The original home of Nirvana and Soundgarden, Sub Pop has been a symbol of indie-rock hipness since Poneman and former partner Bruce Pavitt opened the label's office April 1, 1988. Today, such Sub Pop acts as the Postal Service, the Shins and Iron & Wine are mainstays on the Billboard Top Independent Albums chart.

The Postal Service is the label's biggest current act. The electronic pop band's 2003 album "Give Up" has sold more than 615,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Only Nirvana's debut album, "Bleach," has sold more for the label.

In 1995, Poneman sold a 49 percent stake in the company to Warner Music Group. Still, he remains dedicated to the progressive attitude that is central to the Sub Pop brand. Longtime label act Mudhoney is still recording for Sub Pop, and in the past year Poneman has welcomed to the label the psychedelic oddities of Italy's Jennifer Gentle as well as Pacific Northwest rock heroes Sleater-Kinney.

Q: Nirvana exploded and Sub Pop became synonymous with the Seattle sound. Were there mistakes made after you suddenly rocketed to national prominence?

A: There were a lot of mistakes. We began overpaying on promotion. We began overpaying on recording the artists and marketing in general.

When you start off having a cottage industry, and you're all of a sudden going head-to-head with these multinational corporations -- which is exactly what happened -- you're basically going to the same shows and looking at the same artists as the employees of Sony or Warner Bros.

It's daunting. These people have much bigger checkbooks. In order to stay competitive, we made irresponsible deals. What I've been able to learn from that experience is that there is a certain Sub Pop je ne sais quoi. There's a special something that we have that I don't think any other label has. It's a combination of our history, our roster and our region.

Q: Did you ever feel as if you were losing your innocence?

A: There have been a number of situations where one can presume innocence is lost. Enduring the whole situation that went on with Nirvana -- and obviously there were a lot of thrilling, magical experiences, but there was also tragedy and heartbreak.

The trick to be able to keep doing this year in and year out is to stay innocent and to never presume that you know much. Every artist has a different set of expectations and desires, and each realization of their dreams and their expectations presents a whole series of new problems. As soon as you think you know it all, you'll be tripped up. As the technology changes and the artists become savvier and the music changes, I find that it's a series of new beginnings.

Q: Without a tour or a big radio hit, the Postal Service became your second-best-selling act. Would that have happened without the Web?

A: I don't think they could have had the success they had without the Internet, without a doubt. We're approaching 9 million downloads on (Postal Service single) "Such Great Heights." Those are freebies, but we've also done a huge amount of paid downloads on that. Tony Kiewel, who's the Postal Service's A&R guy here, always points out that we're still selling "Such Great Heights" even though it's been available for free on our site for two years. It's our greatest freebie and probably our greatest-selling (online) song.

Q: When you see a stat like 9 million free downloads of "Such Great Heights," is there a part of you that says, "Why haven't we sold 2 million albums?"

A: No. My first goal is to promote my artists. The artists are doing well, and I'm doing well. The idea that we should be making more is obscene. The fact that I can make a living being around these artists I admire so much and whose music I live for is a gift.

Sales measure the success, and the artists, of course, want to sell a lot of records. But from my standpoint, success is measured in how many people know about the music. So if every bit of music that's out there is not paid for, it's not the end of the world.

Q: You still talk with an independent mind-set, yet you made a deal in 1995 with Warner Bros. Was that out of necessity?

A: It wasn't out of necessity. I am proud to be in business with Warner Music, but if I had to do it all over again, I probably wouldn't have sold anything. The sale was an ignorant, impetuous move on our part. Having said that, they're great partners, and you can't turn back the clock. The reason I say I wouldn't have sold is not because of any disaster. Given a choice, I think anybody would prefer to own their own company.

Q: But wouldn't you have preferred to wholly own your own company in 1995?

A: Well, we were working with a money manager who appealed to our greed, to be completely candid. In my particular case, I was thinking of amassing a war chest. The cost of doing business was getting expensive, and if we were going to compete, we were going to need more resources.

The fact of the matter is that as soon as we began to compete at that level, we began to fail. As soon as we retreated to the area that we know the best, we began to succeed again. We are not a major label. We will never be a major label. We are an old-fashioned independent label. We sign artists we believe in, and we do our best.

Reuters/Billboard

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