The Record Company
Grammy-nominated American rock band, The Record Company, consists of guitarist and lead singer Chris Vos, bassist Alex Stiff, and drummer Marc Cazorla. They released their 4th album — aptly titled “The 4th Album” on September 15th, 2023 and kicked off a tour shortly after. I was lucky enough to do this interview with Chris Vos between tour dates. The Record Company will be at The Fillmore in Minneapolis on October 28th.
What’s the meaning behind the name, “The Record Company?”
TRC: The band formed in Los Angeles in 2011 — late 2011 — and at the time, when we were coming up, we had a sound already. We got together as friends and we kinda knew what we wanted to sound like. And so the first time we played, we basically sounded like the record — like we do now. The elements of that were all there. We had a discussion at the time — the discussion in the world was “what’s gonna happen to record labels, are they even gonna be here anymore?” So we kinda felt like it was a good time to take a page from The Who, the band, and just name ourselves “The Record Company” because we were like, “well, this is the first time in history we might be able to get away with that.” And shockingly, nobody had taken it. So we took it. It was definitely – there was a defiance in it — being in LA, playing blues-inspired rock and roll at a time where there wasn’t a lot of that going on. We figured we would probably never get signed, so we just decided “we’ll be The Record Company and cut out the middleman.”
How does the songwriting process happen between the 3 of you?
TRC: It’s a mixture of spontaneity and intention. And it can come from anywhere. Sometimes, for instance, everybody would normally think, “Okay, Chris, you’re the singer of the band, you must write everything.” That’s not the case with this band. I write a lot, our bass player, Alex Stiff, writes a lot, and Marc Cazolra, our drummer, is always there, pitching in, editing, coming up with ideas. So it’s a collaboration. Sometimes a song will come in nearly fully formed by a person, like “here’s the chords, here are the words,” and it works. But other times you really have to piece together and really get in there with each other. And Jerry Garcia once said, “The craziest thing about being in a band is bringing an idea you love to a group of people you love and watching them just tear it apart and put it back together again,” [laughs] and that’s how it works. The goal though, is simple: find the best song. It takes time, and you have to be able to self-edit.
How would you describe The 4th Album, and how is it unique compared to your past releases?
TRC: Well, this is interesting because we brought it all back home. Literally. Our first album, which had an unexpected success for us, [where we got the Grammy nomination and number one songs and everything] — we were not expecting [laughs]. We did that [made our album] ourselves, in our bass player’s living room, with Alex Stiff basically mixing and producing it and us looking over his shoulder. And the next two records, we expanded on that idea. We worked with outside people and it was great, we grew a lot. With this [album], this was our 4th album, so we decided, “hey, let’s bring it all back to home plate.” So we went back into Alex’s “studio,” which was just his living room, and we just went in there and found that we can really do some honest work there – there’s no pressure of “oh my god, we’re in the studio, we’re paying hundreds of dollars to be here.” [By not being in an actual studio] we could record something, decide if it’s good, put it on a shelf, keep it, whatever we wanted to do. So that’s a great freedom to have. 8 out of the 10 songs were mixed by Alex, and the other 2 by a gentleman named Mark Needham.
What was the inspiration behind this album?
TRC: December last year, we were coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to cancel our tour because things weren’t working out, and people weren’t coming to concerts, and then we got dropped by our record label. They had our demos for a few months but new management stepped in and was like, “yeah, I don’t get it,” and basically dropped us. So that just made us determined, because that’s the kind of people we are. The theme was basically “resurrection”. Expressing the frustration of what that was, you know, there’s a song on the album titled, “Roll With It,” that’s– if you listen to the lyrics, it’s basically about — what do you do when you face a difficulty? My answer would be: use it. Use it to inspire something, use it to grow something, and that is the theme that runs through the whole album. Our first song, “Dance on Mondays,” which is basically saying, “I dance on my own terms, how I want to, when I want to, nobody’s gonna tell me how to do it.” But it’s all said with kindness, though. There’s kindness in everything we do — that’s really important. Even in our defiance, it’s not, you know, giving a middle finger to society. It’s more of waving our hands in the air and saying, “hey, I’m here, do you feel the same way I do?” Positivity is very important to us, but not empty positivity, where it’s just positivity for the sake of being positive. We like to write from a perspective of, “sometimes it’s really tough but I’m gonna pull myself up by my bootstraps and move on.” Because that’s what life demands.
Future plans for The Record Company?
TRC: We’re about to announce our big tour, which’ll be running January, February, and March of 2024. We’re touring through the Midwest currently and it’s been a lot of fun. Every night we change our setlist around. You can hear our stuff from our early days, songs from the radio, some deep from the catalog. We change the set every night to keep it fresh for us and the fans. We’re gonna be touring a lot, we’ll keep putting out records and doing shows.