Elektra Records

Elektra Records is an American record company that signed Ween in 1992. They released Pure Guava, Chocolate and Cheese, 12 Golden Country Greats, The Mollusk and White Pepper.

History with Ween

In 1992, Ween was signed to Elektra Records by the A&R representative Steve Ralbovsky.

• Ralbovsky, as quoted in Chocolate and Cheese by Hank Shteamer:

The lo-fi thing was almost a mark of distinction. It was kind of a turn away from super-hi-fi, super-deluxe digital recording. It gave [Ween] another measure of uniqueness, and it wasn't so lo-fi that it was an unpleasant listening experience. It was part of their sound, and part of who they were, and part of what they did. It hearkened to what they did live, and I didn't give it much of a second thought. If there was any second thought it was, "Sonically, this is cool that it's 4-track and lo-fi. . . . It was basically: give them the resources to make the records the way they wanted to make them, support their agenda within the label and try to come up with creative plans with my colleagues to support the releases. And just basically get out of the way.

• Ween manager Dave Ayers:

We were able to make this crazy record deal, still the best record deal I've ever been involved in. The record company not only had no artistic input; it said in the contract that the record company's not allowed to come to the studio. That was in the contract. Because those guys just started coming up with shit. "How 'bout if they never come to the studio? Steve [Ralbovsky]'s fine but I don't want him coming to the studio. Can we put that in the contract?" And the lawyer would be like, "Sure." And all that stuff ended up flying. And the money was significant — it wasn't, like, millions of dollars, but it was hundreds of thousands per record for records that were to be judged not on artistic merit but on technical quality only, and the standard for technical quality was, in fact, Pure Guava, a 4-track record. So, their whole career, they could've made 4-track records and collected checks for $350,000. That was the joke: I think we got $200,000 for licensing Pure Guava, and that record cost them about $42 to make. . . . Steve was the odd and crucial link that could make something like Pure Guava happen. And [Bob] Krasnow [president of Elektra] was a weird guy in his own way. He had a very eclectic roster of real artists at a time when it was becoming quickly out of fashion to do that. The timing had to be right on something like that.

• Andrew Weiss:

No major label had ever put out a record recorded on a 4-track, except maybe [Bruce Springsteen's] Nebraska. But obviously [Nebraska] didn't sound Scotchguard. It didn't wear its 4-track on its sleeve like Pure Guava does. So that was kind of a coup because they got all this dough for doing a record on a 4-track that cost, like, $100 to make, and that was probably all spent on pizza and weed.