Hit The Switch

[jacknife737]

The guys in Hit the Switch have recently had an interview with punknews.org; and talked about the current Nitro records situation.....

http://beta.punknews.org/article/35950

PN: Last time we talked, Hit the Switch was on the verge of re-releasing the self-produced Domestic Tranquility and Social Justice on Nitro Records, though the album was getting a digital-only and initially free release. Shortly thereafter, it became apparent that Nitro was falling apart, for lack of a better term, as it relates to releasing new music. Can you just explain the timeline, situation there and what affiliation, if any, the band still has with the label? It looks like they posted some news on the new album, Observing Infinities.



HTS: When we self released DT&SJ, we made up a shit load of press packs and sent them everywhere, and we were that rare band that actually got noticed that way. Soon after we met with Sean at Nitro, we found out that Brian (Dexter) wasn’t much involved in the label and no one there had the power to take initiative, so everything moved super slow. Though Nitro was very accessible to us, eating lunch and shootin’ the shit wasn’t the reason we sign to that label. So from the beginning we were barking a lot at Nitro to keep the ball rolling, and working to keep ourselves on the road at the same time. We were just figuring it all out as we went along. So once it was made clear the label was going catalog, we soaked up all we could about how the machine works, and kept on truckin’. We are still on good terms with just one person at Nitro. Mayra Chavez basically runs the label now; she is pretty awesome.

By "going catelog" he means only dealing with old releases and not releasing new music. Keep in mind, this isn't anything official, but i thought it was interesting, nevertheless.

[bighead384]

Ah,I missed this post and made a whole thread about it.

The weird thing I noticed is, if you read this, it makes it seem like the label has been "catalog" for years. The singer of Much The Same (Another Nitro band which broke up) personally messaged me on Myspace about two years ago and basically said the same thing. Yet, I distinctly remember that during one of those interviews where Dexter spoke about the upcoming tour for RAFRAG, the interviewer asked him a question about the label, and he said something to the effect of "things are going just fine with it". And that was less than a year ago. Strange, huh?

[jacknife737]

Well, i think what he may have meant by that was that the changes that Nitro were going through, would be for the better: ie it's better to become a catalog label than to completely collapse.

But yeah, this isn't really shocking news; just about every band that is/was on Nitro's roster is releasing stuff through other labels. There was an Aquabats interview a little while ago that discussed the release of a potential upcoming album, and the guys more or less said that they would prefer to stick with Nitro, but circumstances had led them to another label for the actual release.

[cool 2 hate 681]

it seems the only albums they still ship to stores are from afi i haven't seen the offspring's self titled debut at my local best buy in over 2 years i also had to buy albums from rufio and the vandals online since i can't find them at any retail stores

[jacknife737]

I see A Wilhelm Scream cds at most places.

[bighead384]

The fact that Nitro died makes you realize how hard it is to run an independant label. I mean, Nitro had PLENTY of bands that were as successful as you could reasonably hope for. In the mid 2000's, melodic punk seemed to be pretty much dead, and Nitro probably didn't make much money. But they were doing well up until that point. It seems like a few rough years was enough to put them out of business, which is kind of surprising.

[cool 2 hate 681]

I see A Wilhelm Scream cds at most places.

you would think there would be a lot of nitro releases in orange county since they are based in huntington beach but i guess not

anyway i hope hit the switch find a good label hopefully they get signed to fat wreck chords or some similar label

[Kitten]

the new album is available on iTunes as well. so is the new EP from A Wilhelm Scream.

[bighead384]

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/10620350

Forgot about this band. Well, sort of. New stuff finally. It's crazy. It's pretty damn good too.

[Outerspaceman21]

New songs sound great. Glad to see these guys are still around and kicking it. Last I heard, the lead singer was playing guitar for Pour Habit, which lead me to believe Hit The Switch was probably gonna slow down or go on hiatus.