Riffing with The Brain Trust

By Emilia Navarro

Conor Loughman sits in his room against a painted wall bearing a plastic moose head and a large pixelated painting of Aphex Twin. A 2010 Boston University grad, he now lives in our grimy Allston ‘hood after spending a life in different countries. Entertaining a lifelong passion for music, he built Base Trip Records (BTR) from the ground up in 2008. The first three artists he signed were some of his good friends. Two years later, he started Brain Trust, a multifaceted music company, with Kyle Langan and the help of other friends along the way. Today Brain Trust is taking long strides towards success in the music industry.

Emilia Navarro: How did you start Base Trip Records?

Conor Loughman: I had $3000 set aside from the previous summer where I worked three different jobs. I figured, if I can inject this in here and use this money that I have to make more money and build a platform then I’ll have the coolest job in the world…Because there was nobody else pushing these guys, I decided to wear a bunch of different hats: I became the manager, the publicist, the studio…The thing is, with the music industry, success is never a guarantee.

EN: Tell me how Brain Trust got started.

CL: BT got started right around the time I graduated. I graduated a semester early from BU so I figured out how to give interns college credit for working for me. I interviewed mad people and I ended up with 10 official interns and three unofficial…We basically just started working and doing everything we could with the mindset that we’re going to build up these artists and put on the best shows we possibly can and make this business as strong as possible.

EN:  How did you come up with that name?

CL:  The first time “the brain trust” was used was during the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt gathered the brightest minds from economics, the humanities, science, all the key industries, and he got all these smart people together in a room, and he called it the brain trust. So essentially what the brain trust is, is you get bright minds that hopefully have different opinions and perspectives and get them all together and basically use the great ideas that build off of each other and synthesize them into a plan…which is a big part of the reason we’ve been successful so far.

EN:  What types of music  do you focus on?

CL:  Lately, because of the work, I’ve been listening to a lot more hip-hop and electronic music…My favorite musician of all time is John Frusciante, the guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers—mostly for his solo work. His guitar playing is incredible. But then second favorite is Outkast, Andre 3000 specifically. I’m kind of all over the map but my policy, which is one of the BTR’s mottos, is good music for good people. I feel like the musical genres are blurring at this point, at least for innovative musicians.

EN:  How has Boston’s music scene grown since you became involved years ago?

CL:  It ebbs and flows. It used to be rock, rock, rock, you know, Flogging Molly, sh*t like that. It’s still very much a rock town. I think the electronic scene in particular has exploded…Boston’s music scene in general used to be very standoffish…We’ve found a way to kind of navigate and see which people are worthwhile to deal with and certain venues have earned reputations of being good places to see certain kinds of shows. But honestly it wouldn’t be fair for me to assume that things were drastically different before I moved to Boston and that’s why I say it ebbs and flows. It’s always had great talent…I think what’s unique about right now is that there’s actually people planting roots in Boston and trying to build something here.

EN:  Has the music business become more of a grass-roots industry?

CL:  I feel like for the successful artists, it always has been. Artists like Ke$ha can be manufactured and people will just eat that sh*t up. But I’d be very interested to see where Ke$ha’s at in five years. The artists who get to that point organically start off in the small clubs. Look at Eoto; perfect example and ties into everything we’re talking about. Kyle promoted their first show in Boston at Bill’s Bar…And then he brought them back, and he brought them back again, and he brought them back again, and people loved it…That’s the secret for any band. You can’t just play the show, you gotta talk to people, you gotta interact with them, you gotta give them something to remember you by. There’s so much music in the world.

EN:  How do you feel about file sharing’s impact on the industry? 

CL:  I think any label who’s intending to make their full living off of record sales needs to just grow up or evolve. It’s ridiculous. The way I look at CDs—I look at it like another piece of merchandise, like a T-shirt. If a fan really likes you and wants to support you, they’ll buy that…But honestly I think for a company like myself, like BTR or Brain Trust, the fact that it’s so easy to get music for free and share it is perfect. It actually allows us to compete way better with major corporate entities.

EN:  What approach should the legal system take into account when determining how to handle sharing abilities granted by the Internet?

CL:  Here’s the way that I would say it—the core issue: if you’re a musician, would you rather have people listen to your music for free or not listen to it because they have to pay for it? The reality of the situation on the ground level is that I’m not concerned about loss of profit from there because I feel like just the industry model is changing. Music should be accessible for free.