Fake Four Inc.

What was the publishing company you planned to start originally and how did it transform into the label?

Well, when They Hate Francisco False came out it was my first time getting some serious college radio play, plus Toca was coming out and i got licensed for some Paintball videos (??) and B-Movies so I figured I should take advantage of the new exposure and start a publishing company which would pay me meager amounts anytime that shit was played. It’s rather hard to come up with a name that’s acceptable – ASCAP asked for like 5 different names and they chose Fake Four Music. The name is a reference to Fake Flowers and Four Fingers (I have 4 fingers on my right hand) – and “Fake For Music” was like a little joke about the industry. For a couple of years it was just my publishing company – but in early 2008 Tony from Squids Eye Records in Dayton, Ohio presented me with a p+d deal of sorts in which he would manufacture and distribute any album my brother and I wanted to put out under Fake Four. Around that same time our friends at Grimm Image Records in San Bernardino, CA were setting up shop and were already funding some of my brother David’s This Up Here project but they didn’t have any distribution or anything official set up so we thought it would be best to collaborate on the release and put it out as Fake Four/Grimm Image. This was the official beginning of our label. Since that release we’ve become a completely self sufficient label, we are exclusively distributed in Canada by Sonic Unyon and this past summer we signed an exclusive distribution deal with Redeye Distribution for the US/World.

What releases do you have in the works? Vinyl/CD/other formats?

We have a bunch of Fake Four releases in the works, in 2009 we already put out records by Myka 9, Boy In Static, Delby L, Gregory Pepper and Awol One & Factor.

On October 13th we are releasing Sole & The Skyrider Band’s new album, Plastique which is coming out on CD and Vinyl along with a very limited 500 print of the Battlefields EP on Vinyl with a beautiful chipboard jacket.

Some of these are still not confirmed dates but it’s looking like the following projects include:

• 11/17/09 – Free Download album by Dark Time Sunshine (Cowen [aka Onry Ozzborn] & Zavala)
• 12/08/09 – Flavor Ade by MiC K!NG (aka iCON) & Chum
• 1/26/10 – The Roots, The Leaves by Cars & Trains
• 2/23/10 – Saffron by Ron Contour (produced by Factor)

And much more tba… including my next album with DJ Scientist as well as Factor’s next solo record, Mad Gregs’ new one, Deadpan Darling (Blue Sky Black Death & myself), Dark Time Sunshine official full length and more.

In a perfect world, what does the future of independent music look like?

In a perfect world – people start buying cds and records like it was 1999 again. It pisses me off when I see people downloading a single song on an album instead of listening to the whole thing. This kind of laziness can lead to the death of the full length. I always hated those cassette singles at the record store when I was young – they looked pathetic and flimsy and they never truly represented the artist correctly. Fake Four is almost stupidly in favor of the preservation of full length albums – the full story.

In addition to releasing music, what else is Fake Four doing? Any more tours planned?

Yeah Fake Four artists are touring constantly… Sole & The Skyrider Band are touring with Astronautalis starting October 15. Awol One is touring Europe right now. Fake Four is co-sponsoring a European tour with Equinox Records of 2Mex and myself along with Dj Scientist and an up and coming German producer named PlaypadCircus starting October 10th.

Fake Four is still planning to do this very special picture disc 7 inch club called the No Friends Club – we have an official mailing list now that we’ve been building and would love to have a ravenous 200 limit group of vinyl fiends to become part of this elite vinyl club – these will all be exclusive pieces of art and music by Fake Four artists and beyond. It’s just taking a lot of preparation from our end. But it’s going down. Sign up here.

What are your top 5 metal albums?

Jesus. This one’s tough. As you can possibly tell by my list… I haven’t been a big metal listener for the last decade… haha, but i think these albums are classic or very important to metal and all really good.

• Sepultura – Chaos A.D.
• Metallica – Ride The Lightning (yeah I said it)
• Slayer – Reign in Blood
• Candiria – Beyond Reasonable Doubt (this 1997 piece of work got overlooked far too much, it’s a pretty mind boggling jazz-metal record)
• Dillinger Escape Plan – Calculating Infinity

I’m probably forgetting something and by the way – I’m not including any of my favorite hardcore bands here… but I love the 80s core like Bad Brains, Minor Threat, crossover like Suicidal Tendecies and Cro-Mags and mid-90s nyhc/cthc like Mad Ball, VOD, Earth Crisis, early Hatebreed etc.

Final thoughts? Shout outs?

Health care should be completely free for everybody – the arguments against it are all insignificant and some are down right stupid. We spend stupidly in America but we suddenly can’t afford to give everyone treatment. I’ve waited in U.S. Emergency Rooms for hours on end, I’ve been charged $700 for a styrofoam cup of hospital water. America please give me free health care so I can keep this label going and stop dodging hospital bill collectors. Thanks.

Shouts to all the supporters of Fake Four including everyone at UGSMAG – Noyz, Chaps, Saskatoon and Rajbot!

fakefourinc.com