The Road To Call Me Maybe – Part II Tug Of War

Once we got the management contracts done, my first focus was trying to get Carly a record deal. My label 604 Records existed at that time, but we didn’t push that option on Carly. I don’t think it was ever even discussed as an option. While Simkin Artist Management sometimes manages artists on 604, not every artist on 604 is managed by Simkin Artist Management. Back then, more than now, when we managed a client 604 was sometimes looked at as a last resort to get a record released if we could not get any bites from a major label. And Carly, like many artists, had a dream of being on a major label. While the impact and gatekeeper status that majors had was already starting to wane in 2007, that was still the gold standard for most young artists. Oh, how times have changed! So I recall having conversations with people at major labels about Carly. The impact of Canadian Idol was starting to fade by then, but certainly in the Canadian music business most people knew who Carly was because of it. So I tried to use that bit of notoriety to get some conversations going, and there were a number of conversations. We even got quite close to a deal with Hollywood Records in the US. But when it became clear that a major label deal at that point wasn’t in the cards, Carly decided to be her own record label. There had been another Canadian Idol contestant who had made a record following her run on Idol and supposedly made hundreds of thousands of dollars under a “P&D” agreement. So that is the type of arrangement that we pursued on her behalf, an enhanced P&D agreement.  “P&D “ is an old music business term meaning “pressing and distribution”, which harkens back to ancient times (lol) when vinyl records  – once the dominant method of selling music – were pressed in a factory. Under the deal, Carly would be her own label and Maple would provide distribution, with some “enhanced” label services like radio promotion and publicity added into the deal. Maple was an interesting company. They had started around Y2K, and very quickly established themselves as a leader from an A&R perspective, but also from an innovation perspective. From an A&R perspective, they had very successful records with Kathleen Edwards, Sam Roberts, and Pilot Speed (affectionately, and not so affectionately referred to by some as “Canadiohead”). But they were also doing other interesting things in the space like being very active in the fan experience business. They were the first company I was aware of who could provide VIP and Meet and Greet type experiences for fans on a tour. But Maple also had a great mail order business going. In fact, they’re the first company that I remember really focusing on creating online stores for artists. It was a short window when that was something fans cared about, but for that short window Maple did a very good job. We even had a bunch of our artists using their stores to sell merch. They had good A&R and they were ahead of their time, though past their prime by the time we did our deal with them. If that sounds like a slag, it’s not. It’s just that they didn’t quite have the juice at that point that they had previously, but they were still a good company. The president was Allan Reid. I had known Allan for years because he was a senior executive at Universal Canada, and was thought by many to be in line for the presidency of that company. I got the impression at the time that giving him Maple was sort of a consolation prize when it became clear that he was not going to become president of Universal Canada anytime soon.

Carly did a lot of writing in anticipation for Tug Of War. I have to say that Carly’s dedication to the quality control side of songwriting was impressive. This was one of the reasons I used to make sure everybody we did things with were aware of her skills as a songwriter, because of her dedication to the craft. It was a huge part of who she was as an artist. One of the things she used to do was arrange listening parties at the old 604 offices. She would invite friends, family, 604 people, etc to our lounge and would perform the songs she was working on and ask for feedback. I remember that she even handed out little writing pads so that we could make comments on each song. On the songwriting side, Carly was always a perfectionist and while extreme about it, her dedication to perfection in songwriting obviously paid off. To this day, I think she’s one of the best lyric writers I’ve worked with, particularly when it comes to dissecting the mechanics of romantic relationships.

Once we had a group of songs together Carly went into the studio with Ryan Stewart, with whom she also wrote a number of those songs. I feel like I’ve known Ryan Stewart forever. But the funny thing is, I actually cannot remember when I met him. Certainly I knew him during that period he was working on Carly’s first album. But I feel like maybe I knew him before as well. Ryan’s a songwriter/producer/sometimes mixer who is based in Vancouver. He’s a very talented and lovely guy. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with him many times over the years. Ryan and Carly were such a perfect match. It seemed like a healthy working relationship, at least from the outside. There wasn’t a lot of bullshit with egos or fighting about songwriting. I got the impression that they both knew they were on to something special, and were doing their best to fulfill the promise of that.

The head of radio promo at Maple was a kind and talented gentleman named Sam DeAngelis. Unlike most of the radio guys I’ve met, Sam was soft-spoken and intelligent, and I liked him as a person, not just as a promo guy. He was mellow, and rational. We had already concluded internally that Tug Of War made sense as the first single, although I think technically we put out her cover of Sunshine On My Shoulders first. You know, it’s tempting as I write this to go back and triple check dates and so forth. But I decided not to do that. So I’ll try to be clear when I’m unsure of dates, but part of me just wants to go with my memory, flawed as it might be. I have a recollection that we put the cover out first, and I definitely remember that we had a sort of weird video clip for it. I don’t think it was even a video for the full song. This may have tied into an appearance that Carly did at Canadian Idol that year. I think she made a guest appearance and we created that clip for that show. Looking back, as much as I liked that cover song, I’m not actually sure why we did that! It just seemed like a bit of a neutral step, treading water. No damage done, but nothing really gained, either. But the first real single was Tug Of War. 

One of the unsung heroes of Carly’s success is Ben Knechtel. Ben is a video director now based in Ontario, but at the time was 604’s in-house videographer. He and Carly hit it off and we filmed the video for Tug Of War on an overcast day in a small apartment in Burnaby BC. My memories of that shoot are both strong and scattered. I remember how cramped the space was. I remember how excited Carly was to be filming a “real” music video. I remember being envious of her co-star in the video because of how good looking he was! I’m never one to hang out on the set of music videos or to bother our artists in the studio when they’re recording. So I probably hung out for 45 minutes and that was it. But I remember leaving with a very good feeling about the video.

Although we were not the label, management put a lot of money into those early videos and the marketing of Tug Of War. It was a bit scary because there was no guarantee of any return, but that’s what you do when you believe in an artist. So when things started to react, it was exciting, but also a relief financially! The video got extensive play on MuchMusic, and we were off to the races.

The reveal at the end of the video foreshadows the reveal technique used in the Call Me Maybe video, but more about that later. Tug Of War went top 10 on AC and top 15 on Hot AC radio formats, which was amazing for an artist who was releasing her first album independently, with a little help from her management. MuchMusic gave the video a ton of airplay, too. Remember when MuchMusic could launch a career in Canada? I will save that topic for another blog post! 

The second single off of Tug Of War was a song called Bucket. We had success there as well. It peaked at #13 on Hot AC, but also went top 30 on AC and top 35 on the Top 40 chart. Never really one of my favourite Carly songs, but definitely seemed to react at shows and with fans. We did another video with Ben.  And again, MuchMusic was generous with its support.

Things were going well, and we were so thankful for that early success, modest as it was.

Another unsung hero in the Carly Rae Jepsen story is Marianas Trench. For anyone who doesn’t know, they are a very popular Canadian band fronted by producer songwriter extraordinaire Josh Ramsay. I’ve always felt that one of my best skills as an A&R guy/manager is having good intuition about hooking creative people together. I was very happy with the masters that Ryan Stewart had produced, but I also had a strong feeling that Josh and Carly working together could lead to great things. On the Tug Of War album, it led to the one song not produced by Ryan Stewart, Sour Candy.

I was not disappointed with the results. Sour Candy is a bit of a sore thumb sticking out on Tug Of War. Probably a function of the fact that it’s the only song not produced by Ryan, but it’s also just an unusual song. And I mean that in the best way. The verse always sounds a bit tentative to me, though melodically draws you in. But it’s that gorgeous chorus that just kills me, even all these years later. A very underrated song in my opinion. And the video ended up being one of my favorite videos that 604 ever made. Another Ben Knechtel video. I remember dropping by that set as well, probably for 10 minutes. I happened to drop by when they were filming one of the scenes with Josh and Carly arguing at a therapist’s office. It was one of those moments where I simply knew we had a great video, smiled, and left. 

I said that I thought Marianas Trench deserve some credit for Carly’s early success, and here’s why. Because we both worked with her,  Josh and I both had a business interest in her success. But more than that, we both just adored her so much, and believed in her so strongly as an artist, but also as a person. So Carly toured two or maybe even three times with Marianas on her Tug of War cycle, right at the point when Marianas was becoming a very big band in Canada. My memories of this period are really pleasant. Everybody was getting along so well. Carly and Josh would sing Sour Candy at every show which was always a highlight. People were also friends in the truest sense then. And that enabled us to do fun things in terms of promo, like the wacky promo we shot at 604 with Dave from the New Cities and Carly. 604 and Marianas were very early adapters to YouTube and saw the value of it very quickly. But when I recently watched that promo, which I haven’t watched in a long time, the obvious affection between Carly and Josh really struck me. That’s not people acting. That’s just people being themselves in front of a camera. Little toot of my own horn, but I designed that tour poster! But yeah, the shows with Marianas really helped Carly because it put her in front of nice-sized audiences for a year or so, and put her in a position to win her own fans.

Here’s a clip from a show that Carly played with Marianas at the Commodore back in 2009. There’s so much to love about this clip. The pure joy that they both feel oozes through the performance. They’re so comfortable with each other and you can also see the mutual admiration. “Family” is an overused term in the music business, and is often used as a smokescreen to justify shitty conduct. But that is what the comfort level was like at that time. Like a big family of artists working together for the common good.  But you can also see the burgeoning confidence in both Josh and Carly as their music careers are starting to flourish. It’s just one of those moments in time. I was at that show and will never forget it.

The cherry on top that year was the Juno nomination. Carly was nominated for breakthrough artist and also songwriter for the Tug of War album. Ryan Stewart also received a nomination for songwriter for his work on Tug Of War. I remember having a celebratory dinner with the management team, Carly, Ryan, and maybe even Josh at the Eatery restaurant in Kitsilano in Vancouver. Carly also got to perform at the Juno gala dinner and I remember getting a bunch of emails and calls from people saying how much they enjoyed her at the dinner. It felt like we had put a nice bow on a successful album release. We certainly knew we had momentum, but  little did any of us know what would come next.