Seattle-based Sub Pop Records has defined who’s who locally since the release of Sub Pop’s first LP in 1986. From the grunge rock of Nirvana to the indie rock of Hot Hot Heat, Sub Pop’s ability to find talented musicians to add to their label has remained unchanged throughout the years. Their recent releases include works by Rogue Wave, Wolf Parade, and Kelley Stoltz.

So alright, we know that they sign good musicians, but what new bands probably want to know is, “How do we get signed to Sub Pop?”

It’s pretty much a super organic process. We do accept demos, and they are all gone through, but I don’t think a band has ever, ever, ever been signed that way. With us, it’s just kind of – if there’s a band that’s out there and is doing super awesome and is touring and a lot of people are starting to talk about them, then we’ll end up hearing about them as well. Then we see if it makes sense for us. We have an A&R department that is a bunch of people, and the marketing staff gets together and talks about things that they’re super excited about and try to convince everybody else to be excited about it too. Then decisions get made from there.

Yeah. I think it’s mostly that bands who are of the caliber that we want to work with a lot of the time are already working in some way, shape, or form in which they’ll know some of the people that we know. We’ll find out about them through those people – through friends of ours or acquaintances or ours. The bulk of the demos that we receive are from bands who have just started playing in clubs and are from smaller towns and stuff like that most of the time. A lot of time, bands that would be more under our consideration would be bands that we end up knowing through some weird channel.

It super depends on the case, and I don’t have anything to do with that process. I’m not a part of the A&R staff. The ease of figuring out deal points completely varies from band to band. Sometimes there is competition, and in that case, we obviously just try to offer [the band] the best that we can. The band will make whatever decision itmakes, and go with whatever makes [the members] happy, which is the most important thing in the long run. Sometimes they choose us, and sometimes they don’t; that’s the way it goes.

It was the same thing as with any of the other bands we work with. There was something about what they were doing that really struck a chord with people who make those decisions. They were just really impressed with them and what they were doing. They saw Out of the Shadows, Zach Rogue’s first recording project, and saw how awesome that was. Everybody was really excited to see what they would come up with as a band for the second record, too. It’s like any other band; you get excited about them, and there’s something that is a lot of the times inexplicable about them that makes you really latch on.

We did maybe five months ago or so. It’s so much bigger. Our entire old office can fit basically in our warehouse now, and that was the biggest addition of space. Our website is becoming more and more important for our sales, and it’s really great to actually be able to have most of our stock on site, as opposed to having to pay for storage areas and stuff. It’s actually a lot cheaper to pay for this bigger space, and we’re not breathing down each other’s necks anymore.

Yes and no. We always spend time with records we’re working with – some of us more than others, depending on what our job is. Say – the accountant wouldn’t spend a whole lot of time with the Wolf Eyes record, but people who are in publicity and other jobs that deal with bands a lot or require that we know the bands well will spend a lot of time with them, for sure.