Steven ‘Pav’ Pavlovic is founder and director of international record label Modular, which represents many of the names in the music industry right now: The Presets, Cut Copy, Ladyhawke and Van She, to name a few.
What does your company do? Anything and everything with any kind of questionable link to good music.
What is your background in music/business? I started out managing bands, then booking local venues around Sydney and then moved into promoting tours for both local and international bands, some of which included Nirvana, Pavement, The Beastie Boys, Beck, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day and a host of others.
How did you start Modular? What was it like in the beginning? How has the business transformed? Modular came to life in 98 when I was receiving lots of demos from local bands that wanted to play with the internationals acts I was touring. I received one that was so compelling I decided to form a record label to put it out. That band was called Quentin’s Brittle Bones, who later changed their name to The Avalanches.
In the beginning the label was a hobby and an adjunct to my touring business. With the commercial success of debut albums from The Living End, Ben Lee and The Avalanches I developed the confidence to focus solely on the recording part of the business. Over the next decade I signed lots of great local and international artists including Cut Copy, The Presets, Wolfmother, Jack Johnson, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Van She, Ladyhawke and Tame Impala.
Creatively not much has changed, people still send me good music and I still say †yes’. Commercially a lot has changed! People prefer to say †no’ to buying music legally and †yes’ to downloading it illegally. As such the label has become a hobby again and I focus mainly on the other areas of my business that have expanded to include a touring company, a talent booking agency, a new media/marketing agency and a merchandise company.
Was there a defining moment/period when things took off? I don’t know if there was a singular defining moment, more a series of opportunities that I said yes to. When I started promoting concerts I met the guys from Nirvana and asked them if they wanted to tour Australia. They agreed. From there I toured acts like the Beastie Boys and Beck. After those tours I developed a reputation and bands like Pearl Jam approached me. All I did was say yes. When The Avalanches sent me their original demos I was so deeply moved that I started a record label to release them. At the same time The Living End and Ben Lee were looking for deals and I signed them as well. After that I lost interest in things for a while and moved to NYC for a couple of years. When I came back a friend asked me if I knew of a good local record label I could recommend for Jack Johnson and I said ‘yeah mine.’
Similarly the opportunity to sign the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Presets presented itself and I said yes. All in all I’m a really lucky person that knows the difference between no and yes in my chosen vocation.
What are your greatest career achievements? From a personal point of view I’d say being able to do what I do each day and make a living from it. From an industry point of view I’d say the names of bands I’ve worked with.
Now that the business is successful, what does your role consist of? Can you chill out more? These days my role consists of rolling in the sand with my daughter, drinking fresh, young coconut juice, cheering for the Carlton Football Club and expanding my culinary artillery.
Where are you from? How long have you been in Bondi? Do you think you’ll be there in the long-term? I grew up in Canberra and escaped to Sydney when I was 19. I’ve lived in the inner city / eastern suburbs since then and moved to Bondi in †88. After 20 odd years it’s hard not to think of Bondi as home and it’ll always be a special place for my family and me.
What do you like about the area? When I first moved here it was a shit hole overrun by milk bars and hamburger joints. The water was dirty and during a good onshore the sewerage formed a noticeable slick just beyond the break. Rents were cheap and there was a real sense of community amongst the people I knew that lived here.
Most people I knew didn’t want to come to Bondi and thought it was a dump and too far from the city. I loved that it polarised people and I loved that I could hang out at the beach all day whilst those same people sweated it out in Surry Hills. There are not too many places in the world where you can be in the middle of a city and still be surrounded by so much nature. I love the fact that every day it gets a natural facelift and that on no two days does it look the same. It’s a constantly evolving place and now most of the milk bars and hamburger joints have been replaced by hipster cafes. The rents are anything but cheap, the water is cleaner than I can ever remember and the only community I’m a part of is my immediate family.
Living in Australia -does it have limitations in your industry? Yes and no. The world is a pretty small place these days and there’s something exotic about being from Australia that people respond to.
Would it be advantageous to live in a world capital such as New York or London? We have an office in NY and I’ve lived there for a couple of years. It’s definitely important for us to have a presence over there but on another level I think the fact we’re from Sydney is a plus for us and is a bit of a point of difference.
Why do you think your artists are so successful, both locally and internationally? Because they write great songs. Music’s a pretty universal medium and if the artist has something genuinely unique and special then there’s no reason they shouldn’t be successful locally and internationally, provided they’re given the right platform. Which is where we come in…
Is there an Australian sound – is Australian music discernable from other countries’? I don’t think there’s a particular sound as such; more just definable artists that come from here. Things like the Triffids or Nick Cave.
Does our geographic location (at the far end of the earth) bear any influence on local music or does the interconnectedness of the world – advanced communications etc – negate this? In a way yes to both. I think artists often take influence from not just the US, but the UK, Europe, Asia and so on equally and take on their own mutant shape. Being so isolated and far from any particular scenes that are going on, no matter how much you can listen to it on the internet and visualise it in your mind the interpretation that comes out so far away will often be slightly skewed.
What music did you listen to in the last 24 hours? The Pentagons, Unrelated Segments, Bag Raiders, Canyons, Wolfmother, Jonathan Boulet, Solid Gold.
Your prediction for next big Aussie music act? Jonathan Boulet.
Bondi Style is a self described “snapshot of life beyond the tourist clichés”. An exploration of Sydney’s most iconic suburb through streetscape photography, style snaps and candid interviews with local creatives and identities.
