Meet Manic Kat Records' label manager Peter!
Hello Peter, hope that you're doing great? Huge thanks for taking time to chat with me! I've been following your label's releases for quite a while now. For those who are (unfortunately) not familiar with Manic Kat Records, could you please introduce yourself, as well as your label? Thanks for having me! Sure, I’m Peter James and I own and operate an independent punk label named Manic Kat Records. MKR is a concept I developed as a musician to promote an artist-centric environment for bands to grow and for employees to get out from behind the scenes. We strive for a family dynamic, and live for our bands and music. What made you concretely get into the music industry? In other words, why did you decide to launch a record label, rather than set up a band, a PR agency or something like that? I’ve actually been in bands most of my life. I’ve signed with indie labels and have even gone down the major label route as well. Being in bands has allowed me to create a label that suits the needs of today’s professional working bands. Manic Kat Records had some big releases recently including Rival Town’s excellent EP and The Anchor’s “Make It Last”. Can you tell us more about it? We are all extremely excited about what we’ve accomplished in the last year. We’ve grown tremendously and have even more planned. We’ll be dropping several highly anticipated records from Wired for Havoc and When Thieves are About in the coming months. Most of our bands will be on the road this Summer and we’ll be announcing some big label news in the coming weeks. I heard that you have also announced the signing of Albuquerque pop-punks Right on, Kid. This is amazing news, I really love their sound! What prompted you to include them in the label's roster? Whenever we look at signing a new band, we take a look at how they will fit into our roster both as people and as musicians. We are very close with our bands and are very selective on who we sign into the family. We make sure they can fit and tour with multiple bands on the roster, this allows our bands to mutually grow their respective fan bases. https://www.facebook.com/manickatrecords/videos/10156004075372976/ Out of all the experiences you had with Manic Kat Records, has there been one that has stood out to you? If yes, which one and why? We’ve had some great experiences at Manic Kat Records, but one that stood out and has been a huge achievement was when The Anchor’s Make It Last EP charted on the Billboard Heatseeker Album Chart. That moment helped validate that everything we’re doing is helping our bands’ further their careers. To finish, what is one lesson you’ve learned that you think is important to pass onto other label managers? The biggest thing that I’ve learned in my time doing this is to surround yourself with people just as passionate about the bands and company as much as you are. Having a strong and devoted team that I can relay and lean on is what has allowed us to reach the heights that we’ve had in such a short period of time.
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