The Ripple Effect have posted a great snd informative interview with Engineer Records, the label home to Exeter, Sound&Shape, and Hours & Hours: A Tribute to Seaweed. Check out some excerpts below, and for an in depth look at how a truly independent label runs, READ THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW HERE.
TRE: How did you get started running an independent record label?
Dave: It was way back in 1999 that we officially started the label. We’d all been playing in bands up to that point and helping run other labels, zines and gig nights, the usual d.i.y. positive punk stuff and I wanted to do something even more permanent that I could really develop. The label I’d been helping to run, called Scene Police, was doing quite well and had some great releases out, but the two other guys involved, Dennis and Emre, were going to college and wanted to slow things down. Also my band, Rydell, were gigging less right then and it gave me a little more time to do other things. Through Rydell’s touring and the other promotions I’d been involved in I knew a lot of great bands but this was still well before the main internet took off with MySpace and MP3’s with easily burnt Cds, etc so bands really needed help and the word had to be spread. Bands had to work hard to get releases out and it wasn’t easy to find labels. Often it was vinyl singles or EPs and CD albums if they could afford the studio time and even then, getting any kind of promotion or distribution beyond the hand to hand underground methods was difficult. We figured that we could at least help a few of our friends.
About 6 years ago now, Craig Cirinelli joined me as label partner, and opened up his own USA office in Northern New Jersey. It's not easy to jump into a label, but he wet his feet right away, picked up a lot, namely ANY stock of bands we still carried releases from, and stocked them in his USA webstore for Engineer that enabled North American fans/customers to purchase at a much more affordable rate due to decreased shipping (than only from the UK). Then he started scouting bands, and brought forth a healthy crop of bands that were up and coming in the tri-state area (NY, NJ, PA). Of them were Merciana, The Moirai, My Shining One, The Fire Still Burns, Catalyst, Calm.Murder and was impressed by a Kentucky band called Squarewell, enough to foster a relationship and in-turn assist in 4 releases for the band during their days of bandhood.
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