Alright, this site has basically died, but I'm very happy to finally... FINALLY... have this interview with Peter from Pure Impact Records up. As anyone who has been around for a few years knows, the skinhead "scene" (if you can call it that) has a tendency to change very quickly in a very short amount of time. People, bands, and labels come and go at the drop of a dime. Well, both Peter and Pure Impact are exceptions to the rule. They've kept going strong while so many others have left us behind... sometimes for better, but - unfortunately - often for worse. But I don't want to start this off on a depressing note.
Before starting the interview, I want to express my gratitude to Peter. This interview took a long time to finish, mostly due to my own short-comings. I sent some questions to Peter, but he was busy with many things in life and (at least) an equal number of things with the label, like the many new releases everyone should check out. Six or seven months later, this thing is finally ready to be posted online. So when "recent news" is a December 2009 release, that's all my fault. Luckily, Pure Impact is almost as old as me, so six months probably means very little has changed.
Finally, before we start the interview, make sure you check out Pure Impact at their official site and their myspace page. And make sure you sign up for the newsletter, as it's one of the highlights of the month for me... Peter will keep you up to date not just on the label but also the new releases in general along with zines and shows worth checking out.
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Let's start with the recent news. I just got the December Pure Impact newsletter, and you mentioned three new releases for the label. Here's the description you gave us in the newsletter:
Let's start with plugging ourselves a little first. We should have 3 new releases coming out on PURE IMPACT this December still: Endstufe "Wo wir sind brennt die Luft", Offensive Weapon "Offensive Weapon" (true hard skinhead rock from New York City) and Skinfull "Drinking Class Heroes" (young new English band taking you back to the Oi/punk sounds of the early 80's). Check out a sample song and cover art of each on www.myspace.com/
Can you give us a description of what we should be expecting?
Well, all three CD's have been released in the meantime.
The Endstufe one is by far the easiest to describe as Endstufe is a classic band that everyone knows. It's a live CD recorded at shows in Germany and Italy. It features some classic Endstufe tracks and a couple of really hard-to-get ones. It could have captured the live atmosphere a bit more maybe, but on the other hand, the sound quality is real good, which isn't always the case with live CDs in our scene. The CD comes with a 16-page booklet with lots of photos as the band wanted.
Skinfull is a great young English band bringing back that hard mid-80s sound, Oi! with a punky touch, not unlike Condemned 84's debut "Battle Scarred". Finally, Offensive Weapon is old-school brickwall Oi, like the US bands from the late 80s / early 90s, non-PC, not trying to please the general public, just a 100% skinhead.
Speaking of the newsletter, it was issue #131. Is that the number for the monthly email or the total number of Pure Impact zines/newsletters?
It's the total of newsletters. The first few years they were on paper and, from sometime in 1999 on, they became e-mail newsletters.
So here's where the interview will lose focus and go all over the place. From what I know, Pure Impact started as a paper zine in the early 80s and eventually evolved into a label, a distro, and you might have booked some shows in Belgium over the years. I've seen some old interviews from the zine posted online, and you might have started this before I was even born (and I'm not exactly young). Pure Impact seems to have been alive for around thirty years! Can you give us an idea about when you got involved in the skinhead scene and how you came to start Pure Impact as a zine, since that seems to be the first incarnation of PI?
Hmm, I'm going to have to give away my age here, more or less at least. I first got into the skinhead scene in early 1983. I'd been listening to Oi and punk for a year or two already, but when I went on a school trip to London in 1983; there were skinheads all over the place, and I just knew that was the thing for me: smart look, tough, no-nonsense. I just loved it. The zine was actually not started by me, but by a friend. He used to do a punk & skin fanzine called "Unite and win" in 1983 - 1984 and then changed the name to Pure Impact when it became strictly skinhead. Towards the end of 1985, he found a job and no longer had the time to do the zine, and I took over from issue 5 on. I had had some previous experience helping him on Pure Impact and by doing a couple of interviews for the New Jersey-based fanzine Bulldog Breed.
When/why did you start the label and distro? Did one come first and the other followed naturally, or did they both begin at the same time?
By 1995 the zine had pretty much had it's time. There were a lot of zines around, many with bigger budgets and in colour, or printed, or whatever. I just couldn't keep up. I had taken Pure Impact as far as I could. What was lacking was good labels that put out quality releases, not just cheap Rock-O-Rama style releases. I had always been a collector and so I decided I would put out the type of releases that I would have liked to buy myself, with proper booklets and so on. Technically, the distro came first, but it was always the intention to release albums as well. It was just a matter of finding the right band. The label / distro officially went live on the first of January, 1996.
The Pure Impact website lists 34 releases... 32 CDs or MCDs and two 7"s (The Hoolies and Red, White, and Blue). You've almost exclusively released CDs, while so many other labels still focus on vinyl. As someone who doesn't collect vinyl, I've always appreciated this, but it makes me wonder... why have you focused on CDs?
So far, I'm actually at 45 releases: 2 7"s, 1 DVD and 42 CD's. Now, I personally also prefer vinyl, but the reason why I concentrate on CDs as far as releases goes is for the simple fact that there is not a big home-market for this kind of music in Belgium. This means that I mainly (have to) sell abroad, and the shipping costs then are just too high because of the weight and size. It is for the very same reason that I don't sell a whole lot of merchandising like clothing and such.
Given the focus on CDs, my guess is that you're focused on newer, more relevant technologies. But I haven't seen you push Pure Impact releases on iTunes or other pay-for-download sites. Do you have any plans to do this? Any other thoughts on digital releases, downloading (and it's role in "the scene" or on labels), or where things stand these days given new technology? Are we getting to a point where labels are dead or dying? (Full disclosure: I don't buy vinyl, so I do download things like the YDL discography, since - despite all the rumors about a CD release - it's only ever come out on vinyl from John at Vulture Rock.)
As explained earlier, it has nothing to do with being focused on newer technologies, but rather with the practical side of things. So far only 3 releases are available through pay-for-download sites: Section 5 "They think it's all over", the Endstufe live and Skinfull. Section 5 was made available for download about 2 years ago as a test. Unfortunately, putting and keeping it online has cost me more than it has brought in. I hope Skinfull will do better. It has also been posted on my MySpace page.
A new Pure Impact site is in the works, and I will probably make more releases available for download then. I have no problem with digital downloads as long as it's official and not just downloaded for free from one or the other blog sites. And, contrary to what a lot of people think, this has nothing to do with earning big bucks... but why would a label pay the recording studio for a band and press up CDs when the CDs and even legal downloads don't sell anymore because of all the illegal downloading??? You might just as well throw your money away as a label. So yes, I think labels are dying, and also that, because of it, a lot of bands won't get released anymore, especially the smaller / newer ones who don't have the money to pay for their own studio recordings.
How do you decide what to release? Does a band make a record and shop it around to labels, or do you make a deal ahead of time and support the band's recording process?
It is usually the latter, although in recent years the situation has changed a little due to the illegal downloads. You want to limit your risks as a label, and finished recordings can easily be checked for their quality. Now, I always release bands I like, that I can connect with in one way or another. I have never looked only at profitability because there's a few releases I did that otherwise would never have come out [if I only focused on profitability].
It's been a while since the last release, which might have been the Blood Red Eagle album, but now you're back with three releases at once. Why the long delay? The two obvious guesses are funds and lack of worthwhile releases.
You missed a few releases. The last one before these was Coup De Masse from Montreal, which came out in August 2009. If you like the good French bands of old, check them out; they're a great band. So, the delay hasn't been that long, but if you need an explanation for the time I take between releases, it usually has to do with the lack of funds indeed. Pure Impact is a small one-man operation and not nearly as big as many people would think. I have a full-time job and do Pure Impact after hours and on weekends mainly.
Very few labels and distros are able to last. A few manage to just not-quite-die and then release something new (GMM and Haunted Town come to mind), but Pure Impact has managed to stay active over the years. The only other label I can think of that's survived like PI is Dim. So, Peter, what's the secret to your success?
Success? What success? The reason why I keep Pure Impact going is two-fold. First of all, I have been a skinhead since forever, have been impassioned by the style and music... this is me, not just a teenage fad. Also, I don't take any money out of Pure Impact for myself, so the money it generates is reinvested in releases, stock, all kinds of material (like computers, etc), and accountants.... A lot of people think doing a label is fast and easy money, but it is not; it is a lot of hard work, time, and dedication, and that's what most people lack (and they then give up). The only ones that can make big bucks with their labels are not the pure skinhead labels - like DIM or Pure Impact - but the overtly PC German labels who suck up to everyone and created a prefab skinhead movement as a market, which has nothing real or dangerous about it anymore. Plastic rebels in the truest sense.
Building on the last question, you've basically run an apolitical label and distro that doesn't hesitate to occasionally put out a RAC album and carry RAC in the distro, and few other labels/distros seem to do the same (again, Dim being the noticeable exception). Have you encountered any problems for that? And do you think too much about what to carry, or do you just put out whatever you like or can get? Also, it seems like you listen to every album in the distro judging from the monthly newsletter and your comments... does this happen before or after you decide to carry it?
That goes back to the origin of the zine, label, distro - both DIM and I are from a time long gone when skinhead wasn't all politicized; it was just skinhead, and there were people to the right, patriotic, and non-political skinheads, and politics wasn't exactly the first concern. We both have tried to keep that mentality and we can appreciate a wide variety of bands and styles. Sure, I have encountered problems for carrying RAC, not only from the PC-brigade in the scene, but also from the press, the police or the government (it's no fun when Pure Impact gets mentioned in parliament for being a nazi-mailorder). On the other hand, I have also been criticized by the right for carrying bands that are more to the left like The Oppressed, to name just one. I think people are wise enough to decide for themselves what they like. I sell music, not political ideas.
[Also, it seems like you listen to every album in the distro judging from the monthly newsletter and your comments... does this happen before or after you decide to carry it?]
I do indeed listen to everything and try to give a, more or less, honest review. This happens after I have decided to carry the CD. I make sure I always hear some songs before ordering to avoid the worst bands out there. Doesn't always work though. LOL.
