Hello, everyone. Whether this is your first or one hundredth visit to our site we are beyond excited to have you joining us for this afternoon’s feature. We were asked way back in the fall of 2013 to begin speaking with more label owners, and it did not take us long to realize those professionals are some of the hardest in the entire music industry to track down for an interview. To date only a few names have graced our page, and today we add another as Triple Crown Records’ founder Fred Feldman finally shares his store. If you have any questions about developing as a writer/blogger in music, please do not hesitate email james@haulix.com and share your thoughts. We can also be found on Twitter and Facebook.
For more than a decade Triple Crown Records has been a tastemaker for alternative rock and beyond. By forgoing the typical label approach of finding one sound to push, founder Fred Feldman and crew have made it a point to work with any artist they found interesting, regardless of genre. The result of these conscious efforts is one of the most diverse and beloved indie labels in existence, and today the story of how it all came together is being shared by the man who first brought the company to life.
I don’t remember where I was the first time I heard an album from Triple Crown Records, but if I had to take a stab in the dark it would probably be somewhere between 2003 and 2004. It was during this time that the label, which was only a few years old, began releasing albums by Brand New that would quickly become staples within the alternative music scene. Those albums hooked me, as well as thousands of others, to the label’s work for life even though many of their artists did not sound like a Jesse Lacey fever dream. I now own well over a dozen Triple Crown releases, and based on their current roster I am confident I will add many more titles in the years to come.
If you want to learn more about Fred and his efforts at Triple Crown, please take a few moments and follow the label on Twitter. Additional questions and comments can be left at the end of this post.
H: Please introduce yourself to our readers:
F: My name is Fred Feldman and I own Triple Crown Records
H: Thank you for joining us, Fred. We’re very excited about this.
F: No Problem, happy to help.
H: Before the music industry ever came along, what are some of your earliest memories of music?
F: Just being a fan, really. From an early age I was a big fan of music. In high school I played in bands. Nothing good, of course, but I still love playing and being around music. I’m a little older than my audience, so when I was coming up I would take photos for actual fan zines and magazines, not websites. That was back when print was something special [laughs], but yea – decided I would like to have a career in it even though I couldn’t play and took an interest in the business side.
H: What was your first concert experience?
F: It won’t go over well even now probably, but my first concert ever was going to see Boston with Sammy Hagar at the Nassau Coliseum.
H: That’s amazing.
F: Oh, you have no idea. I always smile whenever I see something on Sammy Hagar because that was the first real arena rock moment for me. He stepped out on stage and it was just unreal. I think I was eleven or twelve at the time.
H: A lot of people seem to witness those key ‘influential’ concerts in their early teens.
F: Yea. When I grew up it was all arena rock. My first punk show was in high school with Heart Attack. It was also the first time I saw a pit, which was pretty life changing as well.
H: You mentioned that you started off taking photos for zines. Can you recall your earliest project in music?
F: Well I always very interested in music. This was before you could just email someone for a photo pass. I shot for friends’ fan zines, shooting punk rock stuff in New York that was pretty easy, but a lot of the other stuff would involve attempting to sneak your camera into gigs, getting close and grabbing shots. Then you would write to people, send them your pictures, and hope to get your stuff published. It was always rewarding to see the final product, to open a fan zine or magazine and see your work.
I didn’t really get serious about the business end of things until college. At that point I started booking shows and working at a radio station. That’s when I realized “Oh, this could really be something.“
H: I read online that you attended Syracuse University. Did you study Business?
F: Sorta. I got a liberal arts degree, but I think the thing that was a great opportunity for me at Syracuse was being on a big campus and being able to book concerts for the Concert Board. You weren’t booking a DIY venue, you were booking shows that dealt with real agents, real venues, big production, and generally speaking a lot more tasks than DIY venues would be less likely to handle.
H: Is it through booking at Syracuse that you found your first job in the industry?
F: No, I got out of school and had no idea what I wanted to do. I couldn’t find a job because I never took an internship. I think internships are great and they can certainly be very beneficial, but I did not take the internship route because I had a job and needed to make money. So I literally contacted a bunch of companies and told them I would work for free. Through someone, a friend of a friend of a friend, I landed a job in the mail room at Profile Records. From there I worked my way up from a part time job to a full time role at the company.
H: Wow. That’s similar to those classic industry tales you read about where someone starts in the lowest position and works their way to running the company.
F: I did end up running the company. I got pretty lucky there because there came a point where the two owners of the company split, and I was going to leave the company, but one of the owners told me that if I stayed I could start what he called ‘my little rock thing.’ I loved hip-hop, and I loved working with it at Profile, but I grew up interested in punk rock and initially went to profile because of their rock releases. I ended up doing every job there, and then started another company called Another Planet while running Profile Records.
H: One more question about life at Profile – Did you get to work with Run DMC?
F: Yes, I did. It was a wild time, and I can only say my entire experience there, aside from being very education, put me in a lot of places and allowed me to do a lot of things I never imagined. I worked with them (Run DMC) on their comeback album and it was crazy. To see them perform and work their way back to the top was just amazing. Run is that character people see on TV, he’s both very humble and kind.
H: You mentioned Another Planet. Is that what eventually became Triple Crown?
F: No, that was a label that we started there. Profile also owned Rock Hotel Records, which had put out some of the most important New York hardcore records. The catalog was kind of dormant, so I suggested we reissue those records and sign new things. I’m not delusional, it was kind of hit and miss, but when the label was purchased by Arista they kept that roster and catalog.
H: I was building up to that. When the company sold were you cut, or did you choose to leave and do your own thing?
F: No, they kept me on during the transition. We had a few successful artists at the time, and I was the person who knew those artists, so they allowed me to stay on for a while and make sure everything went smoothly. It was a good position for me because it allowed me to start my own company [Triple Crown] while still having something to fall back on. I think when you decide to do something like start a business you have to dive in, but for a while there I had a safety net.
H: Who was the first artist you signed to Triple Crown?
F: Oddly enough, I was about to make a deal with 25 To Life when I started to think that Profile was going to be sold, so I sat down with the owner to discuss the possibility of taking 25 To Life. I spoke with Rick from the band and told him that I was leaving to start my own thing, but still wanted to do their record if he was interested. He was and we did it. We we also had a Stubborn All-Stars record that was completed for Another Planet, so I licensed that and those became our first two releases.
H: You started Triple Crown in 1997, but then in 2001 you have a small roll at Fat Beats Records. What is the story there?
F: When you’re starting a business and you’re throwing everything you have at it, you just have to hustle. I was looking for distribution and my friend with Fat Beats told me they could help me out if I worked with them to start an in-house label. A year and a half later we signed Atmosphere, so again my hip-hop history started to come through in my work. It was a crazy time, but also an awesome time.
H: How many people are on staff right now at Triple Crown?
F: It depends, really. I think we have three people right now. We assemble a team around each artist/project and move forward from there. Every artist and every audience is different. There may be some crossover, but at the end of the day the best option we have found is to start fresh and build a plan from the ground up.
H: I read in another interview that one of the first things you do with every new band is to get them on the road, playing at least five or six times a week. Is that true?
F: In our industry, touring is one of the most important things. I also think it’s the best way to connect with music fans. As long as the band we have signed recently have a little touring under their belt, we work to give them that extra push that allows them to tour more frequently.
H: Where do you turn when looking to discover new music?
F: Everywhere, really. I try to keep an open mind. Honestly, sometimes I find bands online, or through recommendations. Sometimes I read a story somewhere and start connecting the dots. Maybe I catch an opening slot on a tour we have artists on. The guys in Hit The Lights were the first to tell me about Fireworks. Brand New turned me on to Manchester Orchestra, and even though we did not end up signing them it started a strong relationship with Andy that has lasted several years.
H: Let’s focus on one of your recent signings. What is the story behind the discovery of Tiny Moving Parts?
F: The first time I ever heard about the band was seeing something on PropertyOfZack. It was a video or something, and I was very into what they were doing. The manager reached out a short time later, and from there I caught them live the next time they were in our area. That sealed it for me.
H: What advice would you offer those looking to enter the professional side of the music industry?
F: I always say hard work. Let your work speak for you. Find a way to get an opportunity in the music industry and make the most of it. This is why I think internships are so great. They give you some of the worst or busiest work and allow you to show them how much dedication you have to the job. I’ve been in the business for a long time, and there will always be people who enter with a sense of entitlement, but I think a willingness to do the work is really important. I read an interview not long ago where someone suggested “Don’t be a dick” and really, that’s accurate. Be honest and work hard. Don’t be a dick.
H: Triple Crown has been using Haulix for a long time now. What keeps you around?
F: It’s great. It simplifies everything, and the support is amazing. This used to be so hard and now it’s quick and easy. Also, publicists love it and it saves us a bundle on physical watermarking. I had an issue not long ago that required help tracking down the person behind a leak, and I think Matt (Haulix CEO) replied to me within 12 hours with all the information I needed to move forward.
H: You’ve accomplished a lot with your career, especially during your time working on Triple Crown, so what are your current goals in life?
F: I just want to keep putting out interesting music. If there is one thing that has been a blessing and a curse for us is that we don’t have an identifiable sound. Kids don’t buy a record just because it is a Triple Crown release. I think there are some common threads throughout the music, but there are also some big leaps. I’m really excited about what we have on the horizon. Tiny Moving Parts is really great, which I know we already talked about, but so are the releases we have planned a little further down the road.
H: How many times a month do people ask you to repress Brand New’s Deja Entendu on vinyl?
F: Haha, that’s my favorite question! It’s one of those things where I have to remind myself not to be a dick. (laughs) I have a very close relationship with the band, and they always want to put music out a certain way, both aesthetically and sonically. That’s why I don’t want to just press it and put it out there. When we reissued Your Favorite Weapon they went back and remastered the whole thing. They always want to do things a little bit differently. It’s going to come, that’s all I am going to say, and hopefully there will be a few surprises included as well. The band was very important to me and the label, so I don’t want to just press it and put it out there because it’s not what they would want.
I like when people ask me about this from an innocent angle. Kids will suggest pressing it again to me as if it’s something we have never heard before. I get it. It bums us and the band out when we go online and see how much some people are willing to pay on eBay for copies.
H: We have finally reached the end! Before I let you go, do you have any final thoughts or observations to share?
F: I think we covered a bunch of great stuff. We have a couple more vinyl things planned for the year, so please keep an eye out for that.
