Earache -no love for Ted Maul then?

Question: This is an interesting one, how come earache never picked up ted maul? If you look at its inital line up it had peter theobalds on bass who used to be in akercocke but he left if i recal because aks touring and recording comitments made it impossible to do both bands, who was also in ak at the time and also ritz who had a stint as akercocke\'s keyboard player. Also a large proportion of the band worked as roadies for ak. I thought a band that brutally heavy with that kind of association to one of earache\'s better bands would be on the label quite quickly. I mean as far as i know the band are still unsigned with their last album white label being self released by its members. From:

Answer: Hmmm very interesting one, as you say- on paper Earache SHOULD be working with Ted Maul..the band are obviously pushing the envelope musically, with the Drum N bass meets Death Metal angle, which is gaining great reviews, plus the Akercocke connection and we do seem to have a lot in common- it should make it a no-brainer, right?

The problem is Earache itself was experimenting with the Hardcore techno/DnB mashed up with Metal thing in the 90's and so its kinda pretty old news round these parts, and we also know how closed-minded metallers can be to such hybrid sounds- despite critics applauding it.Unless Enter Shikari have made it OK for metal fans nowadays to enjoy mashed-up genres?

Also we have never had any meaningful type dialogue/contact with Ted Maul,for some reason they keep their distance from us- maybe it was because Akercocke were already on Earache, we also know they have a strong DIY ethic within the band, which we can understand, and are aware they prefer to do their own thing, which is actually how a lot of bands choose to operate these days-myspace allows bands to interact with fans so much easier than in the even recent past.Many dont actually need a label.

To an outsider it probably looks crazy that we arent working with Ted Maul..but for various reasons the band and label never got together.We think they are a cool bunch of dudes, but its just one of those things.

Earache & Taint?

Question: Im just wondering did earache have any interest in welsh sludge/post metal/hardcore punk crew taint. My reason for asking is because everytime they have played nottingham the past few times there seems to be a few earache staffers at their shows were you guys checking them out as a possible future earache band or somthing? From:

Answer: Yeah quite a few of the staffers have always loved TAINT - in fact that whole ACRIMONY/BLACK EYE RIOT Wales Sludge/doom scene goes down well on thee Earache death deck.TAINT have a lot in common with CLUTCH to my mind, but I don't think we ever tried to sign them tho- they have been signed to Lee Dorrian's Rise Above label so we leave them alone.I notice they have a newie out now and are touring including a Nottingham show. We should be in attendance as usual, we are at most decent shows in the town after all.

CARCASS have reformed

Question: Hi there,is it true that Carcass reunion?as far that i know,ken owen are having badly brain tumor disease.Is he recover?If that all true,i will could pay thousand dollar to fly over seas to see Carcass play at ozzfest!-ma\'el-(malaysia) From: maelsick666666sense@yahoo.com

Answer: Well you better get saving up for your flights my friend, because it is true that CARCASS will reform to play some shows next summer at European festivals- we hear currently: TUSKA 2008, WACKEN 2008 & HELLFEST 2008, and maybe more to be announced. The band recently met up in London to be filmed for a series of retrospective DVD's which we are releasing next year.You are right about Ken tho- he suffered an accidental brain hemorrhage in 1999 which left him in a coma, literally fighting for his life- after an amazing fightback,and a lot of rehabilitation he is now fully able- but drumming a full live set would be too taxing- so the drummer on the shows will be Daniel Erlandson (Mike Amott's band mate in Arch Enemy).

Heres CARCASS video for "Keep on Rotting In The Free World"

What happened to Pulkas?

Question: What happened to Pulkas???? From: angharad.jones@orange.net

Answer:They were a fantastic band while they lasted were PULKAS.Earache signed the London band after they played a handful of gigs in 1998, and recorded them with famed producer Colin Richardson for the debut album "Greed".On its release -to rave reviews- it became obvious that the band could easily go onto great things, as their brand of groovy/alternative-leaning metal was breaking big, if you recall, 1998 was the era when Deftones/Tool etc were coming through on the world scene, selling lots of albums.

Sensing their greatness deserved better than the indie label they had just signed to, the band wasted no time in recruiting a manager who proceeded to shop them to major labels, even tho the band were contracted to us for 3 more albums.They broke off all contact with Earache so we were forced to spend 2 years wrangling via lawyers, defending our quite legitimate legal and moral position.At some point in the protracted process, the band split up.Almost 10 years on, the album was so ahead of its time, it still sounds contemporary-like it could have been released last week- but I dont think the ex-members have been in any notable bands since.

Strange things are happening and the band is getting a bit of attention lately in 2009- 11 years after the album- so heres the bands only video clip, LOADED.

The Freezing Fog & Beecher

Question: If a band breaks up under contract to earache, what normally happens in regard to the former musicans new projects does earache have rights to first listen to decide if they want to pick them up or not, for example the band of ex beecher members the freezing fog would earache have had first rights to check the demos out to gauge interest or not? From:

Answer: The usual contract is such that the individual members are signed, not the band-so when a band splits mid-contract, Earache has the option to continue with any members' new outfits, or not.In the case of Beecher, the band split up quite suddenly and unexpectedly, soon after the release of their first album for us, while promotion was still ongoing infact.The band persevered through a couple of gruelling Euro tours making seemingly little or no headway in terms of building a career, which kinda made the guys re-think their priorities.
Earache chose not to pick up the option to continue.Now some 2 years later, ex-Beecher members are back as THE FREEZING FOG and while they have mutated into a more stoner/cathedral rock vibe, its not something Earache would be interested in right now.Beecher were cruelly under-appreciated when they were going, and in many ways spearheaded the UK screamo/death scene which many bands have embraced with much greater success since.

Gallows & Earache?

Question: Is it true that earache turned down Gallows, Aparently on the
night they got signed they were playing a gig at rock city according to them
reps from all three of the nottingham metal labels were there and they said
that iatde were the only ones that offered them a deal, do you regret this
decision now being as they are being scene as \"saviours\" of the uk extreme
metal/punk/hardcore scene. From:


Answer:Earache never really even knew about Gallows until after the IATDE debut.I dont remember there being much of a fuss about them in our office, their 'greatness' was'nt recognised by us at all until quite recently.You could say we were slow off the mark.

I don't regret not getting involved in them, we have enough on our plate with the bands we already signed. We think fair play to mark at iatde records for taking the chance and he has earned the kudos that his decision deserved.Both Gallows and IATDE are both doing great it seems, so more power to them.

The Music Biz- it's what we do..

Question: hi there, my names Mark and I\'m studying music at college and I just wanted to ask a few questions about Earache as a record label.
Has Earache always been a completely independent label or have there ever been any occasions where they have helped bands with more than just promotion or distribution. For instance, have you ever organised tours/gigs or cover art for any bands.
How do you usually find your acts and do bands often send their demos to you?
Do you handle the royalties for music you‚ve released if it gets played on the radio or some other form of media?
Thanks.
From: smets.mark@gmail.com

Answer:Earache has always been an 100% Independent label.Meaning its ownership is out of the hands of the big 4 Major music labels which between them control approx 75% of the worlds music output- labels like Universal, SONY-BMG, Warners and EMI.We are not part of them so do not have to pander to shareholders and such like.In this age of myspace and free Mp3s, promotion and distro is often overlooked-- i mean, Earache's Cds are currently available in over 20 countries of the world.This is no mean feat, we oversee the manufacture and distro of Cds into basically 20 warehouses across the globe from which shops obtain the cd.If you visit stores in Melbourne,Manchester, Madrid, Moscow, or Michigan you find Earache CDs in stores.

What we basically bring to the table is knowledge and experience of career development for bands, and the means and finances to carry it out.For touring we usually hook the band up with an agent ho deals with clubs and bookings on behalf of the act, but if they are too new, we do it instead. For artwork bands have creatiuve freedom, so they supply art - or if not, we usually carry out the bands wishes. we help out all our bands especially in the early stages of a career.

We find bands all over- not usually from demos in the mail tho..we scour myspace for great new bands who are original and talented and who wanna work hard to acheive a career.Some bands are signed after we see them perform live, we are always checking out opening bands, the ones on the bottom of the bill are what we like to see..On a typical week I personally can see 5 new bands, between our A&R staff its gotta be 20, in clubs in Nottingham, New York, London and further afield.

For royalties, we collect the money from sales in all formats, CD, Digital downloads and as the song publisher from radio airplay too.This is paid to the artists twice a year according to contract, if the bands recoup the recording costs.

hope that explains how it works.

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.