Shadebeast
is a name that has become synonymous with metal and heavy music in the South over the last 8 years. Born from a teenage dream to open a record store, Joe Eldridge’s original concept has grown from a small, Metal-focused shop to a widely recognized brand, and one of the premier torchbearers for promoting heavy music in the region. Eldridge, and partner Markus Shaffer, talk about starting out as a fake online record store, the progression and growth of the Shadebeast name, and some of their favorite shows and moments that they’ve been a part of.
Signal to Noise (SN)
Joe, you and I talked a while ago about the beginnings of Shadebeast, but I've never heard the whole story of how you started it and where the idea came from. What was the initial inspiration for creating Shadebeast, and what was it like at first?
Joe Eldridge (JE)
Basically, I worked at a Tower Records when I was 19 in San Francisco, and I'd always been into music. That was just the coolest job I'd ever had, it wasn't even working. So, I always thought that when I retired I would start a record store. I started selling records on Facebook marketplace, basically from my own collection. So, it was an online entity at first and we created a Facebook group that was set up to inform what we sold, because it's hard to stay on top of what's going on in all the various genres. I was posting pictures of records in bins as if we were a real store even though we weren't a real store, and people were asking to come shop. We set up a prototype shop in a spare office in my house, and people were literally wanting to come to the house and shop, which got annoying pretty quickly so we opened an inexpensive retail space. Business was really good, so we moved downtown to Broad Street. COVID shut us down there and we reopened on Chase Street in 2021.
The real inspiration is kind of the same inspiration that everybody has, "Wouldn't it be cool to be in a band?", a successful band, and if you can't do that then being involved in the music scene another way, like running a club, or a bar, or record store. So the inspiration is just trying to be involved with the scene that I love, heavy music. Around the time of the shop on Broad Street, Markus came on board as a full partner, booking the shows, building our fixtures, and printing shirts.
SN
How long did you do the Facebook setup? I went to the Chase Street warehouse shop a couple of times and that was the first exposure that I had to what you were doing.
JE
It had been an online fake record store for about a year, it was called Shadebeast Listen Club. There were a lot of musicians from this heavy music scene that were dabbling with social media, so we managed to pull in a lot of people in bands that we loved into that group. Like John from Conan, the guys from Slomatics, probably more UK than the US. That initial group had a lot of musicians in it and we got a lot of early information which made people feel like they had insider information. The success of the group inspired people to buy records from Shadebeast while it was online. You can buy records online anywhere, really, and the most ethical thing to do is buy directly from the band. There's no reason to buy from a retailer, but we managed to build a little bit of a cult.
James Williamson from The Stooges had just started being on Facebook because The Stooges had recently reunited a second iteration with him. I managed to get him to accept my friend request and he joined the Shadebeast Listen Club. I was like, "Holy shit, this guy's God level.”
SN
At what point did you feel it going somewhere, that the idea could work and be a successful thing?
JE
When we moved from that Chase Street Warehouse space to the space downtown. Our monthly gross sales were way better than I ever expected, physical in-person and online. I was like, "Wow, this could be a viable business.” The vibe down there was amazing, greatly due to Markus' interior retail design skills.
SN
Were there any other big hurdles that you had to overcome to get to that point?
JE
Not really, because as of 2017 and 2018, there really weren't what you'd call “heavy metal” record stores in the United States. There was one in London, and then there's one in Pennsylvania called Vinyl Altar. I thought, "Well, this is obviously not a very exploited market, and there's definitely record stores that specialize in hiphop or just jazz or just classical. So why not heavy metal?". There really weren't many hurdles. The main hurdle is it just doesn't sell like hotcakes. It's not like you're selling Taylor Swift records. People don't buy Sunn O))) or High on Fire records at even close to the volume that they buy pop records.
Shadebeast Demon Crest by Sofie Eldridge on the cover of Flagpole
SN
I wanted to ask about the progression of going from record shop, to hangout/social club, to promoter, to being this heavy music brand. How has that been going through all these versions?
JE
It was kind of just out of the sake of experimenting to see what was going to work. There was actually a customer that said something like, "People like to hang out here because it's the cool club,” cool in the heavy metal world. So, while we were still downtown, we experimented with that. Academia Brewery was giving us beer that people, if they were of age, could drink in the shop for free. So, I think that would have worked out better if COVID had never happened and we stayed in that space.
Markus got into booking the shows, something I didn't really have a taste for. Those have always been successful, so that part has always worked. The clothing brand at one point was more profitable than records. Markus started printing some of that stuff in-house, even designing some of that stuff. If we have four pots on the stove or four plates in the air, it's like one will start to suck and then this one will be successful and maybe we'll put all our energy into this one. It's just been a weird couple of years since the pandemic.
SN
Did you [Markus] want to promote shows at first? How did that idea come about?
Markus Shaffer (MS)
Honestly, it came about by booking my band and just asking Joe, "Can I put Shadebeast on the top of the flyer?". I never thought I would do anything like this. To be fair, credit where credit is due, it really wasn't me in the beginning other than putting Shadebeast on the top of the posters. It was Daniel Schroyer and Olga [Fouche] who really did the majority of the legwork. Obviously, by the time COVID rolled around Daniel had to step back and Olga moved to Atlanta. I kind of just stepped up and started doing as many as we could.
Obviously, your band [Sacred Bull] and ours [Dead Vibes Ensemble] played that first show back and was crushing just to come out of the gate to see 130 something people come to Flicker, that was pretty amazing. Since COVID it's just been me doing all the booking and I consult with Joe on a lot of it.
It's pretty amazing, the name Shadebeast has become synonymous with metal in the Southeast. We get hit up 20 to 30 times a month by bands that want to play Shadebeast shows, and obviously we can't accommodate all of them, but we do the best we can.
SN
The interest is there though. People know the name and that gives the shows some weight at this point.
MS
Yeah, there's a gravitas to it. I think we've worked hard to make it special, especially for touring bands. We were donating beer to the touring bands. Very often I'll host the touring bands at my house so they have a place to sleep. They're not on the floor, they can take a hot shower. The van is not parked somewhere sketchy. We try to make it actually mean something that people say, "Oh shit, we got to play a show in Athens.”
JE
I think that's one way we're on the same page, this is a passion project and not a money-making endeavor. The shows, for one, don't need to make money. We just want to make sure the bands get paid and [that] they're really happy. It's not like the motivation is to quit our day jobs. It's more to just grow this into the the biggest and coolest thing we can manage.
SN
Was that a cool surprise from the original vision, to go from selling records and promoting bigger bands, to having bands want to come be a part of Shadebeast, actively be a part of it? I'm guessing that wasn't something that you foresaw at the beginning.
JE
I don't even know really when that started to happen, but when bands outside of Athens started wanting to play Shadebeast shows, that was an interesting, really satisfying development.
MS
It's not so much that we are responsible for making the scene happen, but it's cool to be a part of giving all of these bands a flag, a banner to rally around that Athens didn't seem to have before.
SN
One thing I've always appreciated about how you guys setup shows is you don't want there to be boundaries based on genre. Shadebeast can host any kind of heavy band, it doesn't matter. I've always really appreciated that about y'all. The thinking isn't, "Who's going to pack the most people into here?" It's about, “How do we grow a scene? How do we give people chances? How do we promote people that need it?”
MS
Rising tide raises all ships.
JE
Last night's show was a hardcore show. I think both bands would be comfortable being in the hardcore genre family, and that was kind of a first for us because we’d booked bills with hardcore bands before, but it's always been with a metal band of some sort. Our kind of recipe is to give new bands a shot, at least in an opening slot. Like this one band, Parathion, were brand new. They were high school kids and I think they're still in high school. They're now actually part of the scene legitimately. Obviously supporting local bands that want to play and then ideally pulling in touring bands, like the biggest ones that make sense for Athens.
Joe Eldridge with Yatra after a Shadebeast Presents show in Athens, Ga
Joe Eldridge (left) and Markus Shaffer (right) at the newly re-opened Shadebeast Records in Athens, Ga
If the clothing started making $100,000 a month, we'd put all that money into doing fun stuff. We would not pocket that money, that's already been decided. We would pay to have Slayer reunite and play the Georgia Theater or whatever. We're kind of ambitious and greedy because of the cool stuff we would like to do, not because we want to be personally wealthy.
SN
Is there a Shadebeast Presents show or another moment that stands out to y'all that felt particularly important for what you’re doing? Is there a moment that was like, "Man, THAT was really awesome!"?
MS
I'm going to be honest with you. The show we played with you all [Sacred Bull], the first one after COVID where everyone had been isolated, I hadn't really gone out for a year and a half. Coming out of that, I stood on stage and looked out to see that room packed, it almost brought me to tears because most of those people I hadn't seen in a long time. Just feeling that energy and camaraderie again, and not even me being on stage, but just being part of the crowd that was there. We've worked really hard to create a family here. That's the show that stands out for me. Not necessarily because I was involved in playing it, but just [because] so many people came out for that to support what we were doing. That was pretty incredible.
JE
I actually have two. We did a show with Jake the Hawk and Howling Giant. When that show got booked, I'm like, “These are some of the bands whose records we used to sell and now they're actually playing our shows.” Like, this is really coming full circle and really satisfying to be able to book them.
There was another show that Olga put together with Enforced and High Command, two thrash metal bands. Those bands' albums that had come out that year were on almost every year end list as the best thrash metal bands. I'm like, “We're booking the best bands and we're doing it for all the right reasons,” because they're bands that want to play our shows and we think are good, and then they're going on at the end of the year to have released the best albums in that style.
MS
That was a crushing show. That one was pretty memorable.
I think at the end of the day, one of the things that I had to stop and reconsider about booking, is we're throwing a party for our friends with some cool music. If it makes money cool, we get to pay the bands more. If it doesn't meet the minimum that we pay bands, we pay for it out of pocket and just call it a party. Everyone that came had fun, and everyone who didn't, they missed out.
SN
Is there a person that getting to this point would not have been possible without?
JE
I've been involved since the beginning and I can't really say a single person, but the way that Athens has embraced it, we've gotten nothing but support all along. Like, initially Zach Hembree worked the store for free. He got a record a shift or whatever. Markus has obviously contributed so much. My kids. The bands that played our shows.
Most of the local bands will play shows and they don't even expect to get paid. So, we like to surprise them, like, “Hey, you're going to get at least $100 or a few hundred bucks for out of this.” Everyone's willingness to kind of march under the banner that we threw up has been pretty awesome. So rather than one person, I'd just say everybody, especially locally.
MS
Daniel (Shroyer) and Olga (Fouche) especially.
JE
That's true.
MS
They really put in the work for booking shows. It was the three of us, but I just kind of did the poster artwork and whatnot and passed it on to them, but they did the work. Serious credit where credit is due. Those two probably did more to put the Shadebeast name out there in front of touring bands.
Shadebeast Presents show posters by Markus Shaffer
SN
What is one record that you think everyone should listen to?
JE
Oh, that's a tough one. It depends on the decade. I mean, I've been a lifelong proponent of Rainbow's “Rising” album, because it's like the birth of metal. People attribute that to Black Sabbath, which they did, they created heavy metal. But the first "METAL" album was that “Rising” album. Obviously, Metallica's second one, “Ride the Lightning” is huge. Like, if you don't know that album we don't really have much to talk about. Sleep's “Dopesmoker”. I met someone at the club the other night and he was talking about the Grateful Dead and all these trippy bands that he likes to listen to when he's tripping. I'm like, "Do you know about Sleep's “Dopesmoker”?". He's like, “No, I've never heard of that.” I'm like, “Take a note right now because that's going to kill you.”
MS
My favorites change from week to week. I put so much stuff on heavy, heavy repeat, and the next thing you know, two days later there's something else I think crushes. I'm kind of with Joe, there's so much where it [metal] starts. Obviously Sabbath. I would throw “Kill 'Em All” out there as sort of a turning point from "70's heavy" to something that was like, “Wait, what the fuck just happened?” That was definitely a turning point for me when I first heard that.
JE
That's the fun part of running a record store. Someone will come in and say, “I really like B, B is my favorite band”. Oh, well, “Have you heard A? Yeah, that band wouldn't exist if it wasn't for this.” And then they hear it and are like, "Holy shit, that's where it comes from". There're dozens, if not hundreds of moments like that that are the most satisfying part about pushing music. You're turning people onto things.
MS
Also, somebody new comes in and is like, "You're talking about A and B, well what about C, D and E?", and for old guys it's like, “Wait, who is that?”
JE
A good example of that is when I was a teenager I was really into hardcore punk. For maybe a period of five years I knew everything that was going on in that scene. And just within the past six months we were booking this band that promotes themselves as Queercore, Hirs Collective, which led me to start researching what's going on in the hardcore world. It's mind blowing how good some of these bands are. Not because they sound like old bands, because they're really fresh and they're bringing a whole new life to it. So, I personally am extremely excited about all the hardcore that's happening right now, and it seems to jive with the shitty couple of years we're coming out of. We're [Shadebeast] always going to be metal, but I'm definitely advocating for embracing that scene and those bands more. We're going to try to sell more of it, we're going to try to book more of them.
SN
What band or artist do you think more people should know about?
JE
Sumerlands. In the spirit of keeping heavy metal alive they're one of the traditional metal bands that kind of brings a new face to it. Their album that came out in 2022, I think, was number one on a lot of traditional metal lists. It's been hard to get because it's been sold out, but they finally repressed it.
MS
Joe's got his ear to the ground more than I do. I'm gonna default to Joe on this one.
JE
Well I'll answer for Markus, I'll take his answer. The Flatspot Records roster. Every single band is mind blowing. It's one of those labels that's highly curated and probably impossible to get your demo tape listened to by the owner, but Flatspot Records. Their whole roster is like, "I would kill to have that band play Athens". Every band is great.
*Message from Shadebeast: As of May 2023, Joe has reopened a physical location in the Chase Street Warehouses in Athens, Ga, bringing things full circle to where it all started. It’s a much larger space and will eventually be able to accommodate more vinyl and apparel inventory as the business continues to grow. Visit the new shop at 149 Oneta Street, Suite 6c3 Athens, Georgia on Saturdays 11am-6pm.
Interview by Griffin Hans
Edited by Griffin Hans