We recently did an interview with a small US label called Bad Timing Records, which is owned and operated by Thomas Nassiff and Zack Zarrillo.
LR: So how was Bad Timing Records created?
Zack: Thomas told me he was looking for someone to start a record label with. I replied, "Stop looking. I’ll do it with you. Seriously, don’t ask anyone else please." Then it was something like, "Can you teach me everything I need to know? I only know how to blog."
Thomas: I had a desire to do something where I had complete control - or, as it turned out, complete control with a good friend - over the goings-on of something that I created and could call my own. Building this up ourselves is a legitimate thrill.
You two aren’t just the label owners, you’re best friends too. Were you worried about that before starting the label?
Zack: We are definitely BFFs, despite our differences in height even. I think it was kind of a no brainer for us, right, Thomas? We worked so well together on things beforehand whether it was for PropertyOfZack and AbsolutePunk or management and Paper + Plastick that we didn’t have a concern. It was kind of like, "This should be simple," in terms of working together. A year+ later, I’d say we’re more in tune to each other than ever. He is my #workwife. And sometimes my #realwife.
Thomas: Zack and I worked closely previously on joint shit with AbsolutePunk and PropertyOfZack; he also manages a band called Light Years which Paper + Plastick signed. The workflow was so easy on those two things that I never had a worry or a false start on wanting to do the label with Zack. There aren’t really many other people that I would want to work on something every single day with, at least in terms of something that is done out of passion and for fun. We are alike in the sense that there is always an urgency to get things done in an efficient and logical manner. We also have certain strengths and weaknesses, and certain optimisms and pessimisms, that result in us sort of balancing each other out.
You guys look like you’re doing a "Never Been To Press" model, are you going to sign bands in the future?
Thomas: Absolutely. There was a certain ideology behind that. The core idea behind kicking the label off with reissues of older albums that have never been pressed before is twofold: 1. We press some fucking great records that we love and that other people want on wax and 2. We use the opportunity of handling those reissues to foster a trust between Bad Timing Records and the general vinyl community. You can kind of see that blossoming in the first blog we did announcing Acceptance’s Phantoms. We wanted people to know that we could handle our shit and that we had our shit together from the outset, and now that there is (hopefully) a trusting loose relationship there, we feel more comfortable putting out something brand-new ourselves. We will have at least three totally new releases over the summer and fall with full-blown marketing and publicity campaigns behind them, and at least one of them will be from a band that no one reading this has ever heard before, that we actually signed just last week. In my opinion, it makes a lot of sense because now we can introduce you to a brand-new band without having to introduce ourselves in the same breath. We don’t have to tell you that we know how to do mail-order; you’ve already seen us handle several thousands of orders.
Zack: I’m definitely getting excited to take the pressure and potential stress of something that has no prior backbone (like a reissue does) and making it into a success. I think Thomas and I have had to do that with our other businesses, and this is kind of that all over again. It is, however, so nice to know that people at this point are rooting for us and will check out what we put out next. The rest of 2014 is kind of nuts.
Vinyl is hard business to get into. Lot of things need to happen before placing an order. Was this trial by error or did you have experience before?
Thomas: I've label managed Paper + Plastick Records for the last few years. Vinnie Fiorello, who owns P+P, taught me most everything I know about putting out records. I also grew to have ideas of how I would want a label to be viewed in the public eye, which inspired us to do things like minimalistic marketing and removing pre-orders from the equation. No pre-orders for releases that don’t need pre-orders, ever. Anyway, my P+P experience didn’t prepare me without fault for this, but it gave us a jumping off point. With our first release, Acceptance’s Phantoms, we were so so lucky to have a wonderful woman named Traci at Sony/Columbia as our rep for the project. She helped us out in a ton of tough spots where we didn’t know what to do, and she was extremely patient the entire time. Additionally, Frich and Lou from our pressing plant, A To Z Media, were also extremely patient and willing to help us out at the beginning. So certainly, us getting our footing wasn’t without a little luck and a little help.
Zack: I don’t have anything to add to this except that Traci has been my spirit animal for 14 months and I hope she somehow finds this because she is a saint of wax.
You guys just put up a new record that sold out in seconds. How are you shipping a million orders at the same time?
Zack: It hasn’t been too terrible, actually. We have a rule where we don’t put vinyl for sale until we physically have it in our office. We’ve all been burned by lengthy pre-orders and failed promises, and we never want to lose trust with our customers on a level like that. Also, we have a great mail-order employee. Emily kicks ass and pre-packs orders ahead of time. For this one, we pre-packed about 200 or so records of the first pressing, but the second pressing was a whole other beast. Thomas can talk more about that.
Thomas: I love Emily. She is the mail-order overlord. That’s all I have to say. When we just started out, we did the Acceptance orders on our own and I didn’t want to hire someone else to do it for us. I wanted to take trains back and forth between NYC and Philly to do mail-order with Zack on weekends because I’m a control freak. But I’m extremely happy that Emily is doing it instead, she’s great at it.
Zack: I know I said Traci is my spirit animal. She still is, but Emily would be my spirit animal if we weren’t the same age and if she couldn’t beat me up. Shout out to Emily.
Like it has been mentioned above, you guys aren’t doing pre-orders. You’re waiting till the records come in, and then you’re putting them up for sale. A lot of labels believe this is risky. But do you guys think doing pre-orders is actually the risky approach?
Zack: We started talking about this above a little but, but I think it’s a yes and no answer. We started a label where only one of us had any experience. We needed to make customers trust our entire process, which is why we’ve kept this method going for so long now. We’re getting comfortable with experimenting now, though.
Thomas: There’s a fair amount of risk in both approaches. If you do the pre-order in advance, you have some money in the bank to buy the records with. Maybe if the pre-orders really, really tank then you can cancel the pressing and refund your customers. But if you do a pre-order and you get an unexpected delay at the plant, then people are pissed off at you and they associate you with that for a long while. Being associated with, ahem, ~bad timing~ and poor customer service is a huge, huge deterrent in growing a label that focuses on the niche of physical products. In our case, we both put some money into Bad Timing at the beginning because it was something we wanted to do; we agreed from the outset that if we never saw the initial investment returned to us, we’d be okay with that because we were trying something new and we wanted to see what we were capable of doing. The result of that was the label essentially sustaining itself following that initial investment. We still haven’t paid ourselves back, but it’s been worth it because we’ve been able to avoid pre-orders and essentially be free of worries since Bad Timing is, at its core, a side project for us.
Bad Timing looks like it’s hitting a home run with every release. How do you weigh helping out a friend’s band, with making sure you release something that sells?
Thomas: The Acceptance release had an insane reaction. That got us started and we owe a lot to the band for being helpful to work with on that release; but we also marketed that release in a way that I hope was interesting and intriguing. Since then, we’ve tried to keep as much electricity surrounding Bad Timing as possible, meaning we want people to anticipate our next release before we announce it. The result has been a pretty slow and steady roll-out of releases and I think we’ve done a pretty good job so far. I think we’ll always have a balance between working with bands we love and wanting to put out records that keep the label afloat; the end result isn’t really something that I can just explain in conversation. It involves a lot of back and forth between Zack and I, and without a doubt the conclusion is different every time and completely unique to the situation.
Zack: Thomas and I tend to have good guts. Like Thomas mentioned above, we signed a band that no one that will ever read this interview before we announce that band has ever heard of. I feel really confident in people liking the band because I lost my shit when I heard that band. I was annoyed I couldn’t buy that band’s music on vinyl, etc. We want to make people want to have that music, and we want to be the label that gives it to them.
Thomas Nassiff is a web content manager at Fuse TV in New York City, a senior editor at AbsolutePunk.net, label manager at Paper + Plastick Records and co-owner and founder of Bad Timing Records.
Zack Zarrillo is best known for PropertyOfZack, a music blog started in 2009 to focus on the Warped Tour scene. Nearly five years later, POZ has become one of the go-to destinations for music news and content. In 2013, Zack started managing bands under Synergy Artist Management and primarily works with Knuckle Puck, Light Years, Real Friends, and Hostage Calm.
