If you were listening to hardcore in the 2000s and 2010s, there's a healthy chance you owned a few REACT! Records releases. The label was behind titles by Mindset, Praise, Get the Most, and Dead Weight, among many others.
REACT! Records was founded by Aram Arslanian, a hardcore scene staple who has been a member of such bands as Champion, Betrayed, The First Step, and Keep It Clear. These days, he fronts one of my current favorite hardcore outfits, Change, as well being behind Cadence Leadership, a company that coaches professionals based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Aram handed REACT! Records off to Mindset vocalist Evan Wivell in 2013, but I wanted to get the story behind the label's start in the 2000s. Read on and get the skinny, and let's hope we get more music from the label sometime in the future.
We can’t tell the REACT! Records story without talking about Anchor Records first. How did you go from dude who plays in hardcore bands to dude who puts out records? Knowing you, you’re a total type-A personality kind of guy, so I imagine once you made the decision, you were full speed ahead.
Anchor started because I really liked the band Stay Gold from Seattle and wanted to support what they were doing. Champion and Stay Gold came up at the same time and played a lot of shows together. I was watching them play one night at a venue called Ground Zero (that for years had a ceiling mural of John Pettibone singing in Undertow, which I thought was so cool and was very bummed when it was eventually covered up) and the place was going nuts.
They were an awesome live and recorded, and it felt like they were this NW secret that needed to get out. It wasn’t something I’d been planning on, it just popped into my mind as they were playing, so I asked that night and that was the beginning of the label. The Stay Gold discography is out on Indecision Records and they’re an active band again, so check them out!
I’m definitely an all-in kind of person, so after the Stay Gold release I pretty quickly put out EPs for What Feeds the Fire, Allegiance, and The Answer and also had a bunch more planned.
What were some of the labels that you looked to for inspiration? Did you reach out to any of them for help/guidance?
I was mostly influenced by Excursion and Overkill. Excursion since Dave [Larson] is my best friend, and I always loved the attitude of the label. It wasn’t super focused on a sound, look, or style, it was more about the bands and the people that he loved. I always liked that Excursion was different from one release to the next, and that all the records came from a place of really caring about the music, the message, the people, and the community.
The backstory of Excursion is also cool and I appreciate the role that label played in the NW. I was also influenced a lot by Overkill and Ron Brotherhood (RIP) who I looked up to. I wasn’t close to Ron, and we had more of a hardcore nerd (that was me) to hardcore elder relationship, which was mostly me asking questions about shows, old stories, etc.
I loved Overkill, because it was also kind of a weird mix of stuff that worked in its own way. Ron did a lot for the NW scene and I’ll always remember him.
Back to Excursion, Dave was a huge help with showing me how to run a label. He helped in getting the records pressed, getting the word out about the releases, assembling everything and packing and shipping out orders. The people at Revelation also helped a lot by talking me through how to get distribution.
I just got their number and called them out of the blue, and that set off multiple calls and emails from people there who were willing to share their time and knowledge. I grew up on that label and was so appreciative about how accessible and helpful they were. It was such a cool experience and set the tone for me in regard to how I manage myself when people reach out for help.
One more influence I’d put in was Youngblood Records which is a label I still love.
Why did you pull the plug on Anchor Records?
I wasn’t doing a good job for the bands, and I felt bad letting them down. I had no business putting out records at that time in my life. I was juggling too many things at once: career, school, band, and label, and whatever I had going on with Anchor often ended up being last priority.
How did you get inspired again to start a label with REACT! Records? Did you have the first release in mind already?
I loved Get the Most and spent a lot of time with that crew. I was hanging out with the singer and the idea to release their demo on vinyl came up. Again, easy decision and something that just naturally happened in the moment. At that point I wasn’t touring much, I’d finished school, and was well into my career, so I had the time to put into a label.
I knew I wanted to start fresh rather than activate Anchor again, and I also wanted the label to be much more focused from a sound and look perspective, and to take a position on things. I picked REACT! as the name because I wanted something that had a sense of urgency to it, which is what I’m always drawn to creatively. I like lots of styles of music and what always holds my attention, across any genre, is urgency.
The Embrace LP, which is my favourite record, is an example of that. It isn’t aggressive in a traditional sense, but it demands attention. For me, it can’t be background music because it’s immersive and pulls me into it. The music, the lyrics, the art, all work together to communicate something that needs to be taken in.
I wanted to do more than put out a bunch of bands I liked; I wanted each release to feel like a connection between the band, the label and the person holding the record. So, for the first few years of REACT! each release was very involved. That grew over time: the GTM demo release had hand-screened covers with a different colour cover for each colour of vinyl, and also included a REACT! sticker. The next release had two stickers, one for the label and one for the band, and also something written by a friend of the label.
After that, every release included the stickers, a writing by someone we knew and respected, and also had hand hand-screened cardboard filler pads in the mailers. We also hand-stamped some mailers or record dust covers and included posters in some orders. The goal was to make each order feel like something that we had put time into, and that people wanted to spend time with when they got it.
Those are the small touches that bring a smile to the faces of people when they open up a record.
That approach was influenced by a lot of labels: The screened covers and filler pads came from Dischord and Gravity releases as well as '90s emo records. The stickers and posters came from the first press of Uniform Choice's Screaming for Change LP, and from early Revelation releases. The idea for the writings came from Ebullition and Wishing Well records as well as Earth Crisis' All Out War on Conviction Records that included some cool stuff.
Overall though, I was specifically trying to recreate that feeling you have when you’re holding an early Dischord release. You know by the look and feel of it, that someone put time and effort into screening and assembling the cover. You can find little notes like “Flex Your Head!” written in the folds that have come unglued over the years. It’s kinda like having a direct connection to that time and those people, and that carries on as long as the physical copies of those records exist. I didn’t want the label to put out records that felt disposable, I wanted to connect with people on a deeper level.
Let’s talk about some of the early releases on the label. What was your connection with the Get the Most folks, and was putting together the Core Values EP a huge learning experience for you since it was the maiden release for the label? Any big issues in the production process?
I’ve been vinyl collector on and off for years, so I always wanted a vinyl press of everything. Crucial Response had done the GTM EPs, but hadn’t done the demo on vinyl, and I thought it would be fun to work with them on it. The whole thing was super smooth: the band designed and screened the covers and inserts, the vinyl turn-around was fast, and the record sold out in 48 hours.
A band that would end up having a huge connection to REACT! and the label’s story was Mindset. How did they land on your radar? Also, did you have an instant connection with Evan Wivell, or did you become closer with time?
Mindset was the focus of the label and deserved to be. I’m appreciative that we crossed paths and working with them was an honour. Some of the fondest memories of my life for sure.
At the time I was in The First Step and we played a show with a band called The Anti-Wasteoids. I was delighted by the name and made sure to check them out. They were goodish, and had awesome energy. They were also very outgoing, and we ended up hanging out with them and having a lot of fun. After that they started to road-trip and hangout when we were playing the East Coast. They also changed their name to Mindset, and became legitimately great and I knew I wanted to work with them.
I asked them to be on the label at a show we played together in New Jersey with Triple Threat in the back of a pool hall. TFS was about to play and I was changing into shorts. I was mid-change when Mike and Ev came in and we started talking about the label, and I was in my boxers when they agreed to work with REACT! My relationship with all those guys developed quickly, and we put in a lot of time together over the years. They’re a wonderful group of people, and Mindset is forever legendary.
I’ve been a big fan of Praise since they started, and though they’re on Revelation Records these days, REACT! was there from the onset. Did the band approach you about working together, or the other way around? How did you come together with the band? Also, what is your favorite release you did with them?
Praise is another band that I consider myself lucky to have worked with. I was on the East Coast with TFS and spent some time with the singer Andy [Norton], who I had played in Champion with. He was going through a difficult time and was talking about doing music as a way of working through things.
I wanted to support my friend, and I said that anything he did had a home on the label. That was it really, and I would have put out whatever he sent me. I don’t know why, but I was expecting some acoustic project or something along those lines. Andy hadn’t mentioned anything like that at all, so I don’t know why that got in my head.
Anyway, Praise came together after that, recorded their EP, and had Kevin Seconds do the art. It was released at the first REACT! showcase at Gilman St and I think that was one of their earliest shows. Writing about it now is kind of emotional because watching that set was inspiring.
Praise is a very honest band, and I think their lyrics and music matter. In my opinion, they’ve only done great records. My favourite on REACT! is Leave It All Behind which I think is perfect, and their latest LP and EP Revelation are definitely on the same level.
What were some of the label’s releases you feel deserved more attention than they received?
The Skin Like Iron Arrival LP is incredible and easily one of my favourite records on the label. The Damages Unrequited single and Indignation LP were both amazing records, as was the Fell to Low Sensible Sounds of Men single.
That last question brings to mind publicity and marketing. How did you handle that when you were still doing the label? Do you feel like you should have pushed that harder. I ask because you see hardcore labels these days hiring outside services to help with that, way more than they did, say, a decade ago.
One of my few regrets about the label was that I didn’t use PR for any of the releases. Everything was just us getting the word out through any channel we had and the bands hustling. We did a lot with that, but I really wish I had pushed every record harder with proper PR and marketing. That has zero to do with sales, because we were generally pretty lucky with that. Instead, I loved these bands and the people in them, and would have liked them to get their music and ideas out to more people.
What was the last REACT! Records release that came out while you still owned and operated the label? Did you know it would be the final release before you went into the project?
Three records came out all at the same time: the Mindset EP collection, the Dead Weight NWHC EP and the US press of the Anchor Recovery LP. I knew these were my last releases, and we included a note about it in the Mindset record.
What was the impetus behind selling the label to Evan from Mindset? Did you guys go back and forth for a while before it was locked in, or did the deal happen quickly?
It was the flipside of the coin to when I stopped doing Anchor. The label had grown to a point where I was putting in serious hours every week, and it became my priority. My day job was being impacted and I had to make a decision between either doing the label fulltime, scaling back, or passing it onto someone else.
I knew I didn’t want to make the label my living because that would have killed the fun for me. As we hit on above, I’m fully in when I do anything, so I knew scaling it back wasn’t something I could realistically commit to. So, passing REACT! onto someone else was the choice.
I’d looked into some other options, like folding the label into a bigger one or making it a collective between the bands. However, after a lot of conversations, Ev was the person who had the vision, and the ability, to take in on and make it his own.
Did you have any seller’s remorse once the label was sold? Maybe you felt relieved on some level?
No remorse at all, Ev made his mark and released incredible records. I was also very relieved to close that chapter of my life and focus on new things.
What’s the status of REACT! Records today? From what I gather, the most recent release was, ironically, the Change album in 2020.
I’m not sure what the status is, and I think things being open-ended is cool. During the workup for the Change record, Ev and I tapped into the energy we had in the early days of the label. He helped out on that record in a way that was very meaningful for me.
From there we started talking about working together on re-issues and some new releases. We actually confirmed a discography that we were both stoked on and got the initial conversations going with the band. But, COVID hit and that moment of energy passed. Who knows what the future will bring.
OK, before I let you go, I wanted to fire off some quick fun fact questions:
What was the best selling REACT! Records release while you owned the label?
Mindset, Time & Pressure
Of all the bands you approached about doing a record together that passed, which one stung the most?
Brotherhood discography
What’s a band you passed on that you regret?
Not really, I’m happy with what we got to do. There was one release that we were approached about that I really wanted, but it would have impacted friendships, so I’m glad we passed.
What’s the release that best encapsulates the spirit of React! Records?
Mindset, Leave No Doubt
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You can find Aram on Instagram, and this link includes more places to learn more about his work with Cadence Leadership and Change.
Tagged: 2000s hardcore week, betrayed, change, get the most, mindset, praise, record label profile
