Aaron Dessner Talks Longevity In The Music Industry — And His New Label With interscope

Aaron Dessner has been in the music industry for about 25 years as part of the acclaimed independent rock band The National, but the last few years have been his most ambitious yet. He’s still part of the band, but he’s also become the go-to collaborator for some of the biggest acts in the world, from Taylor Swift to Noah Kahan, Gracie Abrams, Mumford & Sons and Ed Sheeran — shaping the sound of modern pop in the process.

Collaborators of Dessner often come to him and work from his studio and home, Long Pond, in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York. “Long Pond feels like an instrument in itself, where there’s a lot of inherent magic there,” Dessner tells Billboard. It’s become an almost mythological place in popular culture, thanks to Swift’s long pond studio sessions for her album Folklore, which was created with Dessner during the COVID-19 lockdown. To build on the lore of the studio, Dessner is now launching a new record label, Long Pond Music, with Interscope Records, hoping to bring that same magic to more artists in need of a place for development.

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“The idea with it is really to give a home to music which might need more time to develop and to flourish,” says Dessner. “If Long Pond is a place where people feel, for some reason, comfortable [and] can find their voice there, sometimes it’d be nice if there was a direct outlet for that.”

His first signee, Hudson Ingram, is a frequent collaborator who has spent significant time at the studio, which Dessner says will become a norm for Long Pond Music signees. “There’s so much music I can’t make because I don’t have time, or artists I want to work with — because I also have kids, and I coach the soccer team and, like, I have other things I like to do,” Dessner explains. “So [it’s nice] having another outlet to be like, ‘Why don’t you guys come make a record here, you know and we’ll help put it out.'”

It’s not the first time Dessner has founded a record label. At the start of his music career, at the turn of the 21st century, Dessner co-founded the indie label Brassland as a means to put out early records from the National. He has since left the outfit, which still continues today, after the band signed a deal with 4AD, but he experimented with another label in 2016 — 37d03d (PEOPLE), a collective made alongside Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, designed to do everything from events, label services and overall artistic support.

On the latest episode of Billboard’s music business podcast On the Record, Dessner joins to discuss his record labels and festivals, his pivot to pop hit-making and his key to longevity in the music industry.

To watch this episode of Billboard On the Record, check out the YouTube video below or click here for more viewing and listening options. An edited and condensed excerpt of the conversation can also be found below.

What are your goals with Long Pond Music?

We signed Hudson Ingram, who’s this amazing songwriter… The idea with it is really to give a home to music which might need more time to develop and to flourish. If Long Pond is a place where people feel, for some reason, comfortable [and] can find their voice there sometimes it’d be nice if there was a direct outlet for that. And I have had such an amazing experience working with Interscope as a label, and with Charlie Christie and John Janick there. I just feel very comfortable with them. So I feel like it’s not so much about trying to build some giant empire. It’s more just, like, another way to enjoy this and give help to foster other artists’ growth, basically.

When creatives create labels, I often wonder what kind of role they like to take on with it because it really depends on the person. What do you see your role as at Long Pond Music?

It’s very early, so the idea is to be very involved creatively, both from actually writing and producing records for [artists], but also more from an executive producer role of helping other writers and producers create records and grow. There’s so much music I can’t make because I don’t have time, or artists I want to work with — because I also have kids, and I coach the soccer team and I have other things I like to do. So [it’s nice] having another outlet to be like, “Why don’t you guys come make a record here, you know and we’ll help put it out.” There are so many amazing artists that are coming up that don’t find a home or don’t find the right situation, but if they did, they might really blossom.

There are just so many artists that end up in a situation where they just signed a deal too early, or they get a manager, and the manager turns out to just not really know what they’re doing. And you are left to wonder, sometimes 5-10 years down the line: Did they not make it because of some of these industry things that happen behind the scenes? Or is it just that the music was never going to make it?

Yeah, it’s a good point you’re making, because there’s so much music — lots of records I made which didn’t find an audience, and I still listen to them. I’m kind of shocked. I’m like, “Did people just not hear this? Because it’s so special.” And oftentimes, it’s either, like, there wasn’t luck, there wasn’t the right moment of the pendulum swinging across the zeitgeist and they didn’t have their viral moment or whatever it is. [For] young people coming up making music, not everyone gets signed, whether it’s to great independent labels or great major labels. But I think the more you can take an interest in trying to help people — I enjoy that. And there are so many really talented artists that I’ve come across who are really still basically unknown to the world. Like, not very much happening. And then you listen to their songs, and you’re just like, “Holy shit. How do people not know that?”

You’ve been at it for over 20 years now. How do you view the music industry today?

What I love about music today is that with songs, you never really know what’s gonna work. You know, you just have to make — like Noah [Kahan’s] “Orbiter.” Nobody would have said “Orbiter” would be a hit, because it wasn’t even on the main record and it’s just this, like, beautiful, slow, kind of pastoral, dark song and the fans made it a hit, you know? It’s really cool. So I enjoy that feeling of just focusing on the music, basically and you never know [when] something happens.

You got started with The National during a time where the music industry was very different. Napster was getting started and the switch from CDs to digital music was imminent. How do you look back on that time?

I mean, you kind of can feel nostalgic about it now, because back then, you would get in your car and drive around the country, playing for sometimes no one. But you would feel like, “Oh, if we could get the door person to buy a CD, then the next time we come, there’ll be five people instead of one.” We literally played shows where it was the door person and the bartender. We got paid not to play a couple times, you know, where they’re like, “If you don’t mind, we’re just gonna go home.” But there was a feeling still that you were doing the work. And I feel like that is less accessible now, where it is kind of like you have to be on social media in this kind of 360-degree way if you really want to make a go of it. And then people still tour, and that’s important. But I feel like what’s more dominant is this feeling of being a personality that is living in this social medium.

I do feel like Spotify and Apple and the other streamers have ultimately benefited music by making it more democratic, where more people can put out music and there’s less of a barrier to it. Economics are problematic still, but I think there are a lot of people that put music out and do quite well [who] don’t really have a lot of machinery around them. If you’re a band like us — people listen. We don’t have a casual audience. We have a cult audience. The National does, and so they just keep wanting to listen to all of it and that’s really good, because it just is a positive thing. [You can] just put out more music, and sometimes you don’t have to make physical copies. But I am nostalgic for the time when we were riding around — like, self-booking a tour in Italy and renting a little car.

You got your start self-releasing on a label you co-founded called Brassland. Why was that your approach to those early The National records?

In the beginning, the first National record — we made it in 2000, and we put it out in 2001 with our friend Alec Bemis, who had had a zine in high school called Brassland and then went to college with my brother. And basically, the National had made its first record and Clogs, which was this chamber quartet that my brother had, had made a record that was just, like, avant-garde, baroque-sounding chamber music. And Alec was like, “Well, no one’s going to put this out. I’ll put it out.” And we were like, “OK, you’re probably right.” And actually, at the time, I think we sent it to Matador and they were like, “Uh-huh, yeah, no.” We definitely gave them shit later on about that.

Back then, we made everything ourselves, ran that label, put out a lot of other things and kind of had it. It still exists today, where my brother and I aren’t involved anymore. Later, we made something called PEOPLE. That was another label based on something we did in Berlin with this residency, where I was trying to give a home to music which wouldn’t normally be commercially viable for other labels and encouraging people to make work that they wouldn’t normally make and also to sort of distribute the authorship and revenue sharing more widely amongst all the people involved in making something. So it was an amazing experiment. We lost a lot of money doing it, so eventually we had to close. It was my brother and Justin Vernon with the Secretly Group.

But we’ve had an interest in this all along — trying to experiment with how things work and to give back. Still to this day, I feel like all artists, whether they’re incredibly successful or completely unknown, benefit from opportunities to make music they wouldn’t normally make.