic or all of the above? What compels you to release albums?

I think it does represent all of those things to a degree, at least for me. A lot of (usually bigger) bands over the years have resisted the idea of being "lumped in" with stuff they don't feel any connection to, which is ironic in the sense that most of the young/unknown bands we have released wanted desperately to be associated with "established" groups, or I guess the stamp of approval that GSL represents to them for whatever reasons. I've always followed my instincts with regards to what we release so I guess the aesthetic represented is mainly my own tastes, in a way. But I have often felt the presence of some element common to all the bands, regardless of style, and I guess if I had to put my finger on it, it would be the attitude that comes with playing music for music's sake, being true to yourself and your art, and not feeling obligated to follow fashion or fads. I've been compelled to release music for the sake of contributing to a culture that meant a great deal to me when I discovered it. I think it's vital to keep an alternative to the generic mono-culture swallowing up everything around us as alive and dynamic as possible.

5. You have a knack for signing bands that go on to become widely popular such as !!!, The Rapture and The Mars Volta. How do you find the artists you work with? What do you look for? What happens when one of your "successful" bands wants to make the leap to a major?

I should begin by making it clear that none of those bands you mention got where they were going as a result of GSL putting out their records. I'm not trying to be humble, I'm simply stating a fact. If anything, I've been lucky in the sense that I know a lot of bands (mainly due to years of touring myself) and have had the good fortune of encountering many of them at early stages in their careers. I think we have all certainly benefited from our working relationships, but I can't take credit where it's not due. For example, !!! broke up as soon as we released their first album in 2000. We did everything we could to expose it but it was dead in the water until they re-formed and signed to Touch and Go. Their success was in their DNA all along. The Mars Volta, too, were destined for big things - At the Drive-In laid that foundation and ANY label releasing Volta stuff would have had success with them - and they'd planned on eventually going the major label route all along. No indie the size of GSL could rise to the occasion in terms of the sheer scale of The Mars Volta. We couldn't manufacture a half a million CDs all at once and get them in every shop in the world. I can't think of many truly independent labels who could. The only band that's left GSL for a bigger label was The Locust and in their case, they simply outgrew us. We were able to cope with the demand early on, but the financial reality of a label like GSL simply couldn't enable their jump to the next level. It was either go bigger or go nowhere. As far as what I look for in a band, sincerity and commitment are both pretty high up there. Being decent human beings and approachable on a person-to-person level is also a big priority for me. Having a personal connection is essential.

6. What are some of the challenges you face when releasing and promoting new and unknown artists? Do you feel like your competing with other indies and majors for limited audiences or is there room for everybody to co-exist?

I suppose there's always room for anyone releasing anything of any consequence or meaning, but no one is going to hold the door for you. Anything you achieve you work twice as hard for now. Yes, I feel like a lot of the emphasis industry-wide is placed on competition, now more than ever. Success is measured by the effectiveness of your advertisement, rather than the content of what's being advertised.

7. What role does touring and song placement in movies and advertising have on your roster? Is it essential or ancillary?

Touring is the single most crucial element to a band's development as artists, and to creating an audience. Nothing else is as effective for either. As far as film placement, I think it's become more of a reality and a concern in recent years, probably due in large part to more and more "indie" films being produced. That in itself is kind of ironic, because in my experience, it's only the big major Hollywood films that pay anything reasonable for song use. But overall, I wouldn't consider film placement a major concern for any of the artists we have released. What interest there has been from film companies, and what few placements have actually occurred, have all been kind of an afterthought in terms of the original record or CD release.

8. Obviously there is a raging debate in the music business regarding the financial impact of illegal downloads. In some cases there are record companies like Nettwerk siding with and defending music bloggers while the RIAA drags these very same people into court... Where do you stand on all of this? Is it really killing your business or just changing the way you do it?

It's definitely impacted us and has made us change the way we do some things, but overall, I think illegal downloads and copying probably help us as much, if not more, than they hurt. I would rather someone copy something illegally and potentially buy the band's next release (or a legal version of the one they copied) than to have them not copy OR buy it at all. At least with illegal copying, if someone realizes they like something, there's always that chance they will go to a show and support the artist directly. I feel like the arrival of the ipod has done the most damage to our business, more so than simply the technology that makes illegal copying possible.

9. What are you currently listening to (besides your own releases)?

I have what are kind of my "staple" genres, I guess, mostly reggae and hip-hop, particularly stuff from the UK. I've been enjoying the new Dizzee Rascal CD, the new Public Enemy, TV on the Radio, almost anything on Stones Throw, and some local stuff like Health and Soft Boiled Eggies. The news Mars Volta album has been on heavy rotation, too. I'm more impressed with it than any of their previous stuff. Hopefully it will actually get released soon...

10. What's next? What's on your "to do" list either for yourself or GSL?

Funny you should ask - I'm actually leaving tomorrow for a few weeks in El Paso, shooting a film with Omar. The Mars Volta have some time off due to the album release getting pushed back, so Omar decided to switch gears and spend a month making a film. Most of the guys in the band are involved in one way or another so it'll be like band camp or something. I'm really looking forward to it, the change of scenery and daily tasks will be interesting and maybe we'll all discover hidden talents we didn't know we had. I guess it might be miserably hot, but I'm trying not to think about that part too much. GSL has a pretty slow release schedule for the rest of the year, we're trying to pay off some debts and stay on top of the re-pressing of some of the catalog titles that sell the most. So it's a good time to take a break from the day-to-day.