Yperano Records is one of the new breed of metal labels. The label is run by Georgios Sidiropoulos. He moved from Greece to London, England some years ago and established this label last year. We caught up with him for a Yperano Records portrait interview.




1. Please give us a brief history of Yperano Records. Please also give us brief biographies of the persons involved.

Yperano has only released products in the year 2000, but the planning started years ago, which is something that proved to be the right move as far as I'm concerned. Having to sit back and wait, was nerve racking (for example having to write the contracts that we offer to the bands was no fun at all), but I always believe that you have to put things right in the first place and then hope for the best. (In my opinion it is much better to be as well prepared as you can at an early stage, than having to face problems at a later stage). One can easily read all about our releases and upcoming projects, the label philosophy and how we operate by visiting Yperano.
With regards to the second part of your question I will only speak for myself. (Also, keep in mind that all the answers to your questions will be representing my personal opinion). Prior to founding and managing the label, I have been a musician (drummer) and a music journalist in Metal publications (like Metal Hammer). As a matter of fact I still write in magazines when I feel that a band deserves to be promoted and I do practice my drum exercises whenever I find some free time. Above all I'm a full time Metalhead and I have always tried to promote my favoured music, either by helping out local bands or by writing articles. Running Yperano records is the biggest commitment and proof of my undying love for this type of music.

2. When it comes to the label name. Why did you choose this name ?

Well, the name really reflects on my personal philosophy and my ethnic background as well. Yperano is an ancient Hellenic (Greek) word that is still pretty much in use and means "something / someone that is unquestionably "above" anything, everything and everyone and can not / or should not even be measured up to anything else. It's a quite diverse word and it is hard to give an accurate translation of this word. The reason why I have chosen this name is -not vanity, believe me- but because my aim from the very first moment was to be able to offer the highest possible quality of Metal to the buying public. I'm quite frustrated by the fact that the quality is decreasing and the standards in Metal are dropping by each passing year. Therefore our plan is to only release product that I totally believe in. I pretty much know immediately if a band is going to be good -music wise- for us to sign, from the first half minute that I am listening to their music. If I like their material to death I will investigate further for a possible co-operation. As a musician and journalist, I believe that if I am not impressed and excited enough with the music that our signings produce, then I should not have any expectations that other people will. (I pretty much doubt that most of the record companies think like that though. This is why such a huge percentage of unworthy bands are saturating the market these days and why sales in Metal are falling and fans are losing their interest).

3. Please give us a list of your releases. Please present these releases for us.

First Yperano release:
LESS THAN HUMAN "To Breed True" CD
Thanks to their advanced musicianship and song writing abilities their songs are well arranged, exciting, very catchy and instantly memorable. Less Than Human are a very rare example of a band that knows how to write proper SONGS. Additionally each song offers a great variety of motives, lyrical content and emotions that come straight from the heart.John Cuniberti the Californian based producer, who is famous for his work with the extraordinary guitarist Joe Satriani, (Five of the Satriani albums that he has produced have been nominated for Grammy awards!), has been entirely responsible for this recording. Nick Webb, (Iron Maiden, Queen, etc) was responsible for the mastering. Their album includes an impressive CD-ROM. No wonder then that every single person that had the opportunity to listen to the final outcome has been mightily impressed. For example here is what ILL LITERATURE, one of the leading U.S Metal magazines had to say:"...Not only does this band really stand out but their debut album, To Breed True, was solely recorded in England and was completed at Abbey Road Studios. Thus with a clear and very strong production Less Than Human come forth with an album that easily outpaces anything in this style. Those that are into the likes of Machine Head, Soulfly, Sepultura, Pantera etc., should listen to this album and find out who's in the lead. There is a lot of anger portrayed here and an in-your-face attitude and the songs are furious and up-tempo, extremely aggressive but at the same time super tight and catchy. This is aggro-metalcore at its finest and is destined to bang that head that doesn't bang".

Second Yperano release:
SUPER·NOT "Phlegmatic Sun" CD
The advanced Metal lovers that are starved of some well thought out music that has all the right hooks, arrangements, energy, power and feel, will appreciate their music. SUPER·NOT combine elements from Black Sabbath, latter day Metallica, Alice in Chains and Kyuss in their music, but thanks to their strong artistic vision they manage to create their own brand of music. Additionally their songs contain some esoteric, sometimes abstract and quite deep lyrics that deal with many different topics. SUPER-NOT have recorded and mixed their album in the world-renowned Phase One studio's in Toronto. Harry Hess, the lead singer /composer / producer of the famous A.O.R band Harem Scarem (Warner Bros. band, that in Japan alone, typically sells 100,000 records with every new album release!), was the producer of their album. Again with this album we have received very good reviews and healthy radio airplay.

Our first two releases are already available.
Our second two albums are already recorded and will be released in 2001.

Third Yperano release:
MORDICUS: "Disintegration Groove" CD
Metal that is SO hardcore! Very good recording as you would expect from a Finish band that has recorded in their homeland. This album is very intense and energetic, very well performed and has some great lyrics. It will also include a CD-ROM section. This band has been releasing stuff since 1992 (they were playing death metal back then), but this album will definitely be the pinnacle of their career.

Fourth Yperano release:
SKYWISE: "Morning Star" CD
Stoner with a doomy touch. Raw feeling and recording. This is one of the very few bands that really deliver the goods in this type of music.

4. Except from running a record label, what other activities is your label involved in ? Please tell us more about these activities.

We are first and foremost a record label, but we also handle the publishing of our bands and (up until now) we had to -very actively- manage our signed bands. (I hope and believe that we will be able to stop doing that as much as we had to, since it is a very tiring and demanding activity that is not really related to the services that we should be offering. In my opinion bands should either manage themselves if they can, or -preferably- have a manager, so that their co-operation with their record label can be a smooth one). We have also been in touch for many years now with the L.A based 'The End Records' (www.theendrecords.com) and we try to promote them as much as possible. Andreas Katsambas the label manager is a nice guy and he loves his music with passion. He is trying to help us out as much as he can, of course. We are about to start co-operating with a Polish label. They will help us with distribution of our products in the territories that they cover and we will do the same for them for the territories that we cover. F.I.Y we are looking for more labels to work with and for bands that have recordings that need to be released, licensed, re-released, etc. We are also running a mail order service http://www.yperano.com/order.htm in which you can purchase our releases, releases from other labels, thousands of old Metal and Rock releases (vinyl albums and singles, tapes, CDs, T-shirts, magazines), that are out of print or hard to find, etc.

5. What kind of label profile do you have when it comes to what kind of metal you release ?

We are willing to sign any band that is musically excellent, but also co-operative and pro-minded. The actual style of the music is secondary. We are very open-minded and we don't want to limit ourselves to signing just particular styles of Metal. To be honest I doubt that we could have been able to limit ourselves to one or two specific styles, even if we had wanted to. The reason for saying that is simply that our standards are so high, that we would not have been able to find enough bands from one particular style to sign and release. In all those years that I get to receive hundreds of samples and listen to unsigned bands, (either through the stuff that I have to review for magazines or the stuff that gets sent to Yperano), I have only considered just 7 bands worthy of signing. 6 of those were eventually offered a deal and signed to Yperano and all 6 are playing different styles of metal. There are not two Yperano bands that sound alike.

6. You are from Hellas, but you have relocated to England. Is it easier to run a record label in London, England than in Hellas ?

Absolutely. I would never have thought of doing this in Hellas. I found life there to be quite frustrating in the sense that I did not have any opportunities or incentives to find a job in the music business or make any real progress as a person who wanted to have a career related to Metal - Heavy Rock music. Here in London life is very, very different. It is not easy to live in London of course, but if you have a real interest to work in the music industry, here you can progress if you know how to work things out. I'm quite happy though that there are 3 Metal labels in Hellas (all located in Athens) currently and I wish them all the best.

7. Has the running of Yperano fulfilled your ambitions and dreams ?

I consider myself very lucky to have lived in London for quite a few years and finally put the label together. This is a huge achievement by all means and I'm really proud of this, no doubt about it. As far as ambitions and dreams go, one has got to be realistic. I will be more than happy if the label can be recognised by the fans for the quality of our releases. If the fans appreciate our releases -and so far the response is good- we will be able to continue operating. This might sound like a very modest target to some of your readers, but you and I know that it is not at all. There are so many labels out there and so many bands competing in a market that is shrinking rapidly -and not without a reason, I should say- that just surviving in this environment is a big success. Then once this target is achieved we can dream about expanding, but this is a long way down the line.

8. What has been the worst and best in the running of Yperano Records ?

The best is that I'm doing a job that I like, promoting music that I love. As for the worst… Well, it's going to take a few hours to go through that…There are many problems in running a label. For me the biggest one is that people -bands, distributors, investors or various industry people- are not following their words with actions. Many promises are being made and broken without too much thought as a result of ignorance or very limited knowledge on the nature of the business or/ and simply as a result of arrogance, and uncultivated personalities.

9. How are your experiences with distributors and other underground record labels ?


The above mentioned remark partly covers this question as well. I think that many Metal distributors co-operate with more labels than they can handle and as a result pay very little attention to most of the labels that have the misfortune to work with them. Especially the smallest labels are to suffer from this, since they can easily go out of business as a result of the negligence or very limited attention that the distributor is paying. If a distributor does not do a good job with an album of a fairly well known artist, the result is not going to be devastating, in the sense that this artist's album will probably still sell enough, so that the money for the recordings and promotion will be recouped. The artist or the label might not be rewarded for their efforts, as a result, but they will live another day to tell the story, they will be able to release another album or maybe another one later on. On the contrary, if a distributor does not do a good job for a small label then results can be devastating for this label and their artists. I also believe that distributors talk too much in some cases. Then labels find out that they have done and delivered way less than what was originally expected or promised. As a result of the current crisis (no exposure on TV and radio for Metal and the increasing inability of distributors to place Metal releases in the shops, which results to metal music selling less and less), the underground Metal labels have been forced to co-operate and help each other. I think this can be good, but there are also problems to be resolved before a possible co-operation can materialise and bear fruits for the parties involved. I will not make any comments with regards to those co-operations, but I have one comment with regards to the material that most of the Metal record companies are releasing: They should be more selective. They should try to release albums of higher quality. I know of labels that are knowingly releasing material that they think is not good enough. To me this is totally unacceptable.

10. What are your experiences with record plants, record & mastering studios and other providers of essential goods and services in this business ?

Thankfully we have had relatively trouble free experiences.

11. How do you market and promote your releases and activities ?

Well, in my opinion the most important part of marketing and promotion should start right from the time that you sign a band. You will have to follow the activities of the signed bands very closely. You will have to make sure that the actual recording that will be delivered to your record company is up to the highest possible standard. Should this happen and the artwork and packaging is also up to a high standard, you will be able to market and promote a product that can be appreciated by the magazines, the distributors, the radio stations, music industry people in general and of course the fans. Once you have done all these things your work for promotion and marketing will be built upon solid ground. Many companies tend to overlook this though, thinking that they can release mediocre or awful albums and get away with it, since they have money to spend (maybe as a result of spending too little on the recordings and the production of the album) in the promotion of their albums. I think that they should first make sure that they have a good product to sell and then, once they put that right, deal with the actual promotion. This is what we religiously try to do. Then we employ the usual methods: magazine advertisement, radio and 'zine promotion (we try to send as many promos out as possible, but we always do research first to make sure of what we are sending and to whom), we are spreading stickers and flyers of our bands, etc. I will not obviously go into details with regards to the techniques that we employ in marketing and promoting our bands.

12. What is your view on the MP 3 revolution? Do you regard this as a threat to your livelihood ?

For new Metal bands or labels that deal with Metal it is not a threat. Therefore we don't feel threatened at the moment.

13. Do you have any other fears about the future of the music industry ?

Not really fears as such, but I'm seeing that metal music is constantly losing it's ground for reasons that I have explained above plus many others, like the fact that the bands and the labels in many cases are not taking their time to produce albums. They are rushing things a lot. Everybody wants to do things fast and this is not always good. Ideally you should take time to do things until you are ready to deliver properly. Then I can honestly say that sometimes the Metal fans are quite apathetic up to a certain extent. They are complaining about the lack of airplay of Metal bands on radio and TV or the fact that the magazines -even the specialised Metal magazines sometimes- don't bother to promote newcomers or upcoming Metal bands or Metal bands altogether, but they don't actually do anything about it. They don't act at all. Do they e-mail or call up to make sure that the radios or TV stations, magazines, concert promoters or clubs give exposure to their favoured music? Sadly not many rock or metal fans do that and believe me, this is the single most important thing that they will have to do. If you don't ask, you don't get. Simple as that!

14. What is your future release plans and other plans for the rest of this year and next year ?

I have mentioned our release schedule above. We will try to release only a few albums per year, but work with them properly. This has been our plan from the beginning. We are also open to offers for co-operation from other labels. We are already co-operating with 2 at the moment and we are looking for more partners. Bands, 'zines, radio stations and distributors should also get in touch: info@yperano.com

15. Anything you want to tell to those who are thinking about setting up a record label ???

Don't do it unless you have a lot to offer. There are way too many record labels out at the moment, releasing too many albums that don't sell. I don't think that we need more record labels. We need better distribution companies and promotion companies. If you still want to do it, don't do it "for the money". There is no real money in Metal. Chances are that in the beginning you are going to be loosing money for many years. Knowing this, do you have the guts and the resources to get yourself into this, plus have to deal with the day to day problems with the bands, the distributors, the magazines, etc.? Fashion and music businesses are the most difficult businesses. Now, adding to that, if you are trying to run a metal label, things are way more difficult.

16. Any final comments ?

I want to thank you for the interview and suggest to the Metal fans to be more active and demanding. Don't just compromise with what is being served to your plate and what is readily available. You are going to lose interest in the music altogether if you do that. I will also have to urge you to check out our releases. Read the reviews and listen to the music samples http://www.yperano.com/ms/index.html of our bands in R.A and MP3.