“Being busy is a bullshit excuse,” states Ryan Graveface, firmly. This is the response when asked about his diligent work ethic. This is a man who writes music, runs a label, runs a store, tours in bands, and yet is still not quite ready to leave himself any free time. “Don’t let anyone fool ya,” he continues, “you can always do more in life. People just have a hard time admitting they have other priorities for some reason.” He then confesses to working between 18-20 hours a day on average. “I get up no later 9am, and do my first round of e-mails,” he explains a typical day in his life. “Then I get ready for the day, hammer out mail-order/business emails from 10-2, run errands, late afternoon emails, food/exercise, emails until I pass out around 3am. Very exciting stuff.”
Graveface Records – home to The Appleseed Cast, The Stargazer Lilies, Night School, Monster Movie, and just about every band that the label’s founder plays in (The Casket Girls, Dreamend, Black Moth Super Rainbow and more) – has been pushing the boundaries of what an independent label should be since its inception in 2000. Now it has expanded with the Graveface Records & Curiosities store in Savannah, and has branched into further avenues – including a foray into the expanding horror soundtrack market, with the Terror Vision label.
Their releases are always beautifully packaged, with the vinyl pressed on all manner of bizarre colours, and you can almost always expect some random treat inside your Graveface package. “Digital music isn’t the least bit interesting to me,” says Graveface, explaining why he puts such effort into the physical aspect of everything he releases. “I just know what I’d like if I ordered from a company, and because I’m a goofball, that means complete and utter randomness.” However, it seems not everyone enjoys getting a candy stick with their copy of a Marshmallow Ghosts LP. “You wouldn’t believe how many people actually complain that we send them random shit,” laughs Graveface, “Kinda funny that you can piss someone off nowadays by including goodies with their order.”
At first, Ryan Graveface – a moniker he adopts to give himself some privacy – would seem an unlikely visionary label owner. Yet once you chip away to the core, he is in fact one of the most revolutionary minds in the business. The self-proclaimed goofball aspect of his character stems from an infatuation with Halloween, horror, and all things macabre. “You can definitely call me obsessed for sure,” he admits. “I’ve just always been interested in “dark” and goofy things, not limited to films. It’s really odd to see this Instagram generation of people getting into things I’ve been doing since I was 4. It’s weird when what you were once beaten up for is now popular, and even somewhat expected. These kids don’t know how good they have it!”
The label has been staunchly independent since Graveface self-released ‘The Sickening Pang of Hope Deferred..’, the debut CD-R, from his shoegaze project Dreamend. “There was no vision or anything at the time,” he says when looking back on the labels formative years. “I was just doing a bunch of music-related stuff with a friend (zine, radio show, and writing) and together we hatched a bunch of ideas, Graveface loosly being one of them. It was very much a hobby label for the first few years, so I don’t really consider the label to have started until ’06 or so.”
Inspired by labels such as Chemikal Underground, Kranky, and Dischord, Graveface Records continue to base themselves on a similar D.I.Y ethos. “All of them gave really nice advice at the beginning actually,” explains Graveface. “Prior to watching Fugazi’s ‘Instrument’, I had never even thought about running a label. Perhaps they deserve the most credit… or blame!”
While Graveface may have used the label as an outlet for his own creativity at first, he then started to work with other bands. “I did some stuff with some local Chicago musicians early on that I didn’t play on that’s pretty forgettable,” he admits, before explaining how the first bands that he wasn’t part of would come to join Graveface Records. “Black Moth Super Rainbow (who Graveface has since joined) and Monster Movie would be the first “non-me” projects that were actually good. Black Moth Super Rainbow came about from a Dreamend review that compared us to them, so I got in touch. Monster Movie came about from a split CD Dreamend did with them in 2002.”
Considering the label’s humble beginnings, they have put out some very important underground records. Regardless of sales, Graveface is unable to pick his favourite releases. “Every release is incredibly meaningful, so that’s impossible,” he explains. “Toman’s ‘Where Wolves Wear Wolf Wear’ is one of the greatest albums I’ve ever heard, let alone released, and it sold approximately 15 copies, So there you go.” Graveface explains that some records have been mile markers for label in terms of popularity. “Black Moth Super Rainbow, Appleseed Cast and Whirr were definitely the best sellers for me in the past,” he says. “Now, Casket Girls and Des Ark are both doing well.”
At the end of the day, Graveface Records is still a business, but for Graveface himself, this is ultimately a labour of love. “I’m not a huge fan of music so I don’t have any “Holy Grail” bands I would like to work with,” laughs Graveface. “I like what I like, and I’ve been lucky enough to work with most of those folks. On the Terror Vision side I have a ton of Holy Grail titles I’d like to put out, but I’ll keep those a secret for now.”
As we get further into the mind of Ryan Graveface, the conversation turns to the labels expansion, naturally starting with the Graveface Records and Curiosities store in Savanna, GA. “My store is basically a window into my brain, so some people love it and some people will hate it,” says Graveface of the store he opened in 2011. “There’s the largest cocktail bitters section in the southeast, a bunch of dead shit, Gacy paintings, human skulls, arcade games set to free play, over 8000 curated records, and soon to be a VHS rental shop. I feel it’s pretty unique overall.”
At this point, it really does beg an important question; how does Ryan Graveface find time to manage all of this? “Lack of sleep is usually my go-to answer on this,” he says, explaining that this is just the start of what he seemingly hopes will be an intense future. “I could be doing more though. Hence me adding Terror Vision to the fold in late 2014. I also want to open Graveface stores in Austin and Chicago, and will touring a ton this year with Casket Girls. Hopefully I will open my first restaurant in Savannah in 2017 as well. Yeehaw!”
On top of this, Graveface also still finds the time to create his own music, and was once quoted as writing between 1500 to 2000 songs a year. “I’d like to put out 50% or so of them,” he says of the back-catalogue of music he has amassed over the years. “But you’re looking at thousands of sub-par songs at that point, so it’s probably best to sit on them till I’m long dead. If I wasn’t doing so much other shit I’d probably do 10 Dreamend full-lengths every year with some of that material. Most of it fits into Dreamend, the rest would probably be Casket Girls material.”
When we start to wind down our time with Ryan Graveface, we take stock of what he has done over the last 16 years. We ask if he would have done anything differently to which he surprisingly answers “everything!” He explains how he probably would have chosen a different life path, with his tongue firmly placed in cheek. “For better or worse, the industry is constantly changing,” he continues. “There’s not a day goes by that I don’t have an “ah ha!” moment in regards to all of this. I just hope I figure out how to turn a profit before it’s too late.”
Look out for forthcoming albums on Graveface Records from The Stargazer Lilies, and Hospital Ships, all dropping in the near future. For more information on all things relating to the label, the store, and Terror Vision check out their official website.