Hopeless Records Highlights 30 Years of History, New Exhibition and the 'Great Music & Art' That Make Up the Indie Community

Louis Posen released a label on a dare. It was 1993 and he was directing a music video for Guttermouth when the band threw down the gauntlet, challenging him to release a 7-inch single. Posen happily admits he had no business plan and zero funding. The guiding principle, he says, was to “surround ourselves with good people and we'll be fine.”

More than fine, actually: That label, Hopeless Records, has worked with more than 200 artists – including Avenged Sevenfold, All Time Low, The Wonder Years, Taking Back Sunday and Yellowcard – spanning punk to ska, metal. in emo. In total, the roster has sold more than 15 million albums. And now, Posen is celebrating the label's 30th anniversary at A2IM's Indie Week in New York (June 10-13), where he'll receive the Lifetime Achievement Award on Monday (June 10) at the organization's 2024 Libera Awards.

While Posen's decision to take shots at the deep end of the label world may seem spur of the moment, he now believes it was almost preordained. “We have all these moments in our lives that lead us to something,” he explains. One came in fifth grade when a friend of a friend's mom took Posen and others to see LA punk band X at the Reseda Country Club. “That was the first time I saw mohawks, stage diving, slam dancing,” Posen recalls. “And I was like, 'Wow, this is unlike anything I've ever experienced before.'

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Hopeless Records, the label has created a traveling exhibition full of memorabilia commemorating important moments in its history. It will be open during Indie Week this week, before moving on to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas. Posen and Ian Harrisonthe label's GM, spoke about the origins of Hopeless Records, the challenges of condensing 30 years of activity into a single showcase and the value of the independent sector.

What led you to start a record label?

Poznan: I was in film school at Cal State Northridge and directed a music video for NOFX. Opening the show we shot was Guttermouth, who asked me to make a music video for them. And then, while I was shooting this video, the band dared me to put out a 7″ record for them.

I went out and bought a book on how to run an independent record label. I tried to follow what he was saying, along with Fat Mike from NOFX because he had a label. The first 7″ was released in December 1993, with the first song called “Hopeless”. And there the name of the label was born.

I was still in college and directing music videos at the time. It was truly an individual dare. Another group I did a music video for was Schlong — a band with the drummer from Operation Ivy. While we were shooting this video, the guys were like, “Hey, we want to cover the whole thing West Side Story soundtrack and call it Punk Side Story. Would you put it out on this new record label you started?' I said, “Let's do it.” Things were so spontaneous back then.

What was the response to these first releases?

Poznan: Guttermouth had a following. I was able to sell that first pressing of 500 or 1,000 records pretty quickly. The book also had distributors and their phone numbers, so I called them all. Some were willing to take the 7″ and then I would sell the rest to local retailers in Southern California. I would go drop them off at consignment and then come back a week later, see what sold and get paid.

The third release was all the music videos I had directed along with videos from some of my friends who were directors. We put it on a VHS tape and played it Beer-té cinema, a play about “cinéma vérité”. After that, I decided to make the label full-time.

So you made it very quickly.

Poznan: We're still figuring it out. 30 years later, the best part about this industry is that it is constantly changing and you always have to learn. Those who feel they know usually get stuck and hit a ceiling. We must be humble enough to learn from our successes, but more so learn from our mistakes and become better every day. That's been our philosophy and hopefully it's been part of why we've been able to survive for 30 years.

How did you approach distilling three decades of history into a single exhibit?

Harrison: We're very lucky to have so much stuff — we could do two or three more exhibits if someone was interested in that level of detail. We were very inspired by the Punk Rock museum in Vegas, how they presented the history of our world. We put our own modifications on it.

We spent maybe two months trying things out before we started building anything. And that was really just trying to get a sense of what we had, what we could get from the artists and what was important to tell the story. We have access to some elements that are interesting, but we also have big moments in the label that we want to make sure are represented, and sometimes those don't always line up. It took maybe four months in total. One thing we took away from this experience was feeling like we should do a better job of archiving things going forward, both digitally and physically.

Poznan: I always keep something next to my desk that reminds me of the beginning so I don't forget where we came from. I kept the original Guttermouth 24-track two-inch tape in my office. Ian also spent some time – very kind of him – going through my garage with me to find all the stuff that no one had looked at in 30 years.

The idea from the beginning was for it to be mobile so that we could go from museum to museum. Ian had the idea of ​​putting these items in street cases, which was really cool because it has a musical connection. You have these street music cases like a touring artist would have, but with the glass fronts like what you would see on the wall of a famous museum.

How often have you had to request items from artists?

Harrison: About 25% of the good stuff I would say comes from artists. Avenged Sevenfold's recording guitar Awakening the Fallen, which came from the producer who still had it. Neck Deep gave us a guitar. The Wonder Years gave us these two amazing lyric books with original song titles that had been changed, early album drafts, a pros and cons list of discussions with the label. This is gold.

Many of the good ones came from artists, which is very nice and also requires us to have good relations with them. That's another bright spot for the company — we generally have very good relationships with these artists over time.

Poznan: The third way we got stuff was by becoming experts at searching eBay, finding old t-shirts and things we no longer have in stock. We used to put out these parody shirts that looked like Rolling Rock but said “punk rock”. We found them on eBay.

Harrison: For maybe a month my house looked like a madhouse. We just had the weirdest packages come in every day. I bought a lot of posters that came in like these crazy packages.

Are there any items in the exhibition that have special meaning for you?

Harrison: For me, it would be The Greatest Generation workbook since The Wonder Years released this album. This is one of the top records in the company's history. I remember we put that record out and we did the whole process. To see the inner workings of this record as it developed, to me that's the coolest thing. And then I also dropped my own gold record from All Time Low when they first got a plaque.

Poznan: I mentioned we did Punk Side Story which covered the whole West Side Story soundtrack. We got a letter from Leonard Bernstein's daughter — that's the composer. He said, “This is an amazing version of my dad's work, and we're not going to sue you.” It is written on her paper. This is an amazing piece.

And we have a letter from the late Senator Dianne Feinstein, which is an icon in California, recognizing our charitable work with Sub City. Our belief that artists' voices can do more than make musicians rich and famous continues to be the fabric and foundation of what we do every day.

What advice would you give to someone aspiring to start a record label now and have it last 30 years?

Poznan: I'm always hesitant to give advice because every person is different. But there are definitely philosophies that I like to share. We have a list of principles on the Hopeless website. If you're just doing this for your own benefit, I don't think it's sustainable or rewarding for a long time. And it's not about whatever the quick, easy path is. It's about doing things the right way, treating people the right way. These principles are not necessarily in vogue now, but we believe they are universal and eternal. And my biggest thing is to still be around great people. This is truly a team sport.

How do you feel about the health of the independent label landscape?

Poznan: We strongly believe that the independent music sector is an amazing place to build your career and create social mobility. This community does that. It's an amazing environment to start. Most independent labels don't require you to have a Harvard degree or any degree. It's all about how hard you work — and how much you care. It is this community that gave us the environment to start and thrive. And so we want to make sure that this community stays strong and grows for the next generation of record labels and other music businesses.

Ian made a list while he was putting it together — all of our albums that have sold 100,000 copies in the U.S. You only get a gold record with 500,000 or a platinum record with 1 million. We have a few of them, which is awesome. But what's actually more exciting is that we have 33 albums that have surpassed 100,000. To me, it symbolizes what we do and what independent music means. It's not necessarily about superstars. It's mostly about great music and art and allowing those artists to make a living doing what they do.