ASH JONES meets MEGAN and FAITH of BRISMETAL.COM RECORDS to consider how the new record label is going to change the way metal bands are recognised and promoted in the community.

The idea might have had its origins from discussion between members of the online metal community brismetal.com, but it is locals Faith and Megs who are making Brismetal.com Records a functioning entity. As leaders of a non-profit label that will take any unsigned Brisbane band, of any genre or sub-genre of metal, they offer all the functions of a paid label. The most significant difference is the entire project is being done for free. All local metal bands literally have to do is contact any website associated with Brismetal.com Records and they can have all the advantages of being with a label, especially in terms of getting their music heard by the wider community and nation.

It is easily the most comprehensive and initiative-based effort made in the Brismetal community to support bands and generate unification within the scene. Their launch gig on April 5 raises money to fund a compilation CD, which along with all local metal albums, will be sold on the label’s online e-store. Megs and Faith are gaining no monetary advantage from the project. It only serves their incurable and infectious obsession with all things local and metal. The desire to create an online environment catering for all local metal albums, and furthermore sells band merchandise, is a feat not yet attempted in the area.

Faith tells me “The important thing to know is that brismetal.com is a whole community and we’re here for the community. We want to be associated with it. Definitely, so we’re here for the people, we’re here for the bands, for the fans; and for other labels as well. If you got to brismetal.com you’ll be able to find this whole community of metalheads.”

While Megs says “At this point as a very new label and as a self-funded label our fund-raising gig on April 5 is creating funds for the new compilation. The compilation is the first step in the label and is going to involve 12 tracks from 12 unique local metal bands that we’re still in the process of finding, so if anyone wants to contact us, now is the time. It’s going to be at an affordable price. Obviously it costs money to print discs, but we don’t want to make money off the CD. We just want to get the bands heard.

“For the gig we have six local bands playing and every one of them already has a really solid local fan-base, that’s for sure. They’re impressive bands and that’s why we wanted to show them all in one line up. They’re bands people talk about and want to see them, but they don’t always get out there.”

So far the line up includes Violent Green, Phalanx, Dead Letter Opener, Defamer, Empyrean and Happy Camper: nearly all of whom have already released competent EPs. This professionalism is unsurprising, considering Brisbane’s micro world of metal contains hundreds of metal bands and thousands of fans. Brismetal.com Records is now the missing link between seeing such bands live and buying their albums. 

When local bands agree to play gigs for Brismetal.com Records, the money earned when fans pay to watch the gigs will be cycled back into metal albums (CD pressing), distribution, and promotion. The success of the process relies on the willingness of the bands to cooperate. 

If they do not, then they can alternately try and do all the hard work individually.

Megs says “If you can think of mid-range bands who can’t afford to have self-funded tours in other states; they don’t have anyone to help support them, get out their release, and promo the disc when it is released. A lot of releases are coming out and then you just never hear them again. They just drop off the face of the earth. We want to help sell it, help distribute it.”

These two label managers are keen to emphasise that the nature of the project is that it aims to make Brismetal more unified; an idea that is a psychology in itself. Anyone with half an ear in Brisbane metal knows politics become attached to the culture when metal-heads over-analyse their role within the microcosm. It’s a thought pattern that forgets that the metal informs the fans and not the social hierarchies of having a ‘scene’. While these politics are not the concern of the majority of listeners or musicians, it is also unnecessary. Those within the community who understand that generating top-notch metal should be the highest priority will be the same people who actively support the label.

Faith agrees: “We’re not here to do a mediocre job. We’re here to do a committed job for each and every band we sign and the compilations. We’re very passionate about this. If you’re passionate about the music and about the metal; it’s beyond venues, it’s beyond bands; it’s about Brisbane. It’s about metal and making the most of our scene, of our Brismetal here. People have got to start looking a bit beyond these things and start looking at the bigger picture. Not enough people are feeling it at the moment.”

The potential of Brismetal bands is probably where Faith, Megs, and I agree the most. Over the last year alone local bands have earned their right to support international acts with much higher promotional activity like Helloween, Amon Amarth, The Black Dahlia Murder, Slayer, and countless others. Supports occasionally score on an indie label, but for the most part they are unsigned and paid for their gigs in beer and adjustable rates of cash. While their work is DIY, the EPs being generated contain classic songs that are not overproduced and have long term listening value. In performance, dedicated local bands are turbulent, elevating, and sincere. If Brismetal.com Records is hell-bent on strengthening not only this city’s metal identity but furthermore distribute it to the nation, they are a worthy contribution to Australian music culture.

To get in contact with BRISMETAL.COM RECORDS go to www.myspace.com/brismetaldotcomrecords or . The Brismetal.com Records fund-raiser launch takes place on April 5 at Rosie’s (ex-Club Phoenix), featuring VIOLENT GREEN, PHALANX, DEAD LETTER OPENER, DEFAMER, EMPYREAN, HAPPY CAMPER and DAMAGED GOODS.

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