Managing director Evan Newman got into the biz 24 years ago with V2 Records, a major independent label owned by Richard Branson, or as Newman dubs him, “the UK Trump billionaire space guy.” From there, he headed his own label where he learned to wear every hat, from publicity, to scouting, to marketing. He finally found his way to Outside Music, where he later created Next Door Records to focus on artists who weren’t getting their fair shake in the industry. 

“Next Door Records really means community,” he tells RANGE. “Sort of like your next door neighbour, if you need some sugar or need to run away from something, you can just go next door.” 

Throughout the years, Newman has learned there’s no shortage of talent, but what matters most is having symbiotic relationships with artists who share in a label’s value system. For Next Door Records, that means taking a slow and steady approach to building a career, and enjoying the creative process as well as the business process that comes along with it. Whereas labels used to take control over most aspects of an artist’s career, nowadays the relationship tends to be a lot more collaborative by balancing teamwork and trust in equal measure. 

“We have very little input in creative processes for the artists,” explains Newman. “We sign them because we believe in what they’re doing. We don’t sign them so we can shape them, and so we in turn hope that they have enough trust in us to put their music out in a way that they see is in line with how they envision themselves being portrayed throughout the world.” 

Next Door Records provides support by alleviating any pressure that their artists find immediate success. In a moment defined by viral TikToks and meteoric rises to the top that seem to happen overnight, Newman explains there can be a lot of defeatism amongst artists if a single doesn’t turn into a hit. “We’ve taken a long game approach where it’s like, we do not sign records, we sign artists,” he says. “The record that we’ve signed is not necessarily the one that’s going to break them, but we know that through patience, through nurturing their artistry and their development, that we will eventually reach that.”

These days, getting into the music biz takes more and more from artists — more money, and especially more time as musicians now bear the brunt of making attention-catching videos and relatable social media content on top of focusing on their craft. With streaming taking over music consumption, artists see less remuneration for their hard work. Streaming also brings saturation — with 160,000 new songs uploaded to Spotify every day — making it that much harder for musicians to find their audiences, and for audiences to find them. 

Being a Canadian musician poses its own special host of challenges, including unfair competition with our neighbours down south and a domestic industry with only ten viable markets, all of which sit thousands of kilometres apart. Halifax musicians can’t even imagine playing for Vancouver audiences until they’ve reached a certain stage in their careers, and vice versa. Even with our country’s robust funding for the arts, Newman explains that it’s difficult to have a sustainable career in Canada. 

“I’ve come up with this strategy of taking care of your own backyard,” he shares. Instead of shelling out funds to tour Canada, Newman believes new artists should try to fill the room three blocks from their apartment. “Get that done first, and then maybe go 45 minutes down the road and see if you can fill that room.” Building a fanbase one fan at a time means that the growth that artist experiences is a lot more real than one that came off the back of a viral song. Don’t spread yourself too thin, he advises, and take advantage of the provincial and federal funding that keeping local can provide. 

“And if it’s working, then it’s going to take care of itself, because people are going to start hearing about it. And you’re going to get on a festival that’s local. And other festival buyers are going to be like, ‘Wow, this person is doing something,’” he says. “Make it on local radio, and use those local audiences to build your streaming audience. And that streaming audience, when playlist editors go to look at it, they’ll think, ‘Oh, they’re doing something.’” 

Even though digitization has utterly transformed the music economy, grassroots development can provide an artist with something truly sustainable. And ultimately, if the streaming and social media economies take more than they give, then maybe we should stop supplying them with so much of our creative energy. “The artists are the key drivers in this whole thing,” says Newman. “They’re the ones who allow myself and our team to make a living and they should be valued more in all aspects of the business.”

Next Door Records are celebrating five years with a showcase at Pop Montreal on Friday, Sept. 27 | Tickets & Info