Over the past year, I’ve had a lot of fun working with Disciple Records for features, interviews, premieres and lengthy late-night booty calls. But let’s not forget the reason why they’re truly awesome – the music.
With a hefty roster of heavyweight hitters, Disciple Records has quickly climbed in popularity over the past mere two years since its inception. And with every year, they get a little bit stronger and a lot smarter. This year has been no different, with EPs from various artists including Barely Alive vs Astronaut, Megalodon, Virtual Riot, and a slew of singles. Considering such a staggering release schedule, it’s a wonder that label owners Astronaut and Dodge & Fuski have any time for their own careers, but they’re both booming as well.
This made me curious, so I asked Ross from Astronaut a few questions about Disciple and where it’ll go from here.
How has the last year been for Disciple?
This last year has been AMAZING! Since our last yearly album we’ve relocated to Hollywood, Virtual Riot has become a core member of the Disciple family and saw his Nightmare EP get to number 1 on the overall Beatport chart, Barely Alive have toured all over the states with Datsik and took part in our first Disciple Alliance US tour. We launched the Disciple merchandise store, Dodge & Fuski has been touring all over Australia, we’ve had remixes and appearances from Habstrakt, Datsik, TC, Megalodon, Joe Ford, Culprate, Mayhem and Astronaut & Barely Alive released the first Disciple smart phone game that saw a crazy amount of downloads. We’ve had a really great year!
What are the struggles, successes and challenges you’ve faced as a label?
Every day brings a new set of challenges for us to face and the work load is always a struggle as we never really seem to have a moment to ourselves these days, but when you really love doing something it doesn’t ever feel like work.
How do you best manage your time between running the label and running artist careers at the same time?
For us it’s as simple as breathing… I’m not saying it’s easy because like explained in the answer before, every day brings us a new problem to solve but we’re so passionate about what we do and spend every waking moment growing what we have. We’re particular excited for what Barely Alive have to release this year…
How are you looking to grow the Disciple Records name in the next year?
We’ll be touring more as a unit across the US, Australia and Europe this year as well as moving into album time for some of us!
Are there any big surprises we can look forward to this year? An album from some artist, perhaps?
I don’t want to give too much away here, but you can definitely expect some of our best releases yet to see the light of day towards the end of the year.
Since you have to be politically correct and can’t tell me who your favorite artist is on the compilation album, can you tell me who was the hardest to lock down?
Well screw that! I’m going to be politically incorrect and tell you my (Ross) favorite track on the Second Coming album and that’s Zuko’s remix of Virtual Riot and Splitbreed’s track ‘Nightmare’. I love rooting for the under dog, and that’s exactly what Zuko is right now. He’s had one release on the last Disciple Reinforcements EP and then comes back with this incredible drum and bass mix of Nightmare. Absolute banger!!
Finally, who would you love to see on Disciple this coming year?
I’d love to get some more remixes from some of the older producers that I consider legends like AC Slater. I’m really enjoying the new wave of bass house that’s appearing across the net at the moment.
You can purchase Disciple 002: The Second Coming via the links below.
Support on Beatport: http://hyperurl.co/
Support on iTunes: http://hyperurl.co/