Zone Magazine Issue 037 Spring 2023

Who are we chatting to today?
Digital.
Tone Rangole- Label Manager of Household
When did the label start? I belive it
was call another name back then?
The Record Label was orignally called Household
Recordings and was created in early 2002.
Back then running a label was
completley different than now. What
did it take to run a label back then?
Running a vinyl record label back then was much
more work for just a single release. The cost was much
larger and the process was much longer from beginning to
end. It took a lot more patience and money to get records
produced, mastered, manufactured, marketed and sold.
Who did and now does the day to
day managment and who did the
A&R?
I'm currently doing the day to day management
now and since the inception of the label. Jason Lehman did
the A&R during our vinyl days and up til 2018 in our
current digital era. I took over the A&R full time in 2019 to
present.
Do you guys have an exclusive
roster?
We didn't have a roster of artists that were strictly
exclusive Household artists but we did have a few resident
artists of Household that have appeared a few times over
the past 2 decades that helped pioneer our label. Artists
such as Terry Francis, Eddie Richards, Jay Tripwire, Nils
Hess, Nathan Coles (RIP), Daniel Poli, Gideon Jackson and
now more current artsist like Richard Cleber, Dubman F.,
DJ Simi, Dylan Debut and Tome R.
Take us trough the release
schedule of the original label?
The original release schedule during our vinyl
years was set for 1 EP per quarter. One release every 3
months was ideally our goal just due to the time it took to
get a release out and distributed globally, before finally
getting first round of paychecks from distrubutions to start
the process for the next release.
Lets do the numbers, if you dont
mind? which releases shifted the
most copies?
Our first couple of vinyl releases definetly moved
the most copies. Household 001 sold nearly 3600 vinyl
copies in 2002 followed with Household 002 with 2400
copies.
Up until the digital switch over
which EPs where the most
successul?
Like mentioned before the first couple of vinyl
releases did the most sales wise, but I would say the most
successful EP overall has to be the "Garage Sessions Vol. 1"
EP featuring artists Evil Eddie Richards & Terry Francis with
two versions of two originals called "breakfast @tone's" and
"Helicopter". It was the first time these two artists had
collaborated together on a EP. Initially, we released it on
our side label Lifted Music but later on re released it on
Household Digital. This ep has continued to sell, get played
and supported globally for nearly two decades now. Even
digitally "breakfast @tone's" continues to be a top selling
digital track on Household on all platforms.
How did the label define sucess?
We define success through a few measures
consisting of top artist promo support, sales, global
presence, features and chart placement. The more it
checks off on those measures the more we consider the EP
to be a successful release.
After the digital switchover run us
through your release schedule up
until now?
When we switched to digital in 2012 we released
EP's around once a month at first. Then for about 4-5 years
between 2014-2018 we released every other week to push
our Household sound forward by saturating our releases.
After I took over A&R in 2019 I have gone back to
averaging one release per month, other than the rare covid
year in 2020 when I released only a few EP's all year when
sales came to slower pace.
How many digital releases up to
now?
We currently just released Household Digital 120
and have Household 121 on promo. Schedule wise we are
signed up to Household 127.
Things like; support, chart placing,
and so on, how vital is it for the
label?
Support and chart placing are important for sales
and traction for the ep to gain momentum. It definetly
helps push both the artist and label forward.