Factory Records: Factory Australasia

Official Australasian licensee of the Factory Records international empire by way of a liaison with Australia's GAP Records (Gardiner and Penhallow).

ANDREW PENHALLOW: "Imports were the hottest things coming into the record stores and we had to match them. Everything that Factory dropped came into these stores and went out the same day. The record stores were selling shed loads. Soon we got in touch with them all and told them we where doing the label here. We explained that we'd keep as close to the release schedule as possible and they should deal directly with us from now on. It was crucial that the packaging was good too.

"So I got onto Factory and told them we planned to release everything at the same time as them. We did not want to lose sales to imports that came out months ahead of us. Once the stores saw what we were doing they agreed to wait for our release instead of selling parallel imports. Then we changed our deal from EMI to CBS and they saw me coming. I had arguments with their printing division about the covers. They where resistant but I showed them what Factory had done in the UK. They finally got the message and realised they could do quality work if they put their minds to it. We even did Low-life (Fact 100) with the tracing-paper.

"Most labels would just send over film negatives with a colour proof for printing. But Factory sometimes sent over the proper artwork from their designers. I remember receiving the original marked-up artwork for New Order's 1981-82 (Factus 8) with transparencies. It was fantastic for me coming from a graphics background.

- interview by MATTHEW ROBERTSON with ANDREW PENHALLOW for Scream City fanzine #5.

Factory Australasia - FAC 167 Brighter - THE RAILWAY CHILDREN

Factory Australasia - FAC 166 Bootsy - A CERTAIN RATIO

Factory Australasia - FAC 167 Brighter - THE RAILWAY CHILDREN

Factory Australasia - FAC 166 Bootsy - A CERTAIN RATIO