Richard Gottehrer Reflects on Founding The Orchard and a Legendary Indie Music Career

Richard Gottehrer is rock’n’roll history. The industry icon, 86, wrote his first song on piano, “I’m On Fire,” in the 1950s after hearing Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls Of Fire” — Lewis later released it as a single in 1964. Gottehrer was there in the early days of the girls group sound, co-writing the Angels “My Boyfriend’s Back” in 1963. He was there when the Brill Building was setting the tone for what was becoming the most popular music in America, thanks to the many writers like Gottehrer who congregated and worked there.

He was there at the start of the British Invasion, as a member of the Strangeloves, co-writing the song “I Want Candy,” which became an oft-covered rock’n’roll staple. He was there in 1966, co-founding the legendary Sire Records with Seymour Stein , staying for 10 years before moving on to his next endeavor. He was there at the advent of punk and at CBGBs in 1976, producing the first two Blondie albums, and helped take new wave to the top of the charts, producing the first GoGo’s album. In the ’80s and ’90s, he produced for as many as 40 artists.

But beyond Gottehrer’s creative endeavors, he’s also an indie music industry icon. There is a long list of labels, publishing companies and production companies he has been involved with, either as a music creator or a music executive, across his long, storied career. And from the early 1960s through 2010, all of his creative work and entrepreneurial business endeavors happened in the independent sector. Even now, 14 years after Sony acquired a majority stake in the company he co-founded with Scott Cohen in 1997, The Orchard, he has remained indie: The Orchard is the largest distributor of independent music in the world.

Of all of his accomplishments during his 65 plus years in the music industry, Gottehrer counts co-founding The Orchard as his proudest. Here, he discusses that legacy.

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How did you meet your Orchard co-founder Scott Cohen?

I met him the same way I meet everyone. It’s about the music; someone said, “You got to see this artist and meet the manager, Scott Cohen,” and gave me the number. This was 1995 or so. So I called him up. I saw the artist, who was like a female lead of metal band called Scrb, and they were great. And I thought, “Why don’t we make some demos and see if I can get them placed at a record label?”

And how did that lead to the Orchard?

So I went down to see Scott; he was running a small office in the Flower District in Manhattan, and he had college interns working with him. As we worked on that artist, we started talking about what else we could do, and we formed a label called Sol3 Records in the East Village. We eventually moved down to a storefront with a basement on Orchard Street.

But we found the business was difficult, because, as you know, promotion in those days was expensive, and there were no sure results. We had some independent distribution but we got one or two big computers — this was before broadband — and looked to see if there any place online that might talk about artists, or that were looking at a style of music. One day we came across two record stores on the internet, CDnow and Music Boulevard. This was pre-Amazon, which was just selling books at that time.

We saw this as an opportunity to get our records in these stores. But we were told that they couldn’t take our album because they were not truly stores. They said, “We don’t have all this [inventory] you see on our site. We’re virtual.” That was the first time I ever heard that a store could be virtual. So we asked, “Where are all the records?” And they told us that it came from a place in Sacramento, the largest one-stop in the country, Valley Media.

So we called up Valley and made an appointment and said, “We have an idea. We see that you are supplying this music from independent [DIY] artists to these online stores.” So we take a trip out to Sacramento, and we lay out this idea of what we can do for them. Technology was now opening doors, but not yet for independent artists; we saw an opportunity there for someone to come along to help independent artists become available in these online stores.

How did the Valley executives react?

They said it’s a decent idea. But then they started asking me what it was like in the Brill Building and what it was like at CBGB, with the first Blondie records and things like that. So I told them all my stories. And they said, “Richard, you’re one of us, so we’re going to do this deal with you and Scott.” But as part of that deal, we had to take over all their independent consignment artists.

So I thought about that for a second and said to them, “You mean all the people who nudge you to death, saying ‘How’s my record doing?’ when you’re not selling very many of them? You want us to be responsible for that? If so, then you have to make us your exclusive provider of independent music to online stories.” And they said yes.

This was physical distribution, right?

So we go back to New York, we start learning about distribution and Valley is telling independent artists that they have to sign up with The Orchard. So in order to get their records into internet stores, we had the independent artists sign a contract, but we added a paragraph that also granted us the right to store and distribute their music digitally.

Scott was really very wise. He has a good instinct for future thinking. So everybody signed the contract, even though they asked, “What’s digital?” It’s not anywhere yet. But by the time iTunes opened, The Orchard had about 150,000 titles. And iTunes needed titles.

How was The Orchard doing by the time iTunes launched?

At that point I was funding the whole thing and we weren’t making any money, because you couldn’t sell enough through the internet stores. But we kept going.

Around the same time that iTunes got going, Dimensional came into the picture as possible investors.

Actually, we began talking to Dimensional as interested investors before iTunes opened. Dimensional Funds — where a friend named Danny Stein was — mentioned to me they were acquiring something called Digital Club Network and eMusic and asked what I thought of them. I said, “Those are interesting, but why don’t you look at The Orchard, too?” And then he acquired all three. Digital Club Network was a great idea, but it was too early.

What happened when Dimensional bought The Orchard in 2003?

[We] just continued to grow with them. I was CEO of The Orchard at the time, but they put in a new CEO and Dimensional took over managing the business and correcting a lot of the things that Scott and I were not experienced at doing. After all, it was a new business, but Dimensional was good at it, and they invested tons of money, which allowed Scott and I to not just take independent artists in, but to travel the world.

We realized from day one that it’s not about what sells in America. It’s almost not even about what sells in England or France or Germany. It’s about the world. So Scott and I would travel through Latin America, the Far East, Australia, speaking at conferences and finding people who we could pay a commission to represent us in those countries. That’s how The Orchard grew internationally, and eventually those small little steps became regional offices, and today The Orchard has as many as 50 offices around the world, that are staffed by knowledgeable people within those countries.

So from almost the beginning you thought of The Orchard as a global distributor?

Yes. And now when you put a record out through the Orchard, you’re really getting not just a release on Spotify or nationally, you’re getting the opportunity to have people who might see the possibility of your music in their country, or vice versa. So we have [Japanese duo] YOASOBI, who just played Coachella; or BLACKPINK, the Korean girl pop group that sells throughout the world; or Bad Bunny, who sells around the world. That was the message that Scott and I felt that The Orchard could bring to music from this basement on Orchard Street, even when we did not have enough money to pay the rent. We believed this, and to see it come to fruition, after all the things I have been through in the music business, really makes me feel like The Orchard was the birth of a family member. To me, the Orchard is not just a business — and a great business at that — but to me it’s the people and something unique and special. And that’s an example of independent culture.

The Orchard has a lot of veteran staffers.

People are there for 20 years and more. 2027 will be our 30th anniversary. Our CEO Brad Navin has been here for 20 years. He came to the company when the investors came in, and he grew within The Orchard to a place where he could now be one of the best CEOs in the entire music business. And he recognizes talent and he brought in someone like [COO] Colleen Theis, who is amazing. And when you look at them, this company is in great hands.

Why did you sell to Dimensional?

The sale was not about money, it was about the need to continue to grow the company. I was not thinking I needed a big, quick score. Scott and I could have made more money. But the company really helped change and contribute to the growth of the business and the music that I love by giving independent artists the opportunity to do what they do best and succeed. Look at Raye and at what’s going on with her now. She was at a major at Polydor, and now she does all this stuff herself, and we help enable the resources of the back end, working with her as an independent to help her succeed and grow.

You’ve had a lot of accomplishments both as a creative and as an executive. Is there anything that you are the most proud of?

The Orchard. I don’t want to sound corny about it, but I told you the story of writing the song when I was a kid that eventually Jerry Lee Lewis recorded. To me, it’s been one stream, from that song to Scott and I starting the Orchard. Establishing The Orchard through the persistence and through all the difficulty in the beginning stages, leading to great memories and to where the Orchard is now as the leading voice of the independent artist and independent community [is the top achievement].

Well, not only that, Richard, let’s look at it from the point of view of you. You were an independent executive, not affiliated with any of the majors for over 40 years before Sony came even came into the picture.

I’ve been an independent all my life, and I would say that even with Sony’s involvement, I’m still independent, right? Because they don’t interfere. Sony may be a major company but because of [Sony Music Group CEO] Rob Stringer and the way he thinks of music, he keeps the Orchard independent.Also, you might find it interesting, if you talked to Rob Stringer. Do you know that his favorite album is that first Blonde album?

Of all the roles that you’ve had in the music industry — songwriter, artist, music publisher, producer, music executive — which one do you prefer?

I’d say less of an executive, and more of a songwriter, and then a producer. As a producer, when I have those magic moments, they don’t all reveal themselves in hits. Just remember that, to me, it’s one journey from writing the first song to being independent and then being able to be a co-founder with Scott Cohen of something as important and significant as The Orchard that’s meaningful to me. So when I look at music, and then I look at The Orchard, the dividend is the fact of what I was able, together with Scott, to contribute to what the reality of the business is now. I’m still part of The Orchard, and it’s meaningful. It may be a strange, strange way of looking at it, because

_Originally reported by [Billboard](https://www.billboard.com/pro/the-orchard-richard-gottehrer-indie-legacy-interview/)._