METAL BLADE
 
 
This time, REZ thought it could be interesting to find out the ins and outs of the very famous record company Metal Blade from the USA. The label that discovered acts like Metallica and Slayer. We talked to Andreas Reissnauer, the guy who does all the promotion for this label in Europe. From his office in Eislingen-Germany, Andreas (wearing a gray blouse on the photo) talked freely about Metal Blade in general and his job in particular.
  
  
Andreas, please tell us something about the history from Metal Blade USA and Metal Blade Eislingen.

Metal Blade Records started in 1982 as an idea of Brian Slagel, who still is in charge of the company, in Los Angeles. Brian wanted to release an LP with unsigned bands and that compilation turned out to be the first release on Metal Blade Records. You all know that album; it's the first one of the "Metal Massacre" series.

Brian is the one that discovered Metallica, as they released their first song ever on that album. Unfortunately he didn't have the money to produce their first album and that's why they didn't sign to Metal Blade Records. What a pity! 

Anyway, the "Metal Massacre" series was very popular in the early and mid eighties and lots of big names started their careers on that compilation series. The most famous one being Slayer; they also released their first two albums "Show No Mercy" and "Hell Awaits" as well as the "Live Undead" EP on Metal Blade Records. 

Of course that gave the company a big push; Slayer became one of the biggest, if not the biggest extreme metal band and Metal Blade Records were able to hire more and more employees and sign more bands. The label has now been established for a long time and Metal Blade definitely wrote some history for this style of music. 

In the mid-nineties Metal Blade had some problems in Europe, the label was more or less dead over here. Michael Trengert then got hired by Brian Slagel and started doing promotion for the Metal Blade bands. In nine months he already had to hire two more guys (Martin and myself) as he started to take over the whole job for Metal Blade Europe, which is a helluva lot of work. Lots of different things to do. Meanwhile we are with eight people over here. 

When did you start working at the MB office? How did you get in? What did you do first?

I started at Metal Blade in september 1996. I started straightaway working as a promoter. Had to learn some things first, but after half a year I knew more or less how the job wentJ 
I got this job 'cause I have been writing for several German metal magazines for ten years now (still active besides the Metal Blade job). So I ran into Michael at several festivals and concerts. We seemed to have the same drinking preferences, so he asked me if I wanted to join. I had nothing better to do, so I moved over to Swabian and started working. 

What does your day look like? Something different every day?

 Nope, it's more or less the same every day. 98% of my time I sit in front of my computer and write/answer e-mails. It was different when I started in 1996, e-mail and Internet wasn't popular back then and more or less everything had to be done over the phone. Keeping contact through e-mailing and Internet is not as personal, but it saves a lot of time, it's much more effective and everybody knows that time is money when it comes to business....


How do you look at the relationship between record companies and magazines (like Rockezine)?

 Mostly good, but sometimes difficult. I hardly have any problems with magazines or webzines, but sometimes there are problems. But that's normal, I would say. In general, most guys are cool and so am IJ I would just like to see more people responding to my mass mail-requests. It takes a lot of time to write to each person individually as I cover all of Europe. 


How do you look at the relationship between record companies and bands? Do they 'use' each other?

The relation to each and every band is different which is normal, as they all consist of different persons and characters. But they use each other, of course. We need the music of the bands to make profit; the bands need us to release their product on a worldwide basis and to give them the chance to tour. In the end both benefit from each other and that's totally cool in my opinion. In my opinion we have a very good relationship with nearly all our bands. Feel free to ask them.

What do you think is important when you're working at a record label?

Very important is a good promotion, clever marketing, trying to get good tours for your bands. Then you should have good distribution in all possible countries. There's lots of black sheep out there and sometimes it takes years to find the best possible distributor in certain countries. You also need a good hand when it comes to signing new talent. To be in touch with the fans through contests, the website, etc. is important as well. Getting your stuff on the Internet. There are lots of things that are important when it comes to work at a record company. 

What's the difference between MB and other metal orientated labels?



Hard to judge for me, as I have never worked for any other metal label out there. I am not the one to bullshit other labels, so I can't give you an answer on this one. 


How do you look at Internet and the downloading/copying things that are happening now? Are they a threat to labels like MB? Will the magazines get more of those short-cut songs promos?
 
 It definitely hurts the sales, also on the metal market. Apart from all the downloads, the bigger problem in my opinion are the CD-burners. So many people don't buy CD´s any more as they can get the same thing on a CDR for a few cents. If it goes on like that, there might be problems coming up. Bands will get less money, less money means less budget means less quality. In the end no one will be happy about that.

Unfortunately, you can't control the CD-burner thing or the internet- downloads, so I doubt there will be any solution to this in the near future. The best thing is to deliver good packaging, but that's not the final solution though. 

Apart from that I totally support pre-listenings on the Internet. To offer one or two songs a few weeks up-front is a very good promotion tool in my opinion. 

About those cut-promos, we try to avoid this in the future so hopefully this won't happen again. It was only intended as a preparation for the interviews and not as an item that needs to get reviewed, but it seems like many people didn't (want to) understand that.


Do you still discover cool new bands? And can you name some cool discoveries from the past?

Well, it's hard to find the perfect band for your label, but, believe it or not, I listen to ALL demos and CDR´s that come in. Of course we also discovered some bands this way; God Dethroned is a good example. They sent us a demo and we signed them right away. Every band has a different story about how they got on Metal Blade. Vomitory also sent us a demo, but I knew the band already from their first two albums, so we signed them. 


Anything we forgot to ask? Please write down what you want!!

I'm exhausted from answering your questionsJ Summer will be slow for us, watch out for the new Vader CD that just got released, it's awesome. At the end of July we release Cattle Decapitation (US-Grind core) and Vehemence (US-Death metal). The end of August will see the new Riot CD. Be prepared!!

More info at: http://www.metalblade.de
(Review: Johan Godschalk)

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