“Making People Sick Since 1999” – Label slogan
“Lawyers or businesspeople call us morons for only doing one-record deals. They say, ‘You’re not really anything, then.’ Well, we like our catalogue. We like the records we put out. Our bands aren’t rushing away. Our job isn’t to own any artist. We’re here to put out the art that people create.” (Greg Werckman on Ipecac practice of doing a one-album record contract)
California-based Ipecac, was initially set up on April 1, 1999 to release records by Mike Patton project, Fantomas, but it also started to release records by other bands, including Isis and Melvins. Their names comes from ipecac syrup, a vomit-inducing medicine.
Greg Werckman is a co-owner of the label, former manager of Alternative Tentacles, who was also in in Duh, along with Patton and he also runs another label called AntAcidAudio, which so far released records by the likes of Eagles Of Death Metal, Queens Of The Stone Age and NoMeansNo.
Ipecac are also well-known for unusual practice of signing bands to one album contract (which caused many to question the label legitimacy), as well as the fact that the label is pressing no more than 20,000 copies of one record at a time, which allowed them to save a lot of money on overhead costs and to pay the artists in full.
Some of the artists that so far recorded for Ipecac include Bohren & Der Club Of Gore, Dälek, Desert Sessions, Fantomas, Goon Moon, Hella, Isis, Kaada, Kid606, Melvins, Moistboyz, Mouse On Mars, Peeping Tom, Qui, Ruins, Skeleton Key, Young Gods and even Ennio Morricone, whose double-CD compilation of 60’s and 70’s soundtrack work came out on the label in 2005.
The label also planned to release a collection of Live Recordings from Ministry’s 1992 Psalm tour, but the project got canceled.
Selected label releases:
Melvins – The Crybaby (2000)
Fantomas – The Director’s Cut (2001)
Isis – Oceanic (2002)
Bohren & Der Club Of Gore – Black Earth (2003)
Orthrelm – OV (2005)