Signing Story: Ivan & Alyosha

IvanAlyosha

Date Signed: July 2012
Label: Missing Piece / Dualtone Music Group
Type of Music: Folk-Pop
Band Members: Tim Wilson, lead vocals, acoustic guitar; Ryan Carbary, guitar, piano, vocals; Tim Kim, electric guitar, vocals; Pete Wilson, bass, vocals.
Management: Michael Krumper / Missing Piece Group, 862-234-0801, [email protected]
Booking: Ryan Craven / Windish Agency, 773-489-3500, [email protected]
Legal: Paul Sommerstein, 212-260-6899, [email protected]
Publicity: Chris Vinyard / Big Hassle Media, 718-249-3738, vinyard@ bighassle.com
Web: http://ivanandalyosha.com
A&R: Will McDonald

Seattle, WA band Ivan & Alyosha released its single “Don’t Wanna Die Anymore” as a demo through Missing Piece, its management team-cum-label. The band connected with Missing Piece through an earlier relationship with Cheap Lullaby Records. When the single garnered some media as well as Nashville-based Dualtone Records, a dinner meeting took place but the band held out few expectations. However, once the full-length record was released by Missing Piece, Dualtone came calling once again. Soon after, a partnership was cemented and a deal was reached.

“Dualtone was one of the few that told us when they’d put out the record.”

Paste magazine did a feature on our single back in 2011,” recalls Tim Wilson, singer and acoustic guitarist with the band. “Will McDonald over at Dualtone heard it and came out to see us live. We had dinner and hit it off. But you don’t think anything will come of those things; it’s always hard to tell from just one meeting. We didn’t think about it again; we recorded our full-length and started shopping it around.”

Dualtone loved it and wanted to release it.

“It was a year and a half working out the details,” Wilson continues. “I tell people that it was a slow build, but one day it just made sense to everyone and all the stars aligned. All along they have been complimentary of the songs and they’re a great team over there. We’d talked to several labels, but Dualtone was one of the few that told us when they’d put out the record. A lot of other labels liked it but were very noncommittal; they wouldn’t give us a firm release date. Dualtone gave us a ballpark date, which made us more comfortable.”

All The Times We Had will drop on Feb. 26th. The first single “Running for Cover” was released on Dec. 4th. The band has a number of West Coast dates planned and will also hit South by Southwest for the fourth time.

 ——Rob Putnam