Lisa Fancher, owner of the seminal punk/hardcore label Frontier Records, has left no stone unturned with the 40th anniversary release of Christian Death’s monumental debut LP Only Theatre of Pain. She is releasing a special, limited-edition, double-vinyl gatefold which features all the cuts the groundbreaking death-rock band ever recorded at the time.
Excitingly, it is being put out in conjunction with Cult Epics, who is adding on an elaborate hardcover book showcasing renowned photographer Edward Colver’s extensive library of Christian Death photos and exclusive interviews with the remaining members of the band—guitarist Rikk Agnew, bassist James McGearty, and drummer George Belangner (tragically, the genius poet and vocalist Rozz Williams died in 1998).
Here, the ever-effervescent label owner, who, we must iterate, released some of the most crucial albums of the early-punk era, including The Adolescents S/T blue album, TSOL Dance with Me, Circle Jerks Group Sex, and Suicidal Tendencies S/T album, delves into the experience of putting out Only Theatre of Pain. She also lets us in on a little bit of what has been going on these last couple of years. Notably, she has two new records on the horizon—a live Flat Worms album and The Flash Hits LP, entitled Growths, to be released in March.
About the Christian Death reissue you’re putting out, that was such a monumental album! Did you have it in mind to put something out when this anniversary was coming up?
With that record, not really, because I really don’t have a lot extra of—all the records I did I just took them in the studio and we didn’t really think, “Hey, this record’s going to be in print 40 years later.” So, I didn’t do any extra stuff. But then I remembered there were demos that we made after Only Theatre of Pain, and I forgot all about them until Rikk had a cassette of it. I was like, oh, those two demos. And they were actually studio stuff, so, I had my engineer clean them up.
Slightly different mixes I put out on Record Store Day, a 45 with a couple of songs on it. They’re not wildly different. Anyway, we had enough stuff with the demos that I bought from the band. They’re on the CD. We put those on a second disc. And that’s going to go in a box set and book. The guy, Colver, approached me to do it. And I was like, “I don’t think I have enough to do anything with it,” like a super-deluxe edition. But I did! So that’s been in the works for a good solid two years. I think he put up the crowd funding pretty early on in 2020.
And then of course everything turned into a nightmare with mastering and all the lead times just took forever and ever and ever. So, at long last, and we were hoping to have a finished product in September. If we’re really lucky, it’ll be the end of January. We haven’t even done our listing on Bandcamp yet, but we announced it because it was time to tell everybody about it to get people all lathered up.
Yeah, and then this whole two years, talking to a lot of bands and just the problems with pressing vinyl, it’s been totally backlogged.
You have no idea. Hideous. We couldn’t even plan new releases because it was terrible just trying to keep the records that sell in print at all, with no capacity and all the shortages. Now, things just went from bad to worse. There’s almost no colored vinyl at all. And usually, when I repress an old record, we’ll do a small run of color just because people like all that. I think my pressing plant is down to, like, five colors; they’re like, “Don’t even think about clear. We won’t have clear until the end of 2023.”
It’s just been very challenging. It wasn’t that bad during COVID, but this year, it’s been terrible, and they see no end in sight, so that’s not good news. You just do the best you can. All the shortage of paper, the shortage of vinyl, they can’t have full capacity in the warehouses.
But I do have two new releases scheduled for next year. A band called Flat Worms, they’re actually on Drag City, but this is a live record, and I’m a big fan, so I’m going to put out a live at a local club record, and I did that one in England, just to try out the plant over there. And then a local band called The Flash Hits, and they are super good, very shoegazy but kind of more rock and not mopey shoegazy but kind of psychedelic.
Is that how you got with Christian Death in the first place? From putting out The Adolescents’ first record?
Rikk was out of The Adolescents, but Frank Agnew, his little brother, was more or less my unofficial A&R guy, and he saw a couple of Christian Death shows where they did these things called art shows; they’d take over a storefront or bizarre things. It wasn’t just musical; it was, well, an art show. And Frank was like, “You gotta hear these guys.” Plus, Rikk is writing the songs. And of course, Rikk is one of the greatest songwriters of punk or anything else.
Anyway, I heard some demos, and I met Rozz and talked to him on the phone. It was a pretty easy deal. It was supposed to be a two-record deal, but that’s a whole other story. So, we took them into the studio with Thom Wilson, who had made The Adolescents record. Five days or under. I don’t know? My usual. Something like that. And people liked it right away. There wasn’t even really a formal, what we’d call a goth movement, then. Hell Comes to Your House had come out, but it was a pretty bubbling-under movement. There was 45 Grave; there were some people who were gothy, skull, whatever, but I don’t even know if people called it goth or death rock or anything at that time. It was pretty early.
Right. That’s so interesting because when I mentioned to Rikk, “That was the beginning of death rock?” And he was kind of averse to saying goth. He’s like, “It’s death rock.”
(Laughter) It’s like the whole thing, glam or glitter? “Don’t call it whichever one. Don’t call it that!” But, I think you’re fighting uphill if you think you’re not going to say the word goth.
Yeah, and it was also interesting because when I talked to you the last time (16 years ago), we did get into Christian Death. You actually said, they looked like that, dressed like that, and then when I talked to Rikk ,he was like, we played with them, I guess it was when he was almost out of The Adolescents; he was like, when I got kicked out for the fourth time …
Many times. Good ol’ Rikk.
He basically said he was thinking, who are these kids? Did they just come back from a funeral? So, it was so groundbreaking at the time.
There was a thing going on in England and Bauhaus and stuff, but definitely way their own twist on it. Christian Death obviously was so blasphemous, whereas Bauhaus were just whatever you wanna call them or whatever their motivations. Dead Poets or something. Rozz took it to a whole new place.
And I guess you didn’t really see people dressing like that in Southern California. (Laughs)
Not at all. Which is so funny because Disneyland has Goth Day (a.k.a. Bats Day). It’s so huge now. You see recurring characters on really big TV shows. So, very influential.
Also, with the release, Edward Colver’s book comes with it? Or is that separate?
For the box set. I have no plans to release the record separately. I have exactly enough to put in the box set with the book. So, I don’t even know what vinyl would cost by the time I get rid of those. I’m guessing it’ll take me a year to get rid of all of them. I hope not. I don’t have any street date or anything for anybody to just buy the record on its own. But the book is incredible. I’ve seen the book. I was at Ed’s house recently picking something up, and the book is beautiful, and it’s got a lot of unseen photos because he keeps excavating stuff.
I waited forever because I was going to do something along these lines, but of course, I ran out of money. But anyway, I was gonna try to do a photo book, maybe he even has more, but he keeps finding stuff. He did a bunch of sessions with them at cemeteries. So, they cleaned up all the pictures and printed them. They’re all 12-by-12 format. Good printing, all that kind of thing. I think people will be stoked by it. It’s a good tribute to what was their 40th [anniversary]—somehow, accidentally, we got it out on time. By sheer accident got it out in time to be 40. I was surprised when he digged those out because he’d been talking about it for years. I was like, “I’d love to do something.” I don’t sell books. I don’t know how to put a book together and sell it. Just as well that Nico (B., Cult Epics founder) did it.
I saw on your Facebook page that you’re not really signing new bands, but more releasing vintage and …
That’s kind of my specialty is re-releasing old material that somebody has heard of before but like I said I’m actually doing two new records in one year. It’s been a long time. I love new bands, I see bands all the time, but it’s just really difficult to have the marketing money to do them proud. And then usually somebody comes bigger than me and scoops them up anyway, so I’m tired of that. I stick to vintage records. It’s easier.
Yeah, and again, it’s just cool hearing your thoughts on this release.
It’s a cool project. It’s super-limited but it’ll definitely pander to the hardcore devotees and there’s a lot of them around the world. So hopefully we made enough to—the combo of having the money to buy it and how hardcore they’re into the band. I may put the record out separately one day, but I don’t think Nico will ever do hardcovers again. So, people should definitely snap it up when they have a chance.
This record always just hit so hard.
So many people have told me it’s their favorite record ever. I met a guy in Portland the last time I was up there. When he was talking about it, he was shaking and I was like, “Whoa,” ‘cause I never think about things in those terms. It’s really great to hear those things. It changed his life. Those are always tremendous stories to hear. I just do things in a void. I don’t know. Once in a while I hear from somebody directly, will come up to me at a show or something. But people super dig this record. It’s definitely, I think we put that in the press release, considered one of the best goth records ever made, if not top five, if not number one.
Yeah, and you were at the forefront with so many of the great ones, at the beginning.
I know. More people need to remember that. I’m just kidding. (Laughter) But I feel like I was, paving the underground whether it was hardcore or Paisley Underground, I usually got in there and got out before it got really lame.
Even starting with Flyboys [self-titled EP], that was so great.
Uh huh. That’s a good record. People don’t even know I put that out, but I think that’s a super-duper record. I’m still friends with those guys, the ones I run into, the ones that are alive. Anyway, they’re still kicking around. Well, one of them died really early on, he got in a car wreck. The guys were driving home from a gig and, “Oh my god, that’s our drummer.”
Oh wow …
But it was the record that kickstarted the record label, so I’m very sentimental about it.
I don’t know if you wanted to mention anything else …
I’m just worrying about 2022, trying to get the records on time. Working the two new releases. Just trying to survive this crap. I’m not going to use the word “normal,” but just trying to keep the records in the stores and then our mail order. Obviously, everybody loves the mail order now because so many stores went down, which is sad. But then there’s more too and more vinyl stores, so it’s just what happens. You gotta roll with the punches. Get up again if you can.
Yeah. We thought last year was the worst, and it’s still so bad …
Oh yeah. We were like, “Things aren’t too bad. We’re still getting records.” I mean, my pressing plant closed in 2019 in October, so we were just destroyed by that. We were like, “We’ll never survive moving.” And then we moved, and we started getting records, and then COVID came, and it was like, “You gotta be kidding me.” Because I had to remaster almost every single record, so (I was) out of pocket for last year because we had to move all the stuff across the country and a lot of the metal mothers were ruined and I had to remaster things and recreate the art because they lost it.
Once that closed it was, what are you going to do? So, it was a real challenge getting the bestsellers back in print. And we actually did that, but this year, everything—there’s no vinyl, there’s no jackets, there’s no cardboard, there’s no paper … And the price increases. I hate passing them on, but I’ve had two 20 percent price increases in one year, and that’s a lot. That’s brutal. So, records are like five dollars apiece now. My cost for a record right now for a single disc is like five bucks, which is crazy. And that’s without shipping. When I began it was maybe, 75, 80 cents, way back in ye olden days. It’s crazy. But anyway, people still want the stuff that sells a lot, and then we have the stuff that doesn’t sell [available] digitally on the Bandcamp page. So, you do the best you can.
Listen to Only Theatre of Pain here:
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Photo courtesy of Christian Death and Ed Colver
