Paper + Plastick Records

Vinnie Fiorello is a busy, busy man. When he’s not keeping time behind the kit of Less Than Jake, he’s busy discovering and nurturing young bands with his new label Paper + Plastick Records. Now, Fiorello is no stranger to the label game – after all, he founded Fueled By Ramen Records who helped launched the careers of Jimmy Eat World, Paramore, Fall Out Boy, Yellowcard, Panic At The Disco and more – but Paper + Plastick sees him heading in a new direction. The incredibly artist-friendly label is constantly evolving, working with a philosophy of no rules to enable them to take chances and do things most labels would never contemplate doing – be it releasing entire albums online for free or releasing children’s books.

This past Wednesday I gave Fiorello a call and we talked about the label, his ideas on what makes a label successful, the reasoning behind leaving Fueled By Ramen and launching Paper + Plastick and he also gave us an insight of what we can expect to see from the label in the future; and it looks like Paper + Plastick is in for one hell of a year…

---

Bobby: Okay, first off, let’s just start with the basics, what made you decide to start Fueled by Ramen Records back in 1996?

Vinnie:  To just put out records of bands that I was running into on the road with Less Than Jake.

Bobby: You started with a cassette compilation called the Take-Out Sampler. Why did you decide to start off with a compilation as opposed to a release of a band’s album?

Vinnie: At that point, you really didn’t know what you were doing. There was no real plan or rhyme or reason. I just knew that I wanted to start a label, I had friends in other bands that I really loved and a cassette seemed the most minimal investment that I could’ve done to see if it worked. At that point, I think that it was just something that I wanted to do, it was quick to do, so I did it.

Bobby: Yeah, that makes sense. Kind of a way to test the waters and see if it was possible and if you could make it work type of thing.

Vinnie: Yes.

Bobby: Over the years, Fuelled by Ramen grew and became one of the biggest independent labels around; and you helped kick start the careers of bands like Yellowcard, Less Than Jake, Paramore, Fall Out Boy and more. Did you ever think that Fuelled by Ramen would end up having such a big effect on the music scene?

Vinnie: I never really thought about it, to be honest with you, while it was going on. In retrospect, it kind of blows me away; but I can’t really tell you that there was any kind of formula. I guess the stars were aligned in the right way. I was lucky enough to have one success and on that one success, we piggy backed a lot of other bands off that one success and it worked. It made the label have a lot of momentum.

Bobby: In 2006 you ended up leaving the label saying that you weren’t very happy with the direction of the company and you thought your opinion wasn’t really being listened to as much as you would have liked. Can you tell us a bit more about why you decided to leave? And was it long time coming or was it more of a sudden change?

Vinnie: I think it was a sudden change. I pride myself on the music I like and I pride myself on being passionate about the things that I like. For me, when we started with Warner Music Group being our primary distro, there was this undercurrent of wanting to repeat certain successes. You can’t really repeat sudden successes unless you’re willing to take a chance and my partners at that time didn’t want to take chances on new directions. I think that, as a label, you have to take chances on new directions so the label doesn’t become stale. I never wanted to put out generic pop, and that’s where the label was heading and I was very unhappy with the direction that it was going. I decided that while Panic At the Disco were on the Top Ten Billboard, Fall Out Boy – Top Ten Billboard, Academy Is – Top Ten New Artist, Gym Class Heroes – Top Five New Artists, Paramore picking up heat. I decided it was time for me to leave and leave at the top and I did. I think that that was a magical time and it hasn’t been repeated. It was the time for me to decide to leave and thankfully so. Atlantic Records and Warner Music Group decided to buy me out of my share of the company.

Bobby: Kind of go out at the top of the game.

Vinnie: I felt like I went out on top.

Bobby: Which makes sense, instead of sitting back and waiting to see happens. If you’re not going try and push the boundaries a bit and change it a bit, if you’re just going to play it safe, it’ll most likely drop down a bit.

Vinnie:  If you don’t take chances, you can’t continue success; and playing it safe is good sometimes but you can’t really play it safe all the time. People will get bored. Just look at the state of the music industry right and the state of bands, it’s boring out there. It’s boring as fuck out there. I think there’s a terrific undercurrent that people aren’t paying attention to at the moment. And there are a lot of untapped resources and untapped bands that are currently playing in basements and playing in houses and are way off the radar of most major labels.

Bobby: Two years later you decided to get back into the label game when you started up Paper + Plastick Records in 2008. Was that part of the reason, to be able to find those bands that are part of the undercurrent? Or were you always intending to go back into the label game?

Vinnie: I never intended to go back and be part of a label but I missed putting out records. I missed not only finding bands but helping bands. I consider Paper + Plastick a very artist friendly label. I like to not only be friends with people who are on the label but to also help them and guide them in their career as a young band. I don’t do contracts. I don’t do a lot of things that are common place in bigger labels. I don’t feel like I should own any part of a band or any part of their creative or influential product. I think that’s what bigger labels want. They want to own portions of the artists; I don’t want to own that. To answer your question, I never considered going back in and being part of a label but I missed it. I missed doing it and I wanted to be able to put out records that I wanted to put out with no influence. If I wanted to put out thirty records in a year, I’ll put out thirty records in a year. If I want to put out three records this year, I’ll put out three records this year. There’s no rules. If I want to put a record out digitally tomorrow, I can do it. I have the way to do it.

Bobby: Yeah, there’s no more red tape to jump through kind of thing.

Vinnie: You know, music is based on no rules. It’s the mavericks, it’s the outsiders and out of the box thinkers, those are the people that come out on the other side better for it.

Bobby: When you compare Paper + Plastick’s roster to Fueled by Ramen’s roster, even before you left, the sound is quite different. On Fueled by Ramen you had Jimmy Eat World, The Impossibles, Blueline Medic, Recover, Home Grown and the rest. While Paper + Plastick seem to be more of the straight out punk stuff like A Wilhelm Scream, Protagonist, Shook Ones, Riot Before, Flatliners, Spanish Gamble and so on. Was that change in sound kind of intentional or more just what you’re feeling right now?

Vinnie: Well, I think that with the bands that you mentioned, they’re all melodic punk rock or melodic hardcore but then I threw in other things that you didn’t mention that I’m sort of dabbling in. Destry would be one band that I released their record digitally and an EP for them to sell on tour or This Is My Suitcase, who are very much eclectic pop. Pop music meets the Flaming Lips. Destry is female fronted kind of alt-country-indie rock. I think that right now I’m not trying to paint myself into the melodic hardcore corner and therefore I’ve been shuffling the other genres of music so that I don’t paint myself into a genre.

Bobby: Which once again gives you more flexibility to go out and test the waters, be more experimental and try out new stuff.

Vinnie: Exactly.

Bobby: Paper + Plastick started with a simple idea of Paper for prints and books and Plastick for vinyl and toys which you were always a fan of. You’ve also put a lot of digital releases and, like you just mentioned a few CD releases and I’ve seen a few CD releases. Are you planning to expand Paper + Plastick to release more CDs as well?

Vinnie: I think the last couple of releases that I have done, I’ve just packaged CDs with vinyl. It makes more sense for the label to do that as well as for touring bands to sell on the road. Without getting heavy handed and shitty, I think that brick and mortars stores, they’re dying. It’s a dying breed of stores out there. I mean, one of the biggest retailers – Best Buy – in the United States, I think they have a third of stock of what they used to have when it comes to music. Tower Records is gone, Virgin Records is gone and I think that none of my releases are, or would ever be, welcomed into Wal-Mart which is the biggest music distributor for brick and mortar right? So why get in that ring? Why get in that arena when I know that the outlet of that is very, very, very small and diminishing day by day. I think that people still haven’t let the CD go yet, and that’s why I’ve been packaging CDs with LPs.

Bobby: You’ve been in business a little less than two years and you already have almost thirty releases out which is more than some major indie labels release in the same time span. Why did you decide to gun it right out of the starting gate and start releasing so many records so quickly?

Vinnie: You know what, I’ll be honest with you, it goes back to no rules. If I want to release thirty records, I can release thirty records. If I want to release three records, I’ll release three records. I think that as long as I’m giving the artists a fair shake, I can do whatever the fuck I want. 

If tomorrow I wake up and I find a band that I’m absolutely in love with and they have a record that’s recorded, why the fuck wouldn’t I put it up on our website and start selling it and start hyping it? There’s no reason. So I think that if I was a part of a bigger label…just to start the machine of a bigger indie label, it costs twenty-five thousand dollars. For me, to start my machine I just need to fucking have a glass of chocolate milk and have fucking breakfast and fuck it, I’m ready to go.

With Paper + Plastick, I try to run the label very leanly and very quickly because things change very quickly and I want to be ahead of the current. I don’t want to be on the crest of the wave, I want to be there before the wave even starts to form.  For me, I just want to be a part of the creative process and just bands and music have always been a passion and it will continue to be a passion.

Bobby: And like you said, it enables you to do it right away like you just did with The Have Nots and NoMore. They had already recorded the stuff; you liked it and put it online right away.

Vinnie: The cool thing is that bands, when I do that… like The Have Nots, they’re going to do a Dropkick Murphys show on St. Patrick’s Day and that’s huge for them. I think that when they have a named label behind it, it helps book shows and it helps do things that bands need to do and feel like they have someone in their corner. I want to be that person, I want people to think about the label that way.

Bobby: One thing I also wanted to talk about was your almost weekly video series called the Bathroom Tapes where you had people film acoustic tracks in the bathroom in a hotel during last year’s Fest. Who came up with that idea?

Vinnie: I had been kicking it around a little bit. I was talking to the owner from NationalUnderground and he told me who he thought I could get to film it.  Because I didn’t just want someone with a camera to do it, I wanted to have a little bit of artistry to it and luckily he knew exactly who I should go to and he happened to be in town for the Fest. It just sort of fell together really, really, really well. We have a Frank Turner one that’s coming and a bunch of other ones that are coming up that I’m excited for.

Bobby: One thing I gotta nitpick about that series is the name of it. While I’m probably the only person in the world who does this, but whenever I go to type up any news post or feature about the Bathroom Tapes, I always make the exact same typo.  I always say “Paper + Plastick have updated their weekly Bathroom Rapes video series…” and then stop and go “wait… that’s not right.” *Vinnie laughs* So couldn’t you have a name where one letter wouldn’t make such a massive difference in the meaning of the word?

Vinnie: Well, you know, I could have, I should have… but I didn’t *laughs*.

Bobby: You also teamed up with Hurley to offer up one album for streaming almost every weekend. What made you decide to do that?

Vinnie: Simple. I’m friends with the people who work there. They’re a supportive company, they’re outlook on music and creativity matches mine. It’s good for my publicity and it’s good for their company as well, we’re giving them free content.

Bobby: It’s a good promotional tool for both companies in that aspect.

Vinnie: Exactly.

Bobby: One of your first paper releases from you guys was your own children’s book called Sometimes Robots Like Being Robots which came out last June. What motivated you to write a children’s book in the first place?

Vinnie: I think after writing In With the Out Crowd, the Less Than Jake record…. [here, my recorder cut out for around twenty seconds during which time Vinnie said he was on a hot streak with writing lyrics and he just kept writing stuff. He eventually started writing short stories during down time during tours and ended up with around fifty short stories, most of which revolved around robots. At the end of his answer, I got the recorder working again.]

Bobby: Do you have any other plans to work on a book? I mean, you said you had almost fifty short stories – do you have anything else in the works?

Vinnie: I have a book, an autobiographical book called Perfect Teeth that I’m about a hundred pages into. And then I have a tour story book called Fifty States that I’m almost completed with. Fifty States will probably be printed in a very Cometbus way, if you know that zine, it’ll be printed sort of like that. Everything will be hand written, everything will be very organic. It’ll be printed black and white. It’ll be tour stories. A nod to old punk rock: everything cut and pasted, everything halftone. It’s gonna be cool. You’ll see that probably around middle of the summer. And Perfect Teeth, I don’t know, it’s a work in progress. Hopefully it’ll see the light of day sometime next year.

Bobby: That sounds cool. Especially the tour diary – that will look quite interesting. Will you have a whole bunch of tour photos and stuff from it as well?

Vinnie: It’s basically every lyric I’ve ever written for Less Than Jake with stories about those lyrics; with pictures and just generally a very extravagant sort of look at the writing process of the lyrics and where they came from. Stories about the lyrics and about being on tour, it’s the companion piece to a bunch of Less Than Jake records.

Bobby: A lot of your other paper artists tend to be artists in the way that they do tshirts, posters and album designs – more drawings and paintings. Do you have any plans to find more authors and release more books?

Vinnie: I’ve been looking for it and I think that what you’ll see start to happen is over the next few months I have a lot of records that will be coming and then after that, I’ll be concentrating on a lot of print. I’ve been shifting through a lot of young comic book artists, I’ve been shifting through a lot of photo journalists who do photo books. So to be honest with you, I’ve just been kind of looking at other authors to do books from them. I think that probably around Christmas time you’ll see the paper side of the label pick up.

Bobby: Okay, that will be good. I know there’s a lot of people in the punk scene itself that end up writing. Like Tripp Underwood from the Unseen wrote a book for BYO called So This Is Readin’?. Greg Attonito from the Souls wrote a children’s book with his wife called I Went For A Walk and I know Ben Weasel is currently writing a novella. So do you think Paper + Plastick could end up being a source for punk rockers to release books or little short stories that they’ve been writing?

Vinnie: I hope that will be the case.

Bobby: I also just wanted to talk a bit about GNV FLA, the latest Less Than Jake album which you guys released on Sleep It Off Records. Why did you decide to do it on Sleep it Off instead of on Paper + Plastick?

Vinnie: Sleep It Off is a Less Than Jake owned label whereas Paper + Plastick is my label. It goes back to the fact that with Paper + Plastick, I want to have the control to do whatever the fuck I want to do. With Sleep It Off and with Less Than Jake, it’s always been very democratic and it’s always been a group decision making process. I never want to be in the middle of band politics, so I think that having Less Than Jake self-release the record and making all of  the decisions and all of us talking about it, that makes sense. If I were to do a Less Than Jake record, it just would put me in the middle of discussion about being in a band and about being the label and I’d never want to be the guy who’s in the band who’s on the label. There’s way too much confusion.

Bobby: Yeah, just to protect yourself from possible problems or fights that could arise if there was a problem between the label and the band and you were on both sides of the fence.

Vinnie: As a business person, I believe certain things and as a band, collectively, we have to discuss certain things. For me, I would give the Less Than Jake record out for free; but as a band, we decided that’s not the case. We wanted to do a lot of other things, but giving it away for free was not something we decided to do.

Bobby: You guys have said before that you eventually hope to get the rights for all of your recordings including the ones on Capitol Records, Fat Wreck Chords, and Sire Records.

Vinnie: We already did.

Bobby: You already got them all?

Vinnie: Yep.

Bobby: So do you have plans to re-release them anytime soon?

Vinnie: I’ll give you just a brief thing. August we’ll be doing a six DVD set of us playing all of our six records live. Then Christmas time will be the re-release of Hello Rockview and the re-release of Losing Streak.

Bobby: Okay.

Vinnie: And then probably the late spring of 2011 will be Borders and Boundaries and then the late summer/early fall we’ll probably bring Anthem and In With The Out Crowd.

Bobby: I also read that you recently started a new music management company called SETAFIRE. Is that true?

.innie: Yes and no. I had started it. It was to handle a friend of mine’s band and when that band broke up, I decided not to be a manager any longer and decided to focus all my energy on Paper + Plastick.

Bobby: That makes sense, I mean; you only have so much time in a day to do every thing. I guess that’s about it, thanks a lot. Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to add?

Vinnie: Just thanks. Thanks for talking. Thanks for supporting. Thanks for buying records and seeing the bands that I love. Thanks for everything.