One of my favorite labels going right now is SEVEN EIGHT LIFE RECORDS from Brazil. They have put out an unbelievable amount of qualaity hardcore records. Do yourself a favor and check them out asap! Here is a short interview with Franco about how the label started, what it takes to keep it running and of course STRAIGHTEDGE!What prompted you to start SEVEN EIGHT LIFE RECORDS and how long have you been running it?
Seven Eight Life started about 15 years ago as a distro and about 12 years ago as a label, i aways was a skate and hardcore lover, so the fusion of the 2 take me to start to go to concerts and find out about punk, hardcore and straight edge, factors that take me not just go to the concerts but also produce it and start to distribute and release the bands friends not just from Brazil but from all South America since the other labels and people just care about the bands from other parts of the world besides South America, but with time we also arrive in Europe too.
You have an impressive catalog of releases under your belt are all of your bands straightedge?
We are a vegan straight edge label and 90% of our catalog folow the same line, but we dicide to open a little to reach a bigger number of people being or not straight edge with the proposal to spread and take to other places the straight edge philosophy, vegetarianism and veganism, and inside this 10% of the bands that aren't straight edge at least have people that are vegans, vegetarians, drug free or sxe. We believe that the information is with no doubt the bigger weapon that hardcore has and this is not different with straight edge, that way any band that bring a positive message supporting a drug free life, supporting veganism and vegetarianism can be sure that will be very welcome, we are here to add and not to divide and if we just keep taking our message only for straight edge people we will not open to other that don't know this philosophy.
Do you only release bands from Brazil? Are you aware that you possibly have more quality bands in Brazil than we have in the United States at this point? You have seriously put out so many bands that I love.
No, we release bands from South America, this is our fucus, but we also have some bands from Europe like New Winds and Birds of a Feather, bands that always had a great acceptance here in South America and a lot of respect, our conection with this bands is really strong not just for hardcore, there's a lot of friendship besides that and we take it really seriusly. The question of having or not bands with more quality here i believe that's is a natural fact cause over the years the bands from our label had conquering not just sound quality but also maturity and weight on the lyrics making them real weapons of positive messages, and with no doubt we are people that live daily with all kinds of social issues since we were born cause the socioeconomic status in our continent never was good, we always had to live with several issues like health, education to even the simplest things like public transport and all that, i believe that this may be a fact that contribute with the quality of the bands helping to write things more with the heart and like this reaching better results, the proof are the several tours that bands from our label do to all parts of the world reaching until Japan, the only country that we still coudn't achieve with our bands is U.S but we believe that this soon will be reached and then yes we can have the satisfaction of taking the South American Hardcore all over the world, with respect and attitude.
Makes me really happy to know that you like the bands from our label this is really positive, we also really like the bands from your label including One choice, this is a inpiration for us and make us really happy to know that bands with the age of this guys are still making the straight edge more strong, makes me really happy.
What is the Sao Paulo straightedge and hardcore scene like? Whati differences do you think there are between your scene and the scene here in the U.S.?
Well for sure the cradle of the straight edge scene is Sao Paulo, here we have a lot of SxE bands in active for a long time, but this is not only in São Paulo, there is SxE bands for all over the country and i have the honor to be friends of the guys that do or did part of the most importants bands from all South America, we are here for years and i feel with the same conviction since the beginning and this doesn't change just became more solid, the SxE scene here in Sao Paulo has a lot of active bands and we are always doing concerts all over the year, promoting many tours and this contribute a lot.
About the difference from the scene here from the U.S i believe that are a lot, here we have a huge worry about the social and politics issues from the straight edge bands, specially with the straight edge, veganism and vegetarianism, for us there's no sense without this conection, since the beginning this was primary, particularly i can't see Straight Edge without the veganism cause i think that they should walk together cause both is one thing for me, and this way are the things inside the Straight Edge in South America, some would disagree but is just a few people that we don't count, cause are always this kind of person that in a short time will be out of SxE, but that doesn't mean that we don't relate with people with different ways of thinking, we always had great relationship with all the scenes, this is just our position we are not judge people just for being different, we just defend what we believe respecting and taking our proposal foward.
How many people does it take to keep SEVEN EIGHT LIFE RECORDS moving, is there several or is it mostly done by one person?
At the beginning was just me and my will, a time later i get married and the things changed for much better, my wife who's also vegan straight edge help me give other direction and two persons working together makes a lot of difference and with that we reached foward having more agility and compromise, today we are 4 persons and they work giving us an incredible help, so we are me, my wife Kate and our friends, Fernando that also plays in two bands from our label, Vendetta and Ralph Macchio and Steve Lima, one of the most old school guys from Straight Edge here in Brazil, and we can say that we feel really happy to work with what we really love.
Do you feel like kids in the U.S. have been receptive to your bands or is it harder to get kids in the U.S. to pay attention?Yes there is a huge difficulty for kids in U.S accept the bands from South America, but we always in some way or other send our material to a label or to someone that buys directly in our website by paypal, we wish that this could be different we always try to do an exchange to help spread to both sides but both bands and labels doesn't see things like us, i don't know the reason but we believe that one day this will change and both South American and American bands will be able to do tours in more places and that this wall can be broken.
What are your plans for the future with SEVEN EIGHT LIFE RECORDS?
We will be releasing 2 dvds from the 2 most bigger bands from South America, Confronto and Nueva Etica, this for sure will be writing a new page in hardcore sxe history of South America and maybe worldwide cause both results exceeded our expectations, is something that is gonna mark a lot of people's life, including us, we feel really proud to have the honor to release this two dvds, Confronto is gonna be out on march 14 and Nueva Etica we believe that is gonna be out on may, we still don't know for sure cause we have to finish some details on the artwork, this is the two projects that we are ending right now and some other releases that we are already working on, besides that we have several tours and our traditional festivals, keep contact with people all over the world, making things happen and who knows being a Seventh Dagger partner here in South America and by then unify more things and make good results.
CHECK OUT SEVEN EIGHT LIFE RECORDS HERE: http://www.myspace.com/78liferecordings
