Music Forever With Immortal Records CEO Happy Walters
Tell us a bit about your background and your business?
Well I grew up in the Midwest in Indiana, that's kind of rural out in the country, and then I just drove my car out to California one day and decided I wanted to get into the music business. Didn't know anybody so I just drove for two days, found an apartment and started calling people. I started out by finding a band called Cypress Hill and I started managing them. That was like in 1991 so I was 21, I guess, and I just started doing my thing. I signed another band called House of Pain and I managed them and then I started managing a lot of hip hop artists Wu Tang Clan, Redman, EPMD... you know all different kind of hip hop artists.
How did you manage to hook up with all these guys? Was it just through doing A&R on the scene or going to clubs?
You know, you do well with one or two and they tell their friends. The House of Pain I met through Cypress Hill. We were doing demos and I got them signed and we had a big hit with Jump Around and, you know it kinda built on itself. There aren't a lot of honest straight up hip-hop guys out there that are managers so that was kind of my in. And then in 1993 I started a record label called Immortal Records with Sony and we did a soundtrack called Judgement Night which is a pretty big soundtrack. It was new and different because it paired hip-hop and rock artists - Cypress Hill did a track with Pearl Jam and House of Pain did a track with Helmet Ecetera and that was kind of the beginning of Immortal. And then in 1994 I signed Korn and we got successful with Korn and as you probably know we've sold over 25 million records. Along the way I started doing a lot of soundtracks and I've done about fifty in total now.
Which ones have you worked on?
All different kinds from boring classical things to hip hop records in movies to Robert Altman movies to rock to country, kind of everything. And then I did another soundtrack called 'Spawn' in 97, which kind of paired electronica with rock. You know every three years or so I have an idea and I wait for the right movie to come along. Aside from the regular soundtracks, I do something like this and it takes a very long time to do it and it's difficult because you are dealing with twice as many artists as a normal soundtrack and twice as many managers and twice as many labels. It's very complex.
Do you approach the film companies with your ideas?
Well no. Because I'm a movie supervisor I kind of know all the movies that are out there. So I kind of know when the right movie comes along - it works that way. And then about the same time I signed Incubus and we started working that record which is doing really well and they played Wembley on Saturday. And then we've been doing soundtracks all along and signing other bands that we have on the label which are also on Virgin. And then with this new soundtrack I've had the idea for a while. I've been making the record for six months and this time it's electronica and hip-hop so hopefully it will do well.
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About Petrol Records
About Petrol Records
