We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mathias James a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Mathias thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
I’ve been putting out records and playing shows for years, but even with all that work, helping launch Breakfast Music Group is probably my most meaningful project. Breakfast is an artist-owned boutique record label, music publisher and creative services company based in Los Angeles, but the story of how we got here is long and winding. It’s impossible to express how meaningful this venture is to myself and my cohorts. To us, Breakfast represents freedom and autonomy in an industry that all but had to collapse for independent artists to have a road to relative success — or even be able to pay a bill or two with the music we make. It also represents family. Most of us at the label have known each other from local music scenes for two decades or more.
I’ve known Breakfast cofounder Sam McConnell since 1995. We played together in bands in the St. Louis scene, along with cofounder Matt Risch. The three of us have been in cahoots for a longer time than I can wrap my head around. I even played little league with Matt.
Our other partners have Midwest roots and ties as well, which is part of why our venture has a family vibe. Artist and exec Daemon has been a giant in the St. Louis scene and now is nationally known, getting songs placed in XBox Games and Netflix shows. And speaking of Netflix, sync expert and STL expat Johnny O’Neil now works as an editor for the streamer in LA, among other gigs. Andrew Rayl is from Kansas City and was at the forefront of the music scene there for years under the Beatbroker moniker. Marketer Chris Blose went to J-School at Mizzou, where we initially met when our bands played countless shows together across the Midwest in the mid aughts. Travis Weir is originally an East Coast guy and has extensive experience as a TV and film editor, copywriter and more.
Sam, Matt and I moved with our band to LA in 2003. It didn’t work out. LA will eat you alive if you’re not ready. I came home to STL and started a long run of hard work in the local scene, from the Earthworms to Mathias and the Pirates. Sam and Matt stayed and started Breakfast Records in 2008 and put out some of the era’s most inspired music, including Friday Night and its sequel, Saturday Night, along with the much lauded Grimm Teachaz project. (Look them all up — you won’t be disappointed.)
Fast forward to Feb. 2020, and I moved back to LA with my girlfriend. My oldest friends in the game were waiting for me. Three weeks after our arrival, the world stopped turning and everything shut down. It was fertile ground for a complete reset. At this point, Breakfast had been dormant for a decade. Kids were being raised, jobs were being worked. However, just like how the smog dissipated in the skies over Los Angeles with far fewer cars on the road during that time, our purpose and intentions became crystal clear. “Let’s build a label and publishing house for artists, by artists. Let’s win on our terms.” And here we are.
Mathias, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I grew up with young parents who were into music and used to take me to concerts and parties. This proved to be formative. I took lessons in violin, trombone, trumpet, guitar and bass. None of it stuck. But I loved music and wasn’t going to give up on finding a way into that world. I was always good with words and rhythms, so that was my ticket to ride. Poetry turned into lyrics, and rock and roll gave way to hip-hop when I realized I was a better rapper than I was a singer – and when the likes of A Tribe Called Quest and KRS-ONE started seeing more time in my boombox than anything else.
As I got a little older and had decades of experience as an artist, I’ve realized success comes in different forms, and there is always something to be learned. No matter your natural talent or how hard you work at your vocation — and I’ll use rap as an example — there’s a one in a million chance you’re going to be Drake.
It would serve most artists well to have more attainable goals, and if fame comes — well good for you! The most successful artists I know are not household names, but they make their entire living in music, and that is an attainable goal if the hustle is strong. On the other hand, you’d be surprised how many artists you’ve heard of have day jobs or side hustles. Music has been devalued to the point where we are almost starting from scratch and reinventing the entire industry to better serve the artists who have made other people rich for a long time.
Breakfast exists to help revalue music via sync licensing connections and opportunities, and equitable revenue splits that give the artist a larger piece of the pie. We are there for our artists from the conception of an idea to the release and everything in between and after. We are all artists ourselves, so we can help with the creative process where help is wanted (and stay out of the way where it’s not wanted or needed), as well as promotional strategies and content creation. We know how much is involved in the music industry beyond music, and we want to help artists navigate all those extra things that lead to success. We’re still a new company, and we’re still evolving, but you can check out breakfastmusicgroup.com to see the output we’ve conjured in just two short years.
What do you find most rewarding about being creative?
A lot of creatives, myself included, are wired in a way that makes it a hindrance to our mental health if we don’t have an outlet. Personally, being a creative person grounds me. If I didn’t have that outlet and the goals I set for myself and our company, the day-to-day grind of making money and getting by would make me unhappy. I need spontaneous expression to feel whole. To answer the question more directly, the most rewarding part of creating something (outside of it being necessary for my personal well being) is when the thing I have a hand in creating resonates with someone on a deep level. There is no better feeling than looking out at people in a crowd who are in a state of euphoria because of the sound my friends and I are making on stage. Nothing compares.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Almost everyone alive benefits from the consumption of art. Billions of people out here are listening to music, making playlists, going to museums, attending fashion shows, dining at buzzy restaurants. Often money is step one to gain access. No money, no dinner. No money, no new dress. But with music in this modern world, you can stream almost anything you want for free, and the big streaming companies pay a laughable fee to artists for the right to house their music. It’s robbery, plain and simple. But we all want to be on Spotify, right? So what consumers of art can do is buy the music. Buy the merch. Websites like Bandcamp are great for this. Go to shows, pay the cover, buy a t-shirt and a record. And support your local scene. Thriving music communities are usually co-signed by the cities they exist in. Too many cities have incredible music scenes but do nothing to support them. I live in Los Angeles, a city built on the entertainment industry. It’s woven into the fabric of nearly everything that happens here. Smaller cities have to be more intentional about celebrating the local creative culture. The city I come from, St. Louis, has one of the most vibrant music scenes I’ve ever come across, and I am lucky to have been a part of it for so long. But if you ask the average local who their favorite St. Louis band is, they’ll often struggle to answer — or just say Nelly. It’s getting better there due to tireless efforts by a handful of superheroes, but I was in that city for long enough to know it’s always been a roller coaster and it will take lasting intention to stay over the hump.
Lastly, when national acts are touring, put local support on the bill. Most everyone started out as a local artist somewhere, and it’s amazing how fast they forget that. Let a local band have 20 minutes at the beginning of the show when it’s usually just whatever the soundman is playing in the house speakers, and pay them. This might be the easiest thing for a touring band who’s had some success to do. It’s as easy as throwing it in their contract that a local band has to open, and it wouldn’t cost them much or take away from their touring openers.
Of course, it doesn’t always have to be all local, all independent, all the time, but inclusion is the name of the game. Don’t treat indie artists like lesser creators. If you give them solid footing, they will more than likely rise to the occasion and show you more than you are conditioned to expect, and entire communities benefit from that.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://breakfastmusicgroup.com/
- Instagram: @breakfastkilla, @stlpirate
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/breakfastrecords
- Twitter: @mathiasjamez
- Other: https://breakfastmusicgroup.bandcamp.com/
Image Credits
Leon Henderson, Travis Weir, Ed Aller, Jim Mahfood, Sam McConnell, Matt Grayson