guwapo_rocker
07-11-2005, 11:07 AM
When Shrapnel Records exploded on the music scene in 1981, people didn't know quite what to make of it. The small independent record company based in Novato was pioneering a guitar-dominated hard-rock genre that many thought was extinct.
With the high failure rate in the independent record field and its choice of material, Shrapnel should've gone down in flames. But 25 years and hundreds of recordings later, Shrapnel and its founder 47-year-old Mike Varney are doing better than ever.
"I just wanted to hit the ground running," Varney recalls.
That's exactly what he did - and he did it at a remarkable time. In the early 1980s, heavy metal was a wounded beast. Hard rock powerhouses such as Led Zeppelin and the Who were running on fumes, and hopelessly drug-addicted Ozzy Osbourne and Aerosmith were all too happy to get high on those fumes.
Enter 22-year-old Varney. Although still living at home with his parents near the Marin Country Club in Novato - "I grew up on the sixth fairway," he says - he was newly armed with a business degree from Dominican University and had a grand plan to start his own record company. But this was going to be a different kind of record company: one featuring guitar-dominated hard rock.
Today Amazon.com lists 357 different albums available from Shrapnel and its various subsidiary labels, many of which were produced by Varney in the studio.
"Over the years, I have been fortunate to have worked with some of my favorite musicians," Varney says. "As an extreme music fan from childhood, I dreamed of owning my own record label and recording music that I found exciting. Looking back, it was a fairly ambitious undertaking at 22. Failure was not an option in my mind, but in reality it was almost certain. At the end of the day, it is my passion for music that never wanes and my belief that tomorrow will hold a new opportunity to capture some incredible performance on tape. I think this is in essence what drives me."
Varney's Shrapnel Label Group not only includes the hard-rocking Shrapnel, but also has three other labels: jazz-focused Tone Center, which can claim Grammy nominated artist CAB; Blues Bureau; and the New York-based progressive rock-oriented label Magna Carta, of which he holds a 50 percent interest. Between the four labels, Varney is producing about 30 new releases each year.
When Varney started Shrapnel, hard rock was a tough sell in a music business still reeling from the punk and disco movements of the late '70s. Musically, the early '80s were all about high-gloss corporate rock, synthesizers and skinny-tie New Wave music, but Varney was ready for a tough sell because he had done substantial homework.
He had made a name for himself as a young guitarist with The Nuns, a legendary punk band that opened for such acts as Blondie and the Ramones. Varney soon left The Nuns and joined forces with Jefferson Airplane vocalist Marty Balin, writing a rock opera called "Rock Justice," about a about a rock star on trial for not having a hit. The "opera" debuted at San Francisco's Old Waldorf and featured Varney's band, Cinema. Varney then co-produced the EMI records release of the Rock Justice soundtrack in 1980.
"The record came out and bombed," Varney says.
Cinema disbanded as Varney began to spend more of his time developing products for Shrapnel. "We left Cinema to join up with (Jimi Hendrix impersonator) Randy Hansen," says Mark Robertson, former keyboard player for Cinema. "We just kinda left Varney."
"I realized I'd rather be on the other side of the deal and was not that interested in pounding the pavement anymore as a guitarist as the returns for the record company were tangible and immediate," Varney says. "I just started doing the math."
Falling back on his business education, the equation that made sense was for Varney to go behind the scenes. His experience as both a guitar player and record producer had the young man primed for success.
In 1981, Varney's newly formed Shrapnel label released a sampler record called "U.S. Metal, Un-sung Guitar Heroes" that featured acts such as Chumbi, The Rods and Marin's Greg Strong. It was the first heavy metal compilation in the United States by an independent label and found immediate cult success.
"My first record for other people did way better than my record as an artist," Varney says.
The next year marked the release of "U.S. Metal Vol. II," featuring artists such as Exciter, Vixen, Cinema (featuring Varney on guitar) and local phenom Le Mans. Later that year, Varney brought in Swedish guitar player Yngvie Malmsteen and teamed him with Shrapnel signee Steeler. On the strength of Malmsteen's guitar playing, the release became the biggest-selling record in Shrapnel's short history. Eventually, Malmsteen left Shrapnel, and in 1984 he released a solo album, "Rising Force" on Polydor Records, leading to international metal stardom.
"I've worked with a lot of people through the years," Varney says. "I have always enjoyed envisioning how musicians might sound together and later getting to hear the final product."
Playing matchmaker, Varney began assembling bands. He introduced Cinema bassist Jeff Pilson to the band Dokken in 1982, and they went on to have a string of platinum records together. Varney introduced Marin resident vocalist Eric Martin to Billy Sheehan and Paul Gilbert, who formed Mr. Big and continued on to sell millions of records in the U.S. and overseas.
"I didn't introduce them with the idea of having
Mike Varney in his Novato home some 25 years after establishing Shrapnel Records - an independent label still going strong. (IJ photo/Jeff Vendsel)
them on my label," Varney says. "I did it because they were all friends who were looking for the same thing and I wanted to hear them play together. There was never any thought that they'd record for me."
After having their careers jump-started by their Shrapnel connection, guitarist Marty Friedman joined MTV staple band Megadeth, and guitarist Jason Becker teamed up with former Van Halen vocalist David Lee Roth, replacing Steve Vai. In 1989, Becker was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) and was forced into retirement. Since 1997 he has been unable to move and now communicates only through eye movements.
In early 1992, Varney expanded his repertoire by forming a sub-label named Blues Bureau International, featuring established blues and rock acts from the '60s and '70s. One artist he signed was former Deep Purple and Black Sabbath singer Glenn Hughes. Soon after, he signed other notables like Michael Schenker (formerly of UFO and Scorpions), Rick Derringer, Leslie West (formerly of Mountain), Pat Travers, Little John Chrisley and Howling Iguanas.
This led to a new direction for Shrapnel. More and more offerings were by established artists.
"I've worked with a lot of guys who were platinum and gold artist at one point," Varney says. "An independent label shooting for gold and platinum requires more risk than I'm usually willing to take. I play the niches and leave the rest to the corporate giants."
"Shrapnel has changed so much since (the beginning)," says Robertson, the former Cinema keyboardist. "Nowadays the records he makes are all guys who were in huge bands in the past."
Varney discovers acts in all kinds of ways. He saw the band Soul Fly at the Fillmore and signed its guitarist, Marc Rizzo, to a solo deal. He saw guitarist Tracii Gun's new band, Brides of Destruction (with Motley Crue guitar player Nikki Sixx), on Craig Kilborn's late-night show and thought they were great and later signed the group. (Sixx is back touring with Motley Crue this summer.)
"I'm not sure if the market can continue to support the guitar phenomenon-based success that Mike had in the early Shrapnel days," says Mill Valley's Jeff Watson, who plays guitar for Night Ranger. "Recent generations have had a full plate of that type of musical offering, and are probably expanding their musical appetites. That being said, I think Mike saw that change coming early and has since started several other labels for different musical genres to satisfy that trend."
Varney credits his success to a type of branding: People know what to expect from his various labels, and he delivers it.
"We only have genre-specific labels, so it is easy to seek out our audiences, and when they buy from us, it is with the confidence that music will be in the style that they are interested in. We take the guessing out of the equation," he says.
New releases include established artists such as: George Lynch, formerly of Dokken; former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee; blues great and former Novato resident Joe Louis Walker; and vocalist Kevin Dubrow, who topped the charts in 1983 with the Quiet Riot hit "Cum on Feel the Noiz."
Varney still works with many local Marin musicians. Robertson just helped produce some Shrapnel recordings at his Goldfinger Studio in Black Point. Night Ranger's Watson released his first solo album, "Lone Ranger," on Shrapnel and has since worked on several others with the label, including a Cream tribute album.
Watson says Varney's own fretboard talent is underrated.
"Mike came to my studio as a guest guitarist to play a rockin' guitar solo on one of the tracks along with me and Steve Morse," he says. "I'll bet it would surprise some of the young guitarists out there just how capable he is."
Twenty-five years as a successful indie label is certainly not the norm, Varney says, but he attributes it to hard work, integrity and great musical value. That and a keen appreciation for music.
"I have a real serious record collection É mostly obscure stuff," he says. Ironically, the heavy metal pioneer says he is most proud of a tribute to a jazz great.
"Something I'm really proud of is our (coming) tribute to Miles Davis," he says.
Varney has managed to change with the times, but he's still a little unsure of the Internet's place in his business. He likens the downloading frenzy with "the Wild West" and wonders how artists and labels can be assured of proper payment.
"I've been avoiding it, and I'm having one of my best years ever," he says.
The label's Web site, www.shrapnelrecords.com, is under construction.
Meanwhile, Varney is "healthy and happily married" to Kathy, his wife of 24 years, and is looking forward to his 30th high school reunion at Novato High. Although his records sell worldwide and he also owns a house in Las Vegas, Varney has always been more comfortable close to his Marin home.
"I just never wanted to leave Novato," he says.
Link (http://www.marinij.com/entertainment/ci_2850448)
With the high failure rate in the independent record field and its choice of material, Shrapnel should've gone down in flames. But 25 years and hundreds of recordings later, Shrapnel and its founder 47-year-old Mike Varney are doing better than ever.
"I just wanted to hit the ground running," Varney recalls.
That's exactly what he did - and he did it at a remarkable time. In the early 1980s, heavy metal was a wounded beast. Hard rock powerhouses such as Led Zeppelin and the Who were running on fumes, and hopelessly drug-addicted Ozzy Osbourne and Aerosmith were all too happy to get high on those fumes.
Enter 22-year-old Varney. Although still living at home with his parents near the Marin Country Club in Novato - "I grew up on the sixth fairway," he says - he was newly armed with a business degree from Dominican University and had a grand plan to start his own record company. But this was going to be a different kind of record company: one featuring guitar-dominated hard rock.
Today Amazon.com lists 357 different albums available from Shrapnel and its various subsidiary labels, many of which were produced by Varney in the studio.
"Over the years, I have been fortunate to have worked with some of my favorite musicians," Varney says. "As an extreme music fan from childhood, I dreamed of owning my own record label and recording music that I found exciting. Looking back, it was a fairly ambitious undertaking at 22. Failure was not an option in my mind, but in reality it was almost certain. At the end of the day, it is my passion for music that never wanes and my belief that tomorrow will hold a new opportunity to capture some incredible performance on tape. I think this is in essence what drives me."
Varney's Shrapnel Label Group not only includes the hard-rocking Shrapnel, but also has three other labels: jazz-focused Tone Center, which can claim Grammy nominated artist CAB; Blues Bureau; and the New York-based progressive rock-oriented label Magna Carta, of which he holds a 50 percent interest. Between the four labels, Varney is producing about 30 new releases each year.
When Varney started Shrapnel, hard rock was a tough sell in a music business still reeling from the punk and disco movements of the late '70s. Musically, the early '80s were all about high-gloss corporate rock, synthesizers and skinny-tie New Wave music, but Varney was ready for a tough sell because he had done substantial homework.
He had made a name for himself as a young guitarist with The Nuns, a legendary punk band that opened for such acts as Blondie and the Ramones. Varney soon left The Nuns and joined forces with Jefferson Airplane vocalist Marty Balin, writing a rock opera called "Rock Justice," about a about a rock star on trial for not having a hit. The "opera" debuted at San Francisco's Old Waldorf and featured Varney's band, Cinema. Varney then co-produced the EMI records release of the Rock Justice soundtrack in 1980.
"The record came out and bombed," Varney says.
Cinema disbanded as Varney began to spend more of his time developing products for Shrapnel. "We left Cinema to join up with (Jimi Hendrix impersonator) Randy Hansen," says Mark Robertson, former keyboard player for Cinema. "We just kinda left Varney."
"I realized I'd rather be on the other side of the deal and was not that interested in pounding the pavement anymore as a guitarist as the returns for the record company were tangible and immediate," Varney says. "I just started doing the math."
Falling back on his business education, the equation that made sense was for Varney to go behind the scenes. His experience as both a guitar player and record producer had the young man primed for success.
In 1981, Varney's newly formed Shrapnel label released a sampler record called "U.S. Metal, Un-sung Guitar Heroes" that featured acts such as Chumbi, The Rods and Marin's Greg Strong. It was the first heavy metal compilation in the United States by an independent label and found immediate cult success.
"My first record for other people did way better than my record as an artist," Varney says.
The next year marked the release of "U.S. Metal Vol. II," featuring artists such as Exciter, Vixen, Cinema (featuring Varney on guitar) and local phenom Le Mans. Later that year, Varney brought in Swedish guitar player Yngvie Malmsteen and teamed him with Shrapnel signee Steeler. On the strength of Malmsteen's guitar playing, the release became the biggest-selling record in Shrapnel's short history. Eventually, Malmsteen left Shrapnel, and in 1984 he released a solo album, "Rising Force" on Polydor Records, leading to international metal stardom.
"I've worked with a lot of people through the years," Varney says. "I have always enjoyed envisioning how musicians might sound together and later getting to hear the final product."
Playing matchmaker, Varney began assembling bands. He introduced Cinema bassist Jeff Pilson to the band Dokken in 1982, and they went on to have a string of platinum records together. Varney introduced Marin resident vocalist Eric Martin to Billy Sheehan and Paul Gilbert, who formed Mr. Big and continued on to sell millions of records in the U.S. and overseas.
"I didn't introduce them with the idea of having
Mike Varney in his Novato home some 25 years after establishing Shrapnel Records - an independent label still going strong. (IJ photo/Jeff Vendsel)
them on my label," Varney says. "I did it because they were all friends who were looking for the same thing and I wanted to hear them play together. There was never any thought that they'd record for me."
After having their careers jump-started by their Shrapnel connection, guitarist Marty Friedman joined MTV staple band Megadeth, and guitarist Jason Becker teamed up with former Van Halen vocalist David Lee Roth, replacing Steve Vai. In 1989, Becker was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS) and was forced into retirement. Since 1997 he has been unable to move and now communicates only through eye movements.
In early 1992, Varney expanded his repertoire by forming a sub-label named Blues Bureau International, featuring established blues and rock acts from the '60s and '70s. One artist he signed was former Deep Purple and Black Sabbath singer Glenn Hughes. Soon after, he signed other notables like Michael Schenker (formerly of UFO and Scorpions), Rick Derringer, Leslie West (formerly of Mountain), Pat Travers, Little John Chrisley and Howling Iguanas.
This led to a new direction for Shrapnel. More and more offerings were by established artists.
"I've worked with a lot of guys who were platinum and gold artist at one point," Varney says. "An independent label shooting for gold and platinum requires more risk than I'm usually willing to take. I play the niches and leave the rest to the corporate giants."
"Shrapnel has changed so much since (the beginning)," says Robertson, the former Cinema keyboardist. "Nowadays the records he makes are all guys who were in huge bands in the past."
Varney discovers acts in all kinds of ways. He saw the band Soul Fly at the Fillmore and signed its guitarist, Marc Rizzo, to a solo deal. He saw guitarist Tracii Gun's new band, Brides of Destruction (with Motley Crue guitar player Nikki Sixx), on Craig Kilborn's late-night show and thought they were great and later signed the group. (Sixx is back touring with Motley Crue this summer.)
"I'm not sure if the market can continue to support the guitar phenomenon-based success that Mike had in the early Shrapnel days," says Mill Valley's Jeff Watson, who plays guitar for Night Ranger. "Recent generations have had a full plate of that type of musical offering, and are probably expanding their musical appetites. That being said, I think Mike saw that change coming early and has since started several other labels for different musical genres to satisfy that trend."
Varney credits his success to a type of branding: People know what to expect from his various labels, and he delivers it.
"We only have genre-specific labels, so it is easy to seek out our audiences, and when they buy from us, it is with the confidence that music will be in the style that they are interested in. We take the guessing out of the equation," he says.
New releases include established artists such as: George Lynch, formerly of Dokken; former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee; blues great and former Novato resident Joe Louis Walker; and vocalist Kevin Dubrow, who topped the charts in 1983 with the Quiet Riot hit "Cum on Feel the Noiz."
Varney still works with many local Marin musicians. Robertson just helped produce some Shrapnel recordings at his Goldfinger Studio in Black Point. Night Ranger's Watson released his first solo album, "Lone Ranger," on Shrapnel and has since worked on several others with the label, including a Cream tribute album.
Watson says Varney's own fretboard talent is underrated.
"Mike came to my studio as a guest guitarist to play a rockin' guitar solo on one of the tracks along with me and Steve Morse," he says. "I'll bet it would surprise some of the young guitarists out there just how capable he is."
Twenty-five years as a successful indie label is certainly not the norm, Varney says, but he attributes it to hard work, integrity and great musical value. That and a keen appreciation for music.
"I have a real serious record collection É mostly obscure stuff," he says. Ironically, the heavy metal pioneer says he is most proud of a tribute to a jazz great.
"Something I'm really proud of is our (coming) tribute to Miles Davis," he says.
Varney has managed to change with the times, but he's still a little unsure of the Internet's place in his business. He likens the downloading frenzy with "the Wild West" and wonders how artists and labels can be assured of proper payment.
"I've been avoiding it, and I'm having one of my best years ever," he says.
The label's Web site, www.shrapnelrecords.com, is under construction.
Meanwhile, Varney is "healthy and happily married" to Kathy, his wife of 24 years, and is looking forward to his 30th high school reunion at Novato High. Although his records sell worldwide and he also owns a house in Las Vegas, Varney has always been more comfortable close to his Marin home.
"I just never wanted to leave Novato," he says.
Link (http://www.marinij.com/entertainment/ci_2850448)