Interview with David Gamage
So can you tell us about the creation of Engineer Records? It’s been a labour of love all along. I was working on a few projects, mainly Scene Police Records with a couple of friends, but also bands, a zine and some gig promotion too. I wanted to do more so set up Engineer Records. It was originally called Ignition Records actually, but about two years in we ran into some hassles with Oasis management company as they are called Ignition. We didn’t really need the legal hassles so after some arguments changed the name to Engineer. It’s been that way since and everyone involved is either in a band themselves or has been. They all know the score and what needs to be done to help our label acts. They’ve all seen it from both sides. But as i said, it’s always been a passion of mine, the alternative music scene, working with like-minded positive people. Creating as well as consuming. We started out with releases for friends bands and bands we had toured with - Hot Water Music, Hunter Gatherer, Rydell, Elemae, San Geronimo, Chamberlain, Joshua, Babies Three, Planes Mistaken For Stars, etc. A pretty good start, and we just developed it from there.
How did you get to the simple yet effective title of Engineer Records? Well, kinda just came up with it when we had to, as mentioned above. It was actually our second choice but we are pretty happy with it.
Can you tell us what the average day involves for you? As part of Engineer Records? Obviously listening to a lot of music and answering a lot of post and emails, but there’s no real average day. Some days we’ll be in the office working on the website, uploading digital content, packing and sending orders and stock from our distros. Other days we’ll be working with designers, manufacturers and suppliers. Some days we’ll be on tour with the bands and running stalls at gigs. There seems to be a lot more online work to be done now. All of our releases are available for downloads and we run a lot of social media such as YouTube and Facebook as well as our own sites.
At the start of 2011 you did a compilation CD to benefit those who had suffered the tsunami in Japan. How did you guys come up with this idea, and how rewarding was this for your label, as in seeing so many people support the idea? We were watching a few tv programmes about a week after the event. (I was away the weekend it happened). It just seemed so bad and we deal with quite a few Japanese labels and have a Japanese distributer partner too. Another person passionate about it was Dave Fritz of Junior Achiever/Ramona called us up to suggest the idea and we couldn't be happier to do so. We’ve done quite a few compilations in the past, plus quite a few benefit releases too, so we just thought why not? Releases can be out together pretty easily online now, especially for digital releases, so with a few calls and emails we had more than enough bands and tracks to do something good. We took a while to get all the masters in and Craig Cirinelli designed a cool cover for the album. Mikee chose the running order and managed to get all the tracks mastered by Ian Sadler of Emeline Studios. It came together pretty well and fast. Our US distributer Nail wanted to put it out on itunes and amazon in Japan and USA and we wanted it to be a whole album download for a donation. Keep it simple and cheap, so we added it to a bandcamp site too. We launched it with some pr work and a video on youtube too and it seems to be going ok. We are sending a cheque to the children’s charity involved but the problem with these things is that people forget pretty quick, so we sent out reminder promo a little while back for the six month anniversary too.