Interview: Krafted’s Paul Sawyer on 10 years of the label
Krafted is owned by Paul Sawyer and Simon Sinfield, who have established it as a leading independent music label, home to a suite of specialist record labels, an extensive catalogue of releases and an incredible roster of artists, DJs and producers. Krafted continues to release multiple genres of music across its labels, as well as hosting worldwide shows and digital media events.
With four labels across the brand, the original imprint Krafted Underground celebrated 300 releases in August 2022 with an eleven track album. Now, to celebrate a decade in the game, a new compilation Krafted X presents 10 brand new cuts from a selection of label mainstays and new blood.
With the compilation landing later this month, we caught up with Paul to get his views on a decade of Krafted and what lies in store in the years ahead.
Reflecting on Krafted’s journey over the past decade, what challenges did you face in establishing the label as a leader in the electronic music industry?
There has been so many over the years. One if the biggest hurdles is the financial burden when growing the business. It’s not like your normal business model, record labels are well known to be a labour of love. It’s unreal how much needs to be pumped into ensuring the label receives as much exposure as possible.
Something that catapulted our brand was picking up our show on BBC Radio 1. That in itself was a challenge to ensure we got that absolutely right and featured the right artists who represented Krafted. Being involved in such a professional company really opened our eyes to wanting to grow Krafted to be considered as a professional team.
Time is also a challenge. So mush time is needed to keep the label going, dealing with artists, releases, social media, the list is endless.
You’re celebrating Krafted’s anniversary with the Krafted X compilation. How did you go about selecting the artist that contributed tracks to the compilation?
We wanted a mix of producers who have been a part of our journey who have not only released with us but supported us in so many ways. Of course, there were some artists that we hunted down for this too.
The biggest problem was reducing our wish list to 10. From memory, we started with a list of over 100 artists!! With so many releases under our belt over the 10 years, we had a difficult task trying to decide who would be a great fit.
We’re very happy to have been able to bring on board some new names and hope that they release with us again over time.
With Krafted’s success across multiple genres and platforms, including significant Spotify streams and Beatport chart positions, what strategies have you implemented to achieve and maintain this level of influence?
We have spent a lot of time and effort promoting the label as much as possible. We have employed PR companies to help with this and have had an enormous amount of success. We also realised early on that we needed bigger names on the label to help with exposing our releases to a wider audience, so investing in big name remixers and producers was paramount to building the brand.
The ’30 Years A DJ’ album marked a significant milestone in your career. Can you share how this project encapsulates your evolution as an artist and contributor to the electronic music scene?
That was one hell of a project to put together. I’m so happy I did it. Darren Braddick who started Krafted with me originally kept saying I should do an album and I resisted until I hit the milestone. It was great timing as I’d been able to work on some great remixes for Paul Oakenfold and Solarstone around that time, so was able to include those in the album.
It was the perfect way to show my progression I guess as a producer. I picked out some of my earlier remixes and tracks as well as the newest. I think you can hear the progression in the album.
It’s funny, when it came out, it was like I’d reached the pinnacle and I didn’t need to stress about anything else coming out to maintain continuity. It actually changed my outlook on my releases moving forward and have been releasing less since.
With a portfolio that includes everything from deep grooves to mesmerizing melodies, how do you maintain Krafted’s distinct identity while exploring a broad spectrum of electronic music?
For me, it’s got to be what I would play out or use in my sets. It’s completely personal taste.
Fran (Shemsu) and Simon (Sinfield) have a great ear for well produced music, so they approach this in a completely professional manner. Of course personal taste comes into it, but they look at the overall picture. The sound is important to maintain the identity of the label and looking into the artists past releases etc.
Darren (Braddick) and Paul (Moore) who run Krafted Digital are very much open to new artists, but they are looking for a particular sound. They concentrate on Afro House and Organic House, so it’s about the quality of the music.
The electronic music scene is constantly evolving. Based on your decades of experience, what trends do you see emerging in the next few years, and how does Krafted plan to stay at the forefront of these changes?
To be honest, we don’t worry about the trends. If you follow the scene and what’s really popular at the moment, it’s not what we release. We prefer to stick to our sound and what we love.
Community and collaboration seem to be central to Krafted’s ethos. How do you foster a sense of family among your artists, and how has this contributed to the label’s success?
This is THE most important thing for us. We definitely have created a Krafted family. It’s so obvious when it comes to Simon doing our Krafted streams on Twitch. It’s always the same crew of people, which include a great deal of our artists. They are not just artists or producers to us, we have become great friends with many people Worldwide as a result of running Krafted, so maintain friendships outside of their releases.
Looking forward, what aspirations do you have for Krafted in the next decade? Are there any new ventures or expansions you’re particularly excited about?
We are forever looking at growing the business and hope to bring more names to Krafted. We are planning to return to ADE this year and have a venue booked already, so watch this space.
We hope to return to BBC Radio 1 at some point in the future, so just waiting to sort out what that will entail.
Krafted are also sponsoring Paul in his quest as a racing driver this year as he’s entered the Mini Challenge Clubsport series which starts at the end of March. Will be great to see the Krafted logo racing around the circuits here in the UK.
Krafted X is out 29 March
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https://twitter.com/kraftedofficial
https://soundcloud.com/kraftedofficial
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