Hydra Head Records History Gets a Chaotic Book Treatment
The world of independent music is often built on a foundation of sheer artistic audacity, but keeping that foundation stable can be a wild, chaotic undertaking. For over a decade, the influential Hydra Head Records operated as a sprawling, ferocious beast, balancing radical artistic freedom with the messy, often brutal realities of the music business. Now, as the label winds down, its sprawling history is finally getting the deep-dive treatment in Deconstructing Towers: The Story of Hydra Head Records, an upcoming book from Decibel Books.
This 500-plus-page volume, written by music journalist Shane Mehling, pulls together interviews with Hydra Head artists, former bandmates, and ex-employees to explore the tension between the label’s idealistic vision and the practical demands of running an independent enterprise. It also features a 32-page color section with rare, previously unpublished photographs and new cover art by founder Aaron Turner.
Hydra Head was born in 1993 when founder Aaron Turner launched the operation, initially as a distribution company. After moving to Boston in 1995, Turner grew the operation by immersing himself in the local metal and hardcore community. By 1999, he had transitioned the venture into a full-time label, cultivating a roster that spanned heavy and experimental music, including giants like Isis, Converge, Botch, Neurosis, Jesu, Torche, Boris, Sunn O))), and Merzbow.
But the pursuit of artistic vision often clashes head-on with the practicalities of finance. In 2012, Turner and co-owner Mark Thompson announced plans to shut down the label amid shifting industry dynamics and what Turner termed a “self-induced whirlwind of chaos.” The goal was to maintain the catalog while navigating considerable debts.
The journey of the label highlights this tension perfectly. The book delves into the moment when artistic ambition collided with industry mechanics, focusing on the relationship between the label’s ideals and the actual mechanisms of success. An exclusive excerpt centers on the band Cave In and the period surrounding their landmark record, Jupiter.
During this time, major labels began circling, creating a complex situation for the small operation. As former New England Product host Chris Rucker recalls in the excerpt, Cave In was an outlier among the roster, predicted to “rise to the top with a bullet.” This trajectory led to Cave In signing with RCA in 2001, though Hydra Head retained certain vital release rights.
The experience illustrates the peculiar hazards of an underground band suddenly becoming music business bait. Cave In guitarist Adam McGrath reflects on the industry’s bewildering landscape, noting that while some industry figures are legitimate, others are merely “snake oil salesmen.”
For Turner, the situation with Cave In represented both a potential escape velocity for the band and a potential lifeline for the label itself. He envisioned the group achieving a breakout success that could stabilize Hydra Head, drawing parallels to Sub Pop’s relationship with Nirvana. Yet, he candidly acknowledged the limits of what the label could provide, admitting that they were constantly scrambling to figure out how to fund the records in press, admitting that the label was also “mismanaging it in quite a number of ways.”
Despite the financial struggles, Turner maintained a profound belief in the label’s impact. He concluded that the heart of Hydra Head was always in the right place, asserting that the music released left a lasting and positive impression within the underground realm it occupied. He affectionately called the label a “sprawling, ungovernable, ferocious and (hopefully) endearing beast.”
Ultimately, Deconstructing Towers is more than a history of a record label; it is a fascinating look at the collision between artistic freedom and the inescapable reality of the industry—a testament to the enduring, sometimes chaotic, spirit of independent music.
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