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Sean Gray: We thought it would be fucking funny to put out a comedy record and we did that. It was a funny record; who the fuck would buy a 12 minute, one-sided vinyl? Three hundred fucks did. We made money. It was an important record because it made us laugh. Chris and I met at a Deerhunter/Clockcleaner show. His friend said he’d seen me earlier that day and described me as “this kid in a walker with a cool Devo shirt.” I guess I was easy to point out in a crowd. Tracy is a female, who I have known for years. There were and are too many dudes in this music/record label shit. Really, she’s great and has made this a better label in general.
Chris Berry: Some of my favorite records in my collection make me throw my hands up and wonder why anyone would ever release it. I hope that’s the response that people had to “Ready To Fight.”
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Sean Gray: This is true. On our last rounds of mailing it out we decided it would be a fucking riot to at least get them to open up the package. From what I remember, Chris wrote on the cover, “ANIMAL COLLECTIVE LIVE IN SPAIN.” With a real date that they’d played. I don’t think we left them a note or anything. Who knows if they actually listened to it or whatever, but someone at Pitchfork has the Animal Collective version of "Ready to Fight."Instant collectors item! Someone call the ghost of Dylan Cohl, quick! So when did you realize this label was becoming more than some silly thing to put a comedy record out on?
Sean Gray: I think we started to think about it seriously after our third release. I mean, we’d thought after the Cleaner record we might do one more, go back to our studies and call it a day. I know Chris and I started talking more seriously once we saw people actually gave a shit beyond message boards. I’m more interested now, and I know Tracy and Chris both are too, on going beyond some internet and blog fans. I totally respect the fact we were born through that, and to this day we still use that as a tool, but it’s nice to now be able to use other means than just a thread to get our records out there. As far as comedy goes, for me its a huge influence on how I help run this label. Chris and I pack records while listening to Jim Florentine, Longmont, and Zartan. I think that shows from my end.
Chris Berry: The point I realized this was serious was when I started reading reviews of other records that weren’t very good that said it sounded like something with the “Fan Death sound” or whatever. We aim to surprise and disappoint!
Tracy Soo-Ming: I knew it was getting serious when I realized I was sometimes doing 20 plus hours of unpaid work a week for the label. Which is cool, because it means people care, but it also sucks, because I could be playing video games instead.
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Sean Gray: We read the Vice interview they did with Shark. Also Richie from Cleaner had nothing but good things to say. They sounded like three dudes with Down's playing Bikini Kill songs circa the first two LPs. What’s not to like?
Chris Barry: Somehow they convinced the Australian government to fly them out here to play some shows. I squeezed them in my Corolla and introduced them to Nicki Minaj and White Castle. Then Dan from the band Lotus Fucker took them further South, where they ate Chick-Fil-A and discovered that Florida is the Perth of the U.S.
Tracy Soo-Ming: Watch it! I lived in Florida as a kid. We have Less Than Jake, don’t hate.How did your relationships with some of the other bands occur?
Chris Barry: My favorite way of finding out about new bands is talking to my friends or people on our label about what they’re excited about. Other ways we have found out about new bands include “going to shows” and “the Internet.”
Sean Gray: A lot of it was, and I guess still is, friends of friends. Bands come to us now, as we are all too lazy/busy to try to find bands. I’d rather be watching The Simpsons or Pardon the Interruption than going to shows. I’m 28, I’ve seen enough live music. Unless you’re Neil Young, White Cross in their prime, or Albert Ayler back from the dead, you can most likely count me out on coming to your show.
Chris Barry: I probably go to a couple shows a week, but a lot of bands I want to see don’t come through Baltimore because they assume every band is called Dog Snuggie and is made up of eight art school goofballs lying under a blanket.
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Chris Berry: The first release we’re doing that’s by a band that sent us a demo is the upcoming Pleasure Leftists 12”. But yeah, a pretty big chunk of what turns up in our PO Box (or worse, our email inbox) that’s sent to us randomly is pretty awful. I have no idea how some of these bands/artists find us, or why they think we would care about their eight-page glossy promo packet that accompanies a loose CD-R with marker on it. Instead of spending $3 on a CD-R and envelope for something I’m not going to listen to, I would recommend these bands put that money into their local NBA Jam arcade cabinet. It’s a better investment.
Tracy Soo-Ming: We also get resumes in our inbox, which is funny, because it means someone out there thinks we make enough money to pay them.
Sean Gray: I saw that resume. I think the dude interned for Sub Pop or something.
Tracy Soo-Ming: At least he was smart enough to upgrade.

Sean Gray: He called me up at 1am two summers ago asking me how to fill out forms for URP [Cheap ass record pressing plant - TR] I was pissed because I was in the middle of watching baseball highlights or something. I knew at that point it was just a matter of time before he’d get some label to do it. Fast forward to that fall, I get a fucking text at 7am on my way to class: PUT OUT THIS FUCKING RECORD ‘CAUSE I DON’T HAVE THE TIME TO. I liked the demos and I had the mp3s already. Chris was on board right away. It seems people like it, mostly women. I have no issue with that.
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Chris Berry: Body Cop are apparently writing their next release right now. They're kind of a mystery to us, honestly. I've only seen them live twice, their singer moved to Centralia, Pennsylvania to start a vegan sulfur mine or something, and their bassist is in high school. Also, they got into some trouble recently and had to go on Judge Judy to get it sorted out.
Sean Gray: I credit my good buddy Denman on this one. He did a piece on them for some DC blog and turned me on to them. They are a fucking monster live.What releases do you have in the future? Which ones are you most excited about?
Tracy Soo-Ming: We don’t get excited.
Sean Gray: I like Puerto Rico Flowers and Pleasure Leftists because they will put more money in our bank account.
Chris Berry: I disagree, Tracy. We are the greatest record label in the world, and all of our releases are the greatest records currently being made and will satisfy listeners thoroughly.
Sean Gray: Well, they’re not all great. If you can’t move units, then no, I’m not excited. Whatever hasn’t sold out yet isn’t the greatest. But yes, we are better than our peers. Captured Tracks? Hozac? Really man?
Chris Berry: Save it for your tape label. In my world, our peers are Trojan, Tuff Gong, and Wackies.
Sean Gray: Fuck you. You used to jock a Braid rip-off band in DC. And what happened to those other goofy releases on Shitty Sound System or whatever your other record label was called?
Chris Berry: Says the guy who released Suburban Combat. “REALITY TV, WHOA-OH-OH.”
Sean Gray: I stand by it, crust punk at its best and worst.
Tracy Soo-Ming: OK, I don’t get excited. I also never liked Braid or Suburban Combat, because I have some dignity. I do like making money, though.
Sean Gray: I bet you jerked off over that new Radiohead record, Tracy.
Tracy Soo-Ming: Fuck you, I liked them when I was 14, while you were busy sucking The Locust’s dick.
Sean Gray: Great lyrics from a band with terrible haircuts. Not as good as a band that put out a record called “The King of Limbs.”
Tracy Soo-Ming: Don’t you have some Smashing Pumpkins videos you need to watch on YouTube or something?
Sean Gray: I still love The Pumpkins, not ashamed. We met through listening to Hole. We both lose. Remember?
Tracy Soo-Ming: Yeah, I can’t defend that.
Sean Gray: We made our bed, and we’ll lie in it.
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Tracy Soo-Ming: I wish we did black metal releases. We aren’t very ‘kvlt‘. But next Fan Death Records showcase, I want pig heads on sticks. And blood.
Chris Berry: That’s not vegan. I want to get on the “witch house”/”grave wave”/whateverthefuck bandwagon, because I read an article about it in Wired magazine at the gym (don’t judge). Any bands that need Wingdings to spell their name should g3† >>N<< †0uch.
Tracy Soo-Ming: Chillgrave?
Chris Berry: Milhouse.
Sean Gray: I just discovered what witch house is. The wiki for it is pretty amazing. Also amazing is that something like witch house exists. I still demand we put a fucking Longmont Potion Castle boxset out, but I’m sure neither of my two co-owners have the balls to, even if we had the money! I’d like to reissue Scar Tissue, the book, on vinyl, read by members of Porno for Pyros, Cold World, Soundgarden, and other guests.
Chris Berry: I want to do a vinyl reissue of the DFH demo CD-R from 2002. An essential artifact of absolutely inept Connecticut suburban hardcore, this one will make straight edge sneaker collector virgins sweat bullets. I’ll get a track off the DFH demo. It’s AMAZING. RAW!
Sean Gray: Wait, is that the guy from your high school who wanted to name his band Nirvana?
Chris Berry: No, that was Box, which was also an amazing release.
Sean Gray: I’m all for a vinyl issue of that, best fuckin’ band name ever. I remember DFH now, that RAW song is a fucking rager.
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Sean Gray: I stand behind what we said. It wasn’t really meant to make those goofy bands feel bad (well, it kinda was). I think it was more frustration on our end about bands we loved only playing to ten people. Nothing new anywhere, I know, but we care about the bands we enjoy a lot. I mean, you know you’re in bad shape when you have the avant/noise band equivalent of a Creed cover band opening for people like Jandek or something. Yes, DC has a local band like that. There was and is nothing too great in DC music-wise. That is not to say it can’t change. I won’t say we are the answer to that. Fan Death Records really isn’t a local label. Plus, we really have better things to do at this point than argue with people who dress better than us. We got a few threats, someone wanted to fuck me in the ass, I think.
Chris Berry: I don’t care about being part of any “scene,” local or otherwise. I like that Groucho Marx quote, “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” The people who are receptive to what we do will find out about us, listen to our releases, and maybe give our artists and us money. A couple of people I knew from the DC indie rock scene unfriended me on Facebook after that interview, and I thought that was the extent of the fallout from that until it got brought up in a job interview last summer. My favorite part was the “butthurt” rating system the City Paper made, but it was really goofy that they kept printing articles about it a month and a half after the fact. I guess we should thank them for proving our point!
Sean Gray: Oh yeah, that really might be our crowning achievement.So when is the Taco Leg triple LP coming out?
Sean Gray: As soon as it is done. Taco Leg are still the best band on the planet. It was pretty amazing seeing them live. I can’t believe Chris and the rest of that band pulled it off in terms of touring the USA. It was a pretty amazing feat to be a part of. Some people hate that 7”, but I think I’ll be playing that record more in ten years than probably any other release we’ve done.
Chris Berry: They’re coming back to the US next year to do a full tour opening for Tame Impala, so it might be ready before that.Anything you can think of that I didn’t bring up that should have been?
Tracy Soo-Ming: Buy our records.
Sean Gray: Leather is the best band, and their drummer needs to eat more.[audio:http://vicerecords.com/download/Fan Death Records Mix.mp3]
Fan Death Records MixPleasure Leftists - "Nature of Feeling Pleasure"
Lamps - "The Role Of The Dogcatcher In African-American Urban Folklore"
Puerto Rico Flowers - "3 Sisters"
FNU Ronnies - "Watchful Eye"
Screen Vinyl Image - "Take Me Down"
Body Cop - "Stay Alive"
The New Flesh - "Plan B"
Clockcleaner - "Early Man"
Broken Water - "Faux King Vogue"
To Live And Shave In L.A. - "Flattering Circles of Hell"
Homostupids - "Doper"
Taco Leg - "Shadow Pal"
Twin Stumps - "Lust Murder"
DFH - "Raw!!!"http://fandeathrecords.com/
