Fabian Geyrhalter:
It's such a huge pleasure to have you on. Your story is amazing. I mean, when you were only 13 years old, so Wikipedia tells me, you helped form the beloved ska punk band called The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, which everyone here knows. You spent 17 years playing the lead guitar with them, and then your journey took you to roles as a music executive, highly successful at Republic, Capital, Warner Brothers. You signed acts such as The Weeknd, Phantogram, Maggie Rogers, and the list goes on and on. Today, I talk to you as you being the president of Giant Music. Take us back to those first years of the Bosstones. I mean, you were 13 years old. What got you all together? What inspired the band?

Nate Albert:
Well, Joe, the bass player and I were in a school called Fairweather Street School in Cambridge, Mass, outside of Harvard Square, which was a really small hippie school and it was student directed. It was based on Summer Hill, which is an educational theory. And we loved music and we loved punk rock. And at the same time, this band came out called Musical Youth that were kids. And we were kind of like, "Oh, we could do that. If they could do that, we could do a band." And we would have these band practices every weekend at my house or Joe's house where a bunch of friends would come and play. Those practices basically turned into the early Bosstones, but that was really how it all started.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
And you're credited as being one of the inventors of ska punk, and that kind of just happened almost accidentally?

Nate Albert:
I think what I find is that every generation of artists are weaving together their influences and creating their own fabric and their own new kind of music. And so for us, We were listening to punk rock and we were listening to hardcore and we were listening to Ska and Rock Steady, and it just seemed to make sense to us to put it all together. And for say an artist like the Beastie Boys, they were listening to punk rock and hip hop, and it's made sense to put those sensibilities together. Or Metallica, they were listening to that metal and the misfits, and they married those things. And I still see it even in signing The Weeknd, I saw Abel was listening to Tears for Fears and The Smiths and Siouxsie and the Banshees and also R&B, and he married all of those sensibilities together. So it was very familiar to me, and it is every year seeing a different version of this. And I love it how people do it and how culture keeps reinventing itself. And yeah, that was kind of how we did it too.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And you can hear it out of all of those artists. And it's great because there's a certain familiarity with it, which you kind of need. It's nice because it's not completely foreign, but it's different.

Nate Albert:
I think that's key because it does feel like home to people because you hear a record come out that sounds like, "Oh, that sounds like Phoebe Bridgers," but it also sounds like Taylor Swift or whatever the new marriage is of influences.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah. And I'm sure a lot of artists don't like saying that like, "Hey, I'm just like the Smiths, but with punk." But it's a great way to put them into a category even if it's a new category, right?

Nate Albert:
Yeah. Well, I think art, film, music, everything is socially constructed, so you can't help it. We're products of what's going on around us. I don't know that it's always done with intention, but sometimes it is like the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin were certainly like, we're taking these blues things and we're going to morph them in with Elvis and Rock and we're going to make this other thing, which they certainly did. So sometimes it's probably more of an intellectual pursuit, but more often than not, it's just the things you know when you're writing songs and the problem solving comes from the records you're listening to. And so the result is this new mix.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah. It's subliminal almost because you can only act upon what you know. And so it's not something that they set out to do, but it's just what they know to do. You guys, and by that I mean the Bosstones, you guys temporarily dismantled early, early, early on. You were just on a couple of compilations, but you had to dismantle because you and Gittleman had to graduate high school, right? Is that true?
That's so good.

Nate Albert:
That is true. I was more like, "I'm going to graduate high school." And Joe ended up getting a spot in that hardcore band called Gang Green from Boston. He also finished high school, but he was really into doing playing and touring. And I think for us, it was almost like what we were doing, we were kind of too early and I don't think we knew how to connect the dots yet. So we needed a little bit of a break. But I think I quit when I was 15, which is insane.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I think that's a good beginning of any biography, right? He quit the first band when he was 15, just worn out, just tired from touring and the rock life.

Nate Albert:
Just needed to retire from the whole thing.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I get it. Yeah, this is funny. And you guys played tons of festivals back in the day. I mean, Lollapalooza, the Tibetan Freedom Concert, which I think that was a huge one. Do any of them stand out to you to this day in your memory? Any big festival stories?

Nate Albert:
Yeah. What was so crazy about them, and I still am such a fan of artists and what's going on. I remember playing Tibetan Freedom Concert and Lee Scratch Perry was playing that show, which is absolutely insane to me. And hanging out with Eddie Vedder before the show, but loving Pearl Jam too and hanging out with the Beastie Boys and loving the Beastie Boys. It really felt like you were just kind of behind the curtain, but pretending that you weren't as stoked as you were. One of the craziest shows I remember was we played the K-Rock Weenie Roast. I think it was 1997. And the bill, it was the Cure, Oasis, Radiohead, Blur, Foo Fighters. I think Beck was on it and we were on it. In retrospect, that is insane. Bonkers. Yeah, absolutely bonkers. And also we did Lollapalooza for a whole summer and our horn players would play with the Jesus Lizard and we hung out.
We played ping pong with Pavement all summer. And most of the memories of that tour were the backstage hanging out with people that were lovely and wonderful. The Beck crew and team were fantastic. And Melissa from Hole was awesome. It was very weird to be on that tour where it was such a cultural thing and it was such a goal of ours to be part of that world, but I absolutely loved it. And then we also, the next year we did a tour, the Horde Tour with Neil Young, and I got to watch Neil Young play every night with Crazy Horse for about a month. It was fantastic. And there were festivals all around the world where you got to see Smashing Pumpkins early on, who I loved. And just so many cool moments and things.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Wonderful.

Nate Albert:
We did a bunch of stuff with Fishbone and Stone Temple Pilots and Chris from Fishbone, his roommate was Jeff Buckley. And so Jeff came on tour and was hanging out with all of us for a week and was absolutely lovely and awesome. This is before he had put out a record. He was just around and fantastic. So you met so many cool people and it was just a very special time.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Amazing. Amazing. Well, I'm glad I dug this out of you because what a journey. Unbelievable. Do you remember going way, way back before you quit your first band? Okay, so now we're going way back at least two more years before you quit your first band. Yes. Probably you must have been, I don't know, eight or so when you bought your first record, I'm pretty sure. But do you remember how old you were when you bought your first record or what it was even?

Nate Albert:
Yes, I distinctly remember. So I had a lot of records around the house because my mom had obviously Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan, The Beatles she gave me. She'd given me Buddy Holly. My brother had all sorts of cool punk rock records around. But that hippie school that I went to, the class, they grouped the classes. So first, second, third grade, and then fourth, fifth, sixth were together. And so there was a fund that the class raised to buy some records, and I was anointed the person that would go to the record store and buy the records. And I think I was nine years old. I went to the Harvard Coop and I bought three records for the classroom, and they were The Clash London Calling, which had just come out, Devo, Duty Now for the Future, their first one. And then the B - 52s self-titled.
Those were the ones.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Insane. Insane. So all of this is insane. So first of all, how this whole thing worked and how you were the one going to the record store. I just had Fred Schneider on of the B - 52s. I mean, what an amazing guy. So if you put these three singles, I suppose, right seven inches, 45s, if you put the three together, it's basically the Bosstones. I mean, it all makes

Nate Albert:
Sense. Kind of in many ways, yeah.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
This is therapy. I didn't tell you. This is a very therapeutic kind of podcast.

Nate Albert:
Oh my God. Yeah

Fabian Geyrhalter:
No problem. No problem. We tried to overcome all your festival problems, but there were none. So you're all good. Thank you. That's unbelievable. Yeah, good. Very good. I'll send you the bill later. Fast-forward to now, how many records do you have now? Are you still a collector? I think you are still a collector. I saw you at VinylCon.

Nate Albert:
Yeah. Yes. Well, I was a huge collector when I was younger and I have Danzig and Misfits singles that I bought for $2, $3 when they came out because there was Newberry Comics in Cambridge where you could go buy stuff very, very easily. They had all the independent punk rock stuff. But there was a period where CDs happened and when I was touring a lot, I'd have these huge binders with CDs. All of those got trashed and I reignited my vinyl collecting thing later on when I was off the road. But I have most of it in Discogs, but I think if I add in the stuff that's kind of scattered around that maybe I have a catalog, I'm probably around 3,000 records, which isn't crazy, but depends who you talk to.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I know. I always say that too. I think in the bio on Tonoptic, I was boasting that I've got 2000 records and then everyone started laughing at me in the industry and I'm like, okay, I might take that off. It was like, if you're under 20,000, I mean, who are you? You're a collector? Come on, get out of here. There are some..

Nate Albert:
Collectors that have over two million records, people that I know, which is insane.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Oh my God.

Nate Albert:
Yeah. There's all other levels of this.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
But don't call it hoarding when it's records.

Nate Albert:
No, not hoarding. Curated.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Curated, highly curated. One million highly curated records. If you, in your mind, go through your record collection even on Discogs, which artist do you think you've got the most records of? I mean, it might be the Bosstones.

Nate Albert:
Oh, wow. I didn't even factor that in. It probably is the Bosstones because what happened was I loved vinyl so much and the label was not. Labels in the '90s weren't really making vinyl, so I worked with the other guys and we started a label called Big Rig Records for the Bosstones. So if you see any of the Bosstones records, it says Mercury Records/Big Rig, and we got the vinyl right. So we would make colored vinyl in different versions of all the records that we put out. So I was the guy that had to listen to all the test pressings. So I have a ton of Bosstones, seven inches and different versions and yes. But in non-Bosstones stuff, it's a tie between The Clash and the Specials in terms of seven inches, 12 inches, Japanese versions, other countries, different releases, promo copies. Those are the two that I just cannot pass up.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Amazing. Which again, I mean, you look in the mirror ball, it just makes sense, The Clash. Tons of Sense.

Nate Albert:
And we had this time, this period, I think it was 1998, there was a music walk of fame in Boston that they'd given something to the New Edition and New Kids on the Block and Aerosmith and The Cars, and there were like stars, and they gave the Bosstones one, and Joe Strummer came over and spent the weekend with us record shopping, antiquing, partying, drinking, dancing, and giving us this award. So we had the guy that really made me want to do this give us a major bear hug. It was awesome, and the most lovely person.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Unbelievable. That is super, super cool. And I love that you are such a vinyl head that even during the '90s where, like you said, no record label would actually put out records, I mean, not many, that you just created your own sub-label and said, "No, let's do this." Super cool.

Nate Albert:
I used to go to this place, Kim's video in New York when I was there and buy seven inches of indie rock stuff. I just love the. For whatever reason, the sound of vinyl never fatigues me. Obviously, digital does fatigue after a while, but vinyl you can listen to forever. But also just the handmade quality of something that maybe there's only a 500 of them and there's something written by the artist in it or hand printed. I love that stuff.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I know. Yeah. I mean, me and everyone listening. At this Vinylcon three days ago, I found, I'm a big Depeche Mode collector and I've got 496 now.

Nate Albert:
Oh, wow. That's cool.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
…and I found a Brazilian promo of Personal Jesus, and on the other side, it was the Sugarcubes, and it was just so wild. There was literally the cover had two sides, and then the 12-inch had two sides, and that's what I love about collecting. It's stuff that you never even knew existed, and then you go to a hundred record shops and you never see anything new. You're like, "No, I have it all." And then suddenly something like that, and you're like, "Hallelujah."

Nate Albert:
Wow, that's so cool. Congrats. That's a good one.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Thank you. It was a good one. Talking about records that you cherish, is there one record that... You live in LA now, right?

Nate Albert:
Yeah.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah. So if there's the big medium or small earthquake, or if there's the next fire, or we got it all, right? If there's the next thing happening and you need to. All of the above, pick one, or most probably one will be picked for you, and you have to run out of the house and you take one record, which one would it be?

Nate Albert:
There's two records that are really meaningful and also rare, and they're out of my top five. I separated in my head of how these would all work. One is the first pressing of the Misfits Bullet that it's screen printed by Glenn Danzig. It was early. This is that kind of handmade stuff that I was talking about that I love. And that band was so important to me in the marriage of accessibility and anticulture at the same time. I love the duality of that. And the other one is probably, I have a mono first press of Pete La Roca, Basra, which was super hard to find and get, and I love that record. I'm going to add a third one, which is probably, because he was my jazz teacher when I was a teenager, Yusef Latif, Eastern Sounds. A friend gave me a pressing, it is the Electric Company pressing. They did these really crazy short pressings, I think 350 of them, and I have one of those and I though it was the most thoughtful gift.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Didn't you get that at the VinylCon in March?

Nate Albert:
That's separate. That was Jasmine. That was

Fabian Geyrhalter:
A different pressing. Oh, it was a different teacher.

Nate Albert:
It was the same teacher, but a different album from the same teacher.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Okay. Okay. Because I saw that. Yeah, that's super cool. That's really neat. What's the rarest? Which is the rarest record you have? I mean, look, since you actually use discox, you must probably have a pretty good idea of which one might be on the very, very top there.

Nate Albert:
I think the rarest probably is the Misfits Bullet because the fan base, they only made a thousand of them. I think it came out in 1978, if I'm right, and the fan base is massive.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Hardcore collectors. Hardcore Collectors. Yeah.

Nate Albert:
Yeah. So I mean, I feel blessed to have that. But there is one Nirvana seven-inch where it's one of 20, I think, that I have too, which also is probably super rare. I think it's that Nirvana split single with Melvins, but it's in this weird ice green kind of white color. Anyway.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Wow. Wow, wow. Wow, that's amazing. So when we talk about some of the rarest records in your stash, and then going to the extreme opposite of records that are in your collection that are considered pretty much worthless, you might get a penny for it or you find them in the $1 bins, guilty pleasure or otherwise. I always find it so interesting because I've got some guilty pleasures and I'm like, I love that and I wish other people would hear it, but it just never made it. Is there something in your collection that you feel like is.

Nate Albert:
I have one record, yes, that I literally can't believe it every time I see it in a store that it's under $10 or whatever. It's the first Pretenders album, the self-titled, that was produced by Nick Lowe and Chris Thomas who did Sex Pistols and Roxy Music. That album to me is so amazing front to back, but it's partially because it was so successful probably that they made so many of them. But I also, in a weird way, I don't know that everyone these days is aware of how awesome that album is. It's accessible and also insanely complex, and the guitar playing is just stunning on it. James Honeyman Scott is just a beast. So if people have not listened to that, get that record, the first Pretender self-titled.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah, exactly. There are so many reasons why I love doing this podcast, but this is the major one where I feel like after every episode, I go right back and rediscover music or discover new artists, but in context, in context of why you or someone else on the show thinks it is so amazing, and it's just wonderful. And everyone listening is going to listen to that first Pretenders album now, and especially the guitar, and think about how it's been undervalued by collectors with $1, but it's been overplayed most probably in the beginning. It's cool. I love those stories. It's fantastic. That's awesome. What are your top five albums? It's a super hard one. I give you a heads-up on this question because otherwise it's impossible.

Nate Albert:
Yeah. So again, I'm answering my top five in my creative DNA. So these are albums that have been my go-tos forever, and they are The Clash London Calling, Minor Threat Filler EP, The Talking Heads Remain In Light, The Specials, The Specials self-titled, and The Replacements, Let It Be. Those are the five.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Nice, nice. Very, very good. I'm glad that you were able to give this some thought. It's important.

Nate Albert:
It's hard because every year there are other albums that I absolutely love, or there's albums that I will listen to that are not on that list. But that list, when I'm making in Bosstones and stuff or writing, those are, I think, more how I play guitar, how I think about the world, how I think about politics. I think all of it comes out of those. That's the roots for me.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
It's like the five island records, right? If you take them to the island, which ones would you take, right? Because you can listen to them forever and they bring back memories and they formed you and. Yeah, totally. 100%. Are there any records or is there one record that you feel a lot of people listening may not be familiar with that you want to share, just to expand everyone's musical horizon? Obviously, you're running giant music and you're exposed to a lot of music.

Nate Albert:
Yeah. Well, I'm going back. There's an artist named Pat Kelly, and he put out a single on, I think, Palma Records in 1967. It's called Little Boy Blue, and his voice is like Sam Cook. When I first heard Pat Kelly, I could not believe that he was not massive, and it is so stunningly brilliant, and the voice is so amazing. Pat Kelly ended up becoming a recording engineer in the Rock Steady thing and was very involved in other people's records and has a bunch of albums, but just that song, I would go back and listen to that, or as much of Pat Kelly as you want. But when I first heard Pat Kelly, I was floored, and so I would recommend to everybody to check that out.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Super exciting. Absolutely will do so. Any other recent release or any recent release that you're excited about? Could absolutely be from your own too. Is there anything -

Nate Albert:
I mean, currently, I'm working on the new Maggie Rogers record, and so it's not released, but I'm hearing all of it is so brilliant, and I'm so excited. So that's where my head's at at the moment, but I roll into many other records too, but I'm just going to keep it on that.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
What a tease. What a tease. Shouting out things that we can't hear, but you can day in, day out. It's just not right, but that's okay. It makes us look forward to it. I mean, obviously, she's going to be amazing. What an amazing artist. When record stores, we talked a little bit about you growing up and about record stores in the area that shaped you. Currently, what's one of your favorite record stores? It can be international or it can be local here in LA. I mean, we got plenty of them, but what's one of your favorite ones?

Nate Albert:
I've got three for you.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Love it.

Nate Albert:
My favorite in LA is Atomic Records in Burbank. Steve has been a teacher for me in terms of different parts of jazz that I wasn't totally across. I've studied jazz when I was a kid and have listened throughout my life, but he's just got another level understanding, and not just jazz, but punk rock and every genre, but that store. And there's so many great. I mean, Safari Records is fantastic here too, and I mean, there's so many great record stores. But for me, where I spend the most probably time digging would be Atomic. And then in London, there's a store called Yo-Yo Records, which is awesome, just really curated and really, really cool. The kind of store you dream of stumbling upon. It has an amazing Instagram, so you can check it out if you're out there. And in Tokyo, there's a store called Coco-Isle, which is basically Rock Steady Ska only.
And you go up, it's I think three or four floors up. In Japan, there's stores on not just street level, but in these almost apartment buildings, and there's literally a sound system like you would find in Nottinghill in the store where they're blasting Trojan records, and it's so cool. And the things you can't find in London anymore are there. And if you love Rock Steady and you love reggae and you love Early Ska, it's literally a dream.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Awesome. That's awesome. I mean, I know all the LA ones, but in London, I don't think I know Yo-Yo. I'm going to look that up. That sounds very cool. Cool. Excellent. Well, Nate, listen, I mean, we know what you're working on. You're working on the Maggie Rogers record. What else are you working on currently? What's next for you?

Nate Albert:
What's exciting? There's a new record by an artist named Hohnen Ford that we signed here, which we have made with John Congleton, which is absolutely stunning. We are working with Rob Cavallo on an artist named Henry Morris. That album and single is coming out very soon. The most recent single is doing incredibly well, so everybody check that one out. Empress Of has more singles on the way. The new Cash Cobain album is insane. The new Alfie Jukes album is insane. There's just so much stuff, and Giant's in this really exciting space where we're just signing and hiring people, and we feel really, really blessed to be working on all of this stuff.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
How cool. Very cool. We just gave away a couple of months ago an Empress Of double album here at Toneoptic. So yeah, awesome. It sounds like there's a lot of wind in your sails right now, and it seems like you're really enjoying what you're working on, which is great.

Nate Albert:
Yeah. I mean, to be able to work on music and to love music as much as I do, you kind of pinch yourself every day. It's the best.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Seriously, seriously. Absolutely. Well, listen, I always, when I started this podcast, I said I need to keep it under 30 minutes. And I never can. I never do. I never keep it under 30 minutes. But because you were so tight and so perfectly prepared, we are right under 30 minutes and I'm so excited about this because I know listeners, usually a commute is 30 minutes. Not in LA, everything is one hour, but usually for the rest of the world, it's 30 minutes. I'm so glad that we're able to wrap it up in 30 minutes. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your record collection with us and for checking in. And it was so good to meet you on the show.

Nate Albert:
Oh, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed this. It was great.