Mathieu Persan tells fans ”no need to have a record label if I have you.”

The recession has hit the music industry hard, and in many cases, the indie artist has been hit hardest of all. This week, TheBuzz spoke to Parisian songwriter Mathieu Persan about his experiences in the days since his indie label was forced to close its doors.

“It was very frustrating,” Persan says. “When you are a musician, releasing your very first LP is something very special. I had work so long and so hard on this record that it was really devastating.”

As is often the case with tightly budgeted indie projects, Persan’s LP was years in the making. Then, right before its release, his label ran out of money and closed. Fortunately, Persan was able to re-obtain the rights to his recordings. “I produced half the record by myself and the label just paid for the drum takes and the mix,” he explains. “I had done everything by myself at home. They didn’t want to block me, so I just had to ask and my contract was broken.”

Starting Over

With an album, but without backing, Persan eventually made the choice not to seek out a new label. “I didn’t want to do it again. It’s always the same,” he says of finding a recording contract. “You contact people, you send your music, they listen, they call you back, you meet them, and they tell you that they like your music but they can’t release it now because times are hard and your music is not mainstream enough. I had this experience quiet few times and it’s very displeasing.”

After years spent on the recording process, Persan’s priority became just getting his music to listeners. But as we saw earlier this week, for indies, this can be the hardest part. “It’s not exactly a label that I needed but more a promotion company,” Persan explains. “Producing music is cheaper and cheaper. You don’t need a lot of money to make a good record. But you need a lot of money to promote it! If you produce the best record ever and no one knows about it, it’s like you haven’t done anything.”

So Persan got to work. He decided to release his album – there’s a monster in every head – online, although he knew that his music would be “like a bottle in the huge internet sea.” He did all the right things – website, MySpace page, Facebook page, Twitter feed – but he knew that doing the same thing as millions of other indie artists around the world wasn’t going to cut it.

Standing Out

That’s when Persan came up with the idea of putting his fate in the hands of listeners. In addition to his successful album release, he decided to put a free song up on his website. And for every 2000 downloads, he would release a new free song. “I thought about the best way to involve people in the promotion, and I came up with that idea,” he explains. “I like the fact that the role are inverted – it’s not me who decides when I have to release and work on new songs, it’s people who tell me ‘we want more because we like your music.’”

Persan expects his first single release to hit the 2000 mark by the end of October, then comes a new song, and another opportunity for promotion. “When you release an LP, you have 3 months of promotion and then nothing until you release the next one,” Persan says of the benefits of this staggered release system. “Releasing 1 song every 2000 downloads, it’s very different. You can do promotional stuff every time because you always have something new to talk about.”

Success Is…

Of course, Persan’s “2000 download operation” is great for growing a listening audience, not so great for earning a living. He says he’s happy to distribute his music for free, and that having listeners is his priority. But c’mon, can’t a hardworking indie artist have it all?

Although Persan’s plans aren’t designed to make him rich, they just might open some unexpected doors. In the hip hop community, releasing free mixtapes online is considered a standard way of attracting the attention of labels. The promotional strategy hasn’t been picked up by artists in other genres as of yet, but who knows, maybe Persan is paving the way for a whole new era of DIY promotion. Free your music, and the rest will follow?