This upcoming weekend, local and national favorites The Long Winters, Ra Ra Riot, Mates of State, Nada Surf, Menomena, Jesse Sykes and more will perform at a four-night music fest across town celebrating 15 years of Seattle’s Barsuk Records. The label, known mostly for literate, indie-minded rock fare, seems like the least likely of its Seattle peers to throw itself such a huge party, but when co-founder Josh Rosenfeld talks about the label’s lengthy history, the four-day celebration seems appropriate after all.
Wikipedia still tags Barsuk’s start year as 1994. You ever gonna edit that?
I’ll explain that. Barsuk started because [co-founder] Christopher [Possanza] and I were in a band, This Busy Monster, while some of us were working at Cellophane Square Records in the UD. At the record store, people would consign CDs they’d manufactured themselves. It was always telltale—you could look at the back and there’d maybe be a barcode, no label information. So we figured, we have to put a fake label on the back to make our [albums] look more legit. I’m sure we weren’t the first people to do that, you know. We start counting at 1998, because that’s when we started putting out full-length albums and figured out how to make CDs.
Right, like Death Cab For Cutie’s first full-length in ’98, Something About Airplanes. At what point did you say, this is a real record label?
Not until Death Cab’s second record came out in 2000. Then it felt like, this thing is not just a hobby but could be a business; it might need our time and attention enough that we should quit our day jobs. I was the first person in the group to do that. We had great advisors in the early days. Megan Jasper, who runs Sub Pop now. Chris Takino, who passed away a few years ago, he owned Up Records. Whenever I had a question, I could call them up. We benefited a lot from advice from people who knew what they were doing.
You were also part of Amazon’s pilot program in the late ’90s, right?
Whoa! Look at you, research-a-rini! Yeah, Amazon started not too long before we did. Their only warehouse was in SoDo, maybe three blocks from where our longtime Georgetown office ended up being. I’d go to Amazon in person, drop off a box of Death Cab CDs, when they allowed vendors to do traditional distribution. That’s hilarious, I haven’t thought about that in a really long time.
Did that Amazon deal have much impact for Barsuk?
I don’t remember it being a revelation. We’d drop off a box of 30, they’d sell through, drop off another box. I remember clearly thinking, maybe a year after SAA, ‘Why do record labels hire so many people? All you do is make a good record, put it out in the world, and everyone wants to buy it. This is so easy!’ Hilarious.
When did you begin reaching out to strangers’ bands, as opposed to acts you were chummy with a la Death Cab?
The first time we did that was with Rilo Kiley. They were the first band we ever flew somewhere to see them play, and the first band we actually signed! For a long time, we didn’t have contracts. We just did handshake deals with everybody.
What made that change?
I’ve told this story a million times, but Death Cab had been ignoring calls from major labels for a couple of years. Before they turned in Transatlanticism, they said, just a heads-up, we may start returning those calls and having those conversations, and just in case somebody waves a bunch of money in our faces, we wanna be in a position where it’s not possible for us to screw you over and just leave. We wanna do a deal where if we leave, you have to get paid. That’s an insane thing for a band to do.
So why did they?
Because they’re super good dudes! We have worked with a tremendous group of people for 15 years. That’s something I keep coming back to as I think about the time that’s passed. How great, how fortunate we have been to work with not just super talented people, but good eggs, you know?
I’m surprised that never blew up in your face.
Yeah, there’s something about the realm of indie rock that we operate in. It’s important to people to be trustworthy, to have integrity, to work things out. There’ve definitely been trying times over 15 years, but with very few exceptions, the bands we’ve worked with have been great people. We’ve helped them, they’ve helped us. [The label has] operated just as we thought it would when we were idealistic and had no idea what we were doing.
Can you point to a guiding principle at Barsuk that’s been consistent over 15 years?
In the early days, there was only one principle: Do Christopher and I like it, and is there something unique about it? We’ve maintained a certain level of that, but now that the industry has gotten more difficult the artists we work with need to be able to do the really hard work required to pursue a life as a professional musician, and essentially become our business partners.
What sparked that change in perspective?
In 2001, This Busy Monster did a tour down to SXSW and back with Death Cab and another really good band, Little Champions. We saw Death Cab play every night and realized, there’s a big difference between my band and Death Cab. Death Cab is pursuing lives as professional musicians. We’re not willing to quit our jobs to do that. During that time, there was a whole indie rock thing, this slackery feeling. Pavement-ish. “If you try hard, it’s lame.” That’s terrible. I really reject that. Trying hard is really important. Why do you have a life, if you’re not going to try hard to do the things you’re doing? Death Cab, to keep throwing love at them, those guys try hard. It has served them well.
Barsuk’s roster is chock full of local talent and known quantities, but even after all these years, do you think Barsuk is sometimes taken for granted around here?
We are very tied to Seattle. I don’t think we would exist in the same way in another environment. I was talking to another journalist recently who basically said, what’s it like living in the shadow of Sub Pop? That’s not an inaccurate way to describe what it’s like to be Barsuk in Seattle. I wouldn’t say we have an inferiority complex, but we do live in their shadow. It’s alright. They definitely spend a fair amount of energy, I don’t mean this critically, really promoting their brand, you know? It’s totally not our approach. It’s very common that I will meet somebody and they’ll ask, what do you do for work? I say Barsuk, they totally blank and backpedal awkwardly, then ask what bands, expecting not to have heard of them. I list bands and they’re like, ‘What? Oh my god! I’ve never heard of your label but I know all of those bands!’
Are you fine with that?
Oh, totally. This sounds disingenuous, but I mean it sincerely, it’s not in our style to, like, have a 15th anniversary celebration! But it’s about the bands and the music they make, so I’ve had the conversation many times over the years, saying make the logo smaller on the back of the record [laughs]! That’s just how we feel about the important thing that we’re doing. We’re fine being in the background.
All Barsuk 15 proceeds will go to Gilda’s Club Seattle, a cancer support organization.