Shrapnel Records

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Shrapnel Records
Parent company	Sony Music Entertainment
Founded	1980 (1980)
Founder	Mike Varney
Distributor(s)	The Orchard
Genre	Heavy metal speed metal neoclassical metal hard rock instrumental rock
Country of origin	United States
Location	Novato, California
Official website	shrapnelrecords.com

Shrapnel Records is a guitar-oriented record label started in 1980 by record producer Mike Varney.

History[]

Guitarist Marty Friedman (ex-Megadeth, ex-Cacophony), one of the label's most successful artists, first appeared on the album Unsung Guitar Heroes II in 1980 with the band Vixen. Vixen would later change their name to Hawaii and release the album One Nation Underground for Shrapnel. In 1981, a friend gave Mike Varney a tape featuring a 17-year-old Swedish guitarist named Yngwie Malmsteen. A year later, Malmsteen wrote to the label stating that he wanted to export his music to America. Varney, who started writing a column called "Spotlight" for Guitar Player magazine in 1982, featured Malmsteen in his February 1983 column. The record executive flew Yngwie to California and set him up with vocalist Ron Keel's new band called Steeler. Steeler's self-titled album became a best selling release for Shrapnel Records.

The label was acquired by The Orchard, subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment, in November 2015.^[1]

Related labels[]

In 1989, Mike Varney co-founded progressive rock/metal label Magna Carta Records. In the 1990s, he also started the Tone Center Records and Blues Bureau International sublabels to promote fusion and blues respectively.

Notable releases[]

References[]

External links[]

• Official website