At Dan’s Tunes, we work to bring you a comprehensive picture of the Seattle music scene, and musical artists are a big part of that. But, an album doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It takes a whole host of people to bring a musician’s vision to life. In this series, “Behind the Scene,” we’re taking a look at all of the people who are integral to the process of making music that you probably haven’t heard of before — from producers and radio DJs to vinyl cutters and photographers. Our goal is to make the series both educational and a resource for artists looking to expand their teams. Today, we’re chatting with Sonic Boom Records.

Nestled into a corner of Ballard only blocks away from popular Seattle music venues The Sunset Tavern, Tractor Tavern, and Conor Byrne Pub, Sonic Boom Records bills itself as “Seattle’s source for independent music.” Opened in 1997 by Jason Hughes and Nabil Ayers, the store has long been a Seattle mainstay for local music — from the early days when Hughes and Ayers helped break Death Cab for Cutie to current-day in-store performances from bands like Sloucher and Tacocat. Now owned by Mike Pitts, Sonic Boom provides a space for local artists to showcase their work and for Seattleites to discover that work, all headed up by Local Buyer Kay Redden (who also runs local cassette label Den Tapes).

I sat down with Pitts and Redden to talk about what they love about working at a record store, why independent music is important, and how musicians can get their products into the store. Below is our interview, edited for length and clarity.

Let’s get to know each other. What do you do at Sonic Boom?

Mike: I’m the owner. I bought the store almost five years ago. I always refer to myself as owner/operator. I have my hands in a little bit of everything, as Kay does.

Kay: I’m the local buyer. I’ve been here for almost four years. It’ll be four years this month, so almost as long as Mike. I made myself my own title, and everyone was fine with it so that’s nice. I do all the consignment, and I also order from some of the local labels around town, like Barsuk, Sub Pop, and The Business up in Anacortes. I do a lot of our social media. 

How did you start working at Sonic Boom?

Mike: I always joke that I had a midlife crisis five years ago, and maybe it’s not really a joke. I’d been working in real estate for many years and really, really, really started to dislike that. My wife read that Sonic Boom was being sold, and she called me at work and said, “Hey, this is it. You gotta do this.” I had been buying records from Jason and Nabil, the original owners, since they opened in the 90s. It was a big deal. It was one of the coolest things I’ve yet to do in my life. 

Kay: I had applied to work at Sonic Boom many times before Mike owned the store, but I never got hired. So let’s thank Mike for buying the store. I had been collecting records since I was in high school, and then I moved here when I was 20 and had a miserable job at Whole Foods. In the meantime, I was trying to apply to all the record stores in Seattle. I’m glad that I’m here, and I’m glad that Mike saw something in me that he trusted to bring on board.

What’s your favorite part about working at Sonic Boom?

Mike: We have a great culture. I feel a nice kind of family vibe with everybody. People are allowed to express themselves, throw their ideas out, and take initiative to come up with ideas that management isn’t throwing down on them.

Because I have a family, I’m a little bit detached from the scene and the city. It makes me happy that [I can learn about it] from Kay and some of the other employees that are younger and involved in the scene — not just going out and seeing shows, but running labels or being in bands. That’s a nice energy to be around, and that keeps you young. And it’s not just about music, either. In five years, you can look and see how many things have changed culturally in our society and our city. When you’re able to talk and debate and think through those changes with people that are younger than you, that’s really, really beneficial. I wish more people had that outlet because those perspectives are really important. You aren’t thinking about things like you did when you were 25 or 30. I really value the personal side of my interaction at the store. I love getting to collect my records, but the social side of it is what I value a lot. 

Kay: I’ll add onto Mike’s sentiment. It’s nice to be able to talk to everyone here. I never feel like I’m going to be judged — at least too harshly. If I’m about to play an emo record, there’s going to be some judgment [laughs]. It’s really nice to have trust in everyone. It is very family-like, like Mike said.

It’s also really nice to have people come in for you or a specific employee and be like, “What are you listening to right now? Your last seven recommendations were amazing. Please tell me something else to listen to.” We all have a very specific niche, but we all pay attention to each other’s niches. My horizons have opened tenfold since starting to work here. Before I worked at a record store, I would be like, “Hey friends, listen to this.” And people would be like, “Okay, whatever.” But now people are legitimately like, “Oh, this is amazing. Thank you so much.” It’s just nice to finally be listened to.

Sonic Boom bills itself as “Seattle’s source for independent music.” Why is that important?

Mike: I wish the founders were here to answer that question because that was what they built the shop on. At the time, they also had a Sonic Boom label they were putting records out on. There was involvement with Modest Mouse and Death Cab for Cutie. That [slogan] came from fostering the scene they were a part of. Especially without streaming capabilities, bands getting into a store with a CD was a huge deal. So [supporting independent musicians] just seems like a natural thing to do. People love it. Bands love it. Artists love to be able to put their physical media in the store and have it exposed. That’s one of the most enjoyable things about working here. Sometimes we help people just a little bit. I don’t kid myself in thinking that in 2021 a record store is the most important part of a band’s path to exposure, but I hope it can still be a little bit.

In the summertime we get a lot of tourists, and they come in all the time like, “Hook me up with something. I don’t know what’s from this city.” And maybe we get to turn somebody on to a band that has 20 LPs pressed. Then it’s on its way to Boston or Australia or on a cruise ship back to God knows where. It makes you feel good. It’s expensive for a band to get through the process of recording and putting something on physical media and having the sleeve printed and packaged. When someone takes the initiative to do that, I want to help them with the last little bit — getting it into a store. That’s a lot of work. That’s a lot of money. That’s a lot of time and dedication these people are putting into that process. I have a lot of respect for that.

Kay: To piggyback on that, every record store should understand their importance in a local scene. I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to support the people making music in your city. Everybody started in their city. So why not help the people who are starting in your city? Everybody was a tiny ass band at one point. To get really into it — cause I’m nerdy about this shit — it’s like, “Oh, remember when that one band had that one cassette that they put out in like 1994 and now it’s a bazillion dollars on Discogs?” You know why that exists on Discogs right now? Because someone bought it at a local record store and kept it since 1994.

How do you decide what local records to stock?

Kay: We’ll take whatever. You went through all of this to make this record and a CD or an LP. If you have friends that want to come and buy it, that’s the only thing we ask. Let people know it’s here so you look cool when people come and buy it. Tell the internet. Do your side of the job. Promote yourself. Believe in yourself.

The only thing [we don’t] take are things that aren’t active projects. A reissue is fine. If this is your band from 2004 and you made a bunch of CDs and you still have all those CDs, I don’t want that. That’s the hardest part for me, because I want to let everybody have their records here, but if it’s not active, that’s hard. If you’re not playing shows and you’re not actively promoting yourself, it’s really hard to be like, “Buy this thing from 2004 because they had excess.”

How long can something stay in the store before you’re like, “This isn’t selling”?

Kay: The usual timeframe is six months, but it’s a very case by case basis. If they’re selling pretty well for a while, I’ll let the last copy sit around for a minute. If it’s a record that no one has even looked at, this didn’t work out. I’m always like, “Please consign again.” 

I’m very adamant about people coming to pick up their stuff after their time of being consigned is over. If they don’t sell, I feel absolutely terrible if we have to throw them in the trash. Please come get it. It costs so much money to make this. It’s really amazing how many people don’t pick up their stuff. I mean, people are busy. I totally understand. We’re all stretched pretty thin at this point. But I will send you an email like, “Hey, hello? If you don’t come next week, I’m going to throw them away. That’s going to break my heart, but I’m going to have to do it.”

Is there a local section in the store? 

Kay: We have a local section specific for CDs and LPs, a specific section in the 7” for local, and a specific wall for cassettes that are local.

Is there a difference between what you stock for records, CDs, and cassettes? 

Kay: For consignment, we usually start with three copies across the board. If it’s a band that’s doing really well and getting KEXP airplay, I might take five copies of the LP.

Mike: There are times when a proven local band is bringing stuff through, and we write them a check right away to buy 10 LPs or five LPs from them. It’s our gut, too. We’ll be like, “We feel good about these. Let’s buy these. This is going to sell. We’re very confident in this.” Black Ends are a good example of that. We were like, “Yes, give us those records right now.”

How do bands get paid for their records?

Kay: I have a whole chart: Here’s what we sell it for in the store, and here’s what you’ll make back. If you sell a $6.99 tape, you get $5 back. We don’t take that much. We try to be very transparent. I made a sheet to give to people when they consign with us telling them the outline of how long you get to keep it in the store and our social media tags if you want to tag us for letting your friends know where it is. 

How do you price consignment?

Kay: When someone comes in to consign their stuff, I show them the chart and I’m like, “You get to choose your price.” There’s a lot of transparency. I mostly ask people, “What’s your cost per product? What do you want to make back from that?” I usually tell people to stay somewhere in the range of what they’re selling it for online or at a show. It’s nice to keep things even across the board. People are like, “Oh, I can go pick it up there and avoid shipping.”

When can bands consign?

Mike: If someone calls and asks, we’ll point them towards the days Kay’s working, but [whenever].

Kay: I revamped consignment a couple of years ago. I made very easy forms to fill out: name, phone number, email, who you want the check written out to. Sometimes I’ll give emails to the guy who runs our blog so he can like do a feature on a band.

When do artists get paid?

Kay: Mostly end of consignment period. If someone sells all three of their LPs before the consignment period is over, I’ll give them a call and be like, “Hey, these all sold. Come in. We’ll get you paid, and bring us three or four more. Let’s do it all over again.”

What do people buy most: LPs, CDs, or cassettes?

Kay: It depends on your level and where you’re at as a band. If you’re just starting out but you have a cool EP’s worth of music, cassettes are always super fun. Just include a download code.

I would never suggest to someone to make their first physical product an LP unless they’ve got a very concrete following and believe they can make that back. They’re costly [to make], but people do buy LPs the most. Cassettes probably come in second and then CDs, but it could be a toss up depending on the band.

Before the pandemic, Sonic Boom did a lot of in-store performances. How did you choose who to have perform? 

Mike: When I bought the store — there’s an amazing list of bands that have played in that shop — it was a little slower than it had been. I made a commitment to try to have one a month. Major labels are contacting us to have people play, but we really started putting a focus on the local bands. I look at our local section as a partnership between us and those bands. Nobody’s going to get rich from the local section — not the bands, not us, but that’s not the point. This is something we believe in. If a band calls and wants to play, and I know they hustle and have an online presence, they’re going to put people into the shop. It comes back to the energy. Are you going to promote as much as we are? We need you to. That’s a big deal.

Do you have a plan for how in-store performances are coming back? 

Mike: Not other than I want them to. We’ll wait for guidance. I would have to imagine that as the world comes back to normal in the next year, year and a half, I hope that we would be able to do exactly what we did before. But I’ll wait for Mr. Fauci to tell me one way or the other.

Was there anything else you wanted to add?

Mike: I would like to thank everyone so much for supporting us, forever, but especially over the last year. We were shut down close to three months, and then we came back very timidly. I ran the store by myself for a little bit because I didn’t know if it would support everybody, but luckily that didn’t last very long. I think July 1, everybody for the most part came back to work. We’ve had a line at the door almost daily since then, with our store limit to 10 customers. People have been amazing supporting us. I’ll never, as long as I own that store, be able to thank people enough for what they did for us in 2020.

To get in touch with Sonic Boom, call the store at 206-927-2666 or email info@sonicboomrecords.com.

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