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The story behind the legendary heavy metal label.
Part I [1982-1986]
I founded MAUSOLEUM RECORDS in the Winter of 1982, a
few weeks after I had been fired from my job as marketing
manager at INELCO, a record company later acquired by
ARCADE and recently purchased by ROADRUNNER RECORDS.
Never mind I had chalked up a record breaking 13 gold
discs for them during the 19 months I held the post
that's another story for another day. In the early
80s INELCO in fact distributed ROADRUNNER. In those
days the label was predominantly successful with punk
as in the DEAD KENNEDYS, and electronic avant-garde
music as in KLAUS SCHULZE. One day I actually gently
nudged owner CEES WESSELS to release the first TWISTED
SISTER album, so I perhaps unknowingly created a future
competitor for my then yet-to-be-born MAUSOLEUM heavy
metal label. But I've always like WESSELS, so I never
lost any sleep over it.
Besides working at INELCO I also ran a music production
company, in loose partnership with STONNE HOLMGREN and
LEO "ROCKSTONE" FELSENSTEIN, two friends who owned a
wholesale business and also had an interest in a studio
located in back of a farmhouse out in the middle of
nowhere. In 1979 LEO had already produced the first
KILLER album: "READY FOR HELL" and thanks to my friend
JEAN-MARIE SOHIE, the marketing manager at WARNER MUSIC,
we got a deal with WEA, as it was known in those days.
Besides JEAN-MARIE and HERMAN SCHUEREMANS (who later
went on to fame and fortune as head honcho behind the
TORHOUT-WERCHTER rock festivals) nobody really gave
a rats ass about hard rock at WARNER'S in those days,
but JEAN-MARIE had been very successful with VAN HALEN
and AC/DC, so I suppose they let him have his way
and we got the deal. Through EMI we had already released
DANGER, a band from the south of Belgium. MARC YSAYE,
drummer with prog-rock outfit MACHIAVEL - one of Belgium's
more successful rock and roll stories - had produced
their eponymous album. In 1981 we released the second
KILLER record: "WALL OF SOUND" and also a WHITE HEAT
album, both on LARK RECORDS, one of the INELCO Imprints.
By then I worked there so it was convenient to have
everything under one roof.
One day in the Summer of 1982 PAUL MARIO DAY walked
through my door everybody was always turning up unannounced
because I had an office with a street level window,
so you could immediately see if I was in or not. PAUL
had been the lead vocalists with heavy rock act MORE,
who were signed to ATLANTIC In the UK, one of the WARNER
labels. Visiting friends and fans in Belgium where
MORE had been doing well PAUL called on the local
WEA offices searching for a deal for his new band; WILDFIRE.
HERMAN "SHERMAN" SCHUEREMANS immediately told PAUL "if
its loud and heavy your best bet is to go see ALFIE",
and directed him to my office on the other side of the
canal. That same building is now the home of RADIO CONTACT,
one of the more influential top-forty stations in the
country, so very different sounds reverberate off those
walls today. PAUL and I immediately hit it off in a
grand way, and by the end of the afternoon we had hammered
out a deal. A couple of weeks later I always suspected
he was still in the process of putting his band together,
and having a record-deal helped him do just that WILDFIRE
arrived in Brussels. Five musicians and JOHN McGOWAN,
the producer, all stuffed in the most minuscule museum-quality
Honda van you'd ever seen. I put them up in a bed-and-breakfast
dive, and the next day they started recording their
first album, BRUTE FORCE AND IGNORANCE, at SHIVA, a
studio in a crumbling building near the main railway
station in Brussels, owned by my close friend JACK MAUER.
I still love that album! It was the beginning of a splendid
relationship with a band of exceptionally talented musicians
and very good people.
1 I 2
I 3 I 4
I 5 I 6
I 7
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