Artifacts from the 30-year historical past of Hopeless Information on show on the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.
Dustin Franz for NPR
disguise caption
toggle caption
Dustin Franz for NPR
Artifacts from the 30-year historical past of Hopeless Information on show on the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.
Dustin Franz for NPR
In case you’ve ever recognized as an emo child, chances are high, you already know not less than one of many many bands on the Hopeless Information roster – Guttermouth, Avenged Sevenfold, All Time Low, Sum 41, to call a couple of. Now, the Southern California-based report label is celebrating 30 years of working with pop-punk greats with an exhibit on the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame.
All Issues Thought-about host Juana Summers not too long ago visited the exhibit and met with Louis Posen, founder and president of Hopeless Information. As they walked via shows of artifacts, they stopped on the label’s first ever launch in 1993: a seven inch report from punk band Guttermouth.
“The primary track on the seven inch was known as ‘Hopeless’ and the place the identify of the label comes from,” Posen advised her.
As for the way he began the label within the first place, with no expertise within the music trade: “I used to be doing a video for Guttermouth, and so they dared me to place out the seven inch for them…so I went and acquired a e-book known as Learn how to Run an Impartial File Label and requested my brother and his pal for $1000 and put out the Guttermouth seven inch. And right here we’re, 30 years later.”
Louis Posen, 53, based Hopeless Information thirty years in the past and has signed such bands as All Time Low, Thrice, Yellowcard, Taking Again Sunday and The Used.
Dustin Franz for NPR
disguise caption
toggle caption
Dustin Franz for NPR
Louis Posen, 53, based Hopeless Information thirty years in the past and has signed such bands as All Time Low, Thrice, Yellowcard, Taking Again Sunday and The Used.
Dustin Franz for NPR
Posen stated it is a “fairly wonderful feeling” to see his work commemorated within the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame, “but it surely’s not about me. That is actually about nice artists, a terrific crew – and naturally, the followers who make this all occur.”
The core of Hopeless’ music hasn’t modified, however a number of issues have.
“Our group is de facto diversifying, which is a vital a part of what we do,” Posen advised NPR, including that greater than half of the label’s roster is feminine or nonbinary, and lots of are LGBT. “So it is good to see artists like this actually getting a highlight on them and being put subsequent to Aerosmith and the Beatles.”
One among Hopeless’ bands, Candy Tablet, signed on final yr, in 2023. Frontwoman Zayna Youssef is a girl of coloration, born within the U.S. to oldsters from Syria.
“One of the vital unimaginable emotions is at a present, when somebody who can also be possibly Center Jap – and even simply on the whole, possibly Indian-Pakistani, like something that isn’t white – they arrive to talk to me and so they inform me, ‘hey, it is actually cool to see an individual that appears such as you doing one thing like this.'”
Youssef advised NPR she feels that connection even when she’s performing.
“Right here I’m, writing about my emotions, like that is what our songs are about. And I see these individuals resonating with it,” she stated. “And it simply makes me really feel rather less alone in myself, personally. And I am certain the identical might be stated for them.”
Louis Posen of Hopeless Information stated he is all the time striving to be higher.
“We’re a house for geeks and freaks and weirdos. And everybody who seems like they do not have a house. Hopeless and our group is that house.”
What subsequent?
Now that Hopeless Information has a house within the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame, will its artists ever obtain that final honor?
Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame CEO Greg Harris advised NPR he thinks so.
“Once I began right here, individuals used to say ‘I can not consider Stevie Ray Vaughan will not be within the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame.’ ‘I can not consider that Rush is not…’ ‘Cannot consider that Tina Turner is not in as a photo voltaic artist.’ Guess what? They’re all in. That occurred over time. And I feel that over time, the views on influence and affect and significance of music are all the time evolving, all the time altering.”
Within the meantime, emo followers will all the time have the music … and the reminiscences.
This episode was produced by Brianna Scott. It was edited by Sarah Handel and Courtney Dorning. Our govt producer is Sami Yenigun.
