Interview: Nefarious Industries
I’m an adventure junkie and Nefarious Industries is one of the most insane adventures I’ve ever been on. That’s why the label is still here.
Nefarious Industries, the independent record label powerhouse and pushers of all things extreme and forward thinking, have put out their 100th release on the label, NEF100: Burn After Hearing, a compilation that celebrates everything the label stands for and celebrates the artists that have made the label as strong as it is and will continue to do so. Gavin Brown caught up with label head Greg Meisenberg to talk about the compilation and the history of Nefarious Industries, in an interview that marks the label’s century of quality releases.
E&D: You have just put out the 100th release on Nefarious Industries with the NEF100: Burn After Hearing compilation. Can you tell us about the release and how excited you are to reach this milestone?
Greg: NEF100: Burn After Hearing celebrates 14 years and over 100 releases, and showcases the truly harrowing and uninhibited landscape of the Nefarious Industries artist roster. This compilation involved nearly two years of scheming and coordination, and it’s a joy to see it out in the world!
E&D: When you put out the first Nefarious Industries release, did you ever envisage putting out your hundredth release?
Greg: It’s funny you should ask – we definitely never planned to go this hard, and it’s evidenced by the catalog ID structure hahah. When we put out NEF-01, the dash was included for aesthetic balance, and we figured we’d probably get to NEF-10 and a bit beyond but no further than double digits.
E&D: What do you credit to the label’s longevity?
Greg: I’m an adventure junkie and Nefarious Industries is one of the most insane adventures I’ve ever been on. That’s why the label is still here. There’s no person or circumstance in my way of keeping this thing going. I get to participate in an extraordinary community of talented and inspiring musicians while curating the sickest decades-long playlist and furthering my personal goals of staying on the road. It’s by no means extravagant, or even financially solvent, but it’s been a life experience like no other.
E&D: What have been some of your favourite releases on the label?
Greg: It’s impossible to choose favourites, so instead I will note the more eclectic releases of which I am particularly proud because they defy categorisation and have broken anyone’s expectations about the label’s stylistic output. To name but a few:
NEF-04 – Mount Gomery – In Series
NEF-05 – Tovarish – Red Hearts in a Dead World
NEF-35 – Ricarda Cometa – Ricarda Cometa 2
NEF-43 – Zvi – Deer Pink
NEF-71 – Plum Green – Somnambulistic
NEF-82 – Bye Bye Tsunami – Bye Bye Tsunami
NEF104 – ChiaraOscuro – Rancor:Succor
NEF110 – Martin Howth – Distant Dissonance
E&D: What bands do you feel to be underrated that you have brought out?
Greg: Bands come and go, so here are a few Nefarious artists/alumni who are still grinding hard for your attention:
East of the Wall – Nefarious Industries arguably would not exist without this collective of inspiring individuals whose membership intersects with a slew of Nefarious artists including A Fucking Elephant, El Drugstore, Opul, Equivocator, and more.
Bangladeafy – one of the most daring and interesting bands in the NYC scene, the duo has been with us from the beginning and have just released Vulture, their sixth album and fifth for Nefarious.
Nequient – inimitable and menacing, off-kilter, d-beat madness.
Gridfailure – ominous, cinematic paranoia.
Psychosomatic – the Bay Area thrash veterans have been active and unstoppable since 1988.
Mac Gollehon – world-renowned NYC trumpet assassin, Mac’s endless credits include David Bowie, Blondie, Onyx, Madonna, Billy Ocean, Hall & Oates, Chaka Khan, Buddy Rich, Al Jarreau, Sheena Easton, Nile Rodgers, Patrick Adams, Mick Jagger, Grace Jones, Hector Lavoe, and hundreds of others, including his decade-plus run in Duran Duran.
E&D: How did Nefarious Industries start in the first place?
Greg: Nefarious Industries was founded to release the 2011 split between NJ bands A Fucking Elephant and El Drugstore. Both bands were self-releasing music and we felt that uniting under a single moniker would give the release some promotional weight and allow us to develop a community of like-minded artists.
E&D: What has been the best piece of advice you have been given about running a record label?
Greg: Regarding running a label specifically, the most prevalent opinion from outside parties seemed to be “don’t do it” hahah. I give less than a malnourished human shit about what anyone thinks so I did it anyway.
E&D: What advice would you give someone about starting a label in 2024?
Greg: In short, do what you love, and share it with others who love it. Running a label that supports multiple artists is not unlike being an artist supporting your own objectives, all of which is no different than running any other business. You have to love all aspects of it, including the shitty ones, and the things you can’t love need to be delegated to someone who loves doing it. Outside of that it’s a total crapshoot.
E&D: What are your main memories of starting the label and the early days?
Greg: The early days were exciting because we were 5 friends embarking on a crazy adventure. We didn’t know what we were doing and had no expectations. Every release that carried our logo, every basement show performed in support of those releases, each and every single sale, was a stratospheric accomplishment. It was a humbling experience at every step. We got to work on music that we love with amazing people, friends, and artists we looked up to.
E&D: What was the vision you had with starting the label?
Greg: The vision was, and still is, to provide an outlet for music that doesn’t have a home anywhere else, and offer an alternative to the traditional label model. We’ve always thought of Nefarious Industries as more of a collective than a record label.
E&D: Did you always want the label to be eclectic with the artists you were bringing out?
Greg: Absolutely. The label was founded by 5 people playing music that evades easy categorisation, so it was always understood that our catalog will be an adventurous one. We set this expectation with extreme prejudice within our first year in operation by dropping obnoxious brutality back to back with torturous sensitivity through the first 4-5 releases.
E&D: What have been the biggest challenges of running the label?
Greg: Among the greatest challenges are the rationing of our limited resources and seeking out those artists who are in a position to maximise the support and services we are able to provide.
E&D: What record labels do you look at as inspirational for how Nefarious Industries is run?
Greg: Nefarious Industries takes a lot of inspiration from the ethos and business models of labels like Tankcrimes and Ipecac Recordings. We work with artists whose music we love and whose art we respect. We stay out of their way so they can create and we fill in the gaps. We don’t own our artists. We don’t put obstacles in their way. We don’t make them change their clothes and get stupid haircuts.
E&D: What else has the label got planned for the rest of 2024?
Greg: We recently dropped Psychosomatic’s The Salinas Years box set chronicling the first decade of the band’s storied career, and Fuck Your Birthday’s short and sweet BBQd EP. Coming up we have a delightfully bizarre new EP from jazz degenerates Bye Bye Tsunami, a cassette box set from dark hardcore alchemist Gridfailure, and a new full-length from Boston noise-rockers Miracle Blood.
E&D: Who would you love to release a record on Nefarious Industries?
Greg: That list is inappropriately dense, haha. But I would love to put out a Dysrhythmia record, and would regard it as the closing of some kind of karmic loophole because of how involved Colin Marston has been in the history of the label and our catalog, and also how influential that band and their cohorts have been in our community and on me personally as a musician and performer.
E&D: Have you got plans for a live celebration for the release at all?
Greg: The compilation features several dormant artists, so a live celebration never seemed practical. However, we did plan to throw a 10 year anniversary party in 2020/21 which got derailed, so there will certainly be a live event in the near future celebrating Nefarious Industries artists past and present.
E&D: What have been some of the sheer highlights from Nefarious Industries so far?
Greg: It’s hard to pin down! It’s just immensely rewarding to have been able to cover such a broad spectrum of music and to have worked with some of our favorite bands in the world.
E&D: What bands and artists are you feeling the most at the moment that we should check out?
Greg: I’m still blown away by Martin Howth’s Distant Dissonance and Chiaraoscuro’s Rancor:Succor. Bangladeafy, Miracle Blood, and Bedtimemagic are also in heavy rotation at the moment.
E&D: What were the highlights of being in A Fucking Elephant?
Greg: A Fucking Eelephant was a brilliant exercise in not giving a fuck. 100% visceral, unhinged, liberating. There were no rules and no limitations, we explored sounds neither one of us had any experience with, and when we couldn’t find additional players to flesh out a band Matt and I carried it forward as a duo. We had our own writing language, and we could read one another’s musical minds even when we had no clue what we were doing or talking about. I’ve never had another experience like it.
E&D: Will the band ever do anything again in the future?
Greg: We will without a doubt reconvene to work on new music and make a few limited live appearances. We’re both still active (Matt Keys has been with East Of The Wall since 2019, I’ve been performing with Dead Register since 2022 as well as filling in for Oxx, Nequient, and others), so it’s just a matter of timing.
E&D: Are you working on any new music at the moment that you can tell us about?
Greg: I can say there’s new music underway from Psychosomatic, Nequient, and Sarattma, and we’re announcing some very exciting additions to the Nefarious roster later this year. Stay tuned!
