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Tigers Jaw's Charming New LP & Atlantic's Latest Cred-Carrying Imprint Are Alt-Rock's New Major Label Hopes

The beloved indie-punk band follows 2014's 'Charmer' -- released on scene staple Run For Cover Records -- with the debut for new label Black Cement.

When up-and-coming cartoonist Keef Knight has a traumatic run-in with the police, he begins to see the world in an entirely new way.

igers Jaw vocalist-guitarist Ben Walsh calls Saves the Day’s In Reverie his favorite record. The seminal New Jersey punk band’s 2003 release is best known today not for its intricate melodies -- as Walsh would probably prefer -- but as the prototypical punk band-screwed-over-by-major label cautionary tale. Saves the Day’s three previous albums -- released through respected indies Equal Vision and Vagrant -- upped the grassroots ante to the point where they seemed likely to follow like-minded bands like Jimmy Eat World and New Found Glory to major label success. The opposite happened.

“They got dropped from [Dreamworks Records] the day the record came out,” Walsh remembers. The press archives technically place it a few weeks later, but the point remains -- when majors court punk bands, there's a boom-or-bust history with a lot more Dear Yous than Dookies in its wake. It’s especially jarring to hear this from Walsh because the Scranton, Penn. band’s latest album is coming out this spring on the brand new imprint of a major record label. It’s called spin and it’s arriving May 19 on a new Atlantic Records venture dubbed Black Cement.

The shock has nothing to do with Tigers Jaw’s credentials (Charmer was actually filled with cozy harmonies) and everything to do with punk’s almost non-existent relationship with the current major-label ecosystem and its especially volatile past. “We came from a generation of bands that formed shortly after the collapse of the seedy industry, big label, big 360-deal era,” Walsh says, thinking back to Tigers Jaw’s 2005 formation. “A lot of bands did get screwed over by major labels. [Tigers Jaw] was formed with this pre-conceived caution.” Brianna Collins, Walsh's songwriting counterpart, likens that caution to "the image you have in your mind of a major-label person wearing a suit, buying steak dinners."

The duo -- Walsh alongside keyboardist-vocalist Brianna Collins -- was wooed by a decidedly less destructive vision of strip clubs and A-list restaurant tabs, courtesy of chief ambassador and A&R rep for Black Cement, Will Yip. For the better part of the last decade, the Philadelphia-based producer built a reputation as the amicable, accommodating guiding light behind some of the alt-rock underground’s most influential albums -- Title Fight’s Hyperview, La Dispute’s Rooms of the House, Balance and Composure’s The Things We Think We’re Missing and naturally, Tigers Jaw’s previous LP, crafted after three-fifths of the band (including founding songwriter Adam McIlwee) announced plans to go their separate ways. “Charmer for us was a transitional period, but [Yip] was so consistent and so creative and helpful,” Walsh says. “So it was completely a natural thing -- ‘No matter who’s putting out our next record, we want to work with Will.’” 

The feeling’s mutual. “There’s a Mount Rushmore of bands that are kind of the OGs in this world," says Yip. His etched-in-stone core four includes Tigers Jaw, plus the trio mentioned above. "When Black Cement formed, Atlantic approached me [saying] we wanna do a label with these bands… [I said] ‘You can’t do this label without some of the OGs.’” Dave Rath, head of A&R at Roadrunner Records for the past decade, had long been fascinated by Yip’s corner of the rock world and spent over two years planning Black Cement with Yip. “Other labels are running away from rock while we’re running at it,” Rath asserts. Case-in-point: Atlantic now houses what figures to be the most punk and indie rock-oriented imprint of any major label alongside the hard rock-heavy Roadrunner and the pop-rock smorgasbord Fueled By Ramen. 

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