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Executive of the Week: Justin West of Secret City Records on the Secrets of Independent Music Success
The man behind one of Canada's most successful indie labels talks about the late-blooming success of French-language streaming record-holder Patrick Watson, why he builds long-term relationships with artists, and why it's important for the indie sector to work together.
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Justin West is a leader and advocate in Canada’s independent music scene, but he didn’t plan it out that way. When he started his record label Secret City Records in Montreal in the mid-2000s, it was out of necessity. He had met an artist he loved and wanted to build a career with, and the label was a means to do it. That artist was Patrick Watson, and 20 years later he — and Secret City — are more successful than ever.
West — a multiple time Billboard Canada Power Player – leads one of the biggest indie labels in Canada while also advocating for the sector on multiple boards both locally and internationally. When we speak to him for this Executive of the Week interview, he’s just returned from Banff for the National Summit on Artificial Intelligence and Culture, and is a central figure in discussions around the Online Streaming Act and collective negotiations with online streaming platforms.
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It comes from a life born in independent music, one where relationships often mean more than big-money deals. “It’s not as transactional,” he says. “You want to make sure that relationship feels good, that it’s strong and that you're aligned.”
He’s interested in building long-term relationships with artists that last beyond one or two records, and it’s paying off. Watson was recently shouted out at the Oscars for his soundtrack work on award-winning short film The Girl Who Cried Pearls. Meanwhile, his newest album Uh Oh is a Billboard Canada chart hit. His 2006 song “Je te laisserai sans mots” has 65 million views on TikTok and 1.3 billion streams on Spotify.
Watson was the first artist to win the Polaris Prize in 2007, and another Secret City artist, Jeremy Dutcher, recently became the first to win the critic award twice. As the label gears up towards its 20th anniversary in September, it continues to have successes with artists in both English and French including Klô Pelgag, Leif Vollebekk, Alexandra Stréliski, Bibi Club and more — all hitting above their weight. On April 17, the label will team with Turbo Recordings for Montreal electronic heavyweight Tiga’s Hot Life.
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There’s a lot happening, all the time. But that’s the life for an indie leader — hustle, build relationships and put the music first. Eventually, in the case of Justin West, it will continue to pay off.
Secret City Records started with the release of Patrick Watson’s debut album Close to Paradise in 2006. Where did you think that would leave you nearly 20 years later?
I had no grand vision for Secret City. It just made sense given what we were doing and where we were at at the time. Me, Patrick, his manager, everyone – we all learned the business along the way.
Patrick Watson’s “Je te laisserai des mots” became the first French language song in Spotify's Billions Club in 2024, 18 years after its release. He’s always had success as an independent artist, but it feels like it hasn’t always been heralded until now. Why do you think that is?
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He's understated in a way. He's 20+ years into a career that we've built brick by brick. It's not the norm in terms of how things go, but [it works] because he sticks to what he loves, does things his own way. He's got big ideas, a big vision, and it's been a really amazing ride because of that.
Your father, Jim West, founded one of Canada’s most successful jazz labels, Justin Time Records. When he retired, you told Billboard Canada he was a massive influence on your life and career. How did growing up in the industry help you get started launching Secret City in the 2000s?
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I had been around the studio and artists via my father for a long time. I had just finished university [at McGill] and it was actually my father that wanted to go check out Patrick Watson’s show. He's always had that knack of finding these gems that are a little left of centre. I think he saw a real kind of genius in Patrick.
My experience working with my father and his advice along the way was very important, especially in the early days. I can remember all the festivals we were doing, getting that first big sync that we had in Grey's Anatomy in 2007. We didn't know what a sync was. Everything that came at us, we tackled as a team.
How has your journey with Patrick Watson inspired how you approach the music business today?
It's very relationship and timing driven, and [about] love for music and entrepreneurship. Patrick could sign a record deal with anybody in the world. The reason that we're still working together is because of the relationship. It's about the whole career rather than an album or a single. That’s the independent spirit.
Patrick shaped how I think about music and A&R and what I'm into. Watching him work and how he approaches writing has had a big impact on me as well.
How he writes is very cinematic. I've grown more a fan of that style of writing. I think a lot of our artists fall into that zone.
What determines if an artist is the right fit for Secret City?
First, you have to love the music. Then, you have to align on values.
You're essentially business partners. When you think of it like that, can you see eye-to-eye on the world? All of that matters, especially in the independent world. It’s not as transactional. You want to make sure that relationship feels good, that it’s strong and that you're aligned.
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The thing I'm most proud of is the roster of the artists we work with and the quality of music. The label does not exist without all of them and the work they do.
Secret City has been very successful when it comes to syncs for TV and movies. What drives that?
We've always gone at the world and with a one-stop-shop kind of approach. We have a strong sync business across a lot of the artists we work with. The competition in that space is quite fierce, but that's a lane that we feel very strongly about. It's one of the reasons we publish the vast majority of the underlying compositions of the masters that we release.
It was so clear to me — especially in those early days, from 2006 to 2009 — there was this moment where independent supervisors and music were getting placed a lot. Us having both sides was a huge plus for music supervisors and it really reinforced the model for us.
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Patrick Watson had a big moment in the 2000s during the Canadian indie boom, but he’s arguably much bigger today. What do you think accounts for that?
With a bunch of our artists, the medium has caught up to them. Patrick Watson had in an interview for The Montreal Mirror back in 2006. They asked him how he wrote his hooks. I'll never forget it, he said “I don't write hooks. I write nets. I catch more fish that way.”
Some of his songs have caught fire on TikTok and other social platforms? Do you have a strategy behind viral success?
Anybody that tells you they can control that is bullshitting. It’s such a wild space. You have to have a lot of luck, but there are strategies to get the music out in front of people.
Patrick is built for the social world musically, but it didn't exist when he started. Music has this emotional sense. It either connects or doesn't. It finds the right moment.
One of the big differences now is your release date doesn't matter as much. You can work things forever. The world shifts to a moment, and everything is so accessible now that a song you released five years ago is suddenly perfectly timed.
With a song able to blow up so long after its initial release, do you see that as a positive or a negative?
That’s the beauty of today’s market and also the challenge. You're competing with the history of music every day.
There are all these algorithms that are driving things. It’s a very decentralized world. There's a lot of noise everywhere.
This is not a music specific thing, this is a societal issue. Everyone's got so much coming at them. Everyone's just trying to stay afloat and keep up. When you're launching new content it’s very tough to come through it.
The biggest opportunity is that your music can be heard anywhere around the world at any time. On a distribution level, you have access, you can get anywhere. The flip side is that everyone has that access.
In one way, you could be a one-person show and have your music available everywhere around the world. In another way, you almost need ten times more staff and people working globally to be successful at that.
You’ve been a big advocate for the indie sector on a variety of industry boards and organizations both in Canada, with the Canadian Independent Music Association (CIMA), and internationally. Why is that important to you?
I was the chair of WIN [Worldwide Independent Network] for a while and I was on the ADISQ board for a bit. I was on the SOPROQ board [now Panorama]. I was on the FACTOR board for eight years, then Merlin. 15 of us started ORCA [Organization for Recorded Culture and Arts].
I want to be part of the community. I want to work with people, understand what they're doing, build relationships. We're all competitors in the room, but we're all peers and we're all fighting the good fight together.
Why is it important for people in the independent sector to work together?
Merlin [the independents’ digital rights agency] solves a real problem for both sides of the equation. You can't have 10,000 record labels do deals with every individual digital service provider. And not everybody wants to go through a distributor. Some people have the expertise and the need, or want to do it themselves. But you need the infrastructure and the resources.
You need to find a win-win, and the independent community is very good at that.
Additional reporting by Stefano Rebuli.
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