The label, started in a Florida dorm room in 1996, is still thriving. Here’s why.
Hayley Williams of Paramore
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Fueled by Ramen, like many record labels, started in a dorm room. Somewhere in Gainesville Rock City in 1996, a young John Janick shook hands with Less Than Jake drummer Vinnie Fiorello, and the hottest property in north-central Florida pop-punk was born. Their first clients? Ska-punk dilettantes The Hippos and The Impossibles, bands you'd only know if you, like Janick and Fiorello, were in it for life.
"We were operating out of a 150 square foot room, maybe less, with bunkbeds and CDs, just running everything from my desk," says Janick over the phone from Los Angeles, where he now lives. "I'd go over to Vinnie's apartment to do mail-orders. It was an interesting time, and maybe a little bit naive."
FBR would have their first major success when they issued a 1998 self-titled EP from an upstart group of Arizona kids named Jimmy Eat World. It sold enough for the still fresh-faced label to buy their first office space in Tampa, and served as a sign of things to come. Eventually this Florida-bred, rude-boy indie label became a tastemaking stalwart. It's where Fall Out Boy got famous, selling 250,000 copies of Take This To Your Grave over the course of two years. Gym Class Heroes and Panic! At the Disco would soon follow, and they remain signed to this day.
But shouldn't Fueled by Ramen be dead? We've seen this story before. An era-defining label goes rags-to-riches with some smart business partnerships and a savvy A&R -- swallowing up every hot act in the scene until their brand becomes synonymous with the genre itself. Replace the guyliner with MDMA or a couple bodies hung over hotel balconies, and it's the exact same legacy of powerhouses like Factory or Death Row. If there's one thing we learned about iconoclastic, hyper-specific record labels, it's that the gravy train doesn't run forever. Suge Knight is bankrupt and locked up, The Hacienda is an apartment complex. By any reasonable estimation, Fueled by Ramen should be floundering, or downsizing, or absorbed, that's just how these stories are supposed to end.
But that hasn't happen. Fueled by Ramen continues to thrive. The old mid-2000s guard of Fall Out Boy and The Academy Is… have been cycled out for a younger, hipper, more dynamic generation of acts like Twenty One Pilots, and fun. That's right, fun -- the band that won a bunch of trophies for Some Nights are signed to FBR. Paramore, the long-standing Hot Topic icons tasted true, transcendent crossover success with their 2013 self-titled record, propelling their name into non-denominational pop radio, and scoring Hayley Williams a guest-spot on Zedd's "Stay The Night." Gym Class Heroes are still getting on TV, your mom listens to Young The Giant -- Fueled by Ramen's current roster remains an influential modern rock record label.
That's no small feat in 2015. FBR might never be able to escape their emo-pop peak, but you'd be hard pressed to come up with any imprint that's been able to stay so relevant for so long. It's managed it, in part, by becoming a subsidiary of Warner Bros., which earned the until-then indie criticism from punk rock purists. But that, like everything else Janick has built, was a means to an end.
"We wanted to make sure there weren't any ceilings for our artists while also keeping our culture independent," says Janick. "There were other major labels filling artists' heads with stuff like 'oh you're being held back by Fueled by Ramen, they don't have the resources.' For me it was about being an indie label with major ties, where we can build the foundation with a big company there to take you all the way."
That environment is what resonated with a 15 year old girl from Meridian, Mississippi, who was screaming her lungs off in a band called Paramore.
Fall Out Boy
David J. Bertozzi / BuzzFeed
"I remember meeting with John at a Cheesecake Factory," says Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams via email. "I was with our manager Mark, and doing some acoustic shows at Taste of Chaos 2005. We talked about the scene and where I saw Paramore fitting into it. I was so happy to be hanging with a label guy who got it. He didn't see me as some answer to Avril Lavigne's success. He just always understood what Paramore was. Who we were. That sort of thing means a lot to a 15 or 16 year old kid."
Paramore would carry FBR's banner for years through the bloody triptych of All We Know is Falling, Riot!, and Brand New Eyes, three of the best albums mid-decade emo-pop ever produced. But then, around 2010, the bubble burst. Two thirds of Paramore quit and looked for greener pastures elsewhere, Fall Out Boy, who had left Fueled by Ramen for Island, called it a day, and Panic! At The Disco were well past their crossover, VMA-headlining peak. As far as era-defining labels go, this was par for the course. Eventually pop-culture fixation moves on, and the sound you're known for becomes a lot less hip. But Janick adapted. In perhaps the most important signing in FBR history, he inked fun.
"I tried to sign Nate (Reuss) when he was 18 years old and in The Format." says Janick. "But he went to Elektra instead. That was back when we were in Florida and didn't have much money. Five years later we had the partnership with Warner and Nate was still in the Warner system through Elektra, I tried to work with him but he went off to do his own thing. But the third time around he had started fun. and we finally managed to get a deal done. He's one of my closest friends now. They spent a year and a half figuring out what Some Nights is going to be, and it was one of the biggest albums of that year."
Fueled by Ramen has kept an iron grip on a very specific part of the industry -- from Jimmy Eat World to Fall Out Boy to Paramore to fun. -- for their entire 20 year run as a company. They've shifted with the generations, while never alienating their core audience. It's hard to think of a label that's been more tenacious.
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