Tooth & Nail Records

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Tooth & Nail Records
Tooth & Nail Logo New.jpg
Founded1993 (1993)
FounderBrandon Ebel
Distributor(s)US Catalog:
Capitol/EMI CMG (1994–2013)
RED Music (2013–present)
International Catalog:
EMI/Universal (1994–2013)
Sony Music (2013–present)
Genre Christian Rock, Pop Rock, Rock, Punk, Emo, Metal, Metalcore
Country of originUnited States
Location Seattle, Washington
Official website toothandnail.com

Tooth & Nail Records is a record label [1] founded by Brandon Ebel in California in November 1993. The label later moved to Seattle where it is today. Tooth & Nail has an imprint Solid State Records. BEC (Brandon Ebel Company) Recordings is Christian rock record label that is an imprint of Tooth & Nail Records. The label was formed in 1997 in partnership with EMI Christian Music Group.

Contents

Releases from The Juliana Theory, MxPx, and Starflyer 59 made Tooth & Nail known in music circles, as well as a niche underground subculture in itself.

History

Brandon Ebel and Michael Knott conceived the label as a joint venture, before Knott backed out. [2] [3] Prior to forming Tooth & Nail, Ebel worked for Frontline Records. [4]

Tooth & Nail's first album released was Wish for Eden's Pet the Fish. [5] In 2002, the label bought out Takehold Records. [6] [7] In 2013, Brandon Ebel sold the entire back catalog of the label and all of its imprints to Capitol Christian Music Group. [8]

Overview

Eight Tooth & Nail-affiliated albums have been RIAA-certified as gold for sales of 500,000 or more copies. The label had one of its greatest successes when Underoath's Define the Great Line debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in 2006. [9]

NPR described the label as having "altered the course of the Christian rock industry by launching and legitimizing the careers of MxPx, The O.C. Supertones and Underoath." [10]

RIAA gold certifications

YearArtistAlbum
2004 Jeremy Camp Carried Me: The Worship Project
2002 Stay
2004 Restored
2006 Beyond Measure
2008 There Will Be a Day [11]
2006 Underoath Define the Great Line
2004 They're Only Chasing Safety
2022 7eventh Time Down God is on the Move [12]
2005 Kutless Strong Tower
2006 Live from Portland [13]
1998 MxPx Slowly Going the Way of the Buffalo

Nominations and awards

YearArtistAlbum / SongAwardResult / CategoryOther
2006 Norma Jean O God, the Aftermath Grammy Nominated - Best Recording Package Solid State Records
2007 Fair The Best Worst-Case Scenario GrammyNominated - Best Recording Package
Underoath "Writing on the Walls"GrammyNominated - Best Short Form Music Video Solid State Records/Tooth & Nail Records
2008 The Fold Secrets Keep You Sick GrammyNominated - Best Recording Package
2009 Hawk Nelson Hawk Nelson Is My Friend GrammyNominated - Best Recording PackageBEC Recordings/Tooth & Nail Records
Jeremy Camp Speaking Louder Than Before GrammyNominated - Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album BEC Recordings
Underoath Lost in the Sound of Separation GrammyNominated - Best Recording PackageSolid State Records

Structure

Tooth & Nail contains multiple imprints, each catering to a different genre of music:

On March 13, 2013, it was announced that Brandon Ebel had sold the entire Tooth & Nail music catalog to Capitol Christian Music Group (formerly EMI Christian Music Group) and by doing so was able to buy back the 50% stake in Tooth & Nail formerly owned by EMI making it an independent record label. It will retain the rights to all future releases with a new distributor, RED Distribution. [14]

Artists

Tooth & Nail Records

Current

source: [15]

Former

BEC Recordings

Current
Former

See also

Related Research Articles

Christian rock is a form of rock music that features lyrics focusing on matters of Christian faith, often with an emphasis on Jesus, typically performed by Christian individuals. The extent to which their lyrics are explicitly Christian varies between bands. Many bands who perform Christian rock have ties to the contemporary Christian music labels, media outlets, and festivals, while other bands are independent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MxPx</span> American punk band

MxPx is an American punk rock band from Bremerton, Washington, formed in 1992 as Magnified Plaid. As of 2016, current members include Mike Herrera, Yuri Ruley, Tom Wisniewski, and Chris Adkins. The band's discography includes twelve studio albums, four EPs, four compilation albums, a live album, a VHS tape, a DVD and 20 singles. A number of the group's releases have charted on Billboard, including the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on Billboard Christian Albums.

Skate punk is a skater subculture and punk rock subgenre that developed in the 1980s. Originally a form of hardcore punk that had been closely associated with skate culture, skate punk evolved into a more melodic genre of punk rock in the 1990s similar to pop punk. Since then, it has predominately featured fast tempos, lead guitar playing, fast drumming, and singing. Occasionally, skate punk also combines the fast tempos of hardcore punk and melodic hardcore with the catchy hooks of pop-punk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solid State Records</span> American record label

Solid State Records is a metalcore record label, an imprint of Tooth & Nail Records. Unlike Tooth & Nail, Solid State signs hardcore punk and heavy metal bands. Like Tooth & Nail, Solid State is primarily a Christian label. However, it signed several bands with Christian members which don't label themselves as Christian bands, including Stretch Arm Strong, Gwen Stacy, He Is Legend, the Famine, Training for Utopia, and the Agony Scene.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The O.C. Supertones</span> American ska band

The Orange County Supertones were a Christian ska band from Orange County, California. The band was signed to Tooth & Nail Records and its imprint, BEC Recordings, before becoming an independent band. The band temporarily disbanded in 2005, reunited in 2010 to resume touring and recording, and permanently disbanding in 2017. The OC Supertones were one of the first widely successful Christian ska bands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Starflyer 59</span> American rock band

Starflyer 59 is an American alternative rock band from Riverside, California, that was founded in 1993 by Jason Martin, brother of Ronnie Martin of Joy Electric. While Jason Martin has written nearly all of Starflyer 59's songs, the band has included a number of different musicians over the years, including Jeff Cloud, Frank Lenz, and Richard Swift. The band's sound was initially identified as an outgrowth of the shoegaze movement of the early 1990s, but the band's music has gradually evolved to the point of little resemblance to that of its early days.

<i>Old</i> (Starflyer 59 album) 2003 studio album by Starflyer 59

Old, the seventh full-length album released by Starflyer 59, was released on Tooth & Nail Records in 2003. A majority of the lyrics of the songs on this album revolve around the theme of growing older, and the album reintroduces Starflyer59's rock-oriented sound.

Frank Lenz is a drummer from Southern California who has done work for many bands and artists, including Richard Swift, The Weepies, Everest, Pedro The Lion, Starflyer 59, Lassie Foundation, Duraluxe, Map, Charity Empressa, and his own solo work.

Michael Gerard Knott was an American singer-songwriter and frontman for various bands, many of whom performed in the Christian rock genre. He released about 35 albums, including solo albums and albums with bands such as LSU and Cush. He has been credited for pioneering the "alternative Christian rock scene".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethan Luck</span> Musical artist

Ethan John Luck is an American musician, producer, multi-instrumentalist and photographer who has played in several bands, most prominently, the ska band The O.C. Supertones, Demon Hunter, Kings of Leon, Morgan Wade, and pop punk band Relient K. He has played on albums for Kutless, Roper, Nikki Clan and Last Tuesday.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Almost</span> American band

TheAlmost is an American rock band from Clearwater, Florida, fronted by Underoath drummer and vocalist Aaron Gillespie. Formed in 2005 as a solo project by Gillespie, the band currently includes guitarist Jay Vilardi, bassist Jon Thompson, and drummer JJ Revell. They released three albums via Tooth & Nail Records: their debut Southern Weather (2007), Monster Monster (2009), and Fear Inside Our Bones (2013). Following a hiatus in 2015, Gillespie revived the project and released a fourth album, Fear Caller, in 2019 through Fearless Records.

Squad Five-O is an American punk rock band from Savannah, Georgia no longer formally touring or recording, but rather only performing occasional weekend concerts. Like their initial ska-punk stylings, their name was derived from a cross between the television shows Hawaii Five-O and The Mod Squad. Between 1997 and 2006 the band grew lyrically and in popularity, and also shifted its style significantly. Over the course of their career they moved from a small indie Christian label to the major label Capitol Records and released five albums in the process.

This is a comprehensive discography of the record label, Tooth & Nail Records, and its imprints, BEC Recordings, Solid State Records, Gospel Song Records, and Uprok Records. The label predominantly focuses on indie rock, emo, punk, and hardcore, metal through its Solid State imprint, and, through the Uprok imprint, hip hop. Considered the most successful "Christian-oriented" label, by the late 1990s, the label was releasing about 30 albums a year, nearly monopolizing the Christian alternative market. By the year 2000, it had released hundreds of albums for over 100 bands, selling millions of copies, sometimes 10,000 units at a time. By 2014, the label had put out 600 albums by 200 bands. Joel Heng Hartse in Christianity Today argues that it is hard to overstate how important the label's music was to developing an evangelical creative culture. The label in the mid-1990s was distributed through Diamante, then in 1997 signed a distribution deal with EMI with the launch of the BEC imprint. After the resulting break from Diamante, in 1999 the entire label and imprint roster moved over to EMI for distribution. In the mid-2000s, the label's Christian hardcore was ubiquitous in the United States. In 2013, the label's founder, Brandon Ebel, sold the entire back catalog to Capitol Christian Music Group.

Side Walk Slam was an American three-piece punk rock band, that would later form the band Run Kid Run. The band formed in Southern Illinois in a thriving local punk scene. Originally signed to Boot to Head Records, the band was later picked up by Seattle's Tooth and Nail Records. The band is named after the professional wrestling move of the same name.

Christian ska is a form of Christian alternative rock, and subgenre of ska and ska punk which is lyrically oriented toward contemporary Christian music. Though ska did not constitute a genre within the Christian music industry until after third wave ska had peaked in the general market, Christian ska continued to thrive independently into the early 2000s.

Hangnail is a pop punk band from Kenosha, Wisconsin, formed in 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Kravac</span> Canadian musician

Steven B. Kravac, is a Canadian-born RIAA gold-accredited record producer, recording engineer, musician and composer. He is the owner of the music label Porterhouse Records and its sub-labels Porterhouse Prime Vinyl and Porterhouse 101.

<i>Ninety Pound Wuss</i> (album) 1996 studio album by Ninety Pound Wuss

Ninety Pound Wuss is the debut studio album by American christian punk group Ninety Pound Wuss, released in 1996 through Tooth And Nail Records. Yuri Ruley, drummer of MxPx, worked as a drum technician on the record. The track "Something Must Break" is considered as the band's most popular song, as it appeared on multiple compilation albums and even has a music video.

Few Left Standing is a Christian metal band that primarily played Christian hardcore and was signed to Takehold Records. The band's debut album was produced by Living Sacrifice frontman, Bruce Fitzhugh. The band has toured with Underoath, Narcissus, and Tantrum of the Muse. On December 3, 2019, it was announced that the band would be returning to perform at Furnace Fest 2020, alongside a recently reunited Beloved.

Kris McCaddon is an American musician. He was the second guitarist for the metalcore band Society's Finest and lead guitarist for Demon Hunter. He was also the vocalist for the bands Embodyment and The Famine.

References

    1. "Capitol Christian Music Group Completes Acquisition of Tooth & Nail's Catalog, T&N to Re-Launch". Billboard. March 13, 2013. Retrieved October 5, 2014.
    2. McGinnis, Kelsey Kramer (March 18, 2024). "Died: Michael Knott, Christian Alternative Musician Who Helped Launch Tooth & Nail". Christianity Today . Retrieved November 13, 2024.
    3. Gotrich, Lars (March 14, 2024). "Michael Knott, who changed the course of Christian rock, dies at 61". NPR . Retrieved November 14, 2024.
    4. 1 2 3 Bonham, Chad (May–June 1998). "Tooth & Nail". 7ball (18): 22–25. ISSN   1082-3980.
    5. Brown, Bruce A. (February 1994). "R.E.X. Begins to Distribute for Grrr Records". CCM Magazine . 16 (8): 12.
    6. Van Pelt, Doug (August 14, 2009). "TGIF: Chad Johnson Interview". HM Magazine . Retrieved November 20, 2024.
    7. Keegin, Joseph M. (July 14, 2022). "The Death and Life of Christian Hardcore". Plough. Retrieved November 20, 2024.
    8. Staff, Billboard (March 13, 2013). "Capitol Christian Music Group Completes Acquisition of Tooth & Nail's Catalog, T&N to Re-Launch". Billboard . Retrieved November 20, 2024.
    9. "Underoath – Define the Great Line". Billboard . Archived from the original on April 11, 2013. Retrieved April 7, 2009.
    10. Gotrich, Lars (March 14, 2024). "Michael Knott, who changed the course of Christian rock, dies at 61". NPR Music. NPR . Retrieved March 14, 2024.
    11. "RIAA Gold, Platinum, Multi-Platinum Awards" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on September 11, 2014. Retrieved May 29, 2022.
    12. "Gold & Platinum". Recording Industry Association of America .
    13. "Gold & Platinum". Recording Industry Association of America .
    14. "CCMG Purchases Tooth & Nail Catalog". allaccess.com. Retrieved March 20, 2013.
    15. "Tooth & Nail - Artists". Tooth & Nail Records. Retrieved February 3, 2016.
    16. "Joseph Rojas Announces Launch of Rockfest Records". www.newreleasetoday.com.