PROUD POP STARS — Michael Rank and John Howie Jr. have new children to tend to. Both have recently entered fatherhood and, together, they’ve just launched a new label, 8th House Records. Photo Courtesy of 8th House Records
Howie and Rank launch new label this weekend
By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer
For Michael Rank, the idea of starting a record label was about as far from the top of his to-do list as it gets.
“It’s right at the top of the list of things I said I’d never do,†he said in a recent interview.
Never say never, especially when the person asking is someone like John Howie Jr., band leader for the honky-tonking Two-Dollar Pistols and, for the past few years, drummer for Rank’s hard-rocking Snatches of Pink.
“It was all at John’s urging,†Rank said. “He called me up and said he wanted to talk about something. We went out for a beer and he hit me with it.â€
The result of that conversation is 8th House Records and both Snatches and the Pistols have records coming out on the label this season.
After 21 years slinging guitar and singing for Snatches as they moved from label
to label, Rank is trying to embrace the change.
Music, he said, is such a vague business, where the definition of success is hard to nail down.
Landing a record deal, he said, was a kind of life-affirming event. “They were always those big-victory days.â€
Now, Rank said, he’s trying to get used to the idea of taking charge of an end of the business he’d left to others.
One thing that’s making that easy is a recent life change that kind of makes starting a label
seem, well, like childsplay. Rank has a three-month-old son, Bowie Ryder, around the house and conducting interviews about a new album has to fit into the little guy’s sleeping schedule. And he’s got the world weariness of a new father, a far deeper jag than even that of a rocker
grinding out another tour.
“It’s a little like the Picture of Dorian Gray around here,†he said.
Not so world weary, but every bit as complicated and intense as the Poe classic
is the band’s new record, Love is Dead — not exactly a happy title, but one that fit the mood and the time of his life when the songs started flowing.
“The big thing about this record is that there are not just seven songs on it,†Rank said. “Usually I go into the studio with about nine songs in me. This time I had about 30 to choose from.â€
The lyrics, which he used to think a “necessary evil,†are much truer on this record and closer to the heart.
For Howie, his experiences working tours for new albums and the demands — some reasonable, some not-so — that a label can put on a band told him that it just wasn’t an option this time around.
“When we came out with You Ruined Everything in 2002, it meant being out two or three days a week for a year,†he said. That and other bits of “hoop-jumping†required of bands were his inspiration for pushing the label idea.
Now he wants to set his own rhythms and he’s got a big reason for doing so as well. His son Dario Ingrahm Howie was born a little over a week ago.
Howie said he’s enjoyed working on the new record Here Tomorrow, Gone Today not just because of the freedom of having his own label, but because that freedom has made him able to enjoy playing music more.
“There’s just not that ton of pressure you feel,†he said.
Of course, he said, there is the pressure to get the records out and all the details of operating
the label. But even that feels a lot easier. “It’s a small chain of command,†he said. “If something’s not happening, it’s because either [Rank’s] not doing it or I’m not doing it.â€
The Two Dollar Pistols play a record release party at the ArtsCenter on Saturday, April 28. Joe Romeo opens. The show starts at 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $12, $10 for friends of the ArtsCenter. The new record, Here Tomorrow, Gone Today, will be in stores in late June, but will be available at the show.
Snatches of Pink play their record release party on Friday, April 27 at Resevoir. The Dexter Romweber Duo opens. The show is free.