A quasi-Rhapsodian response to the monopolistic corporatism of iTunes, Eric Harms launched Apollo Audio in 2005.  The palatial aesthetics, user-friendly set-up, morally informed policies, and independently minded Philly-based site is a gem for those yet to discover it. What began as a promotional forum for his band, The Asteroid #4, has grown into an online record store without the corporate aftertaste. Independent musicians and listeners gather as a reprieve from the world’s second biggest music retailer to enjoy streaming (and buyable), non-formulaic tunes. Preserving the spirit of independent media, I chatted with Eric about his project and where it fits into the digital, online music scene.

Give me a brief history of this project. Inspiration. Mission/Statement.

I started the company in June of 2005.  My group wasn’t receiving enough promotion for our records with the label we were with and we needed something to help get our audiences more familiar with our music. At the time, Rhapsody had just come out, and I instantly fell in love.  Apollo Audio is loosely based on their service, however I didn’t want to have any subscriptions, sign-ins, etc… and I wanted it to be fast – people have zero attention spans, you have to be very tuned into that when developing web applications.

The main thing behind Apollo Audio – I like to think of it as resembling the experience of being in a record shop, flipping through albums, shopping with your eyes.  I don’t provide any reviews, critiques or commentary – I hate people telling me what to like or dislike; who knows how objective the person is writing the review you’re reading?  As a reader you have no idea.  I want people to be able to make their own decisions, based on the music itself, without any outside influence.

I’ve worked in advertising / marketing / brainwashing for most of my professional career, and frankly, it makes me sick most of the time.  I don’t want any of that cluttering up the listening experience of my visitors.  Granted, I take that hit in a loss in revenue streams, but I firmly believe that that I can make this work without it.

For the longest time I was covering my operating costs from just the mp3 sales, but recently I’ve had to make a major move after being booted out of my shared hosting environment for “excessive usage” – It was a pain in the ass when it was going down, they gave me zero warning, but in hindsight I look at it now as a blessing in disguise.  My new dedicated environment is faster, I have more control over my tools, and I’ll be able to upgrade my service to a Flash Streaming Server (it won’t cache the tunes in your temporary internet files – you’d be surprised at how many websites with mp3 streaming players are giving away CD quality albums in this fashion) in the next couple months for far less than if I were in a shared hosting environment.  A bit more expensive, but better.

In the next coming months I’m going to be taking a leap and opening the site to the public, for various subscription rates.  I’m very confident that people who are serious about getting their music out there in my worldwide network will take advantage of it.  I’m not looking to get rich, only cover the operating costs — provide a good product for free and the money will follow.  There’s this company Google that did it, they make some good money from that theory.

What are you offering that I can’t get from other mp3 sites (iTunes, Amazon)?

Couple different things that separate me from that stuff.

1. I’m dealing in full albums, I don’t sell singles.  Way too often you’ll get an album with one good song and 9 fillers, which is complete bullshit.  I like knowing what I’m buying, and be confident about it. And you can hear the whole album, for free.  No “snippets.”  These days, if people want an album, they’ll find it somewhere as a download – why not give it to them for free in a controlled environment, and give them the option to buy it immediately?

2.  My player is bloggable – like embedding a YouTube video, so a lot of what I am doing depends on a viral marketing model.  There are a ton of “widget” tools out there, but I seriously think mine is the best.  The majority of them are slow, clunky, and ugly.  These tools enable the artist to make their music more available to a wider audience, and give the listener the chance to stumble upon an album that maybe they haven’t been exposed to before.  It’s a win-win situation.

3. I require no 3^rd party software to install.  My service runs in a Flash player, which is included in 97% of user’s browsers.  In addition, there is no subscription, no login.  I want access to my streams to be fast and seamless.

4.  I offer other services beneficial to artists, the first being download coupons for LP purchases.  It’s the best thing since sliced bread – when you purchase an LP, the new trend is to give the listener a coupon with which they can download mp3 copies for their portable player.  It’s magnificent, I first saw Merge records do this, I now wont buy an album without it (unless of course it’s a used record).  With this same technology, I will also be able to give my clients the ability to generate coupons electronically, so that they can use my website for promotional purposes, to send music to clubs, agents, press people, etc, instead of sending CDs.  The cost savings here are amazing, as you can probably imagine.

Honestly, I don’t use iTunes, for a couple reasons.

The first has to do with my moral beliefs, in that I don’t want a huge corporation telling me what to do.  When I was growing up I was into to the punk / DIY way of doing business, and they certainly didn’t want any corporations getting in the way of the lifestyle.  I’m a big fan of how Ian McKay dealt with things, he always thought about the listener, and the audience.  Things like shows for no more than 5$ — friggin awesome.  My album price of 8$ is loosely based on that theory.

Secondly, I’m a Rhapsody user. In my opinion, it’s the best thing going.  Critics say that the “rental” model won’t last, but I’m a firm believer.  The price point is great — for 14$/mo you can listen to a massive catalog (much better than the iTunes catalog) of stuff (I like to say there is 89% of what I am looking for) and download pretty much any album to your portable player.  I’m looking forward to the day when they finally make a player of some sort that connects via a satellite to the Rhapsody network that I can take around with me – imagine being able to have every album you want available to you whenever you want?  Please Rhapsody, do it!

What are the standards by which you base your cooperation with bands/labels, what sorts of things do you consider to be adequately ‘independent’?

Well I think “independent” comes from the financial part, that I’m putting my own money into this, with no outside revenue streams.  I can call the shots and not have anyone tell me what to do (are you seeing a pattern here?).  It’s freedom for me, I have fun doing this, and I make a lot of people happy — which is one of the most important things for me to accomplish.

An online mp3 download site can be pretty difficult to maintain tech-wise — -what are some of the challenges of maintaining an independently-funded online storefront?

1. doing everything yourself
2. doing everything yourself
3. doing everything yourself

But seriously, the tech party is pretty easy; it’s only a time thing. One of the most difficult things is trying to convince people that yes, you can provide people your music in a streaming presentation, and it’s not “giving it away.”  As a musician, one of the greatest benefits of people becoming familiar with your music is that they’ll come see your live show – which is where artists make most of their revenue these days.  I’d rather be playing for a packed house of people that are into my music, singing along to the tunes, than an empty one (been there, done that).  And guess what?  Those people are most likely going to buy your music, and probably at the show.  Music fans take great pride knowing that buying things from the band at shows usually goes right into the artist’s pockets.  Granted, it might be gas money, but being in a band and having no gas money sucks big time.  I believe that if the music is good, people will hear it, dig it, and want to buy it.  If you don’t want your people to hear your music, then why are you making music?  Quit now, son.  It only gets much, much, much more difficult.

Why don’t you permit advertising?

As I mentioned above – I don’t want to have anything interfering with the experience of hearing the music.  I have to say no to people all the time who are asking to advertise on the site.  I get a ton of traffic, and over the next year I’m looking to at least quadruple it.  I’m not going to say that I haven’t thought about it, when you look at the numbers, it’s very tempting.  But look what temptation did to that dude who was tempted by the snake in the tree. Oh wait, did that really happen?

The mp3s that you offer are DRM-free. As iTunes and Amazon move away from DRM’d music, how do you plan on competing?

Honestly, at this point in the game, I won’t consider myself as competition to those companies.  I just don’t have the manpower, revenue, catalog to compete.  I tell my clients that my website should be an additional tool to their marketing plan, I encourage all my clients to get their music in as many outlets as possible, it’s just smart.  I’m doing something different anyway; I consider this a unique, niche service.  There aren’t many people doing it, at least with any quality or panache.  I can only do the best I can, and know that I’m helping artists move forward with the talent and knowledge I have to provide.

Check out the site at apolloaudio.com