In the late spring of 1992 they expended to a second guitarist, and after trying out a couple guys (including Chris Ansley), settled on Chris Logan. With this addition, BOS started playing in the states, mostly in Buffalo. Chris Logan who was starting up Structure Records, wanted to repress the demo and that ended up being the first release for Structure. They started sending out a lot of these demos to labels across the the continent, but for the rest of the year, BOS continued to play shows with this stable line-up. They then appeared on their first compilation, Structure Records Hardcore Compilation, created by Sandy Robertson, which used the song “Those Days” from the demo.

In early 1993, Joe Villella invited the band down to Lockport, NY to record four songs at Watchmen Studios with Doug White. This was going to be the band’s first 7″ called “Thicker Than Blood” on Joe’s own label Gloomandoom Records. Chris Logan did not appear on this recording, due to his dedication to Chokehold; he only appeared live with Burst of Silence. So they recorded as a four piece. When Joe received the test press, and showed it to the band, it turned out that something went wrong and it sounded horrible. With some arguments, the release was cancelled. In order to use the songs, BOS decided to add them on all future dubbings of the Structure Records version of the demo, which was s very limited amount. It was during this time that they played a certain show in Massachusetts, with Chokehold, that winter and were in a car crash on their way down. Christian ended up having to go to the hospital with a whiplash, and was bandaged up. They still played the show, but were mysteriously never payed for it!

In September of 1993, BOS played a show in a church just outside of Chicago, where they met Tony Brummel of Victory Records. During the show, the band was impressed at how many people were actually signing along to their songs, even though they still didn’t have a record out. It wasn’t long before Iain Hursey of Stability Distros contacted them to put out a 7″ for the label he was starting up. Iain sent the band to Mainway Studios in Burlington, ON, in October of 1993 to record four new songs with producers Shawn Velloin and Atilla Turi. Kyle Bishop, Sean Moriarty and Greg Taylor, who were still in Incision, provided backup vocals on the recordings. By October 29th, 1993 the test press was made, and “Thicker Than Blood” was released in late November/early December. Victory was distributing Stability Records, and by mid-December they had already sold 600 of the 1000 records pressed. The 7″ pressing was 300 on maroon red, 100 on swirl and 600 on black. BOS would play a great deal of shows in the midwest area right after this, as Iain was booking them all over the place. Chris Logan would leave the band to commit fully to Chokehold after being in the band for a little over a year and did not tour for the 7″. Chris Ansley tried out once more for the second guitar position, having lived on and off with them during the last few years. His guitar skills had improved greatly since the last tryout and this time he was accepted. They started gaining more metal influences during the summer, listening to Cannibal Corpse, Death, Bloodlet, Neurosis, Slugfest.

By the time January 1994 came about, Sam was asked to leave the band for the more fitting Aaron Petrie. They were heading in a metal direction and Aaron, who had been friends with Christian for a while, fit those needs. In this early part of the year, Jeff Jawk released the compilation “What Still Holds True” which used the song “Hold True” and also featured Chokehold. BOS started writing new material almost immediately with the new drummer. They continued to play shows almost every weekend, continuing with Chokehold and quite often with Sun Still Burns.

The 7″ had been so successful for Stability that it was only in April 1994 that he sent them back to Mainway Studios to record a full-length album, once again with Shawn. BOS had hoped to get the 12″ released by the beginning of the summer for their tour, but Stability was pressing the Bloodlet 7″, so it got put off. The album was going to be called “Burning” and they even pressed a few shirt designs with the album cover for the tour. Stability started promoting this album with posters and flyers all over the place. Before their summer tour however, BOS were invited to play at the three day A New Hope Hardcore Festival in Madison, Wisconsin in late May 1994. Iain put together the fest, and BOS got Sun Still Burns and Chokehold on the bill as well (but Chokehold ended up not going). SSB and BOS were set to share equipment down at the show, but as BOS had the van and were taking Matt Jones and Tim Delowska with them, they didn’t have much more room than for their guitars. BOS ended up using Ricochet’s gear at the fest when they played Saturday May 28th. SSB was set to play on Sunday May 29th, but BOS had promised to bring the van back to the family friends who had lent it to them. Of course this caused some problem for one of the bands…

Upon returning, Iain and Ryan started booking a month-long tour of the states for the summer. The tour would be 25 shows in 30 days in July 1994. The 5 guys of BOS were paired with Iain and his girlfriend in a 1986 Ford Econoline van. The tour started out in Wisconsin, then went to Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo, Erie, then through New England down to New York and New Jersey, down the eastern coast of North and South Carolina and Virginia. No doubt like any tour with limited living space, tensions built up. Throughout the tour, BOS sold a load of different shirt designs, and Iain distributed flyers and posters of the new album that was coming out. After the tour, Aaron Petrie was kicked out of the band, and Chris Ansley announced that he had been sleeping with Iain’s girlfriend the entire time. As soon as Iain found out, he dropped the band and refused to release their full-length album.

To fill in the drum position, they added Curtis Langridge, who was Zak’s cousin and had also played in Sub Level with Ryan. They continued to do a great deal of shows in Ontario and the north-midwest states. A dude from California (let me know if you know who it was) contacted Ryan for BOS to do a split with A Chorus of Disapproval, and of course the band said yes. He sent money up for them to go record a single song, “Rain”, at Mainway once again. They sent him the song, and they never heard from him again.

Hollywood Records (yes the same one owned by Disney) was interested in setting up a meeting with the band, for a possible contract for their newly formed subsidiary Hollywood Metal. They sent Iain a fax and a meeting was to take place during a three-show weekend mini tour where they were supposed to play Chicago, Indianapolis and Detroit. On their way that Friday, they were stopped at the US crossing border, and when they were searched, some weed was found in Curtis’ wallet (contrary to recent blog myths, BOS was never a straight-edge band, they only featured some straight-edge members). The band was refused entrance in the states, and a slow depression started setting into the band, after having lost the chance to be on a major label. At the tail end of 1994, Zak and Christian quit the band because they knew touring was now going to be an issue and they wanted no part of a major label association. Although they kept being asked to play shows all over the states, that was the end of Burst of Silence. There was no search for replacements.

In 1996, Dave Buschmeyer was putting together the compilation called “Benefit for the Buffalo Animal Defense League” and chose a song from BOS’s catalog to include on the unreleased compilation. Recently, Joe Villella went back to Watchmen Studios to remaster the original version of Thicker Than Blood.

Burst of Silence Complete Discography

What years was the band around and who was in it?
System Overload was founded in Dartmouth, NS in the summer of 1984. Bjarni (Dave) Schandall and I founded the band (originally called Forced Submission) when we were in Ellenvale Junior High School. We were blown away by Black Flag, specifically the “Everything Went Black” record that had all the different Black Flag singers and all the ads for Flag shows in the early 80′s. That was a huge inspiration for us to form a band. The original lineup was Bjarni (drums), myself (screaming) and a guitarist named Billy Coulter. Billy’s two favourite bands at the time were Black Sabbath and the Forgotten Rebels, so he was in. Soon Johnny MacKenzie, formally of False Security, joined us on bass and System Overload was born. We played our first show at Veith House, a woman’s shelter in Halifax, during the winter of ’85/86. Unfortunately, after this gig, Billy and System Overload parted ways, but not long afterwards Leonard Woolley left STD and joined us. In 1987 Todd Calder joined SOL as a second guitarist to beef up the sound. This line up played together for several years. We played our last show in May 1989 at the Dalhousie SUB with a great Montreal band called Bliss.

Did you only have the one demo? I know there is a live set with songs not on the demo but were they ever recorded? Was there ever any talk of doing a 7″ or LP?
Yes, the only official recorded document of System Overload’s time together is the 1986 “Rocks Off” cassette. There is also a 1988 live recording of us playing at the CKDU TUNS festival. It’s actually a decent recording and it captures most of the songs that we had written at the time which would never have been recorded otherwise. No, we never seriously discussed recording or releasing records. We were a gigging live band throughout the 80′s, into playing shows and the tape trading scene, so records were not a big deal to us.

Did you tour much and if so where??
We did a fair amount of touring, playing all over Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. We had one (semi) serious tour that included NS, NB, Quebec and Ontario. Thankfully, we had the chance to play or tour with several great bands: Warzone (NYC), SCUM (Mtl), Problem Children (Hamilton), SNFU (Edmonton), Mallethead (ex-Gang Green, Boston), Neighbourhood Watch (Fredericton), Moral Support (Hfx), False Security (Hfx), Black Forest Cake Trade (Saint John), Killing Time/Burnt Offerings (Moncton) and many more.

Could you tell me about the show you played with Warzone! That is amazing!
We actually played a few shows with Warzone on their debut Canadian tour for “Don’t Forget the Struggle, Don’t Forget the Streets” in Aug./Sept. 1988 throughout Ontario and Quebec. Raybeez was very serious and supportive of what we were doing and was enthusiastic about us coming to NYC, which never happened. The rest of the guys in Warzone at that time were younger then Raybeez. They were having a blast being on the road. They were a riot! I remember they just tore it up at les Foufounes Electriques in Montreal, bloody great show.

What caused the band to end? What are the members doing now? I hear you are still doing music and have a band!
System Overload, like most bands, just ran its natural course. We were together for five years and accomplished everything we hoped to. By ’89 we were all older, listening to different music and moving in different directions. I do believe it’s important to recognize when something is over, although it can be difficult when all individuals involved are not on the same page. Thankfully that wasn’t the case with SOL. In the 90′s Johnny, Leonard and Todd had a great band called the Quahogs, with the late, great Scott Tappen singing. Bjarni became heavily involved in sailing after the band and has sailed all over the globe. I’ve been playing in bands across Canada for the last 20+ years, although I have slowed down over the last two years.

How would you compare the music scene back the to the way it is now?
This is a difficult question because technology has transformed everything. I think there are as many incredible bands out there today as there were back then. Networking is definitely easier for bands today. It’s still nice to see a band piling into a van to venture into the unknown to bring their music to the people. Thankfully that hasn’t changed over the last 25+ years.

And as usual…download this:

SYSTEM OVERLOAD DISCOGRAPHY

In all the label worked with six Canadian hardcore bands on eight different releases. Here is the rundown:

ODS001 1998 – Ignorance Never Settles – Within the Vast Realms of Dying (split with Incision) 7″
ODS003 1999 – Confine – The Beginning of the End CD
ODS016 2002 – In Dying Days – Life As a Balancind Act CD
ODS023 2002 – Boys Night Out – Broken Bones and Bloody Kisses CD
ODS026 2003 – In Dying Days – After the Fire CD
ODS028 2003 – Jude the Obscure – The Coldest Winter CD (with Defiance Records)
ONR040 2006 – Rosesdead – Stages CD (with Black Box Recordings)
ONR042 2008 – Boys Night Out – Broken Bones and Bloody Kisses LP (with Forge Again Records)

So when you first formed the label, where were you located? And how far from the Canadian border was that?

The label was started in Williston Park, NY, which is located on Long Island. I believe it’s about 8 hours from the Canadian border.

Right because you were still in SkyCameFalling. Did you tour with the band to Canada?

Yes, we did one show on our very first tour in Ottawa. We booked the tour ourselves so we were pretty excited that we actually were able to go to play there.

Who played there, if you can recall? And did you see any other shows while up there at that moment?

It’s been quite a long time, so in all honesty if I named any bands it would just be me guessing. I am fairly certain that Matias, from Buried Inside, did the show. Unfortunately we were in and out so we did not have a chance to see much else. I remember being concerned about crossing the border.

Why is is that so many bands have problems crossing the border when they come and go from Canada? I constantly hear stories of memebers not passing through, more in the 90s than now. It would seem legit for a band to come play a show no?

We actually had heard a lot of stories so I think we were more scared than anything else. For the most part we used the excuse that we were just crossing through to Detroit every time but once. We tried to go the legal, working paper route on one occasion which unfortunately was the only time we were delayed several hours and almost denied. I assume they caught on to what bands were doing by sneaking in and playing and eventually tried to put a stop to it.

What was the first Canadian hardcore record you heard?

It was more than likely Chokehold “Content with Dying”.

That’s in the top 5 classics of Canadian hardcore. When you decided to do the Godlike Communication Group around 1997, you originally contacted Confine for a compilation. Did you also contact other Canadian bands for this?

I think I originally intended to release a compilation. I’m not sure exactly what bands I was hoping to include but I am pretty sure it was the first few artists from the original ODS releases like Ignorance Never Settles. A lot of the bands I communicated with was over vic-chat, which many of you remember as the Victory Records chat room. It’s where I first started talking with Mike Charette of INS.

They were going through their Bloodlet type of phase. And you were lucky enough to release their split with Incision. Did you find it funny that there was also a pre-Grade band also named Incision? It was a little confusing for me the first time I read about Incision, trying to figure out if there were actually two bands, one from the states and one from Canada, but the one from states was doing the split with the Canadian band…

I actually did not know about that Incision until after the split was released. I am not sure exactly how I became aware of it but I do remember seeing ads after the 7″ was already out for a re-released 12″.

Yes that was the Grade/Incision split in around 98-99 from Workshop Records. It was a vinyl issue of their second demo from 1993. What side of the split do you feel did better? Ignorance Never Settles or Incision? Were more copies sold in the mid-west or in Canada?

There were only 500 of the records pressed. Most of those copies I ended up trading with other labels rather than selling them. With the label being so new at the time and bands also being fairly new (at least in the states), I was really just trying to get the name out there.

I never actually heard early INS so I can’t really be sure exactly how that material stacked up against their earlier material. I was amazed by the Incision track as well as their demo. The INS material definitely reminded me of Bloodlet or bands of that ilk. The bands definitely complimented each other really well and I was quite pleased with how it turned out.

Both bands were really great indeed and matched perfectly. So in 1999 you once again contacted Confine about working with them. Did you also want to work with Avarice (who also shared a member of Ignorance Never Settles) as they had done the split with Confine that you loved oh so much!

I dont remember if I ever communicated with Avarice with the intent of releasing a record for them. I am not sure why exactly. I did like the split as well as their demo. Actually the first time I remember hearing Confine was on the split when Skycamefalling was staying at a house that Avarice had stayed at a few weeks earlier.

The Confine record you released actually featured four new songs and three songs from the mentioned split. Why did you or the band decide to have those on the CD rather than just have a short EP of only new songs?

I am not sure who suggested it or how it came to be but what I do recall is that the topic was the subject of some drama. I was under the impression that the label who released the split, Red Star Records, had given the okay for the tracks to be used. Years later I came to find out that they had not. I never communicated directly with them which was obviously my fault as well so it was definitely a bummer when I learned that they were upset about the situation. I am sure the record would have been fine with just the new tracks. I dont think there were any ulterior motives.

In 2002 you released In Dying Day’s second EP “Life As a Balancing Act”. How did you first hear about this band? Was it because they released their first EP on Re-Define Records, who were supposed to release the last Confine EP in 2000?

Yes, it definitely was through the Re-Define EP. I was really impressed with them and contacted them almost immediately after hearing it. I was already friendly with Phil who was also in A Death For Every Sin. Phil explained to me that they were thinking about signing with Good Life when I offered to release a record for them.

That’s right, they had a live performance featured on one of the GoodLife videotape compialtions.

I think they also had a song released on one of the Good Life samplers too.

You think they were enjoyed in the states, or most of the records were sold in Canada?

I know they had quite following in Canada. I definitely think the first EP gave them quite a bit of exposure here in the states. Unfortunately the crossing the border for touring was always troublesome so they definitely were not able to tour as much as they could have. Still, I definitely think they were poised for something great. It’s a shame they never reached that point.

Boys Night Out only had their EP “You Are My Canvas” prior to you releasing their first ep “Broken Bones and Bloody Kisses”. How did you catch their breeze and what made you want to sign them up?

Scott Sheridan, singer of Blue Skies Burning, who helped me out with the label from time to time, happened to hear of them. He sent me the links to check them out and honestly I was floored. There was something about them that was really unique. At the time the whole singing/screaming thing really hadn’t caught on and the fact they blended it more pop/punk with hardcore and dark imagery really appealed to me.

I instantly called Ferret after contacting them and he was just as floored as I was. So we worked out a deal that they would sign to Ferret and ODS at the same time.

That’s really cool! I didn’t it was done at the same time! How did the release of “Broken Bones and Bloody Kisses” come through?

Well I emailed the band and we chatted on the phone. Once Ferret heard You Are My Canvas he was on board so we set up a show for them in NY and they came down and played and we all agreed on an ep with ODS and full length(s) with Ferret.

I had them come down to Long Island to record at a studio here. I picked the 3 songs for them to re-recorded since I really loved those tunes and they recorded 3 new ones they had written.

How many pressings of that album have been made over time?

Somewhere around 10,000 I think, give or take a few thousand. It was by far ODS most successful release.

In 2003 IDD were ready for their last EP “After the Fire”. How did that go down?

IDD was already breaking up which I was bummed about. They had a pretty big buzz going at the time, they played Hellfest. But getting into the states and touring was always tough. So that side of things never came together. And in my opinion, it really slowed that buzz down. They had the tracks written and asked if I would be into releasing them. I really loved the band so I agreed. We did one pressing and much like any release that comes out after a band is broken up, it was a slower seller. But I am happy I did the release.

I gotta tell you, the first time I heard the next release, Jude the Obscure’s album “The Coldest Winter”, I was blown away. Canada really had the best noisecore/mathcore bands. Apart from Dillinger Escape Plan and The Chariot, we had it all in the 2000s (Spread the Disease, Maharahj, Buried Inside, The End, The Abandoned Hearts Club, The Separation Suicide, etc)! How did you first hear of JTO?

JTO was first introduced to me by Portland who worked for Ferret. They had received a demo from Jude and didn’t really have the time/money to work with a new band so they sent it my way and I was blown away by it.

The album was recorded before you signed them?

Yup. It came together pretty quickly once their signing was announced to the actual release.

I believe this was the first time you co-operated with another record label to release an album? It was pressed and distributed by Defiance Records in Europe?

Right. Defiance and I were always sharing new releases. They were good guys and I really loved a few bands on the label. They came to visit in the states and we met up. I gave them a Jude record and they loved it so they asked if they could release it in Europe, which I agreed to.

Alright now Rosesdead’s album is actually my all time favorite Canadian album. Its such a masterpiece! They were already signed with BlackBox Recordings when you co-released their album “Stages” with them, how did you get involved in the picture?

Well I was a huge fan of Fordirelifesake, and when I found out Wedge was doing another band I contacted him. They put me in touch with BlackBox and I asked to license the record for an official release in the states. I loved that record. Definitely another one of my favorites. There is a certain feeling that record conveys.

The last thing you released from a Canadian band was the LP reissue of Broken Bones. This was after the band had broken up, what made you decide to reissue this?

So Justin from Forge Again always wanted to release BNO on vinyl and I guess he attempted to contact both Ferret and ODS some time ago. Unfortunately for whatever reason, we never actually ended up discussing it and Ferret was not really licensing their records for vinyl anyway. So when Justin and I actually did sync up, we decided to release it together. We took advantage of a deal that United had for vinyl, which basically was a set number of records on any color vinyl they picked and we went with that for a pretty limited run.

So what was the pressing info for that release?

First press was around 500. Then there was a second press which included some 180g copies and a few other colors.

Thanks for this great interview Chris! Any last words on working with Canadian bands?

Canada always has always been churning out some incredible bands. I feel fortunate to have released those records and worked with those bands. I am excited to hear what the next generation of bands will sound like.

The Redstar catalog:

RSR001 Garbagedrink – Storyforest CD (1995)
RSR002 Avarice – Demo tape (1997)
RSR003 Avarice/Confine – split CD (1998)
RSR004 The Sound and the Fury comp CD (1999)
RSR005 Dead to the World/Kid Gorgeous – split CD (2000)
RSR006 Darker Day Tomorrow – No Sleep in Forty Days CD (2000)
RSR007 Budget Sampler: It’s All About the Money comp CD (2001) with Goodfellow and Surprise Attack

Let me start out this interview by saying that it’s a huge pleasure to finally do this, after trying to trace you down for a couple years now! Redstar was an amazing record label! What is the origin of Redstar Records, and how did you guys come together?

Brendan and I met in high school in Hamilton. He played drums in the school jazz band and in a couple of indie rock bands. He was acquainted with some friends of mine, and we met through them. Hamilton has a great indie scene – everyone sort of knows everyone – so it was inevitable that we met, and that’s how it happened. In terms of founding the label, Brendan founded it with his indie rock band so they could release a CD. The name of the label was a not so veiled reference to communism. Basically, each person, through pre-ordering a CD, would communally pay for a large percentage of the record’s manufacturing costs and, in return, they would get two additional CDs to sell to some other friends who, hopefully, didn’t go to our school. If they sold their two CDs, they’d get their initial investment back, and people in other places would know about the band/label. It was a communal idea with a capitalist kick in the ass. But it worked out well for them. For small labels, “worked out well” meant you approached breaking even. That’s what you hoped for.

In the next few years, as Brendan was involved more and more in the hardcore scene, and in playing in hardcore bands, he wanted to have a label to release this music. I pointed out that he already had one, though it hadn’t been used for a while. In the meantime, we were running a distro through Sonic Unyon Records that sold hardcore records at shows and by mail order, and we needed a name for that too, so we used the old name and moved into a new genre. The label was something I could contribute to. I had time to do it. I wasn’t in a band and have no musical talent. Brendan worked, played drums in Avarice and Ignorance Never Settles, and commuted to and from the University of Guelph. I was just working and going to McMaster. Our first release was a demo tape for Avarice, and then we put out a split CD for Avarice and a band from Oakville called Confine.

The Avarice demo is now a forgotten release, mainly for the reason that it was so horribly recorded (according to the band), and you mentioned that it was a very DIY type of release. How did you and Brendan team up for this tape release? How many copies were made?

The demo WAS badly recorded. It was done in a studio in downtown Hamilton that a guy ran out of his basement. We could barely load all of the equipment down there. It was tiny. The guy who ran it ended up specializing in hardcore bands, not that he intended to, and not that he wanted to, but his equipment was so bad and his room was so small, that the only music that could even begin to hide the poor recording quality had to be loud, thrashy, screamy, and heavy. A lot of incredible music came out of that place. Left for Dead recorded all of their songs there. Chokehold recorded their Tooth and Nail 7″ there. Haymaker did some of their stuff there. Ignorance Never Settles recorded their demo there which, remixed and remastered, became the split CD with Mark of the Devil, and the song for their split 7″ with Incision also came out of that session. It’s too bad, because all of the songs on all of those records were great, and they would have benefited from better production – although it’s hard to say that anything about those Left for Dead songs could be improved. But the studio was incredibly cheap, and bands could do a lot of takes and not have to worry about how much it was going to cost, so it was a great place for bands to go, which is likely the only reason anyone went there – aside from it being local.

I think we made about a hundred copies of the demo, at the most. We had some CD-Rs of the songs made, and then we dubbed all of the tapes on as many tape decks as we could get our hands on. Brendan and I did as many as we could at our houses, and the guys from Avarice were dubbing them too. It was a collective effort that took a long time. We did the typical handmade, photocopied black and white inserts – totally inspired by the Left for Dead demo, on the same brand of cassettes they used too – and just kept making them and selling them as they played shows. We did the layout on a really slow computer and it took ages. Brendan found the cover photo in a book of photography documenting the casualties of the two World Wars and we really liked it, so we scanned it and he modified it in Photoshop.

Most of the songs on that tape were good songs, and the band re-recorded many of them for the split CD with Confine. When Brendan and R.J. recorded the Avarice songs for the split 7” with Daemon’s Jaded Passion, from Germany, they re-recorded another song from the demo so, in the end, there was only one song on the demo that wasn’t re-recorded, because it was the worst song on it. So it didn’t make sense to make the demos anymore. Why would anyone want poorly recorded, slower, sloppier versions of the songs when better ones were available?

I saw on a very early design of the Avarice/Confine split cd the label was spelled “Red Star Records”, and it also had the catalog number of “CD 001″. Was there some changes of the spelling of the label name during its run? And how come the original design was labeled as “CD 001″ while the released one was “CD-3″? Why was this artwork never used?

The label was always Redstar Records – spelled that way – so the spelling on the early design was a mistake. In terms of the catalogue number of 001, that was also a mistake. When Gordie Ball, who played guitar in Confine, and James Hamilton, who later went on to do Re-Define Records, did the layout for the CD, they weren’t aware that Redstar had already released an indie rock record, or that our first hardcore release – admittedly amateurish – was the cassette we did for Avarice. The Avarice/Confine split CD was our third release, so we asked them to change that.

The early design wasn’t used because, frankly, a couple of the guys in Avarice didn’t like it. I think Gordie did the artwork for the cover, and James did the layout, but what we ended up with was so much better, I’m happy we didn’t use the early design. James and Gordie were a bit frustrated to go back to the drawing board, but they did a great job on the second layout and, from a design perspective, it is much more unique and creative. The first design was pretty plain, and it was similar to a lot of things in the scene in those days, but the second one is aesthetically more professional. Gordie’s sketch on the final layout is darker, and we really liked what James did with it. Those two guys are really creative people. Back then, Gordie was a solid guitarist, a great artist, and a terrific photographer, and he’s probably even better now. James is a computer genius. Literally. And he’s one of the most creative people I know. He can paint, draw, you name it. The nicest, kindest, most sincere person you’ll ever meet.

The split with Confine and Avarice was incredibly well received both in Canada and the states as well as Europe, getting Confine signed to OneDaySavior and Avarice to Alveran. How do you look back on this fantastic release? There was also some issue with three Confine songs that were reused on their OneDaySavior album “The Beginning of the End”?

The record WAS well received and, please don’t take this the wrong way, but we knew it would be. The songs were recorded by Fred Betschen in Buffalo, New York. This was a huge step forward for both bands. Fred had recorded so many great hardcore bands – Snapcase, Slugfest, Zero Tolerance, Brother’s Keeper, Despair – so Avarice and Confine were really excited to work with him. Acacia had just recorded their Untune the Sky EP for Goodfellow Records with Fred, and SeventyEightDays were working with him on their Trustkill Records EP, Revolution Through Anonymity, and when we heard those records, we knew that our bands would be well-suited to his production style, and we couldn’t wait to hear what he’d do with their songs. When we heard the recordings for the first time, we were blown away and we knew we had a great record in our hands. We couldn’t wait to get them back from the pressing plant. That was always simultaneously the best and worst part about running a record label. When you got the copies from the pressing plant, you were always thrilled. We always had good experiences with that. But waiting to get the records? Torture.

We knew that the CD was a quality release, but we were definitely surprised at how quickly we sold them. We pressed 1000, and we sent them all over the place. Chris Logan at Goodfellow Records was our hugest supporter, and our most valuable ally. He had lists and lists of contacts at distributors all over the world, and we shipped boxes of records to anyone he recommended. We didn’t get ripped off by anyone on that first CD, and we learned to trust the people in the scene to help us out. And they did. Overwhelmingly. Sadly, as time went on, things didn’t stay that way, but it was a great initial experience – completely positive. The bands played a lot of shows, and did some small tours, and they sold a lot of records themselves. Everyone who runs a label wants their bands to tour more, but we were pleased with what they did, and we couldn’t support them financially in any way, so wherever they could play, whenever they could play, was really a bonus for us. We did some advertising in zines, but only if they promised to review the record, and we made up some flyers to hand out at shows, and we sent out some tapes of the CD for college radio play. Our distributors sold the records quickly. The reviews certainly helped, and the advertising didn’t hurt, but we certainly didn’t expect orders for the CD to come in from all over Europe and South America – even Australia. But word gets out in the hardcore scene, and that’s what happened with that record. I don’t think we could have done better. Selling a thousand CDs was a good accomplishment. It was our first professional release, and we knew a lot of bigger, established labels didn’t sell that many copies of some of their records, so we were happy.

The thing with Confine re-releasing three songs on the Beginning of the End CD they did for OneDaySavior was that they pretty much killed our CD off. We were hoping to repress that record, and to keep it in our catalogue going forward, which we would have done had Confine not re-recorded those songs, or had Avarice not broken up. But, that being said, Confine paid for their own recording, so they were free to do what they wanted, but we were disappointed that they didn’t really talk to us very much about it beforehand. It seemed like it was a done deal by the time we heard about it. I wasn’t angry with them. I understood their position. They wanted a solid record that they could tour behind, and that would stay in print, and they got one. I was, however, quite angry with Chris Tzompanakis at OneDaySavior because he didn’t ask us, or even talk to us about it at all. He was re-releasing three songs from our record to beef up what was essentially an EP for his label, which meant that he could sell it for a higher price and it wouldn’t cost him a cent to do that. It would make pure profit for his label. I thought that was pretty unethical, and he didn’t see it that way, and we were involved in a fairly heated e-mail exchange that lasted some time, but, in the end, he sent us some free copies of his records, and we sold them, and that was that. In hindsight, the irony, of course, is that Confine was about to break up anyway, and the title of their record pretty much summed it up. So it was much ado about nothing, because we wouldn’t have repressed the CD either way, as things turned out. It’s a shame that Confine wasn’t able to release the CD they recorded after The Beginning of the End. Neil, Sparky, Gordie – nice people in a great band. If anyone has a copy of that record, or if it’s floating around online someplace, I’d love to hear it.

Now the next release for Redstar was the mind blowing compilation “The Sound and the Fury”, which features one of the most amazing line-ups I’ve ever seen: Another Victim, As We Once Were, Avarice, Chokehold, Chore, Dead Season, Dead to the World, The Death of Us, Every Time I Die, From Here On, Ignorance Never Settles, Kid Gorgeous, Left Behind, SeventyEightDays, Sinclaire, Sinsick, Subsist, The Swarm aka Knee Deep in the Dead and Withdrawn! How did a masterpiece like this come together!? And who was the band that did the bonus song at the end?

The compilation was a huge leap for us. We weren’t just releasing Brendan’s music anymore, although two of his bands are on the compilation. Since you asked, the band that recorded the bonus song for us was The Swarm. They gave us that as a special treat and we thought it was hilarious. The compilation was also the first time I took a bigger hand in the label, as I’d made a lot of contacts with the bands by doing shows in Hamilton and by distributing the Avarice/Confine CD. We’d done the first Every Time I Die show, in Hamilton with Buried Alive headlining and Kid Gorgeous as support, so that’s how those bands got involved. They recorded blistering songs. We were floored by them. And Chris Logan liked Pincushion so much, he signed Every Time I Die for Goodfellow immediately after he heard it the first time, as soon as we got the CD-R in the mail, and he released The Burial Plot Bidding War EP for them shortly afterward. Buried Alive were going to give us an old demo song, and we were really excited about that, but even though Scott Vogel really pushed for us, the other guys in the band didn’t want to release the song. Then they were going to record a cover song, but that didn’t materialize either. That was the only disappointment with the record. We’d done a lot of shows for them, and they were easily my favourite hardcore band at the time – it would have been incredible to have them on it.

But we got Another Victim to do it – they’d played a show in Hamilton with Endeavor and they gave us a song, even though we didn’t know them very well. That would change, obviously, when we got the opportunity to do the Darker Day Tomorrow record, and then we got to know a lot of people in Syracuse. Avarice went back to Fred Betschen and recorded a song with their new lineup, but with Chris Colohan from Left for Dead/The Swarm doing the vocals, and that is one of my favourite songs on there. Sinsick was basically the Burst of Silence guys giving it another go, and they were a short-lived Hamilton band. We met Dead to the World through Mike Charette of Ignorance Never Settles, and they played a show with Disciple in Hamilton, and we became close friends with their drummer, Mike Jeffers – the hardest working man in hardcore. Period.

From Here On sent us a CD-R, looking for a label, but by the time we got around to writing them about it, they’d already broken up. Some of those guys went on to form Between the Buried and Me, and they signed to Victory, selling a ton of records. But they said we could use a song, and the song we picked was absolutely crushing. There are so many great songs on that record. The Swarm track, Lament, is my favourite song they ever recorded, and the Subsist track is an epic metal masterpiece. The Chokehold song was ancient, and pretty bad to be honest, but a lot of people liked it and we got a lot of letters about how happy people were to hear them record a Breakdown song. Chris only gave us that so we could sell more CDs, and we appreciated it. Europeans love Chokehold, and they ordered the record like crazy. We got money orders from all over the place because of that song. I know Chris hated the song, and Jeff Beckman was disgusted with it, but it helped us a lot. We also wanted a new SeventyEightDays song, or an unreleased one, but they had already broken up, and they didn’t have anything in the vault, so Chris gave us a previously released one, as the Canvas EP was already out of print, and it was the title track and the best song on that CD.

The Dead Season, Chore, and Sinclaire songs are out of place on what is basically a metal record, but I love those songs. They were well-recorded flawless rockers. Sinclaire signed to Sonic Unyon shortly after that, and Chore got an offer to demo some songs for Revelation Records because of their song, but they stuck with Sonic Unyon. They didn’t like hardcore and they weren’t a hardcore band. But they are one of my favourite bands, and they deserved to be much more successful than they were. As a side note, they recently reunited, just for fun, and played their two biggest shows ever – opening for Alexisonfire and Wintersleep.

I did the layout for the compilation with Sandy McIntosh at Sonic Unyon, and it took a long time. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but we had a lot of ideas and we finally came up with something we were happy with. Brendan was in Guelph, e-mailing suggestions, and we mastered the record with my friend Toby on his computer in his parents’ attic. It was all totally DIY. We did everything ourselves with that record. Everything. We had a record release show at a two-day festival in Oakville at a community centre. Many bands on the compilation played that show, doing the songs from the record, and I think we sold 150 of them in two days there – maybe even more. We sold out of it quickly. We ordered 1000, but ended up with 1120, and we sold every single one of them. We thought about repressing it, but so many of the bands had released the songs, or had plans to release the songs, on records of their own, so as much as we would have liked to keep the CD in print, it just didn’t make sense.

But, at this point, the distributors we had were working really well for us, and we were lucky to know so many honest people. Tim and Mark at Sonic Unyon hooked us up with a pressing deal that saved us a lot of money, and we were fortunate to know them too. We ended up renting an office in their building – they gave us a huge break on the rent – and we shared it with Goodfellow Records. My parents were happy I was moving all of those boxes out of our basement, and Brendan’s parents had stuff stashed away at their place too. Chris and I started working at Sonic Unyon around then as well. At the time, it seemed like we lived in that building. We worked at Sonic Unyon during the day and at our own labels at night, helping each other with whatever we could. And Brendan was there on the weekends working away too. We had a lot of fun together doing that stuff.

Two bands from the compilation, Kid Gorgeous and Dead to the World did a split for Redstar in 2000. How was this split received and how did it compare to the Avarice/Confine split? I also read that there was supposed to be a special edition repress of this split in 2001 that featured an additional song from each band, was this ever released?

That CD was another successful one. We ordered 1000, and I think we got 1100 or so. We sold all of them. It was well received. It got good reviews in all of the magazines that reviewed it. I’m not sure how to compare it to the Avarice/Confine split CD. I did the layout for this one again, again working with Sandy, and I took a lot of photos for it, so it was more in-house, in terms of my involvement with it. Fred Betschen played a part in it, as with the Avarice/Confine split. He mastered the record, and he did a great job with it. He also recorded the Dead to the World songs. Kid Gorgeous recorded their half with Doug White at Watchmen Studios, who’d also worked with some heavy hitters: Another Victim, Buried Alive, Every Time I Die, Disciple. The record sounded slick. Both producers were always good. You could depend on them to deliver a quality recording. We were pleased with the way everything came together with that CD.

Kid Gorgeous was a solid band, and Brendan and I liked them a lot, but they didn’t get many shows outside of their area, until much, much later, and by then they’d already replaced their drummer twice, and their vocalist once, and I think a guitar player or bassist – or maybe both. It’s a shame too, because they had the chops to be a bigger band. But, I have to tell you, my favourite experience from that record, and from running Redstar, was getting to know Mike Jeffers, the drummer from Dead to the World. He played drums in Union before Dead to the World, so he was no stranger to touring and to working hard. He is a true hardcore kid through and through. His work ethic is incredible. They toured behind that split CD non-stop. They played everywhere and anywhere they could. Every weekend they were off someplace. They sold more records for us than any other band we had on our label. I mean, we always sold out of everything we pressed, but they sold a lot on their own, aside from what we moved through selling records at shows, through our distributors and through mail orders. It was a big help to us at the time. If every band was made up of guys like Mike Jeffers, running a label would be a piece of cake. He was always appreciative of whatever we did for them. We did a lot for that record. We did a lot of press, a lot of radio, and we advertised it in a lot of magazines. It was distributed by every major distributor at the time, and by a lot of minor ones. You could get it anywhere. Mike found it in huge record chains all over the place when they were touring. He was so pleased with that. But, sadly, not everyone is like Mike. So many bands think it’s up to you to sell their records, and not up to the band at all. Their job stops at recording. Once the record comes out, it’s up to you. What nonsense. And then they’re on you to print posters for them, and stickers, and shirts, and who knows what other stuff, but they don’t tour, they don’t play many shows, and you can’t argue with them. What’s the point? This always frustrated Chris at Goodfellow too, because Chokehold was in a van every time they had the chance. It paid off for them. It’s sad that Dead to the World couldn’t maintain a solid line-up. They had three or four different vocalists, and I don’t know how to even guess at how many guitarists and bassists they’d replaced before Mike finally packed it in. When their LP came out on Stillborn Records, the label run by Jamey Jasta from Hatebreed, they got a lot of good press, and they could have been a bigger band than they were if they’d just been able to keep it together. Poor Mike. He had a chance with that band, but he couldn’t keep people working as hard as he did. And we certainly knew what that felt like.

About your last question, we may have planned a special edition of that record, but I’m not sure we would have actually gone forward with it. My memory of this is hazy at best. I think Dead to the World had already broken up, and Mike had already formed his new band, Herod, by that time. Kid Gorgeous had already signed to Uprising Records, and they were going to do a big tour for their new CD, so perhaps we thought they might have sold more of our CDs if we re-released it, but I can’t imagine we would have done that. We might have re-pressed the original version of the record so they could take it with them, but I’m not sure that we would have done even that. We were already working on the new Darker Day Tomorrow CD by that point. I assume Kid Gorgeous would have recorded any new songs they had for their Uprising CD. We may have floated around the idea of including each band’s songs from The Sound and the Fury compilation on an updated version of the split CD, but that would have meant that each band would have had to re-do the vocals on those songs with their new vocalists, as both bands had already replaced them by this time, and to include a song from each band with a different singer than the ones featured on the original version of the CD would have been terribly confusing for any listener. We also would have had to make a new master plate for the CD, and we would have had to make new films for new artwork, so although I think we may have talked about doing that, I’m not sure it would have made financial sense to do it. Especially with Dead to the World dead to the world..

“No Sleep in Forty Days” was the only full length album (apart from the indie band) released by Redstar. Was there a special approach to this?

Yes, it was our only full-length album. Darker Day Tomorrow had already released a short EP on Alone Records. It had three songs on it, and a short interlude. Brendan and I liked the idea of split CDs because, essentially, you got a full-length record with two bands on it for only a few more bucks than an EP. When you got an EP, it was nice because bands made sure they recorded their best songs for it – think of Burnt by the Sun’s self-titled EP, or Dillinger Escape Plan’s Under The Running Board, or Disciple’s No Blood, No Altar Now – great records, but, unfortunately, an EP was always nearly the same price as a full CD, and it was only half the length. Plus, from a label point of view, if you released a split CD and one band broke up, you still had one band to sell the CD for you – which wasn’t possible with an EP. And, in hardcore, bands were breaking up all of the time, so this made a lot of sense to us. You can see what I mean from the other split CDs we did…

But getting back to Darker Day Tomorrow, their first CD was actually only their demo tape re-released on a CD with new artwork, so they were looking to do a full-length. I’d known Tony from when he played drums in Another Victim, and I bumped into him at a few shows in Buffalo and Syracuse, and he gave me a copy of their demo. I really liked it, and I thought it would be great to work with him, because he was another guy like Mike Jeffers – he’d been around the scene for a long time and he knew about working hard. He’d played in a lot of bands and he knew the ropes. He is another stand up guy. Always appreciative of everything you did for his band. He told me that he thought we worked his band harder than any other label he’d worked with before, and he’d worked with some big ones before us in his other bands. That was a huge compliment. The other guys in his band were creative, and they were really smart, socially aware people. They had great ideas for the record. They were professional to work with. They did an intro and an outro on the record, which was pretty cool for a hardcore record. We loved the songs on that CD and it was a progression from the Damnation-esque songs they had on their demo, although you could obviously still hear that influence behind what they were doing. That seemed to echo in a lot of what was going on in Syracuse then. But on No Sleep in Forty Days they used a lot of different guitar effects, probably inspired by Earth Crisis I’d imagine, and we were thrilled when we got the CD-R. I mentioned before that Doug White recorded it, and we were happy, as always, with his work.

I read that you had t-shirts made for this release? Was it the only merch made, and was this the only time you made merch for a band on the label?

In terms of your second question, we did make shirts for them for this record, and we made stickers and posters too. We pushed that record harder than we’d pushed anything before it because people knew these guys were in good bands before, so they were interested in seeing what their new band was doing, and we knew they would be. Distributors ordered more consignment copies of that record than any of our previous records, and they sold them more quickly than any of our others. I think the music on the record was a huge reason for this. They were older guys and experienced musicians. We also knew a lot more about what WE were doing by this time, and our contacts were well-established and we had more of them by then. Dead to the World sold way more records on the road than Darker Day Tomorrow did, but Darker Day Tomorrow sold more records through our distributors. But DDT also played some big shows with bigger bands, and the word got out about them too. Mike Jeffers talked us up to Tony at a show in Buffalo, and he called me afterward, saying, “You have to fucking sign these guys. They played here last night and they were great.” So that was that. In any case, we sold out of their initial pressing of 1200 copies, but they ended up breaking up pretty quickly after their next record came out on Lifeforce Records, so there wouldn’t have been any point in repressing that one. Do you see a pattern developing?

Back to the second part of your question, we had made a few t-shirts for Avarice, but we didn’t make merch for Kid Gorgeous or Dead to the World, aside from some giveaway stickers promoting the CD. Dead to the World made their own merch because Mike knew their band would make more money that way. And they did. They had so many different shirt designs, and all different kinds of merch. That was all Mike. The business-minded hardcore kid with the work ethic to do it all. I’m not sure if Kid Gorgeous had their own merch when that CD came out. I’m sure they must have had some at some point, but I honestly don’t remember. We also made shirts and stickers for the label. We sold a lot of those shirts. I don’t know how many.

When and who came up with the idea of the 3-way split-label compilation “It’s All About the Money”? Which of the bands on the compilation came from Redstar, and what was the goal with this sampler? The majority of the material was non-exclusive, or was planned to be released by the labels in the future correct?

The compilation you’re talking about was a low-budget sampler that we did with Goodfellow Records and Surprise Attack Records from Erie, Pennsylvania. We all came up with the idea together. We’d talked about doing it for a long time, as we wanted to work together on a project. Eric had always distributed our records, and Goodfellow records, in the States, and Chris, Brendan and I had distributed his records here. At the time, we were still looking to get wider exposure for our labels and bands, and we thought selling a cheap sampler CD, charging enough to basically cover our costs, was the best way to do that. It was a CD in a plastic sleeve with a black and white glossy CD insert – the typical one fold CD booklet. It was much cheaper for us to press the CDs and booklets separately and stuff all of CDs into the bags ourselves, so that’s what we did. And, yes, it took a long time to do it that way, but it saved us money, so we did it. I did the layout for that with Sandy again, and everyone was pleased with it. I loved how clean and simple it looked. We used photos that a hardcore kid took that he posted on his photography website, and he was happy to have his art on someone’s record.

We didn’t sell them through our distributors, as mailing them out would have cost us too much. We gave them to our bands to sell, we dropped them off at local record stores, and we sold the majority of them at shows. We sold most of them to people standing in line outside, waiting to get in to see bands play. It’s embarrassing to say, but I’ll admit that sometimes we didn’t even go to the shows at all. We kept boxes of the CDs in the trunk, and if we saw metal dudes waiting around to get into some show, we’d grab a box and try our luck. It was only two bucks, in Canada that’s only one coin, so most people were willing to take a chance on it. It worked well for all three labels – we certainly had more visitors to our websites – and we did sell more records via mail order following its release. The title, It’s All About the Money, was a reference to the fact that we were selling them so cheaply, we wouldn’t make anything at all by doing it. But it was cheap advertising – better than doing expensive ads in magazines, that’s for sure. I can’t remember how many we pressed, but I think it was 3000 – a thousand for each label.

All of the songs on that CD were on records that had just come out on our labels, or that were coming out soon. We were excited to have a new Poison The Well song on it, as they were absolutely huge then. Trustkill was cleaning up with their records. I’m sure that’s one of the main reasons we sold so many of those sampler CDs. And, the funny thing is, I don’t think they ever ended up releasing the 7” they were supposed to release with Eric. I think it was supposed to be a split 7” with Throwdown, actually, but I don’t think it happened. The Redstar bands were the ones on our label I’ve already mentioned, except for The Swarm. We took their song from The Sound and the Fury compilation CD we’d released. They weren’t ever on our label, but not for lack of trying. We talked to Chris Colohan about releasing a CD of all of their vinyl-only releases and compilation tracks, but he said he thought Var at No Idea should do that, if anyone was going to do it, and we agreed, as he had done a lot for them, and he had spent a lot of money on The Swarm. But I don’t think that CD ever came out either. I wish it would have. I have digitized versions of those songs that I downloaded someplace, but they don’t sound very good…

After both splits and the full-length sold out, and both of those compilations doing extremely well, the label ended? How did it end? Were there any releases that were supposed to come out but didn’t?

The label ended for a number of reasons. The first nail in the coffin was that Brendan’s new band broke up very abruptly. After Avarice and Ignorance Never Settles finished, he formed a new band called Funerary. That was an amazing band. He played drums, Chris from SeventyEightDays/Chokehold was on vocals, Christian McMaster of The Swarm/Left for Dead played guitar, as did R.J. from Avarice/Ignorance Never Settles, and Tom Piriano, soon to be a founding member of Cursed, played bass. They played metal influenced hardcore. We were listening to a lot of At The Gates, Carcass (Heartwork-era), In Flames, Soilwork, Meshuggah, Converge, and a bunch of other metal bands – and Logan had just signed a similar sounding band, Shogun, to Goodfellow. But Funerary was great. Really technical. But they broke up, and Christian was already playing in Haymaker, so that was that. Brendan was upset. He’d put a lot of work into that band. And the other guys were upset too, especially Chris. He said it was the best band he’d ever been in, and he wrote good lyrics for those songs. I know he would have loved it if the band kept going. I was disappointed too because Redstar was going to release their first record – it was going to be a five or six song EP – and then they were going to see where that took them. They probably could have done a record for any label back then. They had the talent, that’s for sure. Obviously that didn’t end up happening. Redstar also had plans to release a full-length CD for Rise Over Run, who’d just released a split CD with Society’s Finest on Goodfellow (Chris already had a full release schedule planned and bands he’d committed to, so he couldn’t do it for them), but we didn’t have the drive to do anything after Funerary broke up, and they were fine with that. They ended up releasing that CD on Ironclad Records, which was run by one of the guys in Unearth, so it was probably better for them anyway. They also broke up soon after.

Around this time, I stopped working full-time at Sonic Unyon because I got a full-time job teaching English and History, and that job, between preparing lessons and marking papers, left very little time for anything else. I’d always wanted to teach, and I wanted to do a good job with that, and if you want to do a good job doing that, you have to put in a lot of time. I certainly did. Brendan was on his way, or soon would be on his way, to do his Masters Degree in Engineering at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and he was going to have his hands full with that. As you can probably imagine, that’s a pretty tough task. We talked about the future of the label, and it seemed like it made sense to pack it in, but I guess we didn’t conclusively decide that. I sent out an e-mail to everyone we’d worked with letting them know that we were calling it a day, and then Brendan sent me an e-mail saying he was planning to continue the label on his own. I didn’t have a problem with that. I was happy he was going to do it. It was his label at the beginning, after all. He wrote me a cheque from his line of credit for the small balance I had on my line of credit, and he started to make plans for the next release, which was going to be a CD for a band called At The Mercy of Inspiration, which played music inspired by the same bands Funerary was inspired by – Tom from Funerary was also in that band – but Brendan didn’t end up releasing their CD. I’m not sure who released it. I think someone did. Brendan ended up selling the rest of the stock we had, and that was the end of the label. It made sense to stop then. Chris was doing really well with Goodfellow Records by that time, and he had a lot of releases planned, and we were happy for him. We still went to shows and we helped Chris whenever and however we could, and I still worked here and there at Sonic Unyon in the summer and on the odd weekend when they needed someone to work in the store, so we were still contributing to things. I still did shows occasionally, including a few for our friends in The Swarm when they started Cursed, and for Tony from Darker Day Tomorrow when he started The Funeral, and for Mike Jeffers when he started Herod. It was great to help old friends. Why wouldn’t you?

The story goes that Chris Gray was recording solo, and recorded a nine song demo tape on an 8-track, two of which were supposed to be released on an ep on Re-Define (the same label that was supposed to release the Montgomery 21 discography). He then decided to expand the band to a full line-up, recruiting the keyboardist and drummer of his current band, Zyon, and  the two guitarists from Ellington (one taking bass position), Chris Gray thus becomes Loveless .1. some line-up changes occurred here.

The band may have played shows, but they did record a 5 song demo, which was due to be released as an EP once again by Re-Define Records, as the North American distributor, and Winter Recordings (the European label that released the Zyon album, to handle the Euro release). How’ever the band broke up, for reasons I am unaware of, and Chris Gray went on to do a solo tour, at which a live EP was recorded and finally, actually, released by Re-Define. Some of the members went on to be in The Black Maria with Chris Gray.

Loveless .1. Discography

PS, This is not one of the best posts on the blog, due to serious lack of information on the band. But I really wanted to share this demo with everyone, since it’s pretty rare and amazing. If anyone has additional information, please do comment here!

During this time, fellow friends of the band would form “Mental Crew Canada” with Louis as the mascot. These hard-core fans would go to as many Mental shows as possible. This would be how they came in contact with Greg Willmott who ran Lockin’ Out Records; the label who proposed to release anything the band was willing to get together. This could have been an EP considering the amount of material they had written at the time, but the band chose to send in songs for a compilation that Greg was putting together instead, hoping to do the EP later. They went down to Boston’s suburbs to record two songs with Eric Lomon (of Crunch Time) at Lomon Studios. In the end, only one song from each of the bands was used for the compilation, and “Smog” would be chosen. The other song remains unreleased. By the end of 2003, Louis had moved away and it was difficult to rehearse on a regular basis. Most of the jams took place right before shows and would not be very creative. They played their final show on December 13th, 2003, and though they were still somewhat “active” until early 2004, the band was over by the time “Sweet Vision” came out in February. A few years later, Omegas were putting together a mix tape and used the song “Hey Teacher” from their demo on the “Joy Boy Mix”.

Greg Willmott apparently still has the second unused song, but has been ignoring my attempts to contact him for too long, so I gave up and posted this discography 1 song short. If you’re ever able to get it, please post a comment here!

Say No More incomplete Discography

What year did Structure Records start out and who’s idea was it to start a label? Did you operate it with Chris Logan for any specific reason?

Maybe in 92, it was a collaboration between me and a at the time roomate. We both thought it was a good idea I guess.

Why did you chose the name Structure Records?

Sounded like a cool 90′s hardcore name, thats about as deep as that goes.

At the time you and Chris had both been playing in Chokehold for a couple of years, but the label’s first release was the Burst of Silence demo. How come you didn’t start out releasing something from Chokehold? In fact you never released anything from Chokehold during the existence of the label?

No we didn’t, well, we had people chasing us around to do stuff with Chokehold, so that was a no brainer, we wanted to put out stuff we liked and no one else was doing… It was the era of 20 million little labels then , there was a lot of great bands getting no attention at the same time.

Now about this first release (the Burst of Silence demo tape), how many copies were made, and how did you set about distributing it? Did BOS play often with Chokehold?

I think, well I know for myself, I had no experience doing a label. Chris and I had done a zine for a little while in the early 90′s, we just used our connections with the band (Chokehold) to move the records, it’ didn’t take long to get rid of the small pressings we did. We played with a few shows together, we shared members off and on so… and being from the same circle of friends… we were close.

Can you describe the zine that you and Chris did? What was it called, how many issues, and what was its philosophy?

I believe it was called “Within Reason”. At the time we were young optimistic sxe youngsters, the zine reflected that, maybe we did 3 issues… I would love to do a zine again… Do kids even read zines? Or just bullshit fucking blogs,??? But music art, mayhem, on paper, I love zines, ours at the time was like a diy vibe, not overly preachy about the edge, but I am sure there was some shit in there. Probably embarrassing to look back on, but I’ve moved so many times I don’t think I own any. Every idiot and their retarded brother did zines back then…

The next release was a compilation tape that featured “Breakthru, Burst of Silence, Cinderblock, Conviction, Earth Crisis, Framework, Forethought (who became Autumn) and Support”. What can you recall about the making of this fantastic compilation, and how did you put this together?

I don’t even remember that one……. seriously.

Chris Logan also did not have memories of this tape compilation, but Sand Robertson came to me with information

I basically did it on my own. The Sean [listed in the cover] is Sean “Mo” Moriarity who was one of my bestie’s. I cant’ remember how we came to using the structure records name because this came out before the Slugfest 7″. That I’m sure of. I think I did this when I was 16. That’s me in the back of the pic too.

The label’s third release was the Slugfest 7″ “Buried Alive”. This record is still a gem for anyone who’s into early metalcore. Do you know how many copies were pressed, and how many colors were made of it (I read of some on black, blue and clear)? There was also a very limited different cover, what was it for?

I think it was 900 black, 80 blue?, 20 clear?, 4 test presses. I could be wrong, I know I had a blue one, but never a clear one. The limited cover would of just been copied quickly on xerox, probably waiting for the offset printer to do all the cuts/dies, blah. Printing is much much easier now, way fucking cheaper too. But this record is a classic, one of the best hardcore bands of that era… and still no one cared too much about them until years later.

Finally you worked with Bloodlet, all the way from Florida. How many copies of “Husk” were made? How would you compare the making of this 7″ to the Slugfest one? How did this record do in Canada?

I made a thousand; I made 100 on deep blood red, 400 were confiscated at the boarder as I tried to sneak them over not paying duty, cause we were broke as fuck and the Canadian Dollar was worthless then… Anyways yeah customs took 4oo copies off of me, so that meant there was only 6oo copies, I never got them back, they must of destroyed them, as they wanted a ridiculous $$$ fee to recover them. I later repressed 500, but ran out of covers, I owed the printer like 500 bucks so I never got the original art back. I still have a few boxes of the 2nd press on black here somewhere. Plus Victory Records repressed it on the singles comp “Eclectic”. Whatever… great record, good dudes. Unfortunately I learned hard lessons from that experience, and they (the band) suffered more than I.

Apart from the four releases, did Structure records ever press any merch?

Nothing.

How and when did the label end?

Somewhere in between Slugfest and Bloodlet I think we just stopped telling each other what was going on or what we were gonna do…

Have you considered doing another record label, since Chris Logan went on to do Goodfellow Records?

No, Chris was cut out for that kind of stuff, I am not at all. I am a procrastinator, lazy, and inconsiderate… Bad qualities to run a label, mind you I would do it in a heart beat if i knew I wouldn’t fuck it up… I love vinyl… I collect records and love the aesthetics about every one I own, I have great ideas for layouts and comps, but no drive. So many great bands that should of seen the light of day.

Do you have anything left from your record label days?

Yeah, a bunch of Bloodlet 7″ and a stack of money orders and letters I never sent out… hahaha worst label owner ever…

Thank you Jeff for this great interview!

The complete Structure Records discography includes:

Burst of Silence – Demo (1992)
Structure Records Hardcore Compilation (1992)
Slugfest – Buried Alive 7″ (1993)
Bloodlet – Husk 7″ (1993)

Jeff still has some Structure Records vinyls left as well as records of the bands he was in. Here is what he has and what you have to do to get one of these rare copies left!

Alright, since all the bands I have ever been in has been paid with records, not money, I have a shit ton of everything left. Email me at haymakerwillkillyou@hotmail.com we will talk prices. There is a good chance I will not email you back, so be persistent if you want the shit!

Bloodlet – Husk 7″, first press pre-order covers 10$ postage paid
Left For Dead – Live LP
Haymaker – everything except the LP
Pick Your Side – Suicidal Prayer 7″ , every colored vinyl and test press
Our War – random stuff
Chokehold – Tooth and Nail/Jawk Records 7″, some test press

Tell me about the start of the band. When was it and who was in the band? Why did you start it?
Ciaron Lewis and I had talked on and off about starting a band because really, there was fuckall else to do. Although there was a very early version involving Pat Oanicia (who went on to sing for S.C.U.M.) and Rich Ivey, we didn’t really come into our own until late ’85 when Ciaron brought Nick Oliver into the fold. For quite a while we had no bassist. In fact our first show, we had to bring in my room mate to fill in. Finally we settled on Rob Melvin for bass. That was pretty much the first solid line-up we had. It’s the line-up you hear on the 7″ EP and on the No Frontiers compilation EP. It was also the line-up that was on the first tour.
By the time we got back we were plagued with a line up that slowly kept changing. Other former members included:
Bill Brown, Tim Gorman, James Hamilton, Daren Greene, Steve Vienot, Johnny Whalen, Al Muir, Steve Duggan, and a few others who’s names I can’t remember at this time.

What was the scene in NB like at the time? Was there any sort of rivalry between fredericton and other cities in NB or with Halifax?
I know there was a difference of opinion with the SJ (Saint John, NB) crew, but a rivalry? Fuck no. The scenes were just too small to warrant that kind of foolishness. I don’t recall any rivalry with HFX either. The HFX kids were always awesome when we hit there. I think we were somewhat tight with System Overload and Shane from Early Warning Syndrome is still a pal of mine to this day.

Did you do much touring? Any cool show/tour stories?
We only did two tours which went up to Ontario and back and that was in the summers of ’86 and ’87. I think even some of the shittier gigs were cool. We, along with The Jellyfish Babies and Florida’s No Fraud totally got screwed by a promoter in Ottawa and he pretty much had to be threatened with a baseball bat to get any money from him, but it was a wicked fun show. Ironically it wasn’t until two years ago when I was drinking with Colleen that we realised that we were both on that same bill and didn’t know it! We made friends with some bands like Problem Children, SCUM, etc…
Cool tour stories? Not sure how cool, but some definitely memorable ones.
We were staying at a punk house in MTL and I forgot exactly what was so funny but I fell backwards into a door and it flew open and there was this guy with his lady friend and his bare ass up in the air for all of us and SUDDEN IMPACT to see. There was much hilarity. Some loon in HFX tried to convince us that the street we parked on outside the YWCA was his property.

How did you get hooked up Real World Records in the UK?
I ordered a copy of a zine called 10 Years On and mentioned in my letter I was in a band. He asked for a copy of our Coming Of Age demo for review. He liked it and interviewed us. Then told us he was starting a lable and would we be interested in releasing the demo on vinyl. Naturally we jumped at the chance.

What about Guilt Parade – were they an influence or were you around about the same time?
Guilt Parade and NW were both around at the same time and would share bills from time to time. I don’t think either band had an influence on the other to be honest. If you can find it, get their “Animals That Talk Like Men” demo. It’s hands down the best thing they ever did and a total barn burner! (Ian – Oh you can find it on this blog!! – http://howcantheyintendtoheal.wordpress.com/2010/12/26/guilt-parade/ )

When and why did the band break up?
I think our last show was in the summer of ’88. The band had gone through so many member changes that we spent more time teaching people the old songs than doing anything new. Nick was tired of doing it I think. Our last show resulted in a flooded building and some very pissed off people (I was channeling my inner Lee Ving that night.)
Other than Rob Melvin I still stay in contact with most of the former members.

Check out their Death At The Hands Of Time 7″ plus 2 live sets (Hamilton, ON 1986, Fredericton, NB 1988) and the song Time To Care off the No Frontiers comp 7″. The Coming Of Age demo is nowhere to be found just yet.
NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH MP3′s

In the far off time of 1994, Derrick Hiltz and Mike Brygyder wanted to start a new band after the break up of their previous band The Shitheads. They enlisted the help of Cara Macdonald who had been in a band called Gorgonzola. They rounded up the lineup with Richard Lafortune who had never been in a band before but had done a zine and accompanying cassette compilation called Mass Turbulence. The band existed in this form for a year with Derrick on drums, Cara on vocals, Mike on bass and Richard on guitar. Richard was known for never having a D string on guitar which forced him to slide up and down the fretboard more the usual which you can hear on the recordings. Stubbornness can be seen as the main reason for this!

With this lineup, they recorded a 15 song demo tape which they self released. Playing mostly in Halifax, particularly at the new all ages venue, Cafe Ole. They started to gain popularity with their back to basics punk sound and strong female vocals. Then Mike quit the band to be replaced with Ian Hart who was also in a band called No Offense at the time.

After playing shows in Halifax with Submission Hold from Vancouver, they met Jason Flower (who was touring with Submission Hold) who did a record label. He liked what he heard and offered to do a split LP with The Chitz and a ska/punk band from Oregon called The Readymen. This split LP had re-recorded demo tracks on it, plus several new songs. Around the same time En Guarde records from Montreal agreed to put out a split 7″. Richard had worked with En Gaurde before in releasing a Shitheads/No Offense split 7″ (which is perhaps the first Nova Scotian punk 7″). This split would be with The Moaning Lisas – an all female band from Hampton, New Brunswick.

After having some vinyl releases under their belt the band expanded their touring to include other near by provinces such as New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. There was also the only “tour” they ever embarked on which was basically just Montreal and Toronto. There was also a show in Burlington, Ontario where the band played with suburban emo bands that were popular at the time. Needless to say, the band did not go over so well at that show. The other shows went much better. Also, around this time Ian moved out west and Louis Roberts filled in on bass. During this time, the band was featured as a cover story on local weekly mag The Coast.

They also put out an LP entitled Break The Cycle, this time on Richard’s own label Sub Profit. 11 songs that showcased their evolving sound with a little more hardcore influence to it. A better recording also helped this to be what many would say is their best work. After some memorable shows around Halifax, including the final show at Cafe Ole, the band decided to call it quits, but not before putting out a final 7″…this time a split with Halifax’s grind/crust band Existench. 3 songs, recorded on a 4 track were definitely the most intense and abrasive songs the band recorded. The Chitz “last” show was in May of 1998 and was quite an event for the local scene.

It took a few years but in 2001 the band played a reunion…basically at the request of their friend Meghan who was moving away. They actually wrote 2 new songs for this show but alas they were never recorded (except on the video of the show). Richard did not play this show as he pretty much quit playing guitar after the last show in 1998, so Ian switched over to guitar and Louie played bass. And then nothing for 10 years. But on May 21st, 2011…yet another reunion show in Halifax, this time with friend Greg Hatt on bass. So with that in mind check out their entire discography:

Demo – Feb. 94
Split 7″ with Moaning Lisas – Oct. 95
Split LP with The Readymen – Oct. 95
Break The Cycle LP – March 97
Split 7″ w/ Existench – sept. 98

Download:
http://www.mediafire.com/?zbvdst6k6lufhp6

http://www.myspace.com/thechitz
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Chitz/156379871087468

How did you first get into hardcore?

About 25 years ago, I made the transformation from Heavy Metal to Thrash music. The first couple of bands I listened to were Metallica, Slayer, Nuclear Assault, S.O.D, M.O.D, Anthrax and stuff like that. My friends’ brother at the time was a skinhead and he introduced us to Bad Brains, Agnostic Front, Minor Threat and that started us out.

Can you remember the first hardcore record you bought?

My first hardcore/punk record was maybe 7 Seconds – “Walk Together, Rock Together”, SNFU – “If You Swear…”, Septic Death, Agnostic Front – “Victim in Pain”, Minor Threat – “Out of Step”, D.R.I – “Dealing with it”. Something like that. I bought a hand full my first time around.

How bout your first concert ever?

My first concert was Gwan at Ontario Place when I was a kid but the first show I really went to was KISS at the Maple Leaf Gardens when I was 10 or 11, I can not remember.

What were your first implications with the local hardcore scene?

When I started hanging out with Kyle, Sean, and Greg from Incision, I was friends with these guys from high school. They played shows at House for Zak in Hamilton and from there Kyle started doing shows at the Yellow Sub. After awhile I started to help out with getting them to and from shows in my VW Golf.

You used to put up a lot of shows at your house. Did you do this before starting the label or just after? Can you state a few memorable shows? How did your parents feel about all these events taking place?

I was already running the label at the time. I was doing shows in my garage. My mum was okay with it, not crazy about it, but still let me do it. I think my brother wanted to kill me for doing it, mostly because the bands would stay with us for a night or two. One show with Franklin, Fracture and Still Life we had 18 people sleeping on our basement floor and all those mouths to feed as well. It was fun but my mum and brother did not think so. I only did about 5 or so shows at my place before my mum said no more. We did shows for Rye Coalition, Chisel, Grade/Sparkmarker, Franklin/Fracture/Still Life, a Jersey Halloween show and some other local stuff.

Did you play in any bands yourself?

I tried to sing in a couple of bands but nothing ever worked out. It just was not my thing.

How did you settle on calling it Workshop Records and were you based in Campbellville when you started it?

Kyle from Grade came up with Workshop Records but I first called the label Big Rig Records. I changed it when I found out that the name was taken by one of the guys from Mighty Mighty Boosetones. It was really in Burlington but my mailing address was Campbellville.

The first release by the record label was the split with Grade and Believe. How did you come to know each of those bands, and how did this record end up coming together?

The guys in Grade and Believe just recorded some demo tracks for free at Sheridan College. The guys had no money to put the demo tapes together so I put up the money and we ended up putting together the lost Incision recording on a demo tape (which later we put onto vinyl for the Grade/Incision split LP) and the Grade and Believe demos. I think we started out with 50 demos of each. Next thing you know Grade and Believe were in the studio recording the split CD for me to put out and that is how we started.

The first batch of these CDs had different colored sleeves and artwork. Who did the artwork for them? Why were there so many different versions and how many copies were made and how fast did these sell out?

The first bunch of CD’s, I think 50 to 100. We screen printed the covers (the art work was taken from some book which I can not remember the name of). That was a lot of work but we had to get more together quickly for some shows so we went to Michael’s and picked out some ink stamps. It was just faster and we could put them together on the fly at the show or on the drive. We did that to keep the cost down. We really wanted to sell the CD for the price of a 7″ at the time, which was going for $2 to $3 which did not happen. We ended up selling the CD for $5. We did this for the first and second pressing and then we had enough of putting this together by hand so we put it to print with a jewel case.

I think we ended up selling 6000 copies and then I sold the rights to Victory, that was when we put the label to rest. I just repressed this CD when I had the extra money and I was not in the middle of putting anything else out. The final cover which was printed was a picture of Johnny from Jersey/Believe fighting another goalie during his Jr. hockey year in Musk.

In 1995 you released Union Young America’s 7″ “Kill the Man in Everything”. Was this as well received as the Grade split? How many copies were made of this record?

It did get great reviews and I sold out of the first 1000 in a years time frame. Instead of repressing the record we were going to put the money towards a new recording, but the band broke up just before they were going to go into the studio. So I just put the money towards the Franklin record and never ended up repressing the Union 7″. So we just made 1000 of that record.

How did you first hear about Franklin?

I drove out to Cleveland, OH. to visit a friend and also to go see Still Life. One of the bands playing before Still Life was Franklin and they were great live. Kyle from Grade was with me and he picked up the band info. It was not until one year after that show that I got in contact with the band and started to talk to them about doing a record with them. During that time the band had almost called it quits due to no bites from the labels which they were sending demos too. They were thinking about putting out a record on their own label but they really wanted someone else to do it and I happened to call at the right time. My wife and I drove out to Philly to meet everyone in the band and to work out the details.

Having released their first full-length album, how do you feel the release hit the scene? This time being a band from Pennsylvania, did you seek external hlep for the distribution of the records? Was the show at your house for the record release?

There was some really good feed back and reviews for the record and most of the distros were moving them. Most of my distros were in the US already so we just tried to build from there. The show we did in my garage was after the “Go Kid Go” record was out. It came out just before they left on tour.

When you decided to press the CD version, you treated this a completely different release. Was the LP sold out already by then?

I believe I had a few of the third pressing left but not many. Distros had stock on hand still.

How did you manage to get all those extra songs from the first few 7″s, compilation tracks and even some rare material on there? And who did the selection for those tracks?

The band put all the tracks together. All of that material, the band paid for the recordings themselves, which meant that the band owned the rights to the recordings. They were kinda concerned about the guy who put out the 7″s coming after them but I told them to direct his calls my way and I would deal with him. Nothing ever did happen and we put this CD together and I was very happy with it. To this day I still love to listen to that CD.

In 1997 you released Jersey’s first album, “No Turning Back”. The band was fronted by Greg Taylor, and from reading about the band, its often mentioned that it had immediate success due to its Grade association. How do you remember the album doing when it came out? Was it all it’s hyped up to be now? Did you repress it multiple times?

So Jersey was in the studio recording the “No Turning Back” record for me which at the time I was running a bit short on money so Greg was going to help out paying for the pressing part of the record and I would pay him back. While the recording sessions were going on, in comes Chris from Raw Energy (a want to be Epitaph label). Anyways these guys asked Jersey to sign with them and they would put out the CD and I would do the vinyl. So the guys really wanted to work with these guys because they could offer things I could not do. Raw Energy really tried to play the Grade card but Jersey was nothing like Grade so ya I put in a bio that Greg was in Grade and Believe. Jersey started out as a three piece with Kevin (drummer) and Johnny (bassist) both played in Grade at one point but really Jersey was made up of Believe so I kinda tried to play it like that.

You also have to remember at this time vinyl was not selling to well. I always tried to to do vinyl with every release because I thought it was important and still some people only bought vinyl. So anyways the Jersey record did not fly out the door as you might think. I believe it was a one time pressing of 1,000 and I did not sell all of them. I did not like the way everything went down with this release and working with Raw Energy was a nightmare. Talk about a bunch clowns. That is a hole other story in itself.

I’ve actually never come across the CD version of “No Turning Back”. Did that ever actually come out? If you care to elaborate on the story of the “clowns at Raw Energy”…

Raw Energy was a shit box label that tried to be bigger than they really were. So here is how the label worked or at least with Jersey and myself. I paid for the recording, mastering, and the layout of the record because I was already doing it before these clowns walk through the door. They had a distribution deal with a company which I cannot remember the name of. Anyways the distribution would pay for the printing and pressing of the CD’s and distribute it across Canada for them. Great for the bands but at this point Raw Energy has not paid a dime for anything and the record was done.

So they call me up to ask for some of the LP’s which was cool and then they ask for all my disrto. Info. Which was okay but I was like I will pass it on to you when a get the vinyl in (at this point I did not need Greg’s help with money because I was only doing the vinyl). CD was out at this point as well. So they started to lean into me about I thought you were about the bands and we need this for Jersey. It is like no you need this for you and the rest of your label because you do not have any American or European distro’s. So not only do they not pay for anything or have any of their own distro’s they start give me the gears, it for Jersey. I felt like I was starting their label up and doing all the work for them and riding on the coat tails of Grade. After all this and a few fights on the phone I gave them what they needed and said never call me again.

After some time went by the label was screwing Jersey around and the guys had a offer from Vinnie (less then jake) at FBR which they really wanted to do. I do not blame them. A really label. So after talking with Greg I called up his old manager for Grade to see if he could look over the contract, to see if Jersey could walk away from it. We discovered that the contract was a joke and would never hold up in court. Grade’s manage called up Raw Energy and laid into Chris and told him that Jersey will never work with them again and if there was any problems that they could deal with his lawyer. It was over. Jersey’s next recording was on FBR. Raw Energy did not last to much longer after that.

You were later supposed to do a split with Jersey and Mid Carson July. Did you also have any implications in the Jersey/Outspan split that came out in 1998?

The Jersey/Outspan split was put out by the bands and I believe any money raised went to a suicide help foundation. So I had nothing to do with it.

The Jersey/MCJ split was one of the last recorded material for Workshop before we called it quits. Looking back on it I wish I put it together but it meant continuing the label that much longer and I was not about to put something out and half ass it until the record died down then call it quits.

1997 also saw the release of the first full length album by The Jazz June, one of PA’s best emo bands. Prior to that, they only had a 7″ out on Keystone/Ember Records, which was those label’s first release. They turned out to be the band you most worked with as far as releases. How do you remember the time you started working with them?

I met and first heard these guys in Pittsburgh at a small fest. I also met the MCJ boys that weekend as well. The Keystone 7″ was the first record they did and I think they recorded a song for a split 7″ they did with MCJ but not sure of the time frame on the release if it came out before my release or not. I really enjoy the two records they did for me and to this day I still listen to it from time to time. The guys were cool and I became pretty good friends with Nathan who seemed at the time to take care of most of the bands dealings. It was a quick decision to do the record and the guys had most of the songs together and was ready to record and it was good timing for me so we got it done. They knew where they wanted to record and have it mastered so I just went with and I think the record turned out good, the “They Love Those Who Make Music” CD was my best seller.

The LP was also co-pressed with Choke Records. I think this was the first and only time you co-released something with another label? What was the idea in doing a cooperation, and what did each label bring to the release? Who did the colored vinyls?

I did not have the money at the time of the release to do the vinyl, plus vinyl was not selling to well for me. So we left it out for the time being. The band was approached by Choke to do it and the band wanted it put together and I liked the people over at Choke so they put it together, it was really as easy as that. Choke had a great distribution at the time as well. Choke did the color pressing on a mixed black/orange. Look really nice. Not too sure on the number of color vinyl pressed. If I was to guess I would say about 150.

How would you compare the work you did with their first record, “They Love Those Who Make Music” with their second full-length that you also released a year later, “The Boom, the Motion and the Music”?

“They Love Those” was doing well and the band on some time off had a couple of songs kicking around which ended up turning into six songs. We talked that it would be great to follow the record up with another release to keep the momentum going. Looking back on it this should have been a 12”ep but we spent more money on this recording then the first so I considered it a full length. I was happy with this record. I really think both records turn out good and helped me move the label to a new level of doing things. Not so much cut and paste which cool too, just a lot of work.

This time around, you released both CD and 12″ at the same time? The band was also featured on Deep Elm’s “The Emo Diaries” that year, do you think it helped the band get more immediate national exposure?

Deep Elm help the band out for sure. Those comps made it to a lot hands. Nathan was a work horse for that band and made a lot of connections. This was a great compilation for them to be on and fit in well with the other bands on it.

Both of these records were actually re-issued by Initial Records in 2001 (along with almost all of the bands other material). You had a quick assosication with that label in 2000, also due to The Jazz June, for their third album “The Medicine”. Did you sell the rights to Initial, or how did that go down?

The guys had an offer from Andy and it was the next step for the band. I was really happy for them. Andy from Initial asked me to put the vinyl. I was happy to do so. It was kind of like a thank you from the band if you will. Most bands move on and do not look back unless they have too (there is a story here but I cannot tell it and it has to do with another band I worked with). So Initial gave me the right to put “The Medicine” out on vinyl only. Initial vinyl sells most of been down as well to shop out the rights to do so. Although Initial did the Jazz June 7”. Who knows.

When we decided to stop doing the label I tried to sell all the releases so they would not go out of print. Especially for the bands that were still active. Initial picked up the two Jazz June records.

Mid Carson July had done a split with The Jazz June back in late 1997. Tell us about your first encounter with the band.

I first heard these guys live at the Pittsburgh fest. Picked up the 7” and demo tape. I do not think the split was out yet. I started to talk to them to see if they wanted to play shows in Ontario. I got to know them more as they toured with The Jazz June often. Sometime after we met, MCJ played in Toronto and they asked me to come out. They ended up staying with me and that’s when we started to talk about doing a record. These guys were good dudes. My favorite band to work with by far.

I was just talking to Bryon the other day while I was in Chicago. He was on tour with the O Pioneers. Bryon would be if we lived closer a good friend of mine along said Ralph from Franklin. Great people that I would have never met if it was not for Workshop.

By the time you released their album “Ten Years on Autopilot” in March 1999, had they moved to Florida, or were they still based in PA? If so, how did that affect the album?

They were still in PA. which was cool because we would drive out to their home town to hang out and they would come out and play shows and stay to hang out with us at well as hit the casino. “Ten Years” was recorded in Toronto. They did not have a studio that they wanted to work with so I suggested Signal to Noise Studio. I liked working with Rob.

Was Mid Carson July’s last full-length “Wessel”, named after you?

Yes. The guys surprised me with that. If there was a band that I connected with on all levels it was MCJ. We really enjoyed being around these guys. They were like family to us. It is to bad we do not talk as much as I would like to but life some times gets the best of us.

In 1998 (or maybe early 1999?) you released the final version of the Grade/Believe split altered with the second Incision recording session replacing Believe. What was the reason for this switch of bands?

Believe was broken up and I had a few people asking about the Grade stuff to be put out on vinyl so I asked the members from Believe if they mind that I switch this release up and put Incision on the flip side. At the same time we thought it would be cool for any Grade fan to hear some of this. Grade was made up of four guys from Incision.

Was there a reason for doing this on vinyl, as all the previous pressings were on CDs?

Just liked the idea of keeping it on vinyl due to the fact that I did not change the Grade/Believe splits CD’s. It was more for the collecting idea I guess.

You also mentioned earlier that after this you sold the rights to Victory Records. Why did you choose to do that, and why did they want the rights to the early recordings, this being only around the time the release of their first album with the band?

Victory tried to pick all of Grade’s recordings but Dan from Second Nature did not want to sell. I needed the money to do all those records I had planned to put out.  Grade was selling but not enough to keep on pressing it and have all that extra stock on hand and wait awhile for it to sell. So that was the logic. Shortly after this transaction we decide to not do the label any more and put this money towards our house down payment.

What about The Jazz June’s “The Medicine” LP, that only made it to the test press stage (this was in 2000 I believe), and later ended up being released by Initial Records?

Initial did the CD version and asked me if I would be interested in do the vinyl. Andy was slowly getting away from pressing vinyl at that time due to vinyl sells be down. So I asked if I could hear the record before I made my decision which he was cool with. I liked what I heard, told Andy that we will do it and then got in touch with the band to work out the details. I had 10 test presses made (not like today when labels will press as many test presses as the actual pressing to make some extra money for themselves, or so it seems like that) and all the cover art work proofs were good and this baby was ready to get finished up.

Was this planned as the final release for the record label, or did it just get caught up with the other unreleased records in a closing down situation?

At the time we were putting all these records together we were still talking about other recordings like MCJ putting together a full length record later that year. We were not thinking about closing the doors on the label but rather looking at how we could get finances together to introduce screen print into it so we could do stickers, posters, shirts and record cover for the bands and labels.

How did the label end up going down?

The label was starting to get a little more complicated. One thing that really pissed me off was one of the bands was completely screwing me around and I was not happy about that. Another band was riding my ass about some things which was not to cool in my mind. I know I am being a little vague here but I still have friends in some of these bands and do not want to bring up names and steer up trouble with something that happened a long time ago. Plus I was having bands send me demos with demands of having contracts and things like that. I was thinking that I was helping bands out by putting out there music and in hopes that they could move on to bigger and better things not being tied into contracts. The final nail in the coffin was Victory screwing me around for the Grade tracks and taking forever to pay me, which I had to get a lawyer involved to help get my money, which did me no good and ended up costing me money for nothing. So I did not like what I was seeing the future or where the scene was going.

What were the factors and what was your personal life like at this time?

At this point of the label it needed to have more attention then what we were giving it, so my wife and I sat down and broke it all down. So it meant that I would have to quit my job and make the label a full time thing if it was going to go any further. Which means that if we wanted to start a family it might have to wait a while due to the label probably not making any money for some time and introducing the screen printing element to as well.

So with all the headaches we were having as well as what the scene was becoming and where we saw us going with everything. We decided to stop doing the label. We started a family and saved up for a house and put everything we received back for the label and towards our home. This was the best decision we made. Now we have two boys a nice home and a lot of great memories.

Were you growing out of hardcore and the connecting scenes?

No. I still went to shows and bought music after that and I would still jump in with the bands like I always did for weekend trips and fun stuff like that.

Can you tell us about some of the releases that never happened?

We had a split record that was recorded but as we were putting it together both bands broke up. It was the first release for both bands so we did not see the reason in putting more money in something that will not move. It was with a band from Pittsburgh, PA called Flood and SlingShotDavid from California.

Also a Mid Carson July/Jersey split was recorded and art work was finished but that was as we closed the doors on the label and the record was shelved. I believe the bands rerecorded these tracks.

We also had a song from Pele out of Milwaukee which we were going to do a split 8″ with but did not nail down the other band, although AMFM came close to being the other band. This was recorded at the same time as the Mid Carson July/Jersey split so it was canceled at the decision of closing the doors on the label. Pele ended up using a rerecording of the song for a Polyvinyl compilation.

Some time after this you put together a Workshop Box Set that included various of the past releases, and a great deal of the unreleased material (mentioned above). What was the idea in making this box set, and how was it put together? What was it packaged in, and how many copies were made? I read that not all the sets comprised the same material? Can you also explain why some of the catalog numbers changed on the vinyls, such as The Jazz June’s “They Love Those Who Make Music”?

Basically it was a goodbye package. We had left over stock and a fun small run of my favorite songs from the Franklin CD which we put on vinyl. Jodie started to screen the boxes for these and we had two colours down and she got pregnant, so we could not finish the boxes. The following year when we came back to it, we went to start screening the boxes again and the ink we already put down caused the boxes to shrink. So that put an end to finishing the box set. It was put into storage until The Jazz June did the reunion fundraiser show in January 2007. We just put it together with everything we had and donated to the band and the fundraiser. I repressed “They Love Those” on my own, not with Choke Records to complete the box set. Choke was no longer active at this time and the record had been out of print.

The packaging was a mailer box screened on with our new logo. We kept it closed with velcro. I think we put together 50. Not sure if The Jazz June sold them all or not. Some sets were the same and some had extra stuff in it. We put what ever was left in these sets. It usually included:

• • Grade/Incision split LP + stickers
  • Franklin – 16 favorite songs LP in black sleeve
  • Jersey – No Turning Back LP
  • The Jazz June – They Love Those Who Make Music LP in black sleeve
  • The Jazz June – The Boom, the Motion and the Music LP
  • Mid Carson July – Ten Years on Autopilot LP + stickers
  • SlingShotDavid – A Human Sorrow for Freedom CD-R
  • Union Young America – Kill the Man in Everything CD-R packaged in 7″ sleeve
  • CD-R of the Mid Carson July/Jersey split and the Pele track for the split with AMFM
  • Workshop Records stickers, a poster and a colour copy of Workshop’s new logo which was never used.

How bout some tour stories of all the dudes you worked with over the years? A lot sound like they had fun on the road.

I have a ton of stories when bands hit the road they see and come into a lot of situations. A lot of good times and a lot of bad times. I went one weekend to Montreal with Jersey and had a great night out at a little hole in the wall punk bar. Listen to old school punk rock and circle pit into the early hours of the morning. I know as a story it does not sound like much but I was with my friends having some drinks and dancing around with everyone in the bar having a great time. There is no bar around here like it.

Jersey’s van breaking down in Arizona, I think it was, and the band with no money left had to find a job, which they did making tie-dye shirts and I am not sure but maybe someone help by wiring money to them as well.

Selling a hundred CD’s one night in Boston for a Jersey show with these three girls as my cheer leading section.

MCJ always had the best stories like the Bryon and Eric who are brothers getting into a fist fight in the middle of the street and the cops picking them up and putting them behind bars for the night. They also got locked up for firing of bottle rockets in FL. one night. With last bit of money they had on tour they went to the casino to double it which did not work out to plan. I love these guys.

Chris from Union Young America taking bricks from parliament hill. Late night café runs. Guelph was still a great city at that time.

At the end of the day I really appreciated everything this bands did by hitting the road, making and recording music, spending time with us to become a family and just doing something we all love doing be a part of the small scene and keeping it diy. The true working class hero’s. Kids coming together and helping each other out weather you made the music, put on the show, put a band up for the night, or the kid who bought the merch. and support us all.

Since the ending of Workshop Records, have you had any implications in the music industry? What do you do nowdays and how do you look back at all the amazing releases you’ve put out?

We have no regrets with the label. We met a lot of nice people and some we still talk to, like Ralph from Franklin we are going to visit with the whole family. He has not met our kids yet so it should be fun. I have not done anything else in the music scene. I still buy records and go to shows just not as much as I used too.

Nowdays I like to collect art and vinyl toys by some of the artists. Some of the artists I collect are Pushead (I have collected his stuff for 20 years now), Nathan Jurevicius, Jeff Soto, Luke Feldman, Usugrow, Mike Sutfin, Gary Taxali, Caia Koopman to name a few. Music as of late I just bought the Roger Miret, Smoke or Fire, Social Distortion and enjoy listening to Chuck Ragan, Tim Barry, Drag the River/Jon Snodgrass, Austin Lucas, Elliott Smith, Strike Anywhere, New Bruises, The Jai Alia Savant and things like that.

I do not really look back on the label until someone like your self comes a long and ask me about. I listen to the records from time to time. I am sure I will when the kids get a little older.

To finish, here is the complete discography of the record label:

WR-001 Grade/Believe split CD (1994, first press), (1995 second press)
WR-002 Union Young America – Kill the Man in Everything 7″ (1995)
WR-003 Franklin – GoKidGo 12″ (1995)
WR-004 Franklin – GoKidGo CD (1996)
WR-005 Jersey – No Turning Back 12″ (1997)
WR-006 The Jazz June – They Love Those Who Make Music 12″ (1997) with Choke Records
WR-007 The Jazz June - The Boom, the Motion and the Music CD/12″ (1998)
WR-008 Mid Carson July – Ten Years On Autopilot 12″ (March 1999)
WR-009 Grade/Incision split 12″ (1999)
WR-010 The Jazz June – The Medicine 2×12″ (2000) last release, canceled. only 10 test press exist
WR-011 The Jazz June – They Love Those Who Make Music 12″ (2002) white label for box set
Workshop Box Set