Hellcat Records

In the late 90s, Brett Gurewitz was somewhat... overwhelmed. The former Bad Religion guitarist, who also owns the Epitaph Records label, had just seen his favorite band fly off to Sony – a blow since The Offspring had just sold more than eleven million copies of Smash, half of which was in the US market alone. The departure of The Offspring from their historic label, Epitaph, would give rise to a serious – and highly publicised – grudge. In addition, the Californian was fighting a nasty polytoxicomania which included crack, heroin and alcohol. In short, at the end of the nineties, Brett Gurewitz was a boss of rich label, but was himself broken.

At this point in the fight, any addictologist would advise a good dose of calm and rest. Brett would do the opposite - and it’s possibly what saved him as he’s been clean since 1999. In 1997 he telephoned another completely unstable punk – Rancid singer Tim Armstrong – in order to create a new label, a subsidiary of Epitaph: Hellcat Records. Ex-Operation Ivy, ex-alcoholic, ex-depressive, ex-homeless, Tim Armstrong is a figurehead of Californian punk, a pure product of the Bay Area, fed by The Clash, the poetry of Jim Carroll, and the riffs of a working class hero such as Billy Bragg. Despite the usual punk shenanigans and the fact that he was just emerging from an acrimonious divorce, Tim Armstrong was the perfect choice for the role of Artistic Director. For nearly ten years, he would scour the underground for rude boys and sign an impressive cohort of decent bands.

Union 13, Choking Victim, Dropkick Murphys, F-Minus, The Distillers, Nekromantix and even the legends of GBH who were signed for their last two albums... Armstrong had plenty of free reign and could sign away. Soon, Hellcat became the extension of its AD’s tattooed head, filled with an impressive mix of ska, punk, oi!, psychobilly, and hardcore.

In 2003, shortly before starting to lose momentum, Hellcat would play one of its last master strokes by releasing Streetcore, a superb third and final posthumous album by Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros. Produced by Rick Rubin, Streetcore contains, amongst other things, a cover of Bob Marley's ‘Redemption Song’, played alongside Johnny Cash. Filmed in New York, the video is  heart-breakingly beautiful, and features many supporters of the label who came out to honour Joe Strummer, the godfather of Hellcat Records.