Hefty Records - History

History

Hefty Records was formed by John Hughes (as well as Bill Ding and Dan Snazelle) as a way of releasing Hughes' own music. The label was formed while Hughes was still on campus at the Ohio University, originally set up in his dorm room, in 1995. The first releases were two 7" singles and one EP created using basic analog technologies. After some minor promotion, Ding was put on college radio. This led to The Euphone record that Ryan Rapsys had collaborated. Soon afterwards a demo was given to Hughes from Scott Herren. Hughes accepted Scott Herren's request and he was added to the label as an artist under the name Savath and Savalas. Hefty next began the Immediate Action series in 2000, a collection intended to result consist of six vinyl records. The first record out was the Savath and Savalas 12-inch Immediate Action #001 with all the records hand pressed by Hughes. The sleeves were created by the Brooklyn graphics company Graphic Havoc. They used a stencil and spray painting technique to create each album; with different stickers to tell them apart. This series was met with success, and fulfilled the concept of getting the music out quick, in limited quantities, and with little promotion. As Hefty Records continued, so did the amounts of demo by independent artists hoping to be accepted to the group. Telefon Tel Aviv was the next group to show up on the recording company's records. Hefty Records is still putting out new material to this day.