- Dec 15, 2019

DRIVE-THRU RECORDS COMPILATION NOW AVAILABLE ON VINYL!

It seems as though the new year will be ringing in the "Rawr-ing Twenties" with the latest announcements of band reunions, revivals and now the icing on the cake is the phoenix that is Drive Thru Records whom recently made an Instagram account, followed by the announcement of their roster headed to a compilation vinyl.

The compilation record, originally released on November 20, 2001, at the height of the label's popularity, famously came in a miniature pizza box, and featured a jaw-dropping collection of mostly previously-unreleased songs and rarities by the beloved label's star-studded roster of bands, most of whom are now highly considered to be cornerstones of the pop-punk and emo sound of the early to mid-2000s with contributions from bands like: New Found Glory, The Starting Line,, Finch, and Fenix TX, just to name a few.

Started by siblings Stefanie Reines and Richard Reines, Drive-Thru Records' impressive 12-year run helped the label go on to sell over 8 million CDs worldwide, in turn, serving as a launchpad for the aforementioned bands and many others, such as Hellogoodbye, Dashboard Confessional, Steel Train, The Early November, Senses Fail and Halifax.

They shared this statement on the vinyl pressing and Drive-Thru Records:

"As we were putting together the compilation, we wanted to do something different and fun. The mob theme made sense to us for various reasons, the most obvious being that our label and bands were very tight-knit, and we were known as the “Drive-Thru Family”. Add in the fact that we grew up in New Jersey with at least one amazing Italian joint in every strip mall, plus our love of mob movies like “Goodfellas”, “The Sopranos” and “The Godfather”, and 'Welcome To The Family' was born!

Everything back then was done on a shoestring budget, so in lieu of hiring a model to pose for the cover, we had our accountant at the time assume the role as “The Godfather”. He was this crazy guy and seeing him with the bat posing as a mobster was funny to us. We always liked to amuse ourselves. So many inside jokes appeared on Drive-Thru Records releases over the years.

For the booklet, we took advantage of all of our bands playing at the Skate and Surf Festival in Asbury Park, NJ, and did part of the photoshoot on the boardwalk. Those shoots were fun because we got to mix band members for the different “mob” scenarios.

I believe we ordered 10,000 copies of the cd. The plant wouldn’t assemble and pack it because they said it was too complicated and time-consuming, so we said we would do it ourselves. We had no idea what we were getting into. I remember our entire office including the two of us, and all of our interns spending days putting together those pizza boxes! Our office was FILLED with CDs and pizza boxes, the conference room table piled high. We had to first put together the boxes, which came flat, insert the booklet into the cd, then put in the stickers and whatever else we had included."

You can pre-order Drive-Thru Records "Welcome to the Family" compilation album as well as check out the track listing below!