• Home
• Subscribe
• Store
• Service/FAQ

---

All Pages |  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5 

Mike Larsen did a great job interviewing both Rex Carroll and Scott Wenzel of Whitecross. Here is the raw text of those conversations:

Mike: So, why don’t you, tell me about your… You're starting a record company.
Rex Carroll: Yes, Greg and I are working on that, Kind of a slow, sort of a gradual evolution over the last 10 years, people I know and I had certainly had the thought myself that I could do a lot better if I would just start my own label. But I am really an artist and I have never wanted to be involved in the day to day minutia of running a business, plus I don’t know how. Just the whole prospect of it seemed very overwhelming. Plus a desire to do right by the artist, not from being mean or anything, but just from sloppiness cuz of ignorance. I would hate to be in the position of not doing something right on behalf of an artist.

I understand that, its different if your just doing something for yourself vs…
Right, exactly. The thought of trying to do something right and keep up with the accounting. Seemed kind of overwhelming. Then Greg and I just sort of gradually. I met greg at the stryper gig a couple years ago I guess. When they came thru Chicago area when I got to sit in. I believe it was the house of blues in Chicago when I met Greg. I had a fantastic time down there that night. Loved the band too by the way on that tour, they were awesome.

I didn’t get to see them but I heard they were great.
ah it was great, It was nice to see them being human, without all the backing tracks.

I heard they were really good on that tour.
They were, the vibe was like, you know when a band comes back together your never really sure how the vibe is going to be. It was almost like; well the audience was really there for them… So I met Greg, Greg he is a guitar nut. He’s buddies with Oz, buddies with myself, talks to all the guitar players in all the bands. We have been talking and talking and talking, he helped me with a few things, such as, I have a stock of original Whitecross Cd’s that I had bought the last of it from Star song when they were going out of print. So I have had those for a long time, just figured you know that I would sell them little by little just here and there. So I was doing that, then Greg said we could put them on the website. So Greg started the website, cuz that’s what he had done at Whitecrossmusic.com. We have had real good success with moving a lot of things thru that and then there was also a desire, over a period of many years, anyone who is interested in Christian music, and anyone who is interested in Whitecross and myself and or Scott. We have not kept in touch with all the people that are out there, there’s not really been a mechanism to do that. What Greg started doing was organizing Email lists and consolidation of just a lot of email into one place. Giving people the opportunity to sound off by putting up message boards and stuff like that. So the fans have been coming back and I am just really happy about that. I have gotten a lot of wonderful supportive mail, Especially lately. The timing just seems right, so in the outgrowth of things Greg had suggested why don’t we see what we can do about getting the original Whitecross album back together. So, from there we looked into contacting Star Song. Of course they very 'Nope, nope, we're not going to help you at all, go away.' (laughs) Big bad evil mean record company type response. Its ours, We are entitled to make money off it, you’ll never get another dime. (said quite jokingly) that was just kinda kind of the vibe. So well just have to take matters into our own hands. Fact of the matter is, just speaking only for myself, I got Whitecross, King James, The Rex Carroll Band, Ive got a lot of instrumental things that I have done, A lot of albums that people have done that I have played as a side man on such as the Eden album where I did all the guitar tracks on that. We have just had a lot of discussions about bringing all of that stuff out. So really the need to organize and take it too the next level. Greg has been successful in running businesses before, we kind of launched this Girder media that has been brewing for a long time. Its sort of a natural division of labor, I am the creative director and Greg is handling the oversight of the business affairs, of course we both work together, its not like exclusive, He is really oriented toward sales and marketing and I am really oriented towards running the studio, and since I have the studio. That’s sort of what I have done over the past 10 - 15 years. I have been gradually building a studio over the years.

What kind of studio do you have?
Well it started out just as a project studio and it has grown a little by little. I have a lot of business throughout the year. Such as, for example right at the moment, I’ve got one of the local churches that is having a big church event. They have like 8 different bands from different churches in the area performing. And so I did like a live recording for that, mixing it for them and helping them get the CD together. It’s a lot of local stuff.

Is it an all digital set up?
No it’s a combination of digital and analogue. Actually I use Logic, a lot of guys use pro tools. When I started in digital, I was kind of steered into logic by some friends of mine that were kind of helping teach me the ropes. I Just been in Logic and I just kind of stayed in it since. Actually Rick Armstrong who is bass player alumni from the band, he’s got a studio up in Michigan. He is all pro tools.

NEXT PAGE
All Pages |  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5 

Return to Internet Exclusives

---