A quick scan on the UPHERE! Records Instagram page shows what an established label looks like that stands out from its artists left and right, a small but growing collection of young musicians primarily based in Utah County. But over there! is himself young and shabby and was founded just a few months ago in November 2020 by two friends in their early twenties. Brady Flores and Tom Petersen were both born and raised in the area, and although Flores describes UPHERE! As “just a bunch of young people making tapes,” the duo quickly developed a shared vision for Utah music, inspired by those around them and those who shaped it in the recent past.
“Brady and I looked into indie music from mix CDs that were stolen from siblings and new iTunes releases that led to learning to play guitar, writing music and being in bands,” explains Petersen, who is also worked with Pleasant Grove High School’s radio program, KPGR, as a teenager. Petersen also booked shows for the station’s venue, The Pig Pen. That’s how he met Flores, who was playing in a band called “Days” at the time – a band that Petersen loved because of their resemblance to bands like Beach Fossils, Wild Nothing and Craft Spells, all the suppliers of 20 th teen guitar rock madness.
“We were both in the scene, followed it since we were young and had a similar vision for the future,” says Petersen. “Of course we loved the bands that came out of the Utah scene at the time, like Baby Ghosts, Bat Manors (Choir Boy), 90s TV, and everything from the ‘Dirty Provo’ collective.”
Dirty Provo consisted of a few releases with the above bands and others through 2014 and 2015. It was deeply DIY and now mainly serves as a snapshot of Provo’s little indie scene at the time, for Flores and Petersen is still an inspiration for how they approach UPHERE!
That includes the spontaneous way it started. “I wanted to start UPHERE! Records in 2018, but I didn’t really have the time or resources to do anything about it,” says Flores. “Fast forward to last October and Tom’s cousin had just finished recording an album and Tom was like, ‘Hey, why don’t we just put it on the label you came up with?’ We threw it together – 25 CDs very quickly – like in one day. “
Since then, they’ve teamed up with pretty much any band they like and helped push the promotion and production of physical copies of the music – more recently via tapes, though they have plans to get back on CDs and eventually vinyl . So far, this includes bands like Toothpicks and Backhand, as well as solo artists like Super Young Adult and Nicole Canaan.
But they don’t see themselves as a traditional label. “When you hear the words ‘record label’ you think of this kind of suit and tie business,” says Flores, “but it’s like family to us, a lot of these people are our close friends, we hang out regularly. “
They’re just fans of the music, too, even the stuff they find that has already been released digitally. Petersen explains that they still like to help artists with physical releases because “we selfishly want a physical copy of it. We want to release it because we’re collectors.”
And while her fascination with collecting physical music seems selfish to her, it doesn’t seem to stop her peers on the scene from working with them to form a strong new music collective. Petersen says, “We got help from the artists just because they’re pretty DIY, so they do a lot of self-promotion, and then we got some people involved who are passionate about graphic design and social media and who take a few hours to do internships.”
The five-person team of photographers, graphic designers, and social media savvy folks also came together in a quick week over the past week. And on time, when popular venues for all ages like Kilby Court start to open up to 50 percent capacity, HERE! will be booking additional shows, such as an upcoming May 15 date with Dad Bod and Adult Prom, two Utah indie favorites joining UPHERE! connect.
Since they sprout quickly, HERE! hopes to contribute to a more unified scene in Utah as well. Flores expresses his frustration at growing up in a Utah County music scene that is often divided by religious differences, as well as the differences he sees between major city scenes. For him, the Provo to Salt Lake pipeline is far too similar to the Utah to Los Angeles pipeline.
“LA is not famous because it is LA, New York and Brooklyn are not famous because they are New York and Brooklyn. They are famous because something happened in these cities,” says Flores Here, where five, ten years later , people will look back at it and say, ‘That scene was really cool in Utah.’ “
Petersen says it perfectly and honestly: “Our families are here, you know? We want our music scene to thrive where we live and hang out with our families.” Follow the busy new label at @uphererecords on Instagram because if you blink you might be missing out on the next big step.
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