Interview: Toby Jeg Reflects On Ten Years Of Red Scare Industries

By Katie Karpowicz in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 24, 2014 4:25PM

Red Scare Industries owner Toby Jeg (left) and The Lawrence Arms/The Falcon member Brendan Kelly (Photo courtesy of Jeg)

"If you want to make this interview really short, you can just tell people that owning a label is all about schlepping boxes to the post office," Red Scare Industries founder Toby Jeg jokes over the phone to Chicagoist, days before he heads overseas as tour manager for recently reinvigorated Chicago punks The Lawrence Arms.


The celebration continues this weekend with a stacked show Saturday at the Metro featuring Red Scare bands old and new like Teenage Bottlerocket, Masked Intruder, The Methadones, The Lillingtons, The Falcon and more. Acoustic sets from Nothington and Brendan Kelly at the Gingerman Tavern bookend the weekend. You can find tickets and a full schedule of the festivities, here.

CHICAGOIST: It's actually hard to believe Red Scare is only ten years old. It feels like it's been around for much longer just because of its imprint in the punk scene.

TOBY JEG: That's interesting because most people feel it's the opposite. Like, "Holy shit, it's been ten years?!" From my perspective, somebody who schleps a lot of boxes and has to deal with un-rock and roll things like production deadlines, it also feels like longer than ten years. [laughs] I'm right there with you.

C: Well, I meant it in a good way.

TOBY JEG: No, I get you. It's such a legacy. I'm with you there.

C: Remind me how long you've been based in Chicago because you started Red Scare on the West Coast, right?

TOBY JEG: Yeah, I started the label when I was still working at Fat Wreck Chords in San Francisco. I moved here in early 2007. And Chicago has been so awesome. People show up to shows, the bands are great and everyone is supportive. People always ask, why move from San Francisco to Chicago? And if you made that move, you would know. It's just a wonderful, vibrant music community.

C: It seemed like there was a bit of a lull in the Chicago punk scene and now it seems like I'm hearing about way more local bands and shows than I did five years ago.

TOBY JEG: Yeah, that's interesting. It's funny because I did a German interview and the guy was like, "Oh, you moved from California to Chicago? The punk scene is so much bigger in California." You know, leave it to the Germans—and I can say that because both of my parents are from Germany—to totally get it backwards. There's so much kerfuffling in San Francisco right now. All my artist and band friends right now are losing their shit, as is any sort of working class person, because the artistic types are being displaced.

I've always thought of Chicago as being a pretty awesome hot bed for punk rock. One of the first bands I ever liked was Naked Raygun, which was strange for a West Coast kid. Riot Fest is definitely a big deal. Red Scare is a huge deal, so there's that.

I tell you what, kids don't listen to punk rock. I know that's a shitty thing to say but when we do shows at Metro, there's a thousand people there. I always ask how many people were under 21 and it's, like, one percent or less. It's kind of depressing. So, I don't know, but if you're crediting Red Scare for a complete revival of the Chicago punk rock scene and renaissance then, yes, you are absolutely right.

C: You got me. That's totally what I was implying!

TOBY JEG: I know. You're welcome, Chicago. No, no, it just seems like we just plug along with everything and I'm stoked people show up to the shows. That's about as much planning and foresight as I put into it.

C: Seriously though, I wasn't implying by that last question that we don't have a great punk history and scene. It just seemed like for a few years there The Lawrence Arms weren't doing much, Alkaline Trio had changed their sound a bit and there weren't a ton of new bands coming out of the city.

TOBY JEG: Yeah. If there's anything that I actually think that Red Scare may have been a little bit of a spark to was the Ramones-y, leather jacket punk stuff. Not to say that that was something new, but when we came out with a Teenage Bottlerocket record people were like, "Holy shit!" [That sound] was seriously dead for like ten years and we've got bands like Masked Intruder and The Copyrights and Teenage Bottlerocket and the Midwest loves it.

C: Definitely. You've had a lot of success lately with bands that aren't even from the Midwest like The Menzingers.

TOBY JEG: For sure. I think that's pretty cool. I would love to work with bands all over the world. I like the geographical diversity. I mean, one of the reasons I came out here was to be closer to the Midwest punk rock scene like The Falcon and The Methadones.

When people ask how I found Masked Intruder I wish I could say I've got the golden ear but I just get really lucky. I'll be dead serious and give full credit to these bands that work so hard. They sleep on floors for nine months of out the year and if there's a reason why you hear about them, as much as I would like to say it's because of how powerful Red Scare is, it's because we've gotten so luckily with them wanting to work so hard.

A lot of these bands came [to Red Scare] at the high point of their creativity and that actually has an interesting Chicago tie. The Menzingers and Masked Intruder recorded with Matt Allison [at Atlas Studios] so there's a weird bit of the planets aligning and serendipity with bands coming to Chicago on a Chicago label to record with a Chicago producer. So it's good timing and God bless Matt Allison because he brought out the best in some of these bands. I think that's a reflection of the Chicago music community because I think the bar is a little higher here.

C: I would agree with you there. Is it still just you doing all the label work?

TOBY JEG: I've got two dogs who are pretty important to the operations. They're in a lot of Instagram posts and they contribute to the label in a branding sense but otherwise it's just me in my apartment. A lot of credit goes to Brendan Kelly from The Lawrence Arms.

The first release was The Falcon [which Kelly is a member of] and we kind of do the label together. He's found a couple of bands and has helped develop a lot of them. It's a really good combo because I worked for several years at Fat Wreck Chords and have a lot of contacts when it comes to publicity and booking, but when a band like The Sidekicks or The Menzingers are coming up they have a lot of questions that Brendan is certainly a guy who can give advice. At Fat Wreck Chords everyone looked to Fat Mike [label owner, member of NOFX] for so many things. He's kind of the reason why they're on the label and Brendan fills that role at Red Scare.

C: Owning a label that just turned ten years old is a bigger and bigger accomplishment as the music industry becomes harder to earn a living off of. Are you proud that you've gotten to this point?

TOBY JEG: It's fun. This weekend is a big celebration of the bands and how some of them have come a long way. That kind of goes back to your last question about who helps me with the label. I mean, a lot of people help me. There's so many people I know just from going to shows that will come out and volunteer. Every time I've got to stuff 500 envelopes people will just show up at the Gingerman to help so, really, Red Scare has a real family vibe. People I meet at shows are just as involved whether it's promoting the band or even just retweeting shit or helping me stuff envelopes.

In the liner notes of the ten year compilation it talks about how this is sort of a mixtape that we made for our loved ones. It's saying thanks to everybody. It's a really cool reason to revisit and talk up our whole roster and catalogue.

Jeg and Kody Templeman of The Lillingtons and Teenage Bottlerocket (left). (Photo courtesy of Jeg)

C: Speaking of that compilation, there's that new song from The Falcon on there and I know everyone's curious as to whether they'll finally have more music coming out...

TOBY JEG: I mean, Brendan's been threatening to release another Falcon record for a while now. One of the reasons The Falcon came about was because he wanted to make music when The Lawrence Arms weren't doing anything but it turns out 2014 was a really big year for The Lawrence Arms and I assume they're eventually going to go back into hibernation mode. I can't say for sure but, if I was a betting man, I'd say there will be a Falcon record out in 2015. This new song has gotten such a good response and the members are all into it. It's just kind of hard because it's dudes from a couple different bands and they're all busy. I'm not in the Falcon so I don't know but, yeah, I'd say they'll have a new record out next year.

C: I can't speak for all music fans but that's great news for me!

TOBY JEG: It's super cool. We've had some cool upstart bands but that have sold really well that Falcon record is still our most popular release.

C: This is kind of a cheesy question but, as long as we're talking about the ten year anniversary, what's been your favorite Red Scare release so far? I know that's kind of like asking you to pick your favorite child.

TOBY JEG: You know what, if I was a parent I would definitely pick my favorite children just because it's just the kind of cruel form of motivation that will get them going in the morning. [laughs] Maybe that works with bands too.

I would say I'm pretty proud of a few releases but I remember when we did the third Copyrights album North Sentinel Island because it was like, "Holy shit, we've got a band that's done three records." In some cases bands go on to Fat Wreck Chords or Epitaph and that's cool because we want our friends to keep progressing. But it's also really cool when we have bands come back for multiple releases. We've done four records with The Copyrights. We've done three records with The Sidekicks. It kinds of makes you more legit as a label, not just like a "one and done" sort of thing.

I think Cobra Skulls' Sitting Army is still a favorite of mine because we had a lot of early success because we had The Falcon and Teenage Bottlerocket did really well out of the gate. Cobra Skulls came from out of nowhere. They're from Reno. No one looks to Reno for a punk band. That record was just received so well. I love it especially because Red Scare started with leftist leanings and that's a record that has such an awesome social and political message. If there's one thing that sort of encapsulates what we're trying to do with the label, it's that.