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Demo Submission Policy

If you’d like to send us a copy of your band’s demo, you can. We don’t listen to demos every day, but periodically we go through a bunch of them. Please don’t call or email to follow up—if we want to reach you, we will. It is extremely rare that a band gets signed on the strengths of a demo alone so our best advice to you is to keep playing out, build a fan base, tour, and get your name out there—these are the things that will bring label representatives to your shows and this is what will help you get a record deal. Good luck! (we stole this policy from Sub Pop Records - a very cool label that turned the world on its ear in the 90s - but it applies perfectly to us as well)

The Awful Truth...

Awful Racket Records is home to the independent ground-swell in the music industry today. AR takes no bull from the majors nor puts up with their BS methods of recording artist slavery and censorship.  In fact we scare the hell out of them because we actually believe and demand that every artist that joins the AR Records family get treated fairly and shares equally in our success. Today's standard recording contract is crap dudes... don't EVER sign one or be prepared to be sucked down the black hole and never see daylight again. 

Nine out of ten acts signed to the unholy oligarchy (that's the big 5 for the slower ones among us) of majors do not get commercial releases or receive only token release at best. The one that does get a release that is supported is raped. pillaged and plundered by the major for every dime they can squeeze., typically resulting in the record company making 99% of the money from an album, and the artist making about 1% after all the deductions the record company demands. That is NOT how AR Records operates. 

Every one of the major 5 demand that the artist keep their contract confidential and tell no-one of the terms of it, under penalty of having their fingernails removed with a dull pair of kindergarten scissors. This is because it is basically completely egregious to the artist and is clearly a document made in hell and a contract for the artist to join them there. How does an artist who gets 5 platinum albums have to declare bankruptcy? The answer is in that secret document called the standard record contract that sucks $99.95 dollars off every dollar earned by the artist - yet demands the artist pay the record company even more! 

We don't put our artists through that. Frankly we WANT the world to know that Artists with AR Records are the best treated, best compensated, most artistic, and most motivated in the industry. Hell, since the majors screw artists out of every dime, it is easy to be better than they are at compensating artists - and we are way better. We don't believe in the scam of loan-sharking (also known as advances) and we don't believe in all the bogus deductions record labels force artists to accept.