The Record Company

Los Angeles-based band The Record Company has signed with Concord Music Group. Members Chris Vos (guitar, lead vocals, harmonica), Alex Stiff (bass, guitar, vocals) and Marc Cazorla (drums, piano, vocals) are recording material for their yet-untitled debut album due Feb. 12, 2016.

The Record Company’s blues/rock mix has racked up more than 30 commercial, film and television placements. In addition to a current ad for Miller Lite, the band’s music has been featured on ads for Coors Light and Subaru, Showtime’s Shameless, ABC’s Nashville, CBS’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and the theatrical trailer for Last Vegas starring Robert DeNiro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline.

'In a statement announcing the signing, Concord Label Group president John Burk said, “While steeped in the tradition of early blues and rock greats, this trio has clearly carried the music forward and developed an exciting sound of their own.” Added Concord COO Mark Wexler, “We’re particularly impressed by the trio’s tremendous charisma, grooves and top-notch songwriting.”

The Record Company will begin a European tour on Oct. 17, visiting 34 cities and 13 countries. For most of the tour dates, the group will be opening for Blackberry Smoke. Prior to this, The Record Company has shared the stage with the late B.B. King, Grace Potter, Trombone Shorty, Buddy Guy, the Wood Brothers and Social Distortion. - Billboard

The backyard of The Record Company's Los Feliz house is the kind of place where you want to sit and stay a while. Birds are chirping, a lawnmower whirs in the distance and a dog slumps happily on the grass. There's not much smog, so the downtown skyline is visible. The idyllic spot is perfect for laid-back BBQs, long nights spent sipping beer and the band's good-time blues.

Marc Cazorla, Chris Vos and Alex Wood, the three members of The Record Company, are lounging on the back porch drinking iced coffee, explaining how three transplants from the northeast and midwest ended up making bluesy music in L.A. that would sound more at home in a sweaty, backwoods Mississippi juke joint. Their first track, "Don't Let Me Get Lonely," features Vos' surprisingly rich vocals over an infectious jumble of handclaps, driving bass and a tinny harmonica.

"We would hang out and get drunk here on Friday and Saturday nights," Vos says in his husky voice. "Al would put his speaker in the window and we'd listen to old blues and early rock n' roll. We were just getting drunk one night and were like, 'Why don't we just play that? That's what we wanna do.'"

Cazorla and Wood, both 35, met in college in Pennsylvania while playing in a "college frat party blues jam band," Wood says. Wood, who plays bass, headed for L.A. after school. He kept in touch with Cazorla, a keyboardist and drummer who had detoured to Nashville. Eventually, he moved to L.A. and became roommates with Wood.

Vos, 36, is a burly teddy bear who grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. On a whim, he and his wife moved to L.A. in the spring of 2010. Though he found work as a musician, he was lonely for his old circle of musician pals. About six months after moving, he placed an ad on Craigslist in hopes of building a similar community here.

"I was so fucking depressed, thinking, 'Why did I uproot myself to come somewhere where I have no musician friends?'" Vos says. It was set to expire while he was out of town, and he asked his wife to refresh it. Being in marketing, she wrote a "very lovingly fraudulent" ad about his accomplishments. Wood, who had never answered an ad before, was impressed and called.

He invited Vos to come over and listen to records. The three became close friends; in fact, the trio's camaraderie is downright brotherly. When Vos, obviously tender-hearted, wraps up a monologue on the group by saying, "I just feel blessed we all found each other out here," Cazorla quips, "I could go play some music on the piano to accompany this."
Finally, after a year of drinking in the backyard and listening to other people's records, the guys decided to play a little themselves. Wood says they knew immediately they were on to something special. "We've all had minor successes in the bands we've been in, but this felt right the first day." So much so that they ended up recording right then and there. "That's how fast we knew what our sound should be," Vos adds.

The band posted music January 1st, and began attracting attention instantly. Tonight, they begin a month-long residency at Harvard & Stone.

"We'll actually put on stuff we've recorded and it sounds cool while we're hanging out. It fits. It's just fucking easy. It's just kinda a good time," Cazorla says. Now if only they'd invite us over. - LA Weekly

Bluesy, gritty rock band the Record Company shares their favorite places to play in LA—and lets us rummage through their 1,000+ record collection.

Don't call the Record Company a blues band. "There's a preciousness to the term 'blues artist,' says Chris Vos, the band's dreamy lead singer (cool it ladies, he's married). "We tip our hat to the greats—Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed—and carry a lot of the blues in our music; but we've got too much respect for the genre to lump ourselves into it. We're more similar to an early rock 'n' roll band." The band's sound is raw, definitely bluesy and reminiscent of some of the best acts of the '50s and '60s—like if John Lee Hooker and the Stooges had a well-behaved love child. Vos and his wife Valerie moved to Silver Lake from Milwaukee in 2010, and it wasn't long before he found friends in bass player Alex Stiff (single, raised in Wayne, PA) and drummer Marc Cazorla (also single, originally from Elmira, NY). The three bonded over blues, BBQs and beers, and by late 2011 they were playing music together. Less than a year later, and they've already toured (with the Whigs), snagged Lucky Brand as a sponsor, and will begin a month-long residency at the Satellite on November 5. We dug their sound so much, we invited them to headline Time Out's launch party. More recently, we invited ourselves into Stiff and Cazorla's Los Feliz home to get the nitty gritty on life in LA for a down-home blues bluesy rock band.
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Time Out Los Angeles: When did the light bulb go on that you three should make a go at this whole being-a-band thing?
Chris Vos: We'd become really close friends, listening to records and drinking beers every Friday night—it was all music all the time with us. Still is. One night last October, we were listening to John Lee Hooker and Canned Heat's Hooker & Heat album, and just realized—we all love this music, why don't we do something like this, kind of raw like this, together? So I went home, wrote a couple songs, brought 'em back to the guys, they made 'em better, and we actually recorded the first day we played together.

Marc Cazorla: We said screw it, let's just hang some mics up in the living room and see what this sounds like.

Chris Vos: The song 'Born Unnamed' from our EP, we recorded that first day. And I remember thinking halfway through the song that it just felt right. It felt exactly how I wanted it to feel, like having a really good, easy conversation with someone. We were all just being exactly who we were, and it worked.

Alex Stiff: Sometimes before shows, like on tour, we'll say to each other, 'Guys, we hung some mics up in the living room and now we're in Canada.'

Time Out Los Angeles: What are your favorite places to play in LA?
Marc Cazorla: You begin to feel guilty asking your friends to come see you play at clubs with expensive drinks and $10 covers. When we play at High-Fidelity record shop it's free, they have beer and wine for people, and you get randoms walking by and popping in. It's really grassroots and old school—we like that.

Chris Vos:The Satellite is awesome of course. Harvard & Stone was one of the first places that let us play. We once played on the 30-yard line of the Rose Bowl for a committee banquet. And we played your launch party—I'm still shocked that no one fell in that pool. I kept seeing high heels one inch from the edge.

Time Out Los Angeles: There were a few close calls, for sure. What would you have done if someone had fallen in?
Chris Vos: I probably would have jumped in to save them—we all would have. Though I'd have to take off my boots first. Man, a water rescue would have been a great story: "Entire band jumps in pool to rescue party-goer!"

Time Out Los Angeles: Ha! Luckily you guys were able to stay dry. So, what about when you're not playing music/collectively saving lives? Any favorite spots to hang in LA?
Chris Vos: When we do go out on the town, it's usually not far. Ye Rustic Inn is pretty much a staple for us. If you want to find the Record Company, you probably have a good chance at the Rustic. I also love LACMA. Staring at a 700-year old piece of art? That blows my head off completely.

Alex Stiff: I love going to Griffith Park with Seger [Stiff's two-year old lab mix]. You get to the top and there are such great views of the city. And for food, Village Pizzeria in Larchmont is great, and Larchmont Deli has the best sandwich in town.

Chris Vos: Oh! There's a little food truck that parks outside the Von's in Echo Park... Taco Zone! Man, I love that one. Those two little ladies in there just doling out the best Mexican food ever.

Marc Cazorla: I don't go to Hollywood that much, but I'll go for the egg rolls at Genghis Cohen. They're the best. And I just got a new camera, so I've been going downtown a lot to take pictures, in Chinatown and Little Tokyo. It's like another world over there—it really lends itself to good photographs.

Chris Vos: LA is such an engaging city. I never go anywhere and think "Well, this is boring."

Time Out Los Angeles: You have a record collection in here that puts whole shops to shame—over 1,100 titles. What's the story there?
Alex Stiff: A lot of people watch sports on weekends—I like going to record stores. Originally the collection started with just Beatles albums, but it's grown into an obsession. Amoeba is the best, in terms of pricing and selection, just their whole vibe. Even being on tour and checking out shops in other cities, I still think Amoeba is the best. I like to hunt for good deals—I don't have the money to buy $50 first pressings—and these are meant to be played, not looked at.

Chris Vos: It's like our old guitars. What's the point if you can't play 'em? They may be beat up, but they sound great and that's what matters. We've always sat around listening to records—it's kind of what brought us together. Other than that, our story is always pretty much the same: We played some songs, we drank some beers, we had some laughs, we went to bed. Wake up and repeat.

The Record Company will begin a Monday-night residency at the Satellite on November 5. Their self-released EP, "Superdead," as well as two 7" singles (one self-released, one by Turntable Kitchen out of San Francisco), are available on the band's website. - Time Out LA