Backbone Collective is a "progressive" record label that was started by Brittany Weaver (me), who lives in Seattle, with the major help of her partner Alex Macwilliam who lives Nashville, TN. I mean, what better places are there to have a presence in other than Seattle, the grunge capitol of the world, and Nashville, the capitol of where Christian contemporary/hardcore/metal/alternative/country musicians go to die? Am I right?
The Idea
This label was started with one motive: Support Real.
Alex and I had a skype sesh (man, I'm a douche) and came up with the name. He came up with the Backbone part and I really liked the world "Collective" (I'll explain why cause I know you care SO much, right?). He liked the word "backbone" because of what I wanted to do with this label. I wanted to be the COMPLETE support (i.e backbone) for the bands we sign and work with. We want to do everything in-house (at some point, it will be possible). We want to have us and/or our future staff to print the shirts, press the records, design and print artwork for record jackets or whatever they want, book the tours, manage the bands, record and produce the records, and everything. That's where the word "collective" came to mind. I want the least amount of out sourcing/moving parts as possible. We want to trust the people that handle the bands and their needs. We don't want to hand them off to some random print shop, producer, tour manager, manger, etc. We want to know everyone that has a part in it so that we know how our bands are being handled and treated. We want the least amount of money to come out of their pocket but we also want all of those involved to be successful and profit from it in the smartest/ most honest way possible.
But since we don't have a print shop, work at a record pressing plant, or really have a staff yet, we will be doing all of this with the help of our friends. My friends down in Reno screen print the record jackets, Alex's really good friend is the production coordinator at a record pressing plant, my really good friend up in Michigan printed the stickers, Jakob designed the artwork and logo, my friend Chandler will be creating our full website, my friends are the band that we started with, and our friend Tor is the one that recorded, produced, and mixed the record. We will act as the manager/tour managers of the bands we work with if they so choose and I actually plan on helping younger bands book tours even if they're not signed with me! I just want to help as much as possible.
I have seen so many of my friends that are so talented get screwed over and looked over and I wanted to change that. I am probably the most non-artistic/untalented person on this planet and so seeing my friends that are talented and artistic be completely looked over and taken advantage of has been exhausting and a really big bummer. That's why we started Backbone Collective. We want to support real people, real bands, and real hard work. We also didn't want to put a genre on this label and didn't want to only work with a certain type of band. I feel that bands and people naturally progress. We aren't going to be the one to tell them that they need to "sound like this" and "write like this." Stop pigeonholing yourself, it's stupid. Everybody changes, so why shouldn't your music reflect that?
In Conclusion
If you have read all of this, I commend you. It means a lot to us. If you purchased anything from the store, We want to thank you. If you even just clicked on the link that we posted on the millions of networking sites, we want to welcome you to the new way of running a record label and really supporting bands. This is something we have wanted to do for a long time and we finally have the time and means to make it possible. So, thank you to everyone that has been a part of this. Whether it be the people that helped create the 7" to the friends that have been encouraging us and keeping track of what we're doing.
It could not have been possible without you. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.