Well kids, we here at Three Chords have just wrapped up our first interview and I gotta tell ya, it’s an absolute hum-dinger. Over the past couple of days we’ve been lucky enough to chat with Sean Elliott – gentleman, scholar, rabid Manchester United supporter, and founder of one of the most important independent labels in Western Canada: Nominal Records. After releasing a string of notable 7” EPs, Nominal – in collaboration with Grotesque Modern – would go on to produce the Emergency Room, Part One compilation in 2008, a full-length LP instantly hailed as the most accurate and exciting representation of a Vancouver music scene since Vancouver Complication in 1979. So take off your boots and have a read!

Three Chords: When did it first occour to you that you should start your own record label? What experience did you have going into this project? Had you ever done anything like this before?

Sean Elliott: I’ve worked in the non-glamorous end of the music industry for most of the last 20 years. I think it’s pretty much absolute bullshit and the label is as much a reaction against it as anything else. Since the late 80′s I’ve sporadically released/co-released records, but never with the ability to sustain any momentum. The idea of starting a label again had occurred to me a few times in the 00′s, mostly just in passing, but after seeing Vapid a few times I couldn’t resist. Apparently many people thought I was nuts, but we were vindicated.

TC: What was it about independent music in Vancouver that inspired you to form Nominal? Did you feel there was a scene that was not being properly represented? Or did you just want to get super rich?

SE: In general, I have always had little interest in bands from Vancouver, and Canada overall. I liken it to christian rock, that same diluted approximation of the real thing. However, in this case I thought the bands, at least the ones I enjoyed, were fresh and fun and doing their own thing without particular regard to popular trends. Also, very importantly, great songs, which are often forgotten in the rush to ape a style. For me, these Vancouver bands are superior to most American bands clogging up internet chat discussions and immediate eBay auctions.

If someone else had been releasing records by these bands then there would be little reason to throw my hat in the ring. It wasn’t about a scene being represented as much as documented, which was the main inspiration for the E/R album. Nothing lasts forever, and they stay good for an even shorter time. I don’t really care about personal photographs, blogging, (online) diaries, Facebook, etc, but these records are the things I’d like to keep and would hope to be appreciated by others now and in the future.

TC: Listening to the Emergency Room Compilation, I was struck by how crisp everything sounded. Not corporate-slick or anything; the music is still very much rough, raw, fast and awesome, but with seemingly no unintended glitches. Can you tell us a little bit about your studio setup? Do you have a decent space to record?

SE: Jordan Koop recorded all but two tracks of the E/R album in a one day session at the E/R. He also recorded the Mutators LP at the E/R. He recorded the Vapid 7″, Defektors 7″s (Nominal and Hockey Dad), Random Cuts 7″s and much of the upcoming Defektors album at Fadermaster, where he is now based. It is tiny and he works his ass off. Mike Gittens has recorded the upcoming Vapid album and will also be recording most of the vocals and mixing the Defektors album at The Hive, which is much more spacious and well known. He also works ridiculous hours and gets shit done. I’m technically/musically incompetent, I just know what I like.

TC: From your understanding of punk rock’s rough-and-tumble recording history, do you feel there is more pressure on modern record labels and bands to produce a recording of superior quality to, say, old school Minor Threat or Black Flag basement recordings where you could tell just by listening that it was recorded on a portable tape recorder? Is equipment easier to find, cheaper to purchase, or generally more available than maybe it has been in the past?

SE: Digital recording has made things a lot easier and more affordable, except for recording to tape. If anything, I find too many bands fake their way through shitty songs with purposefully low fidelity recordings. Perhaps that’s down to budget, although I find it hard to believe a band can’t scrape together a few hundred bucks. Perhaps it’s a reaction to big studio recordings. Perhaps that’s a rationalization for copping a trend. The right recording (songs/performance/production) will stand the test of time whether it was recorded in a basement or a massive studio.

TC: If you watch punk documentaries (The Decline of Western Civilization, Part One or American Hardcore, to name a couple) almost everyone involved in a band or in the studio says the same thing. “You don’t wait for someone to do it for you, you do it yourself.” How does the old-school DIY ethos apply to a Nominal Records in 2009?

SE: The bands would be putting out the records themselves if it was truly DIY.

I’m a one man label, I do a lot of shit myself, I get some help, I pay people to do things I can’t. It’s just the way I’ve done things since the first record in which I was involved. It’s not a big deal and it’s not that hard, especially in the internet age.

TC: Most of the Nominal albums available for purchase are released in a very old-school fashion, the record. Personally, I think it’s great because I love my turntable and I really like finding limited editions of new recordings on different colours of wax, but why release albums predominantly in vinyl? Can you tell us a little bit about what our readers might find online?

SE: I grew up with records, simple as that. The intention early on was to include download coupons, and that will likely happen soon. Everything is available for purchase online via iTunes, etc, or you can listen on MySpace and online radio.

TC: From reading your website (http://www.recordsnominal.com) I know Vapid has just finished recording their first full-length LP. Is there a rough estimate of when this album will be released? And also, what are some of the other projects coming out from Nominal?

SE: Besides the Destroyer 2LP reissue, it’s been a longer wait than I would’ve liked between releases, but the bands weren’t ready. This summer will see three 7″s by Random Cuts (Justin of Mutators, Sex Negatives, Nons, Emergency Room, Grotesque Modern, etc), a B-Lines 7″, the Vapid album, which will be co-released by Deranged, and the Defektors album, which will be co-released by Grotesque Modern. There are subsequent releases being discussed that I don’t want to jinx.

TC: So you’ve set up shop, recorded some excellent EP’s and LP’s. What’s next for Nominal Records? What do you hope to accomplish in the rest of 2009?

SE: Anything is possible.