Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Scorn recordings - own label on Earache


Question: Since you\'ve graciously answered a couple of my other questions, I figured I\'d try one more that\'s been nagging at me for more many years. Scorn released their first three full lengths and they all have Mosh catalog numbers and Earache labels, but after Evanescence the next three full lengths say Scorn Recordings marketed by Earache and have a Scorn catalog number. After Gyral then, my copies of White Irises Blind and Deliverance have Mosh catalog numbers. What\'s the story behind that? From: tmeisenheimer@yahoo.com

Answer: Scorn is such a creative and revolutionary band, I can't even find the words to describe their importance- iconoclastic, peerless and visionary is the best i can come up with.The music they created during their formative Earache years predated the coming trends- Dubstep etc- by at least a decade.
But back in the early- mid 90's when they were first a trio of ex-napalm Deathers Broadrick/Harris/Bullen and soon reduced to a core duo of Bullen/Harris they werent always considered so groundbreaking, in fact the predominant viewpoint held by fans at the time was- "Mick, forget this dub crap, get back together and play grindcore!".

This attachment to the past on the part of the fans became a bit of a millstone around the act, and sales for the early Scorn albums were low because of it.At the time Earache was synonymous with extreme metal/death metal and grindcore- so when a band branched out so far from the main sound of the label, it would cause an absolute outcry from the purists and fanatics of the genre.
In various ad-hoc meetings, a sub-label type of scenario would get mentioned, to distance Scorn from Earache, while still being signed to Earache, to give them a fighting chance to break away from the ND past, and on the plus side it was to encourage more open-minded music fans to purchase Scorn.The band had no peers, the closest fanbse we could think of was say, PIL fans, and we basically didnt want them to be put off from buying by the Earache logo, expecting Death Metal when its ambient Dub infact.So we removed the Earache logo and substituted a generic SCORN recordings logo instead.Sales hardly improved, hence stopped the experiment.

Looking back, it was purely cosmetic addition to the sleeve, it was still marketed and distributed and promoted by Earache so it was basically just a vanity thing really.

Scorn- Silver Rain Fell (1994) (fan made clip has Amy Lee images ha ha)

No comments: