Welcome to the label owner interview series.

So I’ve been working on this issue in my head for years.  I’ve been thinking about doing it since before I started QRD knowing that I wanted to try to start a label.  It only took me about sixteen years to make it happen.

There are a lot of different types of label owners interviewed in this series.  I grant you that they are all indie; but some sell 10,000 units & some sell 10 units, some specialize in punk rock & some in drone & some in noise.  So it’s interesting to see all of these different folks takes on things.

 Hrt
Brian John Mitchell

Notes & Jargon:
All labels were sent the same set of questions.  Some folks skipped some questions; I didn’t edit anything out.

It is worth noting that plenty of the folks in this are not native English speakers.  I did my best to edit as little as possible so that the interviews kept the person’s voice rather than changing things to accidentally make them sound more like me..

“Mastering” is the process of preparing a final mix of a recording for manufacturing.  It generally involves compression, limiting, & adjusting the EQs.

“Publishing” is the legal terminology having to do with collecting royalties for music being played on television, radio, or in films.

“Publishing” is sometimes used to mean something closer to book publishing than what we in the American music industry think of it as meaning.  A synonym to “release” I suppose.

“Distributors” are the middlemen between a label & a store.

“CD-Rs” are a burned CD format generally made at home on a computer, but occasionally done by manufacturers for short runs under 300 units.

“Print on Demand” is a format where an individual copy of a disc is burned & the artwork printed & assembled when a copy is ordered.  It is generally done by a third party.  Amazon is currently experimenting with the format & this may lead to an explosion in this format.