Guille 84 - Label Manager

 

Despabila Records (DR) was founded in 2009. What was the deciding factor for the foundation and what has changed for you in these 16 years? How important are physical sound carriers for you?
Guille 84: DR was born to release ZONA 84 albums. Soon after that, we set up a studio and we recorded and released music for other bands. Since the beginning we wanted to be an international label and try to help bands to be listened and tour Argentina. Our first release was a split album with MOTORSEX (Bilbao) and ZONA 84 (Rosario). In 2016, we joined forces with Pauli Punker Records from Hamburg, and we released the “No Borders VA” series which helped a lot to spread our work. Physical sound carriers are very important for us. We released LPs, cassettes, CDs and even books and fanzines. That’s part of our culture and we don’t want it to die. I am DR label manager (and guitarist in the band) but all the ZONA 84 boys are related and helping with it.

„Do it yourself, no one will do it for you!“ is the motto behind DR. Why is DIY so important to you and do you see DIY in danger in today’s music scene?
Guille 84: DIY is not a slogan for us, but the only way to survive in Argentina. We had no options! That’s the best lesson learned from Punk Rock. We are proud to be independent and DIY and try to do better stuff than mainstream labels that do not know what a punk rocker likes.

What criteria are important for you when working with bands? What is particularly important to you and what is a guaranteed exclusion criterion?
Guille 84: We must like the music and the lyrics, and of course, we need to deal with nice people, who understand the nonprofit spirit of the label. Most of our releases are the first album of a band as we want to help “new or small bands” that, in our opinion, deserve to be heard. If you are a fascist or a racist DR is not your place.

Release date: 14th of September, 2025
Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/despabila.records/