Hello, everyone! Today is a very special day for the Haulix blog as we’re fortunate enough to be sharing the story of one of the biggest and longest-running hard rock news outlets online. This site has been praised and criticized for a number of years, and this afternoon we’re going to learn about the man who makes it all happen. If you have any recommendations for future installments of our spotlight series, or if you have any questions about our products, please do not hesitate to email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. You can also find us on Twitter.
I do not recall when I became a regular reader of music blogs, but if I had to guess the early years of the new millennium would be a great place to start. Sites were far simpler back then, and the amount of competition for exclusives was far less cutthroat than it is today. Those wanting punk news visited Punknews, those wanting emo/alt-rock visited Absolutepunk, and those wanting to learn about the heavier side of rock spent countless hours browsing the site at the center of today’s article.
Founded in 1999, Lambgoat has been the go-to destination for fans of hardcore, metal, and other forms of extreme music for well over a decade at this point. Their news feed is one of the fastest online, and rarely does more than a few days go by without some exclusive breaking as a result of their efforts. I knew when we launched this column that the mind behind Lambgoat, and the answer given by owner Alex Arnold certainly did not disappoint. You can read about his journey in music below.
As someone who spent years reading about music before ever deciding to write about it himself, I do not know that I would be who I am today without having discovered Lambgoat all those years ago. The sense of community shared by its users, not to mention the endless love shown towards independent artists has created an environment that makes discussing music fun once more. The competition to be the place where those conversations take place is fiercer than ever today, but I have no doubts Lambgoat will continue to reign atop the metal world for many years to come.
If you would like to stay on top of everything Alex has going on, make sure you bookmark and frequent Lambgoat. Additional questions and comments can be left at the end of this post.
H: For those unaware, please state your name, the site you work for, and your role at said site:
AA: My name is Alex Arnold, I work for Lambgoat. My role is pretty much everything: owner, writer, developer, designer, intern, etc.
H: We have a lot of ground to cover here, but let’s start with the basics: When you think of your earliest memories of music, what comes to mind?
AA: That’s a long time ago. Some of my earliest memories are dancing around my living room with my sisters while the Beatles’ ‘White’ album played. No, I wasn’t alive when it came out, but luckily it was part of my parents’ vinyl collection. I also have fond memories of my father listening to Bob Marley and Billy Joel, two artists I still thoroughly enjoy to this day.
H: Do you recall the first album you purchased with your own money? Do you still own it today?
AA: No, I honestly don’t. But it may have been a Herbie Hancock cassette tape (which must be in a box somewhere. I would never have thrown it out). I think I heard his song “Rocket” on TV and was enthralled. My older sister was a big influence to me, and I was soon immersed in the world of alternative, and particularly, industrial music. I was really into The Cure, Front 242, and Skinny Puppy, among many others. I bought a ton of tapes. Notably, my sister also turned me on to the Violent Femmes, Black Flag, and Suicidal Tendencies.
H: What initially attracted you to writing/blogging?
AA: My father was an advertiser and writer, so I was always relatively confident that I could express myself on paper, so to speak. However, I can’t say that I was particularly interested in writing per se. Though I’ve always been an avid reader, I honestly had no great desire to write.
H: Who or what is your biggest inspiration as a writer?
AA: Wow, that’s a difficult question for me. I honestly can’t think of any writers who’ve really inspired me. My father was certainly an influence, but more so because he was always able to verbalize complex thoughts and ideas. Much of the reading I did when I was younger was of the nonfiction sort, authors of which don’t tend to engender much inspiration (not to diminish their craft).
H: Onto the site. Lambgoat launched in 1999. long before the majority of the sites operating today were even concepts in the back of their creator’s minds. What drove you to launch your own site, and what was the original purpose of Lambgoat?
AA: Quite frankly, the original motivation for Lambgoat was a real-world environment for practicing web design and development, a career which I had just launched. I was passionate about music, so it seemed like a natural theme for the website. But I certainly had no lofty aspirations.
H: The name Lambgoat is one I have heard explained in about a dozen ways across various forums and music hangouts. What is the true origin of the site’s name?
AA: Contrary to belief, the name does not come from the Integrity song whose lyrics include, “The lamb and the goat have finally fused as one.” In fact, the name lambgoat predates that song by several years. Moreover, I wasn’t even aware of Integrity’s existence prior to launching the site. I wish that I had some amazing tale explaining the origin of the name. I do not. I had a friend in high school with whom I would jam. We would frequently make up songs and record them on my trusty Tascam multi-track cassette recorder. One day we were attempting to parody some Satanic death metal, and the phrase “lamb goat” materialized in a nonsensical way. I believe they came from my friend’s mouth, though I can’t say for sure. Regardless, it was a phrase that for whatever reason I would never forget. Not long thereafter, it became the name of a short-lived band. And several years later I dug it up as the name for my site. It’s something I’m constantly explaining, but I’m glad that I used it. It’s much more interesting that HardcoreNews.com or MetalCenter.net or whatever.
H: At what point did the site evolve from a simple outlet for your ideas into a full blown news operation? What lead you to make this change?
AA: Circa 1999/2000, there weren’t many websites for heavy music. In fact, compared to today’s endless supply of online destinations, there weren’t that many websites period. I was surprised that people actually started visiting the site, and when they did, I started feeling obligated to improve and add to its content. I suppose we first hit our stride in 2003 or so.
H: Many of the young sites we feature have yet to dive deeply into the world of monetization, but Lambgoat has been running advertisements for a number of years. Is the site a full time job for you at this point? Do you have any advice to offer younger bloggers hoping to find some income in the world of internet journalism?
AA: I did indeed try to monetize the site to some degree early on. Frankly, I get bored easily. In the absence of financial reward, there’s little motivation to post tour dates for hardcore band X at 9am year after year, haha. I wouldn’t dedicate several hours of each day for 14 years to Lambgoat without any sort of financial benefit. I’m all for helping the scene, etc., but I have a lot of other things that I enjoy doing with my time, not the least of which is hanging out with my family.
Lambgoat could be a full-time job, but it is not. I have a “real” full-time job as a web-developer. I’m busy as hell, but busy is good, I guess.
My best advice to aspiring Internet journalists is to focus on everything but the money initially. You need to worry about content, and content alone, for a period of time. The money will come later. Don’t put the cart before the horse, as they say, or you’re not going to get far. Making money is hard, especially this late in the Internet “game.” There is too much competition out there. Unless you have a large amount of money up-front to invest in marketing, etc., you need to be in it for the long haul.
H: How many contributors do you have on your team? What do you look for when recruiting new staffers?
AA: We’ve had a ton of help over the years from various album reviewers, interviewers, and writers. A select few have been integral, but most stuck around for a month and moved on, haha. Right now we are very thin. I have two people who do album reviews semi-regularly, and one person who writes occasionally. I do everything else. I have been trying to enlist my wife for help during the past year, but she’s busy too with her own stuff, so it’s difficult to maintain consistency in that regard.
In the past, it was easy to find young people willing to help for free. But times have changed, and most competent people want to be paid. This is completely understandable, but it makes things difficult when you’re a small outfit with almost no editorial budget.
H: Building off that, what makes a good news post? I’m sure you’re inundated with press releases and submissions daily, so how do you decide what makes the cut?
AA: Great question. I’d be the first to say that most of our news posts consist of boring, plain vanilla content. After all, there’s not much compelling about tour dates or label signings. If we only posted what we considered to be “exciting” content, we’ve have very little on our site. For every dramatic band break-up, or hitman-hiring metal singer news item, there are 100 other run-of-the-mill items. At this point, we just try not to waste peoples’ time. We tend to post about bands that have some sort of following. And we don’t post about Kerry King visiting a gun show or whatever. If you want to know everything about everybody, Blabbermouth is much better than we are for that. Lars Ulrich was at an art premiere last week? Really? Sorry, but Lambgoat would rather post Misery Signals tour dates.
H: Forums are becoming far less common on news sites these days, but yours continues to thrive. To what do you attribute this success?
AA: I don’t know if “thrive” is the right word, haha. I don’t even know how to describe the board. I’m not sure whether to laugh or to cry when I ponder it. I will say that it is difficult to maintain interest in an online forum these days when there are so many other places to interact – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. It was much easier in 2004 when there were very few places to “hang out” online. I’m not sure how viable our message board is at this point, but we still do get a decent amount of activity there, though I won’t sit here and extol the virtues of said activity, haha.
H: Speaking of thriving, Lambgoat has towered above its competition for a number of years, even as the number of music blogging sites exploded in recent times. What do you think it is about the content offered on Lambgoat that sets you apart for your competitors?
AA: I think we were in the right place at the right time. There were only a few music websites in 2000, and almost none focused on metal and/or hardcore. And even then, most of those only updated their content every few days or so. We were one of the first to provide constant updates throughout the day. If we launched last year or this year, we’d be nothing. There are just too many sites doing the same thing. When Suicide Silence announces a new singer, there are 50 other sites posting the same press release. It’s really rather ridiculous. I just try to maintain a usable site, post news-worthy items, and deliver consistency. It’s really all we can do at this point. There are a ton of fly-by-night metal websites and blogs out there. They’ll disappear and we’ll still be here, doing the same thing, year after year (that actually sounds sad when I read it back, haha). But I think that’s what our readers appreciate most – our consistency.
H: I’ve noticed video content is not a big part of Lambgoat outside of news posts. Do you have any plans to expand you multimedia offerings going forward?
AA: We’ve definitely given it some thought in the past. I’d like to offer more in that regard, but for now, we have no concrete plans to tackle the video realm. Check back in next year and I might be singing a different tune though!
H: What do you think is the biggest challenge facing artists today?
AA: There are so many bands out there. Too many bands, frankly. It’s extremely difficult to stand out. Spend a few hours writing some nifty riffs, do a little Pro-Tools recording, upload to YouTube, and suddenly you’re legit. Ok, you’re really not, but you’re affecting those that are. Prospective listeners have difficulty discerning “real” bands from half-ass ones, and the whole scene is diluted as a result.
H: Where do you go to discover new music?
AA: I honsetly don’t, haha. If new music finds me, so be it, but I don’t seek it out. I hear a ton of stuff through Lambgoat, so I don’t really embark upon any discovery missions otherwise. I’m content listening to the same old stuff, whether it’s the Beatles, Roy Buchanan, Roger Waters or whatever.
H: Speaking of music discovery, you probably receive a lot of submissions from talent vying for a spot on your news feed. What advice can you offer young artists hoping to stand out in your inbox?
AA: I’ve seen everything. And almost none of it works. There is just too much to comb through. Your best bet, whether it’s with Lambgoat or any other site, is to establish personal contact with someone. Sending some template email to a general inbox at some sizeable organization will almost never yield results.
H: When it comes to receiving music for review and feature consideration, which services do you prefer and why?
AA: Since I don’t review stuff personally, I honestly don’t pay too much attention to the various services. That said, I do prefer Haulix among those I’ve used. And I’m not just saying that for your benefit either.
H: If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
AA: Artists need more money from record sales. Period. If you sell 50,000 copies of an album, but don’t earn any royalties for said album, something is amiss. Granted, for decades record labels were raping artists, but now bands are getting raped by the general public too, haha. Of course, the tide does appear to be turning to some degree with crowdfunding growing in popularity. When Protest The Hero raises over $300,000, you at least know they’re getting paid.
H: What is your ultimate career goal?
AA: Wow, haha…. I don’t know. I wish I had one! I don’t know what a good goal to have is in this business. Make enough to hire a bunch of people and read books all day? I’m not sure.
H: Before we let you go, can you tell us a bit about what you have planned in the months ahead?
AA: There are so many things I want to do with regard to Lambgoat: unsigned band album reviews, a tour dates section, more interviews, more features, a better mobile experience… the list goes on and on. There’s not nearly enough time in the day for me to accomplish everything I’d like. I don’t know that there will be anything out of the ordinary taking place during the next few months, but I am going to do my best to work on a more mobile-friendly website. I’ve been putting it off for far too long.
