The Horror/Voorhees on Earache?

Question: Im wondering since earache has signed SSS, Are you looking into any other members of the thrashgig crew at all eg the horror? Speaking of the horror, I heard that earache offered to sign them back in the day when they were voorhess but the band said no because of their DIY ethics is this true? id be suprised if earache showed no interest as they were one of the main ukhc punk bands back in the 90s. From:

Answer: Earache has a strong Hardcore punk background- after all, its the music that I grew up with, the first 80's wave of US and UKHC bands, but Earache hasnt done too many of those straight up HC bands since HERESY.While I am all in favour of the DIY ethics (hell,I still kinda consider Earache a DIY label)sadly, the purist holier-than-thou attitudes of a lot of current HC bands means they don't want to work with us, and I can accept that, we are just fine with that.

In the 90's Earache spoke to quite a few of the UKHC bands- I honestly dont remember talking to Voorhees, but I recall Knuckledust were one of my faves because they sounded crushingly heavier- but they were always happy enough with their current situation and did'nt fancy working with a bigger label.Fair enough.As a consequence,most of the bands Earache prefers to sign have got to have a much more 'crossover' mindset- meaning a love of all things metal aswell as punk.Iron Monkey for a time were like that, till Steve Watson left, a lot of the 'metalhead' attitude left with him, so they reverted to operating like a traditional HC punk outfit.

SSS fit the crossover bill- thats why we work with them, but even tho I never checked them out properly,I assume The Horror & Voorhees before them are/were steeped 100% in the HC scene and while I applaud their principles and their DIY efforts,its something we dont go for as a label, to be honest, with one exception of
Career Suicide cos they are outstandingly brilliant.

Heres Voorhees in 1995 live at bradford:

Could SLEEP have been massive, like Wolfmother?

Question: do you think if sleep had stayed together they would have been alot more comercially successful than they were? im asking this because they are listed as a main influence of wolfmother on wolfmother\'s who are a band who have made it very big with a similer sound. Im just wondering do you think the orginals could have had the same success? From:


Answer: I know what you mean- on the face of it Sleep were sounding remarkably like Wolfmother, but a decade beforehand.The truth is both bands were influenced by the 70's Hard Rock originators, Black Sabbath, Blue Cheer, Led Zep etc but Wolfmother came out in 2005 to a more mature rock-friendly record buying climate that Sleep didnt benefit from back in the 90's.Sleep did have the chance for stardom when they signed to a major label-London records- but they blew it by wilfully making a 73 minute one song/one riff of an album that the major shelved because it was totally uncommercial.In short, Sleep didnt pander to the corporate Industry game, and you have to applaud them for that.Wolfmother also have more obvious Robert plant vocals that Sleep lacked.So yeah i think if Sleep had cared about making it big, they would have done it, sure..but they just did not give a shit.

make your own mind up by viewing the video we shot of them in 1993:

The Earache & The Prodigy connection

Question: I read somewhere that earache tried to sign the prodigy back in the day is this true? also is this the reason why during the 90s earache picked up the side project of gizz and also why jim ended up in pitchshifter?
Also does earache have any interest in the power violence scene at all, I remember once reading in a fanzine that dropdead had contacted you but it didnt get very far, to which im quite suprised being as dave witte whos in an earache band is a leading figure of the genre. From:

Answer: Funny you should mention The Prodigy- they are one of my favourite bands of all time (along with Slayer).In the early-mid 90's they were responsible for turning me onto Rave/techno music which was coming out of the underground in the UK.The band had banging beats and a certain punky attitude which i thought was fantastic, they still have it to this day.We never got the chance to sign The Prodigy, but the time would have been a year ago when they finished with long-term label XL to go with their own imprint under Cooking Vinyl umbrella.A bold move again from a very savvy band.
In about 1997 Earache was due to sign the English Dogs, a hardcore punk band led by Gizz Butt, himself a scene stalwart, and as we did the signing, he informed us of some weird news- Liam Howlett had hand picked him to be the new live guitarist for The Prodigy, replacing Jim Davies who had famously played guitar on the "firestarter" track and had appeared on and off at live events with them too, but who it seems Liam decided didnt cut it onstage as well as Gizz.Jim was out and Gizz was in. The irony was that English Dogs (who quickly changed name to Janus Stark) made an album for Earache but never toured properly in support of it, since Gizz was wanted by The Prodigy.Jim soon hooked up with Pitchshifter (who were on Earache previously) and had pioneered rave/drumnbass mashed up with metal at around the same time as prodigy, but with less success. So yeah it was weird that the guitarists Earache was working with were both chosen by Liam.

As for Drop Dead, yeah that first pressing of the debut album was a total fave round here, and i think we made contact to try to work with them, but the band were too DIY in their outlook to consider working with Earache, so it never happened. We certainly tried tho!

Scorn- Vae Solis cover explained.

Question: Scorn\'s \"Vae Solis\" is one of the most masterful pieces of intense industrial music ever placed onto plastic. It\'s unique blend of dub, industrial and metal-driven riffs ala Godflesh (Justin Broadrick did play on the CD of course!) yet it\'s still such a mystery to me.

I tried asking Mick Harris himself online about lyrics for the CD but he didn\'t have any. Also, I always wondered what the album title \"Vae Solis\" means, or what exactly is it? Also, what is that on the album cover?

Great CD, but such a mysterious album. From:

Answer:Yeah Scorn's debut Vae Solis is a terrific album, which stands repeated listens even 15 years later, but i think it is merely a hint of the greatness which was soon to come from the duo of Mick Harris and Nik Bullen on 1994's Evanescence album., which is revolutionary. As for the lyrics, Nik used to carry round a small pocket notebook everywhere with him and was constantly writing new ideas/lyrics etc into it..this formed the basis of many of the themes in his works.The cover of Vae Solis (which i think strictly means 'Woeful Sun' in latin- or Black Sun more likely) is a collage of 2 medical photographs superimposed. One photo is an open throat, probably diseased, the other is a cancerous cell, taken with microscope, if memory serves.

Concrete Sox on Earache -80s HC band.

Question: Why didn\'t Earache or has the label ever thought of signing Concrete Sox to their legion of hardcore bands back in the 80\'s? Indeed they did a split album with Heresy but why didn\'t Earache try grabbing in Concrete Sox for a record deal?

In my humble opinion, Concrete Sox were a gem in the hardcore/crossover movement of the 80\'s and sadly, their legacy isn\'t carried on much today other than through P2P mp3 sharing programs (like Soulseek, etc). It would\'ve been great to see Concrete Sox get their own record/CD released on Earache so at least people can get better access to the band (of course, that is if the label decided to reissue their CD\'s.) From:


Answer: Earache's Mosh 2 release was actually my first proper release and as you say was a split LP between 2 of Nottingham's crossover/HC/metal bands at the time,late 80's, HERESY and CONCRETE SOX. It soon became clear that heresy were the much better received by fans at the time, probably because of the amount of touring they undertook. CS tended to stay at home.Also Earache didnt really want to work with CS anymore after the success of Napalm death's scum LP, the label took on a very different course and I signed much more metalcore acts, CS were more a political punk band who loved a bit of metal.As time went on, CS recorded a few more releases and survive in some form to this day, but have always suffered from line up problems.

Evile 7inch FREE with purchase of album

Question: Hey Earache whats up? I heard about an Evile vinyl EP available. How can I get my hands on this. I live in California.From Stevethrash666@gmail.com

Answer: The Evile FREE 7 inch single is only available from the USA EARACHE webstore in the USA> its mainly going to be in UK indie shops,where you can ask for it if you buy the album on Monday 27th August, as well as with pre-orders from earache uk webstore of the Evile debut Enter The Grave album. See this LIST OF STORES

Deicide update..

Question: Any deicide news? are they still together? From: macmullinrobert@yahoo.ca


Answer: Touring as been curtailed as Glen has some legal issues pending BUT that has given the main writer- Steve Asheim- plenty of time to get creative, both Jack owen and Steve have been working on demo-ing some more 'Rock- based' projects and Ralph was ousted during the turmoil, but he quickly resurfaced as Obituary's guitarist.

Deicide DID look to be going nowhere-BUT- incredibly,out of the blue- we just received 8 new DEICIDE songs in demo form, and they are incredible, like Stench material but now even faster, if such a thing is possible.
The band, Glen, Jack, Steve and probably Dave Suzuki (ex-guitarist Ralph Santolla might just appear as guest soloist?) will more than likely enter Morrisound Recordings in September to record the new album.Earache will officially announce its release nearer the time, probably in stores around Jan 2008.As ever with Deicide, all information is subject to change.

Earache Early Releases Pressing quantities

Question: Hi there,
I wonder if there are any detailed informations about the number of copies that were pressed from the \"old\" Earache releases? I\'m trying to complete \"my youth\" what means MOSH1 to MOSH49 on vinyl records. Last week i finally got my MOSH10. It was very hard to find that one. But much harder to find, nearly impossible is e.g. MOSH1. So my question is how many copies were pressed of MOSH 1 to 49? From: m.mahlert@googlemail.com

Answer: Well good luck to you in your search- it was only recently that i got my own copy of MOSH1 on vinyl cos i never put myself a copy aside on release(thanks Lee).The Accused record was not actually pressed by me, it was a co-release with Bristols now long defunct label COR, who kindly made the pressing for me.I suspect maybe 5000 were made on LP at the time, 1987- and no represings ever since cos the rights reverted to the band.
You can get a lot of info on pressings at our catalog page HERE.
Most of the releases 1-49 did come out on vinyl but in varying quantities. The bigger bands Napalm Death, carcass, Entombed, Morbid Angel etc probably did 10,000+ on vinyl and are easily available even 20 years later on ebay etc.Some of the less successful acts had pressings more in the order of 2000-3000 or so.Titles like the first OLD, Intense Degree,Filthy Christians,Spazztic Blurr, Sore Throat, Sweet Tooth just did not sell that well on release so i put the labels energies into the bands who were exploding so the others never waranted a re-press at the time.

By a supreme irony i have a werehouse at a secret location in Nottingham, chock full of unsold vinyl albums from the 90's, and every now and again we visit the place and see lying around some of these long lost classics that collectors would kill for.But we leave them there, gathering dust- unwanted and unloved. Sorry dude.

Former Earache artists new works...

Question: I was wondering out of all the former earache artists whose current musical activities suprise you the most, for me it has to be nick royale of entombed being as he left to concentrate on garage rockers the hellacopters and managed to influence the hives along the way, although hes now come back to death metal with death breath. So which one is it for you. From:


Answer: Most of our former artists- and after 20 years of doing this, we have a LOT of ex-artists- most, to their credit keep on playing the kind of music which they did in the past whilst on the label, best examples are say Bolt Thrower and Morbid Angel.I guess that shows most of our bands stuck to thier guns and given that most of the early Earache musicians were wildly innovative in the orignal death/grind scene, that is how it should be. If you want to know the ex-musicians who have surprised and delighted me the most with their post-Earache output- it has to be Mick Harris and also Justin Broadrick.Thomas Lindberg and Jim Plotkin also fall into that category, for daring to be different.

Mick Harris basically was the prime force in early Napalm death and the super fast drumblast was his innovation, but he left the band and began a totally different musical direction..he began making more electronic music with Scorn.The album he produced called 'Zander' is incredible, its an earth-shaking bass driven dub album, quite unlike anything i had heard before, or since infact. Thats true innovation and creativity right there. As for Nicke ex-Entombed, there were subtle hints of his new hellacopters direction whilst he was still in entombed infact- the Kiss worship in interviews, the choice of New bomb turks to do a split 7inch release with.The rock n roll direction of the hellacopters seemed to be Nickes main choice of style, and he did very well with it after taking the leap from Entombed.

How many Muni Waste vinly LP colors?

Question: Hello Earache,

I\'d like to know the pressing info for the \"the Art of partying\" LP. On what colours and how many of each color will be pressed?

Thanks.

From: jorisvde@hotmail.com


answer: its pressed and onsale today from the Earache webstores.This Thrash-tastic soon-to-be-classic LP is available in a mindboggling -10 -count 'em -different colored slabs o' wax.200 of each exist.Snap em up to be assured of a collectible rarity thats surely gonna be worth stacks in years to come. First come first served!!

Coalesce on Earache circa 1996-7?

Question: two questions for you.

1) Is it true that Dig is the reason for the Book choosing death\'s existance, I read somewhere that albert originally only intended to interview Dig but then the book expanded from that.
2) How did Earache end up signing Coalesce, I mean they werent exactly the type of sound that you would associate with earache at the time and did you look into any other bands from that scene at the time such as botch and converge. From:


Answer:yeah- according to Albert, the catalyst for the book came from the 2 or 3 indepth interviews he did with me for a local Philly mag- around 2000 when we issued a label compilation called "Immortalised",which was 3 cds in a tin can,(to represent a kinda mini-time capsule).I guess he enjoyed me reciting the completely candid story of the explosive rise of this label, from humble beginnings to selling millions of records in early 90's to a kinda downturn in our fortunes in late 90's, and the subsequent rise of death metal acts on other labels- in essence he saw the potential to recount the complete story of the scene.I also reckon the success of books like Lords of Chaos and American Hardcore prompted him to take it further.
As for Coalesce- we signed the band early on to a 7inch record deal,because we saw they had potential and as a HC band they were highly unusual in taking an more open minded stance towards metal cos at the time the 2 scenes rarely mixed.Sadly line up problems meant the band did not progress too well.

EARACHE BAND DECEMBER 2000-2003

Question: What ever happened with December? I picked up The Lament Configuration a few years ago, and about 20 listens later, I finally found what I was looking for. The last news article is from \'04 saying they have a new singer and are recording, but I haven\'t been able to find out a damn thing more about them. \"December\" is a tricky word to google. From: cailinltj@hotmail.com

Answer: yes December were a great band-from Reno, Nevada, and played what might be described as stop /start hardcore with metallic riffs and breakdowns- or in other words-early metalcore.In about 2003 their long-term singer and leader Mark Moots quit the bqnd after 10 years service and the band sadly imploded after that.BUT-They made a great promo clip for the track "host" off the lament configuration album..filmed by Pete Bridgwater at a ranch just outside Reno, if you look carefuly you can see 2 disused jet fighter planes in the aircraft hanger the band are playing in..you can view it here;

Main players in UK extreme metal scene?

Question: I want to ask, who are the main talent agents and companies that earache deals with, I mean with indie and rock you have creation managment (alan mcgee) and hall or nothing( martin hall). Are there less managers working in extreme metal or somthing? From:

Answer:Extreme metal has its main movers and shakers, much like any scene- but because the whole metal scene is quietly shunned by,and exists pretty much under the radar of the music industry as a whole, these people are hardly household names.The scale of operations in extreme metal are basically smaller, as are the financial rewards,which makes the folks toiling away to grow and cultivate the bands more or less have to be fans first and foremost, making a financial 'killing' is the last thing on their minds usually.For example, A huge selling breakthrough extreme metal act-Shadows Fall, say, might sell 250,000 copies of an album in USA, 250,000 in UK&Europe-BUT this is not even in the same league as many of the leading UK indie bands- Kaiser Chiefs sell upwards of 1,000,000 in the UK alone, Kasabian also, Snow Patrol also sell a million here, Coldplay 3 Million.

To answer your question; After the USA heavyweights like Q-Prime (Metallica) and the UK equivalents like Sharon Osbourne(Ozzy) and Rod Smallwood (Iron Maiden) arguably, Craig Jennings (pic above) might be the most important Artist manager in the UK metal scene, handling acts like Bullet for My valentine, Funeral For A friend & Gallows.Andy Farrow in Yorkshire manages a stellar roster of Paradise Lost, Opeth and Skindred.Cradle of filth are managed by Faye Woolven.Many of these managers have grown with the acts after they made their sales breakthroughs.For promotions- many of the labels releasing extreme metal rely on their own in-house promo teams, as its such a specific type of music and you have to be steeped in the scene 24/7 to be respected within it.As freelance tho, Kaz Mercer at Mercenary handles Metallica and Lostprophets,so thats a pretty powerful roster! Owen at hero PR is also freelance, and does FFAF some bigger bands (he used to work at Earache ha ha).Anton Brookes at Bad Moon handles Foo Fighters and is open minded to work with newer acts too.

By and large, being an Independent minded and smallish scene- most people just work the bands they have an affinity with.

Viewing Earache bands tour dates

Question: hi in the uk we have a website called ENTS2 which after search i can find whats happening in any town in the uk. 2 things,is there a website which does simaliar in europe,of are yourselves thinking of doing one. save logging onto individial bands websites. thanks. From: 8haywah@uk.ibm.com

Answer: Earache offers fans to check our bands gigs ina calendar view. go to our front page www.earache.com and you'll see a map of the world.Clicking any continent, or UK graphic, brings up a calendar view of gigs by date/town.Now you can plan your gig viewing in advance..see you down the front!

Earache & Sub Pop ( how we nearly signed Nirvana!)

Question: It has been said before about how earache had negotiated with sub pop to release nivarna material, however im wondering why are godflesh listed as a sub pop artist on their wikipedia page and also in a book about the label\'s history, did earache license the material to them ( perhaps to sweeten the deal for getting nivarna or something) From:


Answer:Earache in the late 80's was making waves in the Uk Indie scene, supported by John Peel etc, and selling a lot of grindcore and Death Metal records.Our UK distributor was Revolver Distro based in Bristol, and working at the distro was an amiable American chap named Gary Held, who ran a DIY one-man label called Tupelo, with i think 4 or 5 releases out(including Sleep's debut).Meanwhile the Uk press were beginning to fawn over the coming Sub Pop-led Seattle grunge scene, most of which i thought was garbage, with one exception- Nirvana- who quickly became my favourite band on the planet, mainly thru the heaviness of the guitars and the sense that they were an intense band.
Meanwhile,Gary Held had pulled off a major coup for his label by licensing the debut Nirvana album for the UK- the story goes that he flew up to the Sub Pop office armed with $1000 in cash and said he's not leaving until they license Bleach to him for UK!
By the end of the day, he had the album! A genius move by any standards..
Tupelo quickly sold out of its first pressing of "Bleach" and The guy hired to do publicity for Tupelo/Nirvana in the UK (Anton of Bad Moon) was also doing Earache's publicity for a short while.Earache and Tupelo quickly became the biggest selling labels thru Revolver distro- so i had a front row seat to witness the Nirvana bandwagon starting to roll in the UK.
You gotta remember tho Nirvana on the debut were deemed very cool by the media,but the band were still quite underground and merely a promising US band among thousands of promising bands, and far from the superstars they(albeit reluctantly)later became.
Earache wanted to license the next album by Nirvana badly- and offered a whopping $13,000 to Sub Pop in order to license the next Nirvana album.It was a fortune for us at the time, but was never even considered, as events began to snowball and Nirvana quickly left Sub Pop to sign to DGC/Geffen.Oh well, - nevermind.


As for Godflesh- Earache licensed a couple of Godflesh tracks to Sub Pop for their 7 inch series, which became their Slateman single.Earache released it on CD for Europe.

Another piece of trivia- The second guitarist on the cover of Bleach is actually Jason Everman, who joined Nirvana briefly as a live guitarist, but did not feature on the recording.Later he joined the band OLD signed to Earache and appears on the lo flux tube album by them.

Earache & the Pathological Compilation (1990)

Question: I\'ve got a CD called the \"Pathological Compilation\", from the label \"Pathological\" (PATH 1). It was distributed by Revolver/Cartel and marketed by Earache. There\'s no date on the disc, but IIRC I picked it up new around 1993. It\'s got Earache bands from that era like Carcass, ND, and Godflesh; along with other bands like Coil, Silverfish, and God. The whole compilation is more industrial than grind - the ND track in particular is uncharacteristically industrial. What was the story behind this disc? Were there anymore releases on Pathological through Earache or otherwise? From: tsukaesugi@yahoo.com


Answer:Earache's leading grindcore bands were starting to make breakthroughs in the wider UK Independent music scene during the late 80's and came to the attention of noted London Indie scenester Kevin Martin.Kevin had earlier promoted one of the earliest Napalm death shows in London- at his 'Mule' club, which was a hotbed of the more open-minded underground London scenesters at the time.
Kevin was a major supporter of the early Earache bands and fancied doing a compilation of the more adventurous UK independent bands around at the time- which included a few of the Earache bands, as well as some of his fave traditionally Independent bands who were doing the rounds at the time, Silverfish, Terminal Cheesecake etc.

Kevin gathered the tracks from the bands (which was probably the first time the Earache bands had the freedom to record songs outside of the album framework, which is why they went for more experimental material)He also named his compilaton and did the art but crucially couldnt find the funds to press the record or distribute it.
Earache liked what he was trying to accomplish so I took on the marketing of the CD for him.Earache released the debut Pathological compilation- i think we did 5000 copies, and after the first pressing sold out we didnt repress it anymore.
After the debut,kevin/Pathological went on alone, to release several more records,- Earache was not involved anymore by that stage- by bands like Terminal Cheesecake and Oxbow..and notably, kevin started the first of his many artist collaborations with Godflesh's Justin Broadrick on the Techno Animalproject (Pictured with kevin, right) which Pathological also released.
Pathological folded a few years later.Kevin and Justin Broadrick went on to record countless collaboration projects for the next decade.

Earache give away 5000 FREE 'Thrash is King' T-Shirts in Hammer mag

Question: Where can I get one of these Thrash is king white shirts? And by the way congrats on signing Evile. From: sdobson666@gmail.com

Answer: we gave out a load of Thrash is King promotional T-shirts to journalists in London recently, maybe its that you have seen.Sorry but that one is now out of print.
However Thrashers in the UK be aware--we are also giving away 5000 Thrash is King shirts (see pics) FREE with the next issue of Metal hammer magazine in the uK, if you buy it from an HMV record store. So- buy your copy of Hammer in HMV from June 6th and claim your FREE thrash T-shirt, packed in the bag.

Earache bands in Guitar Hero Game?

Question: did i hear that you were creating an \"extreme guitar hero game\"? cuz that would be amazing, please say its true. cheers From: purehatred666@hotmail.com


Answer: Our PS2 game -Earache Extreme Metal Racing -is still the only extreme metal type rock game on the market, and its selling quite well. The initial concept was by the developer- Metro 3D, tho we had a large part in choosing the music (obviously) and some input on vehicles.The publishers of our game are currently porting it to the Nintendo Wii platform for release in approx october, and are also working on an 18+ hardcore blood and gore version, and also trying to work in some support for playing it via the Guitar hero controller in a later version.
Meanwhile Earache is also talking to harmonix (Guitar hero developer) about the inclusion of some of our bands in the next Guitar hero game- called "rock band", where players can choose an instrument, form a band and eventually play together in-game and even online.

Tyrant- speed metal band

Question: WE ARE AN UNSIGNED SPEED METAL BAND TRYING TO GET SIGNED. PLEASE LISTEN TO OUR DEMO ON OUR MYSPACE PAGE.www.myspace.com/tyrantthrash

THANKS
-BEAR
DRUMMER OF TYRANT From: WWW.METALBEAR87@YAHOO.COM

Answer: yeah , i like your style, but the songs and riffs you play arent as catchy as fellow Californian Thrashers like Merciless Death or Fueled By Fire, i'm afraid.Good luck to you tho...

Indonesian Death metal bands

Question: is EARACHE looking forward to sign Indonesian Death Metal bands? From: annodaemoni@yahoo.ca

Answer: we never heard any Death metal bands from indonesia, but yeah why not, if they are brutal and original?