Trustkill Records founder Josh Grabelle has left the label and formed a new label/publishing company called Bullet Tooth.
In a recent interview, Grabelle tells AbsolutePunk:
“I never thought in a million years that in 2010 I would still be running the label I started in my dorm room in 1993. However, it ran its course and we have to move forward and not delve in the past. To explain what happened as simply as possible, in 2002 we signed a deal with RED Distribution in the US who invested money in the label to allow us to build our brand and artists. From 2002 to 2006 while we were at RED there was definitely some rampant spending on tour support, retail co-op, video production, and more. Hindsight is 20/20, but at the time, it made sense to everyone. In 2007 we move to Fontana/Universal, after they gave us an offer we couldn’t refuse. The deal was great and the people we did the deal with were awesome. Unfortunately the head of the company died shortly after (RIP) and the guy who spearheaded the deal quit. This is pretty typical for any label or band doing a deal with a major unfortunately. Fast forward a year and there is a whole new staff of people who didn’t like the deal we had agreed upon previously. This put us in a bad spot and we tried everything to work it out and it just couldn’t work.”