Jem Maloney interview

Hey here's some of an interview i did with Jem Moloney of We Empty Rooms Records and drummer of Firewitch, Fangs of..., Inappropriate Tough Guy Behaviour and Elise & Jem.

The full version is going to be in Negative Guestlist. Go to the NGL myspace for more info at http://www.myspace.com/brisbanefanzine.

J- Jem
Z- Zac

Z- So We Empty Rooms, what is it? Give us the spiel.

J- When Firewitch did our first cd which was in like 2004, i guess that was the first release i put out where i organised every little detail. But i didn't know really what a record label was, so i didn't come up with a name for the label. I remember just thinking "yeah we'll just put it out independently". Then sought of after a while i began to realise a lot of these local labels were really just kind of doing what my band had always done which was putting out your record, you know with varying degrees of professionalism. We Empty Rooms was originally meant to be more of a collaborative effort, like i wanted it to be with this guy that i used to be in a band with- The Union.

I guess theres many good bands that all share something- particularly members. I guess a sought of place they could have to give their records a home. Then it kind of worked out that it was only me that was doing stuff so yeah technically i run the label but i like to take the approach that for every release whoever the other band is actively involved as well. So Jace in Fangs Of... he's pretty involved in that he does the artwork for the Fangs Of... records. He also helps me screen print the covers, fold them and glue them and all that laborious stuff. It's really just a hobby that i happen to be very passionate about.

The ideas just to get music that i really like heard by people that want to hear it. So if it means that a release only needs to have 50 copies if thats as many people that want to hear it then thats fine. I'm about to put out the 11th release and i've come to realise that because i hand make all the stuff, kinda gonna have to stick to limited runs. I can't every week be screen printing new covers it's just so time consuming.