Inside The Label: Pirates Press Records

With the demise of the big-tuna labels and the rise of smaller ones that are homespun, homegrown and even home-based, the term “labor of love” has come back into vogue. For those trying to make a living in music, each passing day seems like extra emphasis is being added to the same question: Do you really have the passion to stick it out? No, really?

One of the overriding hopes seems to be that it’s the true music lovers who are becoming the final holdouts. But their mettle is being tested again and again - compounded, even.

And that’s because there’s an ultimate problem with labors of love: Inevitably, the “labor” part subsumes the “love.” Whether it be because of lack of funds, exhaustion, jadedness or otherwise, the labor often winds up going to waste.

On a more optimistic note, one of the other apparent trends in the ever-changing landscape is a burst of creativity that hasn’t been seen since at least the ’90s. Vinyl is in, in a big way - and not just among hardcore fans, DJs and collectors. It’s spreading to a whole new breed of music consumers - kids, casual fans and people who don’t even own record players. The craze has caught on so feverishly that some cottage companies - like I’m Better Than Everyone Records, which we profiled in last week’s edition of “Inside the Label” - are adhering to a vinyl-only policy.

Beyond the vinyl, we’re also seeing products that combine clothing and music (c.f. Mos Def’s The Ecstatic), drop cards, 3-D artwork, make-your-own artwork (Beck’s The Information), drop cards, digital packaging … the list goes on and on.

With all this in mind, let us introduce you to Pirates Press, which - in the words of “The Big Lebowski” - is the right company for its time and place.

Captained by Eric “Skippy” Mueller, based in San Francisco and founded five years ago, the thoroughly unique operation has a record-label branch that is able to subsist - and even thrive - due largely to its creative nature, and in spite of its labor-of-love status.

How so, you ask? Well, because the record label has a host from which to feed: Pirates Press proper.

The operation is a shoestring one, as you’ll see from this staff pic:

And yet still, their output is massive. PP now presses over 1 million pieces of vinyl each year.

So, in turn, Pirates Press is able to parlay those profits into its sister, the record label. Which then frees the label from having to worry about making profits of its own.

You’re probably thinking Pirates Press has “indie” written all over it. And the company and label do, in terms of their business status, most of their clients and their overall ethos. But it would be dishonest not to disclose the fact that PP often shakes hands with the majors - and has items like Madonna’s Hard Candy (a triple-vinyl set) and a four-LP version of Beck’s Odelay, as well as products for blockbuster movies like “The Dark Knight” and “Spider-Man 3,” to thank for filling the company’s coffers.

At the same time, some of PP’s biggest pressings have been Mastodon and Isis box sets - and a 10-inch version of Torche’s In Return has “probably pressed more than any record we’ve done,” Skippy told IndiePit. (Check out our coverage of last night’s Torche show here and here.) The company also handles all of Hydra Head’s releases - as he revealed to us, the label will soon be forgoing CDs altogether.

As also stated by Skippy - a dyed-in-the-wool music fan who gets giddy while simply talking about vinyl and packaging - he doesn’t see a conflict between juggling majors and indies: “The ideals are in line, and if we’re able to use the same services we give the punk-rock and indie world - offer those services on a major-label level - it allows us to be a stronger company. We’re less reliant on the profit that we need from all the other customers, essentially, and we can offer those punk-rock kids the best prices in the world, if we already have our back end covered.”

So yes, while the company has a Rolodex full of big-time clients, its mission statement is independent-minded: Pirates Press says it’s out there to “protect” all artists and labels from being taken advantage of by corporate manufactures.

“A lot of people, they know that we’re pressing 100 titles a week sometimes, so we do see the things that come out nice and the things that come out that we get disappointed with. They take our recommendations pretty seriously a lot of times. I have plenty of customers who call me and send me their artwork before sending me the final order so that I can look at it and say, ‘Why don’t we go with this color scheme on the vinyl, or how about a reverse-board uncoated finish on this one, because I think the fact that it’s a painting, it’ll make the texture stand out better.’

“When you’re flipping through a rack at a record store with 500 records in it, those are the things that make you take a double-take on something. And that’s what the goal of all these independent labels pushing all this stuff is: to have the people who are buying the shit to take a double-take and really take a look at the record.”

And therein lies the label’s chief draw: unique, embellished and even outlandish packaging. With consumers finally giving a damn again about the physical products they buy, the kind of TLC that PP puts into its releases - regardless of how many are pressed each year - stands out among the denizens.

“People are now focusing on the package, so that it is making the final product stand on its own,” Skippy said. “We even have guys in the office who don’t necessarily listen to a lot of vinyl when they’re sitting at home. But they have big vinyl collections, because they can download the drop card onto their computer and listen to the digital version of it, or they collect them because they’re fans of a particular type of artwork or colored vinyl.”

From gorgeous box sets to poly-bagged releases to hologram gatefolds to more outrageous projects like jigsaw puzzles, when it comes to making music-related products, the possibilities are endless for Skippy. The wilder the better.

And it’s that mentality that is providing the rocket fuel for Pirates Press Records, which, again is the labor-of-love side of the organization.

“We don’t have any staff for the label,” Skippy said. “The label is basically [a project that survives on] everybody’s spare time.”

He calls it a “reinvestment”: funneling the money Pirates Press makes from major labels - as well as regular indie clients like Hydra Head, Robotic Empire and too many more to name - back into the underground.

“The profit for our company gets reinvested back into the punk-rock world, essentially, in the records that we’re putting out. The people who work here, or a lot of the people who work here, are into punk and metal and play in bands or put out records themselves. [So] to be able to reinvest [our profits] into something that’s a little more in line with our mentality and ideology and musical tastes … it drives us to work harder, and it make those customers even more happy.”

Here’s a glimpse of some Pirates Press Records releases Skippy is most proud of:

This split 8-inch - that’s right, not 7 or 10, but 8 - features punks Mischief Brew (from Philadelphia) and Andrew Jackson Jihad (from Phoenix). As reflected above, some of the records came with polka dots - 170 of those were pressed - while 400 other pieces came in clear form.

“We did what’s called ‘concentric grooves,’ where each band recorded an electric and an acoustic version of the same song,” Skippy said. On each side, the two versions were “simultaneously cut onto the record in parallel grooves. It’s as if it was being cut at the same time by two different needles in a spiral. So if you start the record at 3 o’clock, say, it might catch the electric version. But then if you pick the needle back up and start it over, and it hits the 9 o’clock, you’re going to get the other version. And because the two versions were recorded almost in time, throughout the record, if you make it skip or stomp on the floor near the record player, it skips over to the other version almost in sync with the song.

“To boot, it was an 8-inch, so it’s one of those records that will stick out in everybody’s collection. Put it in with the 7-inches and it sticks up an inch - or put it in with your 10-inches, it gets lost - one of the two.

“We sold 200 copies of that in about a day and a half on our Web site.”

Cock Sparrer’s Here We Stand also stands out to Skippy as one of the label’s proudest products:

“It’s the one that really meant the most to everybody. Last year we pressed in the ballpark of about 1,000 records for other people [through Pirates Press]. So when you press one for yourself [through Pirates Press Records], it means a lot more. And this is a record and a band that a lot of the guys here have been fans of for, like, their entire musical careers.

“In the punk world, they’re one of the only bands that started in the early ’70s that still plays - and still plays with essentially their original lineup. The newest member of the band’s been in the band for 18 years.” (Actually, 17: rhythm guitarist Daryl Smith joined the gang in 1992.)

“We’re going to be putting out a new record, ideally, for them next year - and that’ll be the fifth different decade that they’ve put a studio album out in. They’ve put out a studio album in the ’70s, the ’80s, the ’90s, the 2000s and then it’ll be the 2010s. That’s unheard of, you know? Especially for a punk band.”

And then there is above. While it looks like a collage of pins, it’s actually a picture of dozens - nay, hundreds - of records that have been pressed by PP. And that picture was transposed onto a jigsaw puzzle, making this PP Records release one of those outlandishly creative items we alluded to above.

“We did a 1,500-piece jigsaw puzzle,” he said. “It’s 3 feet by 4 feet, and it’s a collage of probably over 200 or 300 records that we’ve pressed in the last few years. Trying to highlight some of the more crazy ones and some of the more high-profile ones that people would want to have on their wall as part of a giant jigsaw puzzle. High-profile punk stuff, and a couple of mainstream things, kind of as a joke. The Joker from ‘The Dark Knight,’ his face from a picture disc we did, but overlapped on top of a Madonna record, so it’s like Madonna’s body with the Joker’s head.”

Last but not least, Skippy also gave IndiePit the skinny on some upcoming releases:

“We are doing a split with the Re-Volts, who are on our label - it’s a couple of members of the Swingin’ Utters and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes and One Man Army. A split with them and a band called Off With Their Heads … both bands are actually playing our five-year anniversary party in November with Cock Sparrer. We’re flying them out for two days, and they’re playing [in the city] with two different bills [on the 13th and 14th at Great American Music Hall]. They’re going to headline with two different sets of opening bands, all of whom are on our label or are releasing records on our label.”

Don’t miss these previous installments of “Inside the Label”:

I’m Better Than Everyone Records
Bloodshot Records
ADD Records
Prosthetic Records
Ipecac Recordings