Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Earache and Rise Above Records?


Question: I read in an article that earache helped lee dorrian start Rise Above when he first began the label when he was in napalm death, is this really the case? From:

Answer: The truth is a bit more convoluted than that.Me and Lee have had a friendly relationship most of the time, and Lee wanted to get his fledgling label off the ground while he was still in Napalm Death, but the band were exclusively signed to Earache, and I guess permission had to be granted by me for him to release the Napalm Death live 7inch (Rise001),which certainly got Rise Above Records noticed and off to a flying start, tho Earache cannot claim any credit more than giving the release our blessing-we certainly did not have any active role in Rise Above, it was all Lee's vision and funding, and hard graft.
Slightly later,around the time of the Dark Passages LP, where Rise Above really came into its own in my view, with its unique vision of Doomy music,extensive contract talks were held between myself and Lee's manager/representative about Rise Above becoming an official in-house sub-label of Earache's but nothing came of it(err, looking back,i have no idea why we didnt speak directly on the subject).Lee remained signed as an Artist to Earache as vocalist of Cathedral throughout the 90's and to help Rise Above's early years we also -quite kindly in my view- agreed for the pre-Earache Cathedral demos to come out on Rise Above rather than Earache, as the In Memoriam 12", thereby further putting Rise Above on the musical map.
Apart from giving our blessing to Lee to release Napalm Death and Cathedral material, both bands being signed exclusively during the 90's to Earache,we had no other involvement.
Earache collectors and scene watchers will notice that NO OTHER label has released Earache bands' material before or since.

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