The Weird, Wild World of UnoriginalVinyl

My first interview in over 2 years and what better way to celebrate a comeback than an interview with an all around great guy and world renown Vinyl slinger, Jason Z. of UnoriginalVinyl. This is quite an entertaining and lengthy read with loads of very interesting tidbits including some info on an upcoming special release you’ve all been waiting for. So clear your plate for the day, find some spare time, and read one of the best interviews I’ve ever done. Welcome to The Weird, Wild World of UnoriginalVinyl.

The Weird, Wild World of UnoriginalVinyl
Interview By: Brandon Jones for IVM

Let me just preface this by saying I’m a big fan. No, really, I am. I have bought a lot of rereleased “classics” on vinyl courtesy of these folks and been exposed to so much more. I follow everything they do religiously, and usually support when budget allows. Founder Jason Z. has big goals, a big heart, and plenty of passion that drives this whole operation. It isn’t without pitfalls and perils, of course, and I am sure the road hasn’t been an easy one, but exploring this, in every gritty detail, is what these interviews are all about. Let’s get down to business and share just what #UnoriginalVinyl is all about. [Follow on Instagram/Facebook UnoriginalVinyl]

BrandonIVM: UnoriginalVinyl is a unique boutique “label,” although I am not sure that is even what you call yourselves. The attention-to-detail is ahead of the rest. The meticulous care that goes into each release is simply amazing and awe-inspiring. Tell me a little bit on the back story of UOV. Where and how did you get your start in the music biz? What led to its creation and what year did you begin?

UOV: Oh man, that means a lot to hear you say those nice things. Thank you. I have always been a tremendous fan of your work as well, Brandon. Dating back to the day you started this site, I have kept up with you and IVM all these years; so, this is truly a privilege for ME to even be thought of in the same space as you… How far back did you wanna go? Haha! We have been called a lot of things over the years, but “short on words” has never been one of them. Buckle up, buddy, because this story would make Tolkein blush…..

UOV: I came up in the Christian AND secular punk, ska, & hardcore scene of Colorado starting in around 1996. I was picking up mostly 7” vinyl records at shows, or record stores, in those early years. Our local idols were bands like Five Iron Frenzy The Fraidy Cats,, The Smiley Kids, etc. but our contemporaries and local hangout friends were bands like Fear Before the March of Flames (at that time, a Pop Punk band called “36 Flip!”), Dr. No (who would go on to form OneRepublic and Gungor), S.O.K, A New Day Awakening (who would become the second version of Haste the Day).

After going to “Vision Fest 1997” in Castle Rock, Colorado, I started a band that would set up or play constantly. Very quickly, and despite being only 13(!) we were convincing local promoters to let us play with “national touring” Christian AND secular bands like Ghoti Hook, Slick Shoes, Voodoo Glow Skulls, The Hippos, Five Iron Frenzy, and we even played after Switchfoot at our Colorado version of TomFest. For young kids, we were very well connected to the scene, mainly because adults thought I had a lot of “moxy” and I just understood from an early age how to use a lot of carnival barker-style flim flam to draw large crowds of kids out to our shows. Now, me and all my buddies seemed more interested in the “behind the scenes” side of music. We would book our own shows, and even started our own popular music festival (one that we created in 2000 was called “Broomstock,” and it ran for over a decade in the Denver metro area, drawing thousands of teenagers in June of every year during the entire oughts. We had bands like The Fray & Fear Before trading off, playing next to each other on two stages, haha).

I went to college at Colorado State where I studied and finished a Bachelor of Arts in Communications. So, rhetoric, persuasion, and audience are sort of always at the heart of everything I am up to. At CSU, I spent the whole time working multiple simultaneous jobs to pay my way through. An enormous, unceasing, work ethic is a high part of who I naturally am. I would describe myself as an “entirely self-starting, doer first, THEN a dreamer.” I don’t need anyone else’s praise or opinion of me to juice me up, I run on my own perpetual motion and inertia. Brandon Ebel thinks I am a workaholic, I think of it more as “I hardly enjoy working.”

To illustrate this point, in college I was working as, like, a “record store employee, hotel valet, Brookstone guy selling pillows at the mall, builder at a horror prop shop, Jones Soda Area Sales Manager, made a few studio records with my band, a Residence Life Hall Director, a Blockbuster Video clerk,” all the while, I kept doing a lot of music-adjacent endeavors by directing, editing, and writing my own comedy TV / Music Entertainment program called “Full Tilt.” From a few insane sketches that I wrote, filmed and aired during my freshman and sophomore years, I somehow lucked into a paid Mass Media scholarship through the Student Media Department at CSU. A group of buddies, my girlfriend, and I continued to make sketch comedy short films (largely influenced by MTV’s “The State”) and film interviews with a LOT of bands who strolled through Colorado between 2002-2006 (Millencolin, Death Cab for Cutie, Fall Out Boy, American Hi-Fi, The Aquabats, Strung Out, Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers, Bone Thugs & Harmony, the list goes on forever), airing the show all on Northern Colorado’s public access television. Word had gotten out to a lot of the band managers and indie labels I loved that there was a “television media / press option for any of their bands rolling through Colorado,” and I started getting hit up, a LOT, by record label A&Rs to schedule interviews on tour dates. I still see the most random videos pop up online (like the recent Aquabats music video) featuring interviews or live footage I shot 20 years ago, haha.

By 2006, I had gotten married and moved to Seattle to work for Jones Soda Company. The first community I got connected to up there (naturally) all worked at Tooth & Nail Records (I had been working with T&N’s A&R guy / Demon Hunter’s Jon Dunn on licensing T&N’s The Deadlines’ song “Go To The Graveyard” for Full Tilt’s intro theme song). As I had done back in 1997, I just walked in the front door of their offices and said to the first people I saw (Chad Johnson of Furnace Fest and Jimmy Ryan of Haste The Day fame), “Hey. I work for Jones Soda. I have cold drinks in my van. Come on, let’s be friends?”

After spending around 8 years up there, my wife and I decided it was time to start a family and move back home to Colorado. It was at that time (2014) that I started a kind of “nameless, ironic-sounding social media profile” (which had been inspired by the “Cover Girl” music video by The Ongoing Concept) called @UnoriginalVinylPhoto as a way to kill some time before we became parents. This advent introduced me to a pretty wide range of folks who were similarly interested in, particularly, vinyl physical media. We would all have these silly monthly challenges that would flex our vinyl collections, show off cool variants we admired (sometimes, the pretty vinyl flexes would turn into bowling ball flexes), all while sharing our personal stories with each other. A lot of those early adopters within the #VinylIGclub eventually became our closest friends and collaborators. I was also writing a lot at that time for this website called Modern-Vinyl.com, and every year one of the big-draw articles on their site, which I would spend months researching, was called “20 Year Reissues we’d love to see on vinyl for the first time: 1996 edition, 1997 edition”, etc. etc.

It wasn’t before long that some of the friends I had made online, one guy in particular from Portugal called Bruno, said, “Hey, you’re a pretty loquacious, crafty, and seemingly well-connected guy; why don’t you just start putting these records out yourself?”

While I didn’t think that a conventional approach to “starting a record label,” made any financial or intuitive sense in around 2017, I did see that there was a need for a smart, utilitarian, Swiss army knife-style, boutique, graphic design brand. I decided to “officially” form a company with a certain degree of business acumen and technical knowhow, who would mostly focus on the quality of the finished product. At that time, some of the albums I was most excited to see getting reissued on vinyl for the first time were showing up in my mailbox, at a Hot Topic, or at the local record store with rather lackluster execution. We hoped to, “create a BRAND that stood up for fans of the music, the legacy of the artists, and most importantly, enthusiasts of the medium of vinyl itself.” The FANS are the audience here. Capture their attention, and the commercial interests of aging music industry standards can kiss off.

BrandonIVM: Is UnoriginalVinyl solely your project, or do you have a team contributing to each and every release?

UOV: From 2017, which I consider to be our “official start,” it has largely been spearheaded by Bruno and I (we talk just about every day from across the entire world, even though we have never met… yet). Bruno is an unnaturally-talented graphic designer, a kind and easygoing soul, who has his degree in fine arts, but most critically, he has a brilliant eye. He and I have largely carried this thing to over 100 releases in our spare time (we both have full time careers outside of this “hobby”, and typically work literally around the clock, due to the time differences where we live). But in the last four or so years, the team has expanded to several folks running the social media pages (Tim & Lauren West run our Facebook page, Greg Shock runs our Instagram, and I have heard we got a TikTok started, but nobody knows who’s on first with that ADHD excuse for a social media doomsday machine), or stepping up to help on various graphic design projects or vinyl production coordination (Mike Pardy, Jered Scott Martin, Dustin Gardy, & Mason Tuttle are frequent contributors to our work). The entire team works on a per-project basis, usually on short term contract / assignment from record labels, artists, management companies, or production companies.

We have chosen, decidedly, for there NOT to be a distribution / fulfillment side to our business or to attempt to “sign bands to a contract” where we “own” or “have an imperative to exclusively sell or self-distribute” anything that was created by someone else. We don’t come from the music business.; we are strangers in that space, who often possess even stranger ideas; ideas that tend to keep us 100% debt free (our “investments” have everything to do with our passion and the time we put into these projects, and not financial ones). Our “mission statement,” if such a thing even exists, would stem from a firm resolve to head towards the invisible, Z axis that puts the fans at the end destination of our value system. This runs perpendicular to any traditional form of the X = “ultimate creative freedom of artistic ambition” vs Y = “label must make money” dynamic.

BrandonIVM: As many of us are aware, these types of passion projects don’t always pay our bills. I, along with many others in the music industry, have had full time jobs over the years and many of our music passions have taken a back seat to family life or providing for our loved ones. If you don’t mind me asking, what do you as your full-time job and how does that play into what you do with vinyl pressings and the like? Do you find it difficult trying to divide time between work and hobbies?

UOV: I have always had the privilege to work for some of “the coolest brands I could find” in the CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) space. A quality “brand,” like Jones Soda, in a sea of carbonated soft drinks, or the powdered whey protein brand I currently am the head of Sales for, Ascent Protein, is a very unique thing to come upon in the food & beverage world. Honestly, the crossover between how we have decided to position UnoriginalVinyl, and tackle some of the competitive challenges that a brand like us might face, have been directly informed by my experiences in a 20+ year CPG career. There are a LOT of graphic design company options for labels or bands to choose from, however our partners come to us for a full service, pitch decked, emotionally intelligent conversation that outlines the quickest-way-to-ROI/profit including detailed breakdown / explanation of what they will be getting, when they chose us.

Everything I just described often sounds like “too much thinking” to most full-on artistic-types that I know. To us, it is just second nature. We don’t think of art design, the music world, or vinyl records with the same brain that a typical music entertainment person does. Management companies appreciate the full, detailed explanation of services we provide up front, especially as it relates to a forecast for THEIR assumed cost liabilities.

The pathos / credibility with our audience / fans comes from being lifelong music enthusiasts ourselves, who just want talk shop within this community, but who also have a lot of mischief at heart. We feel empowered to interact uniquely with our audience, in the same way that a Jones Soda RV used to just roll up to a skate park in suburbia and start guerrilla style marketing their brand. Our approach comes from the world of “surprise and delight,” “creating baffling side quests,” and “over-delivering on the promise and expectation of quality,” to the point where (we hope) fans seeing a robot logo on the back of some vinyl record they own will create a fun, reassuring feeling in their minds.

BrandonIVM: Your very first release was Lights & Motion “Dear Avalanche,” and how do you think you’ve changed as a person since then? How has the business changed in the years since?

UOV: When you are starting out, you are worried about EVERY detail, and every decision you make feels ENORMOUSLY important to the success or continuation of this dream to make more vinyl records happen. At this point, we have checked a lot of our dream boxes for collaborations or projects, and we have to be more choosy with our time and efforts, because as our families age, there are only so many moments we will get to spend fully-devoted to THEM. By now, I think that the boldness of the approach that we take in speaking with our partners, and the value proposition that we now can point to proof of, has increased. Our “social currency” or brand recognition has risen ever so slightly that we have a bit more flexibility to weed out some real bad actors in the scene, and decide for ourselves (no matter how much we might be tempted to work with some hero artists or labels of ours) that “it’s just not worth working with that team anymore.” There is more reassurance now that another, better project will still come along on the immediate horizon. To willingly choose to engage with some petulant little band manager who runs through life railroading everyone he meets, with a clear chip on his shoulder, hardly feels worth the squeeze to us. We’d rather take the W by letting the losers think they took the W, and just walk away.

BrandonIVM: Of all 100 releases can you name your 5 favorite projects you worked on out of that list? Which ones had the best artwork in your opinion? Which release had the best overall packaging? Which one sounds the best on Vinyl?

UOV: The one I LISTEN to the most with the most frequency and enjoyment, is The Paperboys’ “Greatest Hits” (Someplace, Somewhere). Nothing sums up my entire personality & view of the world better than this band & release. A sentimental optimist. Nobody REALLY wanted this vinyl record to exist (not even the band, really), but I am just so stubbornly determined. I am proud as hell of it being out in the world, now giving folks all over the world who see The Paperboys live, a ton of joy & great memories for years to come.

The “reissue” (Unoriginal artwork that we reinterpreted for vinyl) that I am most happy with the execution and finished product is Life in Your Way “Waking Giants,” & I explained exactly why in the retrospective essay for the liner notes. I am also really proud of the Five Iron Frenzy dumpster box set, because from start to finish, the band trusted me to just make every weird decision I could ever think of (from the marketing campaign video we shot, to the actual execution of the finished box set, to the entire B-sides album, which nobody in the band was asking to do, but I insisted upon) become a reality.

The original artwork project I feel most happy with might honestly be Noah Gundersen’s “If This is the End,” because of how elegant, subtle, and brilliant the little visual touches are that match the tone of the album’s music & themes. Also, We Were Sharks “New Low” was a really nice package + music video (we storyboarded and produced) combo that has felt like a true feather in our cap.

The Zac Brown Band reissues we did for Zac’s team that ended up selling at every Walmart in the country are not only the best sounding records we put out, but the best sounding remasters I think I have ever heard on vinyl, period. Zac’s Bassist Matt literally sat in the vinyl mastering studio sessions and made sure everything was crystal clear and note perfect.

BrandonIVM: Have there been any missteps along the way? Any moments of regret?

UOV: I don’t really love to look at any of our projects in that way. Every one of them has been a gift, a challenge, and ultimately, carved a path forward towards bigger & better things (which are always lurking around the next corner of our weird, little community).

There are certainly management or leadership challenges that we have faced (often times an artist or a manager, with less-than-stellar visual aesthetic instincts will be VERY insistent on THEIR ideas being represented a certain way, and we will gingerly attempt to steer them towards a better decision, keeping the fans, not our own preferences, top of mind with the recommendation). This is a perfectly normal, entirely common issue that graphic designers face when bringing their client’s vision to life, but it is especially exaggerated within the context of the music industry. Out of every 10 artist managers I meet, I have found “an enjoyable working relationship” with roughly 33.3%.

Our “up front, fully-transparent process” has opened a ton of doors for us, and attempts to keep egos from blowing out of proportion, and people treating each other with empathy. But the music business is not set up that way, and thus, it is not an interest of mine to pursue this fun hobby full time. It would require too many dealings with reprehensible people; and after almost a decade of doing this, I can now smell those downright-unpleasant-to-work-with characters from a mile away. I have blocked several of them on my phone, so if you are reading this and are worried you are one of them, text me right now for your answer.

BrandonIVM: What releases may not have come out so well and was this due to a manufacturing error on the part of the plant and/or production? If you don’t mind me asking, which release did not live up to your standards?

UOV: When we first took the helm of reissues particularly within the Tooth & Nail Records / Solid State universe, we were sort of bound to a weird licensing agreement where the license holders controlled ALL manufacturing (through specific pressing plants that they had contractual obligations to work with) and they ultimately had final edit over the quality of the finished project. That led to some pretty iffy results in the early days of UOV.

If I had the chance to do one over, I’d revisit Zao’s “Where Blood and Fire..” because that thing struggles on the vinyl format ANYWAY just due to the chaotic nature of the highs and lows of that album’s dynamic range. Now that I know people in the industry… real pros, I feel like it would sound way more impressive. Still love the packaging on that one, though.

BrandonIVM: What do you enjoy the most about being able to produce and release a vinyl record? What part of this whole process still excites you the most?

UOV: I am still just a sucker for that moment of truth when we open the shrink wrap on the very first in-hand copy. Every single time, it is new. When you are dealing with something handmade and custom, like vinyl colors, you can only guess what a complicated variant will turn out like to about a 70% accuracy level. It is still a thrill for me, looking at the finished product for the first time.

BrandonIVM: You’ve re-released some mighty fine Tooth & Nail/Solid State releases over the years. What led to that partnership? Is this a business relationship that we’ll continue to see develop more over the coming years?

UOV: It was about 2012, right after Brandon Ebel sold his rights to the back catalogue over to Capitol Christian (many people aren’t aware that this was done in order to keep the label alive), when I started to ask myself, “So what does it mean to be a Tooth and Nail kid… now that I am a grown up? What is the legacy of the brand going to be? Who will steward this thing moving forward? Will social media be enough to keep the history of the label intact?” A lot of questions that took around 15 years to suss out and form a proper, proven, working hypothesis for, but I feel like I have a lot of clarity on now.

Recently, we created a Tooth & Nail 30 Year Anniversary box set that helps to answer some of the deeper questions that this label has brought up for adults. UnoriginalVinyl has been given the gift of stewardship for the artists and sometimes record labels, who don’t just want a time capsule or look back on something that happened 30 years ago. Our interests are in telling the stories of WHY the legacy and music has meant so much to folks throughout the years. Let the bands tell their stories from a position of GRATITUDE, in the current year we live in. THAT story is permanent and will make the packaging of our vinyl reissues or Furnace Fest coffee table books, or whatever, relevant for generations to come, because they are universal, cyclical ways of storytelling. It turns out that thankfulness (and “not querulous condemnations of some 25-year-old contract signing gone awry”) is invariably a better way to win over an aging audience.

Also, just a few months back, I had the opportunity to write a retrospective for my favorite Tooth & Nail release of all time, Joe Christmas’ “North to the Future.” It is coming out on Burnt Toast Vinyl. The essay I wrote for the release ended up just being this beautiful, little fictional short story. Something that I have always FELT when I have listened to that album. An experience that I think others might end up relating to deeply.

The older I get, the more I feel happy when I find folks who have had shared experiences with me through the music of Tooth & Nail, or perhaps in other ways our paths have briefly intersected (I gave out 100 “secret handshake” UOV coins recently at the last Furnace Fest as a way to memorialize this unique experience that we’ll all never get to have again, but we all will agree down the road of life, ended up being “very life-giving to those that were there”)… with packaging. Honestly. I am not a nostalgic guy at all, anymore. I don’t believe that some time that happened long ago was “the best it ever was,” and I don’t really care that “Dogwood ate a burrito at this really good place on 14th street when they recorded LP #5 that one time,” so I will work to craft or coach bands to create retrospectives that reflect the common ground we all share in appreciating the album in the here and now… an album that, some many years after the fact, we are still elated to be holding in our fingerprint-leaving, grubby little, vinyl-loving hands.

BrandonIVM: What other labels do you plan to work with on upcoming releases and what is that rare white buffalo that you wish to re-release?

UOV: We love partnering with the T&N / SS crew, always. We love Casey & Iodine Recordings, Matt over at Smartpunk, Randy and the Underoath cats, Ryan & Don Clark, Condo & Brad @ SMLXL / Gotee, Scotty & Burnt Toast Vinyl, Pablo Mathiason and all he is up to, Marcus & Nordic Mission over in Scandanavia, Pat & Bart @ Fat Wreck, Emery, Max McNown, Equal Vision, Spartan Records, Enjoy the Ride, People of Punk Rock, the list really goes on and on. We just want to have fun.

Oh, I really want to put out Dog’s Eye View “Happy Nowhere”, but I haven’t been able to pull it off just yet. That is my biggest white whale project currently.

BrandonIVM: What 90’s era underground Christian music release would you want to see turned into a beautiful vinyl package? What non-T&N release from that era do you want to see pressed next? Any chance for a Value Pac “Incognito” pressing? Hint Hint.

UOV: Sort of a prerequisite we have now for reissues, in order to make the label partners we work with any actual ROI, is for the band to have an active social media presence (acting as the band, not as their individual selves), or at LEAST for that band to be largely “well-regarded in modern times, whose members didn’t turn out to be real heels.” So, Value Pac, it pains me to say, because I too would love to own those albums on vinyl… for us or T&N taking a risk on it? Probably not.

For a variety of reasons, Plankeye is also not likely to happen any time soon (despite me loving “The One and Only” and even Fanmail’s “The Latest Craze.” Much love and respect to the Plank Guys, though, on the whole.

Given the “flexible rules” we have set up for reissues in the Christian Music world, I honestly want to do “Goldie’s Last Day” by PFR for vinyl. Earthsuit. Maybe ONE Sick of Change record. Shane and Shane “Carry Away” would be amazing. Has Burlap to Cashmere “Anybody Out There” come out on vinyl yet? Haha. Oh, and of course the Katy Hudson “S/T” CCM record. She would hate it, and that would make me very happy, and whoever who licensed it very wealthy.

BrandonIVM: What has been your absolute favorite moments of running UOV? Any classic moments from the almost decade since you started?

UOV: The entire “Pick It Up: Ska in the 90’s” filmmaking experience was super incredible because it allowed us to interview so many awesome bands, just as I had in college. The first “Back to the Beach” show that John Feldmann put on in Huntington Beach was absolutely perfect, and a dream weekend (rivaled any of the Furnace Fests I went to, for very different reasons), and the film premiers all over the world were a pretty wild thing to witness and participate in (I hosted a Q&A with Leanor from Five Iron & Mojo from The Supertones at a sold out showing at The Alamo Drafthouse! That is INSANE!).

Making the Dead Alive: Furnace Fest book was incredible on all accounts. I’ll never not be super proud of the entire team for that one, and it became my “yearbook” to have signed every year that I went to Furnace Fest. Fans AND bands all signed that fool thing.

BrandonIVM: Many of us got involved in the underground faith-based music scene (FKA Christian Music Scene) at one time or another and for many, it has driven us with passion, for better or worse, into our own unique futures (myself included). How has your faith journey played a part in what you do, and how you operate in life? What do you miss or regret most about the past in relation to these bands that you have re-released music on vinyl format for?

UOV: I’m a sentimental, optimistic person. Faith in Jesus, and His promise to love me despite my changing circumstances gives me a lot of peace in the world of uncertainty. I don’t lament for the bands or members that currently have “no faith to passionately cling to” in the way they once did in their youth, just as I don’t lament for my friends who have gotten divorced when “my sketch comedy-writing girlfriend” and I have stayed together and been faithfully devoted to each other for over 21 years now. Everyone’s circumstances are unique, as have been all of our choices in this life. It is hard work to keep positive about faith in Jesus in a world so upside-down, but I told you, hard work and I have always been good bedfellows.
It is also hard work unpacking, deconstructing, or disavowing one’s faith, at any age. I applaud the courage of anyone who takes that path and it leads them to a deeper understanding of themselves and a greater sense of inner peace. I don’t expect anyone to travel down the same roads you’ve traveled or I have traveled: I just love it when we get to unite behind all that we have in common with each other. Music has a way of bringing that out of all of us.

As far as wishing for the bygone era, halcyon days of the “Christian underground scene?” I mean. Here’s: the deal. It is still very much happening. It is alive and well, especially in the hardcore and ska (ironically) scenes. The “religious fervor” looks different because kids these days are smart enough to say “no” if a youth pastor were to implore them to share their testimony from stage at the risk of not getting paid for that night’s show (I don’t honestly think they would). The “NOTW” / “set apart” ways of evangelical Christian bands of ages past look strange to kids these days, because their world is so much bigger now with social media. In a way, we used our faith in the 90’s Christian scenes as a way to feel less invisible. Even if for a brief moment in time, we found our tribe and a voice within that community. Inclusion for fear of true isolation is a not a fundamental “need” for my child’s identity now in 2024, and thus, the notion might just seem absurd to start “a Christian band.” I think we really have arrived at the thing bands always wanted back in the “developing age” of Christian Hardcore / Punk / Indie music: to be known as a band who is good, who happen to have Christian members, faith-based themes in their lyrics, or a certain, outspoken presentation style from the stage.
If I am wrong in my assumptions about this, the kids will most certainly prove it to me, and I will be there, still excitedly listening and discovering their new music, voice, and point of view.

BrandonIVM: As far as goals are concerned, where do you see yourself and UnoriginalVinyl as a whole in say, 5 years?

UOV: Definitely to have over 250 releases under our belt. Clock me on it. Let’s GO!

BrandonIVM: You and UOV have appeared at Furnace Fest all four of the past years. Now that Furnace Fest is no more, do you see yourself attending more festivals and/or select concert dates sharing your love of vinyl and music tastes with a wider audience?

UOV: I wasn’t looking for the “Pick It Up” opportunity when it came to me. I saw a break in the clouds and a way to be part of something special, and I jumped at it. Same thing was true for Furnace Fest. None of it was mapped out like that. These things “happen” to anyone who keeps any open mind and an eager / willing spirit. There will be chances to take again. We will take them. They will fail sometimes, they will end up differently than what we had planned in our minds before they started, but we have to try. I think, if I was to make a prediction, the world of Nashville and the gravity that surrounds that music scene (pop / country / alternative) is probably the next place we’ll land. I’ve been working with a lot of artists in that scene for many years now (Darius Rucker, Zac Brown, Chris Young), and what most people don’t realize is that THAT scene is where most of our “success stories” from the world of Christian alternative / underground music ended up.

This, and we acknowledge that, despite having “staff” in three different countries currently, what we do has largely been a “North American-known entity.” People in the US & Canada have probably heard of the artists we work with, but we would very much like to do more international work in the coming years, with artists all over the world, because that is what we listen to and where we are based.

BrandonIVM: I’m winding down this interview with just a few last questions. What are some of your favorite bands and favorite releases, apart from what you do with UnoriginalVinyl? Which decade do you feel has put out the most amount of records you define as “favorites”? Any classic releases you just can’t live without?

UOV: My all time favorite “lane” of music is sort of a blurry genre that music critics argue over calling “College Rock” or “Jangle Pop.” Basically, it’s any Rock and Roll that is major key, mid-tempo, bright and sunny with Rickenbocker-sounding guitars (think along the continuum of The Byrds’ “Turn Turn Turn” to The La’s “There She Goes” to The Lemon Twigs’ “Golden Years”), with a nice ascending guitar chord structure meeting a gentle, descending vocal melody. Just pure vanilla buttercream to my ears. A Travelogue video blog series I made for about 10 years about my adventures on the road (the origin of our UOV Robot logo comes from this series) was just peppered with this kind of music.

But regarding your question, I think I would love to see just a 90’s comp of jangly, one hit wonder jams that have never made it to vinyl: Tal Bachman’s “She’s So High”, Edwin McCain “Solitude”, The Refreshments’ “Wanted”, Dishwalla’s “Counting Blue Cars”, and of course, Dog’s Eye View’s “Everything Falls Apart.” Basically anything that felt “Modern Rock” from like 1995-1999, after grunge had taken itself out of the equation, was my summertime, “rollerblading through the Colorado foothills” jam.

BrandonIVM: Well, that just about concludes this interview with Jason Z. of Unoriginal Vinyl. I would like to personally thank you for answering my questions and for being one of my all-time favorite vinyl pressing labels. I own quite a few releases, and I am about to be buying a whole lot more it looks like. Let us know how us as fans can best support you in your endeavors, and if you have any prayer requests for us.

UOV: Pray that no one ever figures out the word count in this interview transcription.
Take care and much love to Unoriginal Vinyl! •