Jake Saunders knows that the goal of carving out a space in music based on pure intentions is an endless journey — and he’s fine with it.
In fact, before starting his label Ramp Local, Saunders was more into the idea of propelling the local scene forward by booking and promoting shows around Brooklyn. As an active and invested fan of what was going on around him, he was simply stepping in to lend a helping hand where needed.
Growing up in Long Island City and moving to California for his last years of high school, Saunders returned to the east coast to attend Bennington College. While only attending for two years, Saunders was able to come to the conclusion that the scene around campus was just as compelling as the courses being offered there.
“I studied nothing but music and art and got turned on to a whole bunch of amazing shit,” Saunders remembered of that time. “I was putting on shows in our common rooms inviting the Bard [College] bands to come play. I played Palberta’s first live show ever with my band. I opened for them in one of our common rooms.”
Upon his homecoming into the Brooklyn scene, he was welcomed with a fertile scene of DIY venues. He began booking shows at once vital, but never dead, neighborhood hangouts like Shea Stadium, Palisades and Silent Barn. Through booking and attending shows around town, Saunders struck up a friendship with Trip Warner of Wharf Cat Records.
Saunders soon decided to put together and release a compilation record of all the bands he was booking. In order to do so, he would need to book a benefit show to cover the cost. Warner was intrigued by this young upstart’s aspirations so he decided to extend the offer to release it on his new subsidiary label that would focus on more obscure and experimental artists: Ramp Local.
Soon after Eclectic Sessions Vol. 1 was released into the world graced with tracks from bands like Palberta, Show Me The Body, Big Neck Police, Guerilla Toss and The Sediment Club.
Saunders wrote on the Ramp Local site that he tried to model the 15-track compilation after Brian Eno’s monumental No New York sampler. “I, like many others, am continuously floored by the alarmingly apocalyptic sounds and aesthetics explored by those groups, and also how incredibly descriptive the compilation is of that short-lived era in music,” he wrote.
Eclectic Sessions did well and Warner was excited that Saunders was on board to guide the future of Ramp Local.
“People were really into it,” he said. “He helped me get some press for it. He showed me how to pitch writers and stuff. And then [after] that came out he was like, ‘Hey, do you want to help me run this label?’ I was like, ‘Okay, sure.’ So that’s when it kind of officially became my curation.”
With Warner’s blessing, Saunders began to put out tape releases by bands like Banned Books, The Cradle and the various solo outlets of Palberta’s Lily Konigsberg. It came to a point where Warner was so confident that he entrusted Saunders to completely take over the label to allow him to put his focus back on Wharf Cat.
With the keys to the family car, Saunders saw this as an opportunity to make a run for it. He decided to leave Brooklyn for Philadelphia and keep his expenses low while pondering Ramp Local’s future.
“It was never an option for me to not take it really seriously,” Saunders said. “I think that at first it was kind of a fun thing and then Trip gave me the tools to make it a real thing. When I saw that somebody was going to give me those tools and help me really make it a real thing. It was like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna take this seriously.’ It’s still this punk, DIY operation. But over the years, I’ve just gotten more and more organized with it.”
Over the years he has been able to work with a number of great artists like Buck Gooter, Max Jaffe and late last year the label released the debut full length from the wild party-starters Godcaster, Long Haired Locusts.
When booking new artists, Saunders definitely has a sense of which artists are willing to do the hard work necessary to survive and which ones aren’t. “We don’t even have to ask,” said Saunders. “You can tell. You know a lot of the time.” Sometimes reading the riot act or relaying the harsh truths of the business is a little bit of a hard pill to swallow for some bands.
“My abilities — as a publicist and as a label owner — are very much connected to your abilities as a band to get yourselves out there and to be proactive in promoting yourself. That’s just a fact of reality. Our ability to invest in someone is directly connected to hoping that we’re not going to lose everything that we put in,” he added.
Over the past year and a half, Saunders and the bands he worked with on Ramp Local had a lot of adjusting to do with no real sense of when touring would be returning. The label was able to push back some of their releases and tours from over the past year but in many ways, it took the wind out of everyone’s sails.
“It sucks so much to not be able to get that closure,” he said. “Experiencing a band by seeing them on tour and watching them grow because the touring was a way to really extend the life of an album campaign. It’s really just been just trying to stay excited about music, trying to stay excited about the future.”
While running Ramp Local, Saunders worked as a publicist at Clandestine Label Services. Each of these jobs remained separate; however, he made moves this year to start his own freelance public relations venture: Ramp Global. For Saunders, the decision was a way to get back to square one with his all encompassing DIY roots.
“I’m just a fan of music before anything else,” he said. “I try to remind myself; I’m a music fan before I’m a label owner and before I’m a publicist. With the PR stuff, it’s how I pay my rent. First of all, it’s a way for me to make a living. Second of all, I realized [it’s doing] what I really love, again — going back to this is just like those connections with people over music. I find that with PR, not only do I get to work with a ton of different artists in different genres than Ramp local focuses on, but I also build connections with other music nerds.”
“I also like being a cheerleader for artists. PR is an opportunity for me to get on the table and scream, ‘This fucking rules and you all should check it out!’ I have, like, just this insane amount of energy, and excitement around getting people to connect with something new.”