reprinted from an interview with Racket Magazine

https://racketmag.com/interviews/interview-with-raph-copeland-of-knifetwister-records/

Interview with Raph Copeland of knifetwister records

Like most hardcore and metal record labels, knifetwister records isn’t quite your normal record label. Founded by Raph Copeland after a pool tournament win, a thousand dollars in cash, and a perfectly timed burst of stubborn clarity, knifetwister started as a hybrid experiment — part digital interview magazine, part label — and almost immediately became something more than the sum of it’s DIY parts. Less gatekeeper, more facilitator. Less brand, more survival pact. The ethos is simple and refreshingly rare: don’t be a dick, have a plan, protect artists from industry nonsense, and maybe help a 14-year-old hardcore bassist get her lyrics onto Genius.

Talking with Copeland feels less like an interview and more like sitting at the end of a bar talking music industry shop. Copeland shares hard-earned wisdom, gallows humor, and deeply principled rants about Spotify, toxic masculinity, and the difference between acquaintances and real friends. He’s equal parts tech lifer, punk idealist, accidental mentor, and chaos agent — the kind of person who knows when to get out of the way, when to fix the typos (Emperor’s note: knifetwister is meant to be lowercase. Just saying at the mention of fixing typos and our dear readers wishing I had, too), and when to absolutely torch the systems that deserve it. If you’re looking for label platitudes, look elsewhere. Copeland instead offers brutally honest, frequently hilarious takes on why small bands matter, why kindness isn’t weakness, and why doing the most is sometimes the only option. Welcome to knifetwister.

Racket magazine: knifetwister records doesn’t feel like a “label” in the traditional sense so much as a sort of survival pact between artists. Was that intentional from day one, or did it just evolve out of necessity and stubbornness?

Raph Copeland, knifetwister records: You’re right, it really isn’t a label in the traditional sense. So, the idea was the create a record label, and I had been thinking about it for a long time, was just kind of waiting for the right time to pull the trigger. Earlier this year, I won a major 9-ball tournament, walked out with a thousand dollars in cash (in my shoe, I’m not stupid), and it just felt like the right time. Okay, it wasn’t a major tournament, but since I won it, I’m saying that, Now, there are estimated to be 100,000 record labels in the world – I looked it up at some point. There needed to be something to set us apart, and the thought was to launch a digital interview magazine and record label, kind of a hybrid. Seemed like nobody else was doing it, and it just made sense – doing interviews would sort of establish credibility at the beginning, would build relationships with bands, and get our name out there. So, intentional? Yes and no. We wanted to be a record label that also happened to have a digital magazine. We really became an online magazine with a companion record label. For now.

What’s one question artists should be asking labels before working with them, but almost never do?

There’s a few. Personally, I’d ask for a two-year plan and/or a five-year plan. Something concrete. There are ways to weed out the people who just aren’t serious. As a techie, if I’m working with someone who doesn’t have a USB drive with of emergency repair tools on their key ring, I kind of mentally dismiss them as unprepared. You should probably also ask a record label this is a “casting couch” kind of deal, because nobody wants to have to sleep their way to the top. I mean, some people can probably pull it off but all I got was a restraining order from the legal team at Elektra.

You have earned yourself a commendation for heroism for literally saving people’s lives, but live in a musical world of screaming and brutality. Why do you think metalheads end up being the nicest people on the planet?

Yeah, that was in 2011, and I was the IT Coordinator for the municipal water company in Lakewood, New Jersey at the time. The head of the State Senate happened to be on the board, and I guess it looked good for the municipality to make a big deal out of it – totally fine, I get it, but frankly it was a little embarrassing being in the papers and getting a commendation on the Senate floor. These things are all instinct anyway. Lakewood is a funny place – it’s mostly Hasidic, and none of them have driver’s licenses, it’s just like a whole bunch of giant pinballs going down the road smashing into each other.

I think being the nicest, most caring people on the planet applies to people in both the punk and metal scene, and I’ll give you my theory. A lot of us are outcasts, or were growing up. And many of us were drawn to two district genres of music that have a sense of inclusion. A long-haired 17-year old kid in a Slayer shirt (which I was, back in 19-mumble-mumble) is going to find other like-minded kids. And these are people you’ll go to the mat for, it’s a very meaningful connection when you bond over music. Are there exceptions? There are exceptions to every rule. Except that one. Wait … there are exceptions to every rule, meaning there are no exceptions to the exc … ok, I don’t want to accidentally open a wormhole to another dimension here, let me just say that a lot of punk and metal kids, in my experience, were the kids with let’s say six or seven friends. All the other kids (the popular kids, if you like) had a hundred acquaintances but no friends. And that’s why, other than a few things like the smoldering remains of a few churches in Norway, metalheads are generally pretty chill. Not Axl Rose – that guy really seems to be a dick.

You work with artists who live in the messy space between genres, scenes, and algorithms. How much of your job is taste-making versus simply knowing when to get out of the way?

Yeah, most of it is getting out of the way. The first band we signed, MANiK, just put out a single, Fly Away, a few weeks ago (it’s actually an amazing song, BTW). That’s something I’d never interfere in, I don’t know a B flat from a J sharp, which doesn’t exist but you get what I’m saying. I’d never say “yeah, love it, but the bass line doesn’t sound right, let’s redo that”. You have to learn to defer to people who know better than you do, kind of a life rule which a lot of people have difficulty with. We’ve also gotten back interview responses that drastically needed a rewrite; not everyone is a writer. I fixed the typos, but didn’t touch anything else – this is their authentic voice, and I’m not going to mess with that. If a band takes like a month to get something back to me, I may add a few typos, dangle a participle or two, have one of them confess to an unsolved murder, but who’s fault is that? Certainly not mine.

What’s a red flag you’ve learned to spot early — not necessarily in artists, but in industry people?

It’s funny – Google had a slogan in the early years – “don’t be evil” – that turned into sad joke given the misery and destruction that company has unleashed upon the world, and they quietly dropped it early on. We had a similar motto when starting: “we don’t deal with dicks”, and we’ve held to that. If you’re a dick, take your business elsewhere. We want to make sure that your attitude is going either going to benefit you or cost you, and if that becomes a teachable moment for someone, so much the better.

What’s the most anti–record industry decision you have ever made that, against all logic, actually worked?

I think the answer to this would relate more to the magazine, and the decision was made early on to try to include lower profile bands in our interviews. Sure, we’ve interviewed pretty big bands like Rebelmatic and War on Women. If you want to take Instagram followers as a metric of popularity, and I think that’s a fair assessment – not exact, but I think it lines up well with band popularity when you just kind of eyeball accounts – it was important to get some small bands involved – less than 500 followers, in one case less than 100. We did this for a few reasons, but the primary one is that it means more to them, actually makes more of a tangible difference. Much of this was predicated on trying to help small bands get exposure – I mean, if Metallica for some odd reason reached out for an interview, great – I’m sure we’d get a ton of web traffic and it would look really good to have ten million likes on a post, but Lars Ulrich isn’t going to be running with his phone in his hand to show his parents when the interview comes out. With some of the bands we’ve interviewed, that has happened, and that’s meaningful.

Every label head has a hill they’re willing to die on. What’s yours, even if it occasionally makes things harder or less profitable?

There are actually a bunch, but only a few have actually occurred. Toxic masculinity is one of them. We got approached by a band to do an interview, and the lyrics to their songs were basically variants of “suck my dick”, and we canceled. Not a big fan of misogyny, or just wanton, purposeless profanity. Leave that for middle school recess on the playground and write something that benefits society.

If streaming vanished tomorrow, what part of knifetwister’s model would survive the longest — and what part would absolutely collapse first?

It depends. I have no issue with Bandcamp. I think that’s a legitimate and fair way to get your music out there. If Spotify disappeared, I would throw a party – I fucking hate them. They run ICE recruitment ads, their owner is helping fund the worst genocide of our lifetimes, and they pay their artists – what, a penny per thousand streams? They couldn’t care less about music – it’s a commodity to them, no different than microchips or those silicone sex dolls that are getting to be really realistic at this point. Um, so I’ve heard.

So, how would the model change? The bands I work with would not be able to cash a check for 42 cents, and I wouldn’t get my small cut of that. The loss of those 14 cents of revenue does hamper our operations, but we’ll live. My blood type is O positive, I think that’s universal, I’m sure there’s a place around that pays cash and doesn’t reuse needles too many times. (Emperor’s note: O negative is universal, which I discovered when the blood bank HOUNDED me after giving some of my O neg away.)

What’s the smallest, most unglamorous thing you’ve done for an artist that felt just as important as putting out a record?

I’ll give you a great example of something that was really gratifying. I’ve worked a lot with the Las Vegas hardcore band We Might Die, outstanding band. Liv, the lead singer and bassist is 14. I got their lyrics, which she wrote, onto genius.com, it’s not hard to do, but you have to learn the formatting, and I created an artist page for them and a lyricist page for her. And there’s a little section where you can drop some knowledge about the track. She signed up and starting writing hysterically funny stuff about her songs; the excitement really came through, and it was great (and hilarious) to see. I am really good friends with their manager, who happens to be Liv’s mom and the wife of Chance, the drummer, and through Steph I am able to learn a lot of cool slang – for instance, it was explained to me that the reason I’m constantly striking out with women is that I probably have no “rizz”.

I’m sure there’s a meaning behind that word, haven’t had a chance to look it up, but it’s at least nice to be able to sound cool and tell my friends I’m playing pool alone on a Friday night because of a serious “rizz” deficit. Also it’s good to have a label for something, because having a label for something means it’s totally not my fault. This is something that the New York State Department of Parole and I do not quite see eye to eye on, unfortunately.

Is there a release on the knifetwister roster that taught you more about running a label than any success story ever could?

Well, returning to the magazine, I’ve learned something of a lesson on how the behavior of some bands is just illogical. With about 20% of bands that have agreed upon doing interviews, we’ve taken the time to type up questions, sent them over, and … nothing. Never bothered. We used to try to follow up with them, no longer bother. We’re offering free press for your band, and you can’t take an hour and a half to bang this out? We used to make “interview coming soon” posts, some of them wouldn’t accept the collaboration; the whole vibe I got was that they were doing us a favor by doing the interview. Huge turnoff. Not a fan of the entire “we’re too big for the likes of you” vibe, we certainly don’t do that. When my driver makes a wrong turn, I at least have the manners to put my call on hold and take off my sunglasses before banging on the limo’s partition and yelling profanity at him – I mean, a little courtesy goes a long way. You have to treat people you’ve know for years with respect, as I do with … Rico, I think his name is? I dunno, who the hell cares.

You have had several “big boy” jobs, yet do this as well. I, too, have very “career-y” jobs and still do Racket. Why do you think we can’t help ourselves from doing the most?

I think you know the answer to that already, but I’ll give it to you anyway – we just love doing it. (Fact check: TRUE.) I enjoy being in the tech field, it certainly fills a need, but there are always things you have to deal with that aren’t fun. As an example, I’ve worked for bosses that knew nothing about tech. Here’s the company Amex card, go out and get what you need. I’ve dealt with supervisors who knew more that me – that’s great, I’ll learn things from you, and if there’s something I’m unsure about, I’ll run it by you. The nightmare is having a boss that knows 20% of what you do, but thinks they know 80%. You get questioned constantly, micromanaged, and a lot of “I think we should do it like this”, followed up by something that will never work in a million fucking years. I have a very hard time dealing with people who have spent their entire working lives failing upwards.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever ignored — and what’s the worst advice you almost followed?

Steph from We Might Die, whom I previously mentioned, always tells me to slow down, you’re going to burn out. I keep ignoring her and getting yelled at – it’s done with love, and she’s right, but I can’t. I got this interview at 11:30 PM, and I wanted to start on it, and she said “don’t even touch it tonight, you know what’s going to happen”, and I agreed, and then five minutes later I started on it. Dumbass.

Burnout is always an issue – I like to think I’m immune to it; I haven’t taken a vacation since 2019. There are fish that live so deep under the water that they are genetically acclimated to the pressure – they’ll actually die if they go to close to the surface. I’m one of those fish. I can’t sit down on the couch and try to watch a basketball game without having a pen and paper there for ideas that come into my head – some great, some awful, some simply bizarre. I usually end up following through on the bizarre ones; I mean, I do have a reputation to uphold. But believe me, if I do wind up burning out, that’s going to be an epic scene. It’ll end up being my neighbors getting interviewed, not me!

Finally: In a world where everyone is branding, posting, optimizing, and monetizing, how do you protect artists from turning into content machines instead of humans who make music?

I think that with the small bands that we prefer to work with, that really doesn’t happen. These bands are operating in the red – studio time, rehearsal spaces, gas and tolls to get to shows, and then either playing for free or earning an amount of money that has to be equally split and just doesn’t add up to very much. A small hardcore band is not going to be the next Beyonce, and they’re aware of that. They do what they do out of love of performing. Sorry to keep dumping on Metallica, but they’re a brand. There are management consultants sitting around a table planning out strategies and angles; it’s about money for the label and hangers-on; for the artists less so, but certainly that’s a factor. So, it’s an issue that really kind of solves itself with the bands we handle. In the age of Spotify and their policy of corporate molestation, how many punk or metal bands can afford to do what they do full time, and not work hump jobs? Exactly.