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 EVELYN HENDRICKSEN spends some time with MEGAN JASPER, the Vice President of the little Seattle label that could – SUB POP – on the eve of the label’s twentieth anniversary. Later, she’ll apply for a job there.
It may come across as a bit hokey to call a business a family – but when you look at the hierarchical structure and internal relationships of most you could easily assign the template … and save for a higher degree of loyalty and care, most people are quite easy with this. Save for those that hate their jobs, waking each morning to stab their cubicle squeeze toy. Those people obviously don’t work for Sub Pop Records.
Currently celebrating its twentieth birthday, the chameleon label has traveled the gamut of business and familial emotions, and speaking with current Vice President, the exceedingly sharp and engaging Megan Jasper, you begin to understand the links, pressures and responsibilities of working with ‘the family’ in ‘the community’ (aka Seattle).
Starting as a receptionist in 1989 before leaving when the company fell on hard times, only to return after a stint road managing, Megan Jasper, who calls J Mascics as ‘the third Jasper sister’ is possibly best known for making the most credible newsprint resource in the world – The New York Times – look like a teen zine.
In 1992, at the height of Seattle grunge, an eager Times journalist completed an interview with the then publicist about the ‘secret language’ grunge fans used. Her answers created what would become know as the Lexicon of Grunge: Breaking the Code – essentially a list of made up words like wack slacks (old ripped jeans), mickey sticks (an older music fan) and my personal favourite on the ridiculous odometer swingin' on the flippity-flop (hanging out).
“I have to tell you, I think for the most part I’m a pretty nice person, but I think when you’re asked a really ridiculous question from the most prestigious paper that exists, it absolutely deserves a really very ridiculous answer,” Jasper explains of the absolute media frenzy surrounding Seattle after Nirvana, who in the eyes of most ‘birthed a sub-culture’ with Nevermind.
“…everybody, myself included, [were] trying to wrap their heads around what Seattle was, when in reality Seattle was really not so different from any other place or country. It was just located in a corner that was overlooked at the time, and so when the rest of the world discovered Seattle it was like Columbus discovering America. And it felt that ridiculous. To be perfectly honest, I was giving such ridiculous answers to the reporter that I really expected that conversation to end with a hearty chuckle and him saying ‘oh, this can’t be. It’s so silly’, but that never happened! I kept trying to make things sound even more ridiculous so that he would get it, but he didn’t.”
Jasper, that peculiar breed of East Coast punk and Irish Catholic, is still laughing about it, even now. The journalist is probably still reeling from such public humiliation. Though she concedes, “I felt bad afterwards … but not that bad.”
Initially under the guidance of founders Bruce Pavitt and Jonathon Poneman, the label housed such alternative lynchpins as Mudhoney and Soundgarden, and released Nirvana’s first single and LP. Subsequently, the year that grunge broke, so did the label – in a very industrious way, curating festivals like Lamefest, numerous releases and their ever-popular singles club (which Modest Mouse Isaac Brock, a former subscriber, confided to The AV Club, ‘I traded some Screaming Trees singles for a Dodge Dart … that’s some fucked up economy’).
 Today Jonathon Poneman remains the patricianl figure, while the departure of co-founder Bruce Pavitt in 1995 (and perhaps the not so coincidental linking with Warner Bros six months earlier), proved a particularly critical time, as the label began to languish – the lowest point coming in 1998 with lay-offs and office closures. The light at the end of the tunnel, arguably, came in the form of their turn of the century association with indie pop and the signing of Albuquerque’s The Shins and James Mercer in 2000.
Sub Pop has now definitely shifted from its former grunge roots with Brazil’s anarchic dance punks CSS (Cansei de Ser Sexy) and the sweeping Americana and melancholy pop of Band Of Horses both calling the label home.
Speaking to Ben Bridwell of the group on the cusp of the band’s first Australian tour in 2006, he went to great lengths explaining the close relationship the label and band enjoyed. ‘Their office is right down the street from us! We’d stop by and talk to them, whenever there was anything we needed.
Relating a distinct pleasure in being on a label that is actually fans of their band – not simply filling a demographic quota for the company spreadsheet, he said, ‘Growing up in South Carolina, some of the first underground music that we actually listened to was from Sub Pop – so now to actually be a part of their roster, and to know that they support us… it’s a great team, you know?’
Jasper expands on Bridwell’s brimming goodwill.
“I know it’s weird, because it sounds cult-like, but we do approach everything in a family-like way and the reason why we do that is because, even though it’s a business it’s really a community and you can’t be in an industry like that and not understand that everything revolves around relationships.
“When the rest of the world discovered Seattle it was like Columbus discovering America. And it felt that ridiculous.”
“It’s relationships that we have with the artists we work with, with our co-workers, and when you care about that and you put that first and you respect that, it seems like there’s a lot of higher quality of life that you get from your day to day. And that’s what we want work to be for the people that are here, and for the artists that come through the door.”
It seems to be a feeling permeating every facet of the company…
 “I think of whether it’s Band of Horses or so many of the other bands we’ve worked with, you know, you get to know these people so well because we deal directly with them. It’s not like we’re dealing with layers and layers of their people, we deal directly with them, and so you’re there with them when they’re nothing and you see there lives change.
“I’m not saying that every band is successful, but they become a band and learn how to operate as a band and sometimes that’s successful for them. Sometimes they meet the people they’re gonna marry, they have children and you become a part of their lives, and one of the things we do differently is we encourage people to make decisions based on their situation, and not to necessarily put what we’re doing with them first but to put their children first and let’s figure out a way to work around that. So it does feel like family.”
Comparing many of these artist relationships ‘like dating in a way’ Jasper credits the company’s ‘open committee policy’ on A&R that enables many of these relationships not to ‘end in divorce.’
“Jonathan can make the final call on anything and there are people who run the label, [but] the way we choose to run it is in a very egalitarian way … we really operate by committee, and in the A&R meetings we have long conversations about what might work; whether we’re gonna be compatible with another artist.”
 One successful match was with Kiwi duo Flight Of The Conchords, earning the label it’s first ever Grammy win. But it’s this New Zealand association that reveals more about the label than a simple fondness for quirk – a little peek at Flying Nun reveals a similar bone structure to that found in Sub Pop.
“We are huge Flying Nun fans,” Jasper confirms. “Growing up I especially loved Look Blue Go Purple, they were one of my favourite bands. But a lot of those bands are bands that Jonathan grew up listening to, I grew up listening to, and ended up influencing so many of the bands we ended up working with. Whether it be Nirvana, you know the Nirvana guys were huge fans of that stuff, so yeah it’s kinda funny. I think a lot of the music that came out of there at that time influenced bands everywhere. And I think people here [Seattle], and bands from here, are no exception.”
Forming quite an affinity with the country, after initially visiting 14 years ago, Poneman has since signed The Brunettes and Ruby Suns. In fact he loves New Zealand so much he flew the entire company there for a retreat in 2005.
With my application in the mail, I quiz Jasper on where she sees the company in the next 20 years.
“Dead! No I’m kidding. You know, I don’t know, but wherever it ends up I’m certain that it will be very different from where it’s at right now. Whether it’s still plugging along, or not who knows. But if it is still plugging along, this is an industry that changes so rapidly, and how we’re doing things I think there are some things that will change and some things that won’t.
“I think the quality of our day-to-day lives wouldn’t change, I think the quality of artists that we would want to work with would remain high, but I think it’s all of those other things that are constantly in motion that would be different.”
Australian distributor STOMP is currently having a sale of SUB POP’s back catalogue – go nuts at www.stomp.com.au
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