25 years of Rise Records
Getting any creative endeavour to a quarter century is one hell of an achievement, but Rise Records stand out from a sparsely populated crowd. As they c...

Getting any creative endeavour to a quarter century is one hell of an achievement, but Rise Records stand out from a sparsely populated crowd. As they celebrate their 25th birthday, we catch up with Of Mice & Men’s label boss Craig Ericson, and some of the artists who call Rise home.
What first made you want to get into releasing records? I grew up going to shows at Gilman Street (legendary punk club in the bay area) in the early 90s, this was a great time for music, bands like Green Day, Rancid, Jawbreaker, 7 Seconds were all bands that were playing shows regularly. I needed to be a part of the scene that I loved so much, and since my musicianship wasn't where I wanted it to be at that time, it just made sense to go the label route.
Can you recall working on your first release? It was a 7" release for the band Up To Here. The band was an up and coming band in the scene and good friends of mine so I convinced them to let me release the record. I had to call united pressing myself and it was a lot of learning as I went, I was fortunate and had some friends who were running other labels, who were able to point me in the right direction for a lot of things, but there was something rewarding about seeing the process through, and helping them share their art with more people.




