A brief chat with Josh of DIY Hardcore label Dead End Records (who you may know for putting out such throwdown merchants as Brutality Will Prevail, Hang The Bastard, and Gravemaker) about why it’s all coming to an end, and about the birth of his new project INDCSN.

SO, tell me about yourself mate – when did you realise that putting out hardcore records was the one? Was it something you always wanted to do, or did you stumble into it?

We kind of stumbled over the idea of doing the label. I was in a band at the time called Diehards and we were playing a lot of shows on the local scene as well as a bunch of out of town gigs / showcases / shambles. We did most of the early shows with young band called the Grebs who were, at the time, literally a very young band. After playing all these shows and hanging out we decided we wanted to do a split record. But due to us all being under 19 and not touring at all ever no labels would touch us, so in true punk rock fashion we decided to put the record out ourselves. We all chipped in and made about 100 copies of one of the worst CDs you will ever hear – but it was the beginning of putting out a whole bunch of records that I genuinely believe are in the higher realms of good music and not bedroom recorded nightmares. In fact I think the Grebs still have copies of that very first record which is pretty embarrassing if I’m honest, as every label’s dream is for their pressing history to be a long list of the glorious phrase (SOLD OUT) which unfortunately isn’t something UK labels are very familiar with.

"a letter i got when a guy ordered from some far out European country"

So what’s happened to Dead End Records now?

Basically Dead End Records is coming to a hiatus. We had plans to release a lot more records but we unfortunately had to back out of releasing a whole bunch of records last year which I’m still pretty cut up about. We had plans to work with some really amazing young bands like neverXagain, Broken Teeth, Frustration and a few others, as well as working with some of the other bands we had already worked with again. But life and bad debts got in the way of all that. We got fucked over more times than I care to remember. I think our problem was that we never believed in contracts or anything like that with bands, or distro’s, or other labels. So we have managed to make losses on trades, wholesales and everything else a label could. We put far too much trust in people who clearly were not trustworthy and they took advantage of our kind nature. But none the less I tried to keep my PMA and plough on through but we (I ran the label with my friend Jim) got to a point where we are starting to think about other things. As far as Dead End in the immediate future goes we have plans to do a collaboration on a t shirt and hat with Jim’s new company Synapse (http://www.synapsecollective.com/) which will be available exclusively from them in the not so distant future. We also plan on doing one last sampler in our Dead End Sampler series which will be Jim’s new band Sweet Revenge which will be available through our webstore before the end of the year. It seemed like a good way to go out as we ran the label together for well over a year. Its more for us and the local scene than maybe some of the other people that bought our releases but hopefully they can get onboard with it, if you haven’t checked them out make sure you do it straight away they are in the top friends part of our myspace page. There are some other things that we might or might not throw into the mix though before we go away for a while. But more news on that when we have it.

Did you have any set ethics or criteria when putting out records? And has that followed onto INDCSN?

We always worked with bands that we really liked. We were never that label that put out the fashionable bands. If the band wasn’t something that I would happily put on my stereo we would never work with that band. I still constantly listen to the records we put out except the first one haha. As far as ethics go I always tried to be fair with the bands we worked with. All bands got pretty much the same deal and were expected to do the same amount of things as all the others. We never asked the world of our bands, we just wanted them to succeed. I never saw Dead End Records as a pathway to high life, I never wanted to make any money off it. It’s a total cliche but I really did it for love in the beginning but you can only love being unable to eat and never having money to a certain point. As far as INDCSN goes we are going to do things our way. It’s cool because we (me and Greg) are in total control of this. Unlike putting out records we can make all the designs how we want them to be and we can distribute where we please as well as putting in as much effort as is needed. We both understand that we need to put in the time if we want this to come to anything. It’s a million miles away from touring, but it’s just as time consuming if not more so. Its a 24/7 52 weeks a year grind that isn’t showing any signs of easing up anytime soon.

What exactly is INDCSN? It seems like the accumulation of all your ambition into one project.

INDCSN is what INDCSN does. If we wanna put out clothes we will put out clothes. If we want to re release 80′s pop records we will re release 80s pop records. We aren’t going to put ourselves into a small closed off genre and only do what is seen as acceptable within that set group. It really doesn’t matter what we do, what matters is that we want to do it and that’s the bottom line.

What’s the plan for INDCSN in the future?

I don’t want to let much slip about this. We have lots of ambition and there are a lot of things to come from us. There are lots of really limited quantities of things to be released in the coming months. We’re just having fun with what we do at the minute – no need to make life complicated. We have that PMA and it’s all we need.

Finally five songs off the Dead End label that we all need to hear?

Oh shit that is the hardest question you have asked. I really love a lot of the songs by a lot of the bands. But here goes anyway.

1. Fuck With Fire ”Drinking On My Own” which was on a split sampler called ”Punks in Trunks” we did as a .1 release for them with another great band called Valhalla Pacifists.

2. Just Fucking Die… ”I’m Seeing Red” off the E.P ”I’m Not Posi, You’re Not Crucial” which was easily the angriest record I have ever put out. It’s about 7 minutes of pure hatred for the human race. It was a split release with never healed records. Only 200 of these ever pressed.

3. Brutality Will Prevail ”Poison” love this record, it’s gotta be in the top 2 favourite records I have ever put out. I also love this band as humans. They are the most genuine band we have ever worked with. They are seriously top dudes, they also have a new record out for pre-order on Holy Roar records which you should all buy as it’s going to be incredible and the artwork is amazing.

4. Hang The Bastard ”Oblivion” this is a record we never put out physically. We did it on iTunes and distributed the release for Never Healed Records. This song kills it, the bands kills it. They played Dead End fest last month and blew everyone away. New album for them soon as well.

5. Grave Maker ”Comfort In Concrete” this is the song I heard on a sampler and instantly emailed the band asking what plans they had. Turns out they were planning a European tour…the rest is history.

myspace.com/deadtotheendrecords

http://www.indcsn.com/

This entry was tagged as BRUTALITY WILL PREVAIL, DEAD END RECORDS, GRAVE MAKER, HANG THE BASTARD, JUST FUCKING DIE....