Toronto music exec Joel Carriere runs an indie record label — actually two, his flagship label Dine Alone Records, quite ecletic in its signings, and the hard-edged New Damage, still under the Dine Alone umbrella. He also heads Bedlam Music Management, housed in the Dine Alone headquarters, complete with a record shop and event space. In a word, it’s cool.
City and Colour and Alexisonfire are his oldest and top management clients, both Dallas Green’s bands, and they also release their music on Dine Alone.
Carriere, a native of St. Catharines, Ontario, started managing Alexisonfire in 2001. Four years later, he launched Dine Alone Records as a vehicle for their guitarist-singer Dallas Green’s solo project, City and Colour. He’s been there every step of their journey and vice-versa. At the start of the last summer, Alexisonfire sold out Toronto’s 16,000-capacity amphitheatre, Budweiser Stage, and at the tail end of the season, City and Colour sold out the venue too.
“According to Live Nation, no other artist has ever played the Bud Stage in two different bands in the same year and sold it out,” says Carriere. “Let’s also not forget we are independent, so everything we do we have to work for.”
Just shy of 25 years, Dine Alone has sold millions of records from Alexisonfire and City and Colour, of course, along with notable acts such as Jimmy Eat World, The Dandy Warhols, The Lumineers, Arkells, Bros, Dashboard Confessional, The Cult, LP, Lucius, Vanessa Carlton, You+Me (P!nk and Green), and Lieutenant (Foo Fighters’ Nate Mendel’s solo project).
He used to have a staff of around 50, but now it’s a little less than half that.
“I just needed to be manageable and fun. Post-covid, we try to get at least good chunk of people in a couple of days a week. Maybe I’m just showing my age, I’m just a big fan of human connection,” he says. “It boosts your serotonin and you don’t feel lonely and you come up with ideas. It’s good to be around people.”
You were already in the music business before you started your label. You had worked at S.C.E.N.E. Fest (Saint Catharines Event for New Music Entertainment) and Sanctuary Records. You were managing Alexisonfire, which was on Distort Entertainment. What made think starting your own label was a good route to take for your acts?
I was managing Alexisonfire and Bedouin Soundclash at the time. And City and Colour was doing its thing, through file sharing, like Napster, and we’d do the odd show here and there. So, I wanted to start a label outside of Distort because Distort was really heavy [music] focused. I just had a different idea for what a record label looked like, and a little bit more artist friendly, in my view. Dal [Dallas Green] and I wanted to put out a solo project for City and Colour and we didn’t want to put pressure on City and Colour because Alexisonfire was a priority. That way, if we can control the release of this, we can control the pressure of it. And we could spend where we needed to spend on it and give it its own breath, its own identity. And, another big thing is we wanted it to be separate from Alexis, specifically, so it did have its own identity. Distort had very niche, similar-genre type bands. I had a view of something a little more different, having grown up with liking labels as a kid and paying attention to [U.S. indie labels] SST and Sub Pop and Dischord and Merge. The conversations were with Dallas and I. At the time, you had a lot of emo, screamo, hardcore, whatever you want to call them bands. We wanted people to digest it as its own thing. “It’d be cool if we had our own vibe outside of the great vibe that was happening with Alexis.”
Some labels started out of necessity because the person shopped whatever act they were managing and had no bites. But it sounds like you just had this love of labels and wanted to have your own.
I’ve always liked trusted brands. That sounds weird. But, I like when people do their jobs well and you can trust them. And when you can trust them, you can take a chance on new music. I have a pretty wide palette. I like a lot of different music. I’d like to say it leans into a good quality, not just genre-specific. So I wanted to present a label to Canada that was not just genre-specific, but into the quality of music we were delivering. If you didn’t like the genre, you could at least respect that it was a good artist.
Did you open an office at that time for Dine Alone or did you already have a management office?
I was across from the Horseshoe [Tavern, in Toronto] at that time. I lived in St. Catharines still, and I had a home office, I suppose; you know, a computer in your bedroom. I had an office here and I flopped on friends’ floors.
Was your staff lean?
I did a deal with Universal. And, at the time, Universal was like a family and everyone supported each other. And, you didn’t get charged for every little thing if they helped you. They wanted you to succeed. It’s a different version now. So, back then, I really liked Universal. I liked all the labels back then. Majors, in Canada, at least, felt like a family vibe. So I ended up leaning on Universal because of my friend Dave Porter and Allan Reid. I liked them a lot and they were good pals. And I had been working with them on The Junction. And, I ended up leaning on Randy [Lennox]. And we became really good friends. So it just seemed to align with what I was doing and Randy was a big supporter of me and what we were trying to achieve with Dallas. So the staff was Cristina Fernandes at Listen Harder — she was our publicist, though not a staff, with me [laughs]; Greg Below, at the time, but he was more of a back-end person and not upfront with it — that lasted two years with him; and then Justin Ellsworth from a production side — he still works with me 20 years later.
Was it just City and Colour initially or did you do a flurry of signings that first year or two?
Yeah, it was started for us to release City and Colour, as the kickoff standpoint. But I had three releases in mind. There was City and Colour. There was a band called The Fullblast that Ian Stanger is in and Jason Murray managed it. So they were going to be one of my first releases, and a Switcheroo compilation, which was Alexisonfire/Moneeen split [12-inch single]. So, however, they came together. It ended up being that The Fullblast was the first release [Short Controlled Bursts]; City and Colour was the second [Sometimes], and The Switcheroo was the third release that all came out at the end of 2005.
Dallas now headlines arenas and amphitheatres in Canada with City and Colour. What were your expectations back then?
Well, you go into it one record or, I guess, three records at a time. I can make it very romantic and say I had all these great visions, but I had this festival that was doing well, S.C.E.N.E. Festival, had a website called Bedlam Society, it was doing well. I was promoting shows across Canada. I was just doing a ton. I was managing Alexis and then Bedouin Soundclash, which was blowing up. So everything I seemed to be doing was doing well. I think it just stemmed from right time, right place. And I’m a young guy that loves music.
Sometimes, in this business we hear stuff and we’re like, “Oh my God, this could be huge.” Did you have that inkling about City and Colour?
You only know so big and when you go beyond every time, then you just keep chasing it — and not chasing it like you’re chasing fame, but just wanting to learn and grow and see how far you can take something. Dallas was more palatable than Alexisonfire. We took a screamo band and we turned them into what now is considered one of probably two of the biggest heavy bands ever out of Canada, now along with Billy Talent. With City and Colour, Dallas, we all saw the reactions when he would perform and sing the songs. They were resonating at that time with people. But again, didn’t want to put the pressure on it and didn’t want to break up Alexis. We wanted it to exist on its own. We can control it. We can have fun with it. It was our thing. And if you’re along for how we present it, great.
So you’re doing all these other things — the festival, management, the website and now the label. What was the first marker for Dine Alone where you knew, “This is working. We can now do this.”
Well, The Full Blast we put out and then they broke up. So my first record wasn’t overly great because they broke up months later [laughs]. I was like “Damn.” Alexis’ first record [self-titled, 2002] got MuchMusic love, but then the second record [Watch Out!, 2004] was good because that song “Accidents” was getting way more MuchMusic love. Also, getting a little bit of radio, specifically when [Toronto’s 102.1] The Edge, when The Edge played edgy music. And, then Neverending White Lights’ song, “The Grace,” was coming out [ft. Dallas Green, 2005].
I remember a really cool moment where I was like, “Oh, this is kind of crazy.” I was skateboarding in Port Dalhousie, St. Catharines. I went to an Avondale, a corner store there and I heard “The Grace.” I was like, “Oh, that’s so cool.” And then I skateboarded down and I went to my local pub [The Kilt & Clover] and that’s when “Save your Scissors” [City and Colour] came on. I was like, “What the hell is this?” And then like a half-hour and a couple of beers later, Alexisonfire was played. I’m like, “I just heard three songs [laughs], which are on our label being played.” And then Bedouin [Soundclash], they weren’t on my label at the time but I was managing that, they were having one of the biggest songs that year as well on the radio [“When The Night Feels My Song”]. So I was like, “Hmm, I’m onto something here.” I think that was a good ego boost, an ego boost for me to feel confident because I’m just doing my own thing with some friends from St. Catharines and I’m not necessarily Mr. Industry; we’re just doing our thing and learning as we go and collecting some good people on the way. I’m learning from them. That was a cool moment.
We’re still in 2005. When was the next milestone of “Alright, things are rolling. Maybe the success of City and Colour can help fund the label so I can now sign X, Y, Z?”
Well, the first couple artists were bands I had managed. So then, the idea was to create a label that wasn’t fully existing on me having to do everything and then get employees and other bands. I believe our first handful of bands we signed outside of me managing was Hot Hot Heat, Tokyo Police Club, Jim [Ward] from Sparta and At The Drive-in’s Americana project called Sleepercar, and Brant Bjork from Kyuss. And, then this metal band called The End.
That’s not a bad assortment. Some Canadian Indies only sign Canadians. Clearly, that’s not the case with you. How did that end up happening? Were you actively looking outside of Canada for acts?
Well, maybe I wasn’t smart enough to know the grant system, so that wasn’t an anchor for my company. It was something that I was learning as we’re going through it. I just wanted, I guess, to be like an American record label where it was succeed on your own, do your thing, and if anything else comes along, that’s gravy and a bonus.
Did the American acts care that you were a Canadian-based label?
I don’t know. You’re gonna have to ask them. I still work with Jim. We released some At The Drive-in stuff [2013’s Relationship of Command, 2012’s Acrobatic Tenement]. We put out new Sparta stuff [2022’s Sparta, 2020’s Trust The River], and we released old Sparta stuff. We’ve been working together almost 20 years and then still friends with Brant Bjork and still talk to Steve [Bays, Hot Hot Heat]. He was Canadian. So I’m not sure if they cared.
We had distribution globally. We were also licensing just for Canada; just for Canada and Australia. Some stuff we ended up just releasing in the States. We were artists friendly, maybe to a detriment, if I ever want to sell my company in the future [laughs]. We just pieced out certain territories because we’re not Sub Pop or Merge or these giant indies that are funded by giant majors in America or Canada. I just wanted to stand on our own two legs and have a seat at the table and see if it works out.
And it is nice now, 20 years later. I was talking to some people at Red Light [Distro] and about some City and Colour stuff, kind of introducing ourselves, like, “Oh, we have a label here as well, Dine Alone,” and, they’re like, “Oh, you’re Dine Alone!” And then they go through their favourite bands and I’m thinking, “Oh, that’s cool. You’re from Denver and you’re from California. And you’re talking about how you like our beautiful label.”
Before you built the amazing Dine Alone headquarters you have now, was there another standalone office that you had?
So the lineage of office spaces: bedroom, horrible office in Catharines, two of them. Then we moved across from the Horseshoe [Tavern in Toronto] and that office was really cool. It had about five people. I had the people that designed all the House of Blues’ Day of the Dead-style art do my office. So it looked like a House of Blues. Then from there, I moved to River Street, more east. I was in a building with a classical radio station and EMI publishing had moved there, at some point. And I hated renting. SI bought a town home in Cabbagetown, right near the legendary Anthem Records and that Anthem team and all the Rush crew. We were there for like six years and we had some pretty legendary moments there. We used to like do CASBY [Awards] pre-parties, where all the bands would come and we’d have contest winners and industry. And we threw some pretty crazy NXNE parties where my back lot was free food and booze and the middle floor was an “edible” floor before it was legal. The top floor was usually a sponsored booze company, a little VIP thing.
So it was a fun office. 2015/16, that office was like way too crammed. I had a place in LA, office in Nashville, offices in Germany and Australia.
Do you still have all those locations?
No, I built this building and condensed everything into one hub. Toronto is a pretty world-class city and usually a destination for industry to visit their artists on tour. I just didn’t need to be everywhere, and pay for it. So we started condensing and investing into ourselves. We closed down like all these satellite warehouses and we do our own warehousing here in our own direct-to-consumer business, which I think we’re very good at.
When did you start the other label New Damage? [Comeback Kid, Cancer Bats, Rarity, and more.]
Ten years ago. It starts out of a love and a hate [laughs]. I love music; I hate the shit around it. So New Damage was started because a friend of mine was on a heavy label that was not doing right by some fans and some people. There was no other heavy labels in Canada. I was like, “Fuck it. Let’s just do this. Let’s start something that is a little more niche and can exist in that space.” So we did that about 10 years ago, still kicking along, which is pretty rad.
Does this go with your “trusted brand” ideal? Why not put out your friend on Dine Alone?
Because, in my head — however it works in there — there’s certain things that fit certain places for me and how I want to present it. So New Damage, you can do some crusty punk stuff. You can do some hardcore stuff. You can do some low lift stuff. You can also put up some big metal stuff like we did Devin Townsend. It was meant to have its own culture and its own vibe. It could sponsor different festivals. It could go to different concerts and live in that space and be a trusted brand for that space, whereas Dine Alone is more all-encompassing. When we started [Dine Alone], we had Lumineers, The Civil Wars, Shovels & Rope, Marilyn Manson and Jimmy Eat World. So we had a pretty wide eclectic group of artists, but I didn’t want to then, all of a sudden, have 10 hardcore punk bands next to it when you’re trying to branch out. Each band has a certain marketing budget, so some of that stuff would fall by the wayside if we put it in Dine Alone marketing. So if you could put in its own category, it’s easier to spend on it.
The Dine Alone headquarters is an incredible space. If someone’s walking by this inconspicuous black corner building and walk into, what will they find?
Walking by it doesn’t look like a great building [laughs]. However, we run our full warehousing, so all of our vinyl and the merch. When you go to the Dine Aone online store, we run all that out of here. It’s a controlled boutique in a sense; there’s a lot of care with what we do. In addition to that, we have a full record store. And, it’s curated by a couple people, not pretentious curation, but there’s some big pop stuff, metal stuff, punk stuff. And it’s only so big, so we only have so many records here. But we’re always trying to bring in cool rare records and Record Store Day drops and be mindful and fun with it.
And then that record store has the venue in the back. When it’s not being operated as a venue, we use it as a gym [laughs]. It’s a full venue. It’s got a stage, back line, full lighting rigs. It sounds unbelievable in there. You can actually record in there. It’s also used for rehearsal for our bands. So just this past week, we had Cam Kagan rehearsing, Spencer Burton rehearsing. Alexisonfire wrote their record there [2022’s Otherness].
Upstairs is Dine Alone/Bedlam, our company’s offices. But everything’s hyper curated and designed and looks like a John Varvatos store or something. There’s interesting things everywhere you look. There’s a story behind everything, which I enjoy. And we have like a full commercial kitchen. We used to have a food company pre-covid, but covid got rid of a couple of things that we’re doing, one being Dine Alone Foods, the other being the rock and roll sports bar we had called Jasper Dandy. Loved that place.
And then on the roof, we have like a two-and-a-half-thousand square foot patio with a sauna and we’ve had Bedouin Soundclash play up there and we’ve had a Juno [Awards] after party and meetings. So it’s an all-inclusive space. We try to be as insular as possible and bring in our own artists to do stuff out of it because it’s here and available too.
And you know, it was funny because I went to Third Man [Records, in Detroit, co-owned by Jack White, Ben Blackwell, and Ben Swank], and I really got a vibe from Third Man. Granted, I’m not Jack White sitting on millions of dollars, nor am I talented like Jack White. But I like the vibe, where he had the venue and he was recording shows and having their own releases. And so, that was influential. And then [604 Records] Jonathan Simpkin, he’s got like boy band money with the stuff he’s done. I went to his building once and I thought it was cool, but he uses it differently. I was inspired by him owning your own building, investing into yourself and investing into your band. So between Third Man and 604, I was like, “This needs to happen.” I also think with the rise of pop music and pop-country and pop-hip-op and pop everything out of Toronto, rock ‘n’ roll needed a space.
Do you get feedback from fans or on socials to give you an idea of whether Dine Alone has followers of all you put out, the way you felt about SST, Sub Pop, Dischord, and Merge?
Yeah. So the first 10 years, we didn’t really pump our tires and other labels were doing a good job of it. It wasn’t a thing that we wanted; we just wanted our bands to do very well. We still do, obviously. But, on our 10 year anniversary, we were like, “Let’s have a little coming out party and let everyone know we’re behind half the shit they’ve heard on the radio in the last 10 years.” And we kind of changed our gears. Not that we’re always, “It’s about us, us, us,” but we’re just gonna let you know that we’re involved with it now. So, there’s definitely a trusted brand and there’s a bunch of people that follow and collect our records. They have relationships with some of our staff downstairs. We know by the orders. We’re not on any level like Sub Pop, but I think there’s some people they might think we are. But we have this cool space that’s always doing cool stuff. So it’s always bringing in new faces. Porno For Pyros, having them play here was remarkable. And right before covid, we had the Pixies play our office. We had Bob Geldof do a Boomtown Rats doc. There’s all this really cool stuff.
I worked in a record store when I was younger at Sam the Record Man for quite a few years. And I also worked at Polygram doing customer service rep. So I know the record store that was thoughtful and tried to create culture and create community around music. And, when everyone’s just on their phone listening and watching, it’s nice to come to a space and touch and be involved and talk to humans and experience special things in a space. So I’m trying to bring that 90s, early-2005, that I grew up in, to our space.
I like when an 18-year-old kid comes to the record store and it’s foreign to him and he goes to the back and watches The Interrupters play at our office. He might not remember it’s Dine Alone or us, but he’ll remember that moment forever. I think that’s pretty cool being part of a positive memory for someone.
