Andy Weber from Smashed Plastic Records

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You can also find them on Facebook by searching Bookies Chicago. This podcast is being brought to you by WXAV88.3FM and WXAV.com. WXAV, bringing the best podcasts to you. Hi, I'm Peter Creighton from WXAV88.3FM in Chicago, and welcome to this very special podcast, celebrating this year's vinyl thon.

I think we can all agree that outside of the radio, listening to music on vinyl records is really the best way to listen. From the sound quality to the artwork, to the community that sprung up around them, records offer a truly unique experience for all involved. So to celebrate this year's vinyl thon, I recently spoke with Andy Weber, co-owner of smashed plastic records, the only vinyl record printing plant in the Chicago land area. In our conversation, Andy discusses how smashed plastic first got started, why they choose to only work with independent labels and local bands, and what records he would save from a burning building.

Here now, my conversation with Andy Weber. Let's go back to the beginning. How was smashed plastic records founded? Well, it started the concept really three years ago between myself and one of my partners who lived out in Omaha.

We were just, we'd always kind of talked about maybe starting a record label, and I knew just from being a part of the local scene that people were having such problems with record pressing. And I knew there wasn't one here in Chicago. So we were literally sitting at a bar in New Orleans talking about this. And I said, hey, we need to get into the production end of this.

No one's doing it. Let's investigate. And so we spent about a year messing around, and then all of a sudden, about a year later, I got two more partners involved, and then we really started rolling stock two years ago, and a final viral technology makes our machine. And that's when things kind of took off.

And we just realized there was a need in Chicago. I mean, there was a need in the region for record pressing plant. There hasn't been one here for 30 some odd years. And we just kind of all along, kept thinking, well, you know, this isn't that great of an idea.

Somebody else is going to be way ahead of us. But no one was. And we just kept pushing and pushing and pushing and learning. We need nothing when this started outside.

Like I literally, outside of being a record collector and being a final fan, I did not know how a record even got made. So I mean, we learned everything in the process all the way along. So that's kind of how it started. That's awesome.

And there's so much that I want to like just digest with you. But we'll go with just the actual printing process, because I don't think a lot of people actually know how records are made and everything. Does Smash plastic do you guys do it in the typical traditional printing way? Or do you have a new methodology that you employ?

Well, for the most part, the machine and how it works is very similar to the older machines, just massively updated. You know, it's computer controlled. There is sensors throughout the able to tell us if there's a fault, if something's going wrong, there's a lot more quality control involved. But for the most part, the vinyl process today is, no, the technology is not a whole lot different than it was, you know, 50 years ago.

But some of the processes we're using are completely different, and one of which is where the first seamless plant in the world. So we are using a thermal unit to heat hot water instead of with electric and not gas. So it's a little bit more environmentally friendly, and it's definitely used with a lot less power to get it up and running. But we use hot water instead of steam to do our records.

So that's where we kind of, our technology has totally taken a different turn. It's probably going to end up in the future, use a lot less footprint, boiler rooms, even getting one approved here in Chicago was going to be a challenge for us. So it was one of the reasons we went seamless. So to answer your question and nutshell, it's a lot of it's the same technology as how the record is being made.

Some of the actual equipment that is being used to run the press has been updated. Now, I mean, I don't think people actually realize I mean vinyl has been back for about 10, 12 years now, but there's only so many printing presses out there in the world because when CDs came in in the late 80s, early 90s, people just literally dumped all the equipment and got rid of it. And now that it's back, there's this mad scramble to build the new presses and that. What has been smashed plastics experience with that?

Has there been any delay in or difficulty in finding equipment? What has it been like working with labels to print new albums? Can you just kind of talk about what that whole process has been like? Yeah.

So if you kind of look at back at the re-buy research into vinyl, what was happening is, and this is kind of like where when we came into it three years ago, we started looking at, okay, well, is there a way to acquire older machines? Because at the time, even just three years ago, there was really one manufacturer who was doing some new machine and they're actually out of business as of now. Oh, wow. Seemingly out of business.

That was kind of your, so really up until about two three years ago, your only option if you were starting a pressing plant was to find an old machine and then you have to find the engineer who can actually get those machines back up and running. And people were doing that. And it was a hard arduous process and I could kind of tell from looking at things from a business and reading articles and whatnot, how long it was taking some of these plants to get these old machines up and running. So for us, when viral technologies came online about two and a half years ago out of Toronto, that's where our machine is from, that's changed it quite a bit.

And now there's, I would say there's probably, at least in the United States, there's about five of us, I think, five six of us up and running with viral technology machines. And so now you're seeing this, the resurgence of the pressing plant and a lot of them are smaller like us. We only have one machine. Some of the other newer plants maybe have up to like three presses.

But that's still relatively small compared to what people have been dealing with with the larger factories over the last 10, 15 years, these factories that never went out of business and kept the old machines running through the downturn of vinyl. So now you're seeing people like us come online and we're all, but we kind of have like a different business plan than you would have, you would consider the old plants having. We are kind of more of a boutique manufacturer or a micro manufacturer. I've been throwing that term around a little bit too, where we basically, we want to deal with customers face to face.

We want to deal with mainly customers in Chicago or within the Midwest region. People who can actually come to the plant to pick up their pick up their records. And like for instance, this afternoon, I have a band and a label coming into watch their record being pressed. And we offer that here too.

So it's a little bit more hands-on than dealing with a factory. So I've probably gone way off- tangent of your question, but that's kind of what's happening in the industry. We're kind of shifting from these large manufacturing plants where you kind of place your order and hope and pray to where now you're dealing with the actual owner of the company. And I'm one of four owners and me and my partner are the guys who are doing the pressing here in the plant.

So not only do we own the company, you can talk to us live. We're also the ones that are actually doing the records too. No, that's absolutely amazing. And it's really cool because it's the super DIY community you guys are kind of forging ahead with.

I got to ask, but I got to know like, what is it like when you watch like you have a band and a label coming in to see their actual record being pressed? What is it like almost just people watching when you see them see the band seeing their albums getting pressed for the first time? What's that experience like? It's so cool.

And it kind of was my vision from the beginning. I thought to myself, I don't want to work. We have no interest in working with major labels. We want to work with nothing but the independent labels here in Chicago and directly with the band's DIY.

So I also set our minimums at 250, which is the lowest minimum of anybody in the country. Just because I felt like there would need to be an entry point for people who work doing vinyl because they felt like it was this mysterious thing or it was too expensive or it was hard to get done. But yeah, when they come in here to the plant, it's amazing because they get an opportunity to see their art being pressed physically onto a disc that's going to make their music. It's a great experience.

We've had we also offer the ability to come in and listen to your task pressing live. We have a lounge where we have our turntable set up in a listening area because we want to be able to discuss if there's an issue or what they're hearing on there. And when we have some people come in and have done that, it's quite amazing. They've literally walked out of our listening lounge and have given us hugs.

And I was joking with my partner one day. I was like, who in the world has a job where their clients are hugging them? I'm like, this is an amazing thing. We're doing this.

It's fun. So yeah, the reactions are great. It's almost a full time job dealing with the bands when they're coming in because they want to hang out all day while you're still trying to get their record done at the same time. But we don't care.

That's part of the song. Yeah, it sounds like it. And it's so cool that you're giving essentially local bands and smaller label bands an opportunity to get their music on vinyl because I mean, it's one thing seen it on Spotify or on YouTube, but to hold it on a record in your hand, it's got to be just such a wonderful experience for them. Oh, certainly.

And I always say, my line has always been, and I've been using this for years, even before I got into the pressing business, is if you're releasing something online, did you actually ever release a record? You know, everybody can do something in their back bedroom on Pro Tools and release it, right? Like, but to actually have some physical format made, that's really releasing a record, in my opinion. So I got to agree with you.

I mean, physical and especially analog technology is just, in my opinion, it's just the way to go. It's just such a different listening experience and holding it in your hand. It's it's magical, really. But you got a perfect segue in here.

I mean, right now in our current age, it seems like the predominant way to listen to music is Spotify or YouTube or something else online. So if we're going off of that logic, common sense would say, records should be dead. But the opposite is happening. Records are thriving and you even have cassette tapes coming back.

Why do you think analog technology specifically vinyl records and cassette tapes are coming back in such a big way in the music scene? Well, let me let me answer this in a little bit of a different direction. You know, what I what I like to say about streaming is screaming actually work hand in hand. Sometimes they get pitted against each other, streaming in vinyl or physical.

We want to call it that. And I kind of look at it as they're very complimentary to each other. I mean, the way I use it as a fan is now you get to sample your record before you actually buy it. You know, and if I like something, I'm still going to want that physical copy over over just streaming it, right?

And it goes back to I think this is kind of what drives it. When I was coming up listening to music and DJing and whatnot, it was always great to be able to say to your friends like, you know, oh, I own that record, right? Like that was something everybody said, you know, you'd be talking about some new band and be like, yeah, man, I have that record. Now everybody can say that because they can just pull up their phone and go, yeah, I can open this app and I have that record.

But do you really? Like, do you actually own that record? So there's still I still feel that there is a there is definitely something very tangible about having the ownership of the record. So that I'm not sure it even plays as much into the analog of it is just actually having the physical copy.

And then what I was always doing as a fan as well, as you know, you go to a show, go to a local show, you pay eight bucks to get in, you are thrilled by the band you happen to see, maybe there was a band touring band in from out of town. So you walk about that merch tape on the way out, I always felt like it was a way to support those bands even more and have a momento from the night. I have no problem dropping the $20 for the record, you know. So I think there's it's that in the DIY world, especially it's just another way to support these guys in the way they're doing their art, because we all know they're not making much money, but it's another way to put a little money in their pockets.

Yeah, that's a really interesting perspective. I'm glad you brought it up and everything because it is a way of supporting those those bands out there. And even how they were complimentary is is a really awesome perspective. So it's vinyl fun and we have over 130 college radio stations from across the world participating in this day.

How is Calent radio played a part in vinyl's resurgence? Well, I think you know what's great about college radio is how it's radio is always been the exploratory ground of music in general and has been since you know at least the 80s. And it's where the independent team grew up from. So it's so amazing to still see this many college radio stations now jumping into the vinyl into things and saying, all right, we're going to do vinyl all day long.

This is what we're part of. I mean, I bet you 10 years ago, you could probably walk into a college radio station, you would find a kid who would even know how to queue up a record. So it's fantastic on the resurgence end of just having those stations across the country because that means kids on campus are listening to this going, yeah, maybe I should go out and get a turntable. Maybe I should get into the vinyl final collecting end of this and run over to the records store by some of these records.

So it's great on the entry point level, I think, and just the support in general. I got a fun question for you, Andy, and I'm talking right now with Andy from Smash Plastic Records. What's your website so people can go and check you out? SmashPlastic.com.

That's the best way to jump off with us. If you're interested in doing, you know, doing a record with us, there's a little questionnaire on there that you can fill out comes to us and that's kind of our starting point. Yeah, definitely go check it out. They're also on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Be sure to give them a follow today. And here's my fun question for you. Well, maybe not so much fun because you have a burning house right now and you have to run in and save five five of your favorite records. What would you run into a fire and save man?

I mean, this is such a hard question, but I mean, I, you know, I've been a radio DJ for years. So people always like to ask me what my favorite record is. So I might always have to can't answer at least one ready to go. And it was always been the self title, uh, debut released from the Stone Roses.

So you got to save that one. I probably have to save Tim by the replacements, um, because that's always my can't answer my favorite band. You know, it was me, but you can always have that answer ready to go. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah. So then the five records, I mean, I don't know that it was possible to answer, for three more. I can't even think of what's in my collection right now. Yeah, I don't know.

Well, you got two excellent choices right there. And if anything pops back into your head, feel free to give it a shout for us. And because I only got a couple more questions for you, Andy. Again, thank you so much for spending some time with us today.

We're in Chicago. I love Chicago. I think it's the greatest city in the world. I'm biased, but that's just me.

What role has Chicago played in not only the resurgence of vinyl records, but also with what you guys are doing at Smash Plastic Records? Well, I think that the best thing about Chicago is that I'm not sure everybody's always aware of it because everybody's kind of into their own genre of music. But the amount of genres we have here in town is staggering. The amount of like the music that is being made, not just in your independent band that are playing at the empty bottle, but I'm talking about jazz, house, hip hop, that the amount of music that is being made in this city is almost second to none.

You know, you can go to other cities where known for music, Memphis, Nashville, and New Orleans, they're all kind of known for one specific genre of music. Chicago is known for so many. So it's very cool in our end seeing how many different types of genres I'm pressing throughout the week. It's not always just the same old garage band.

It's like everything from jazz to ambient to stuff that, quite frankly, I would never even listen to. It's been great to have that exposure as just a business owner getting to work with some of these fans. But I think that's what the fine Chicago to be. And it has been that way for the last 50, 80 years.

Chicago has always been this melting pot of music that has just so many different genres and so much going on. And everything one of those genres has people that are just massively passionate and making about making new music. Andy Weber from Smashed Plastic Records. Thank you so much for spending some time with us today.

If you could give out your website again so people can go and check you out. Yeah, smashplastic.com. That's where you could start with us. And that was my conversation with Andy Weber.

To learn more about Smashed Plastic Records, check out their website at smashplastic.com. I'm Peter Creason and thanks for listening. Thank you very much for listening to this WXAV 88.3 FM podcast. Be sure to visit our website WXAV.com for more information on your escape from ordinary radio.