Label Feature #7: iam8bit

If you’re a fan of vinyl records and video game soundtracks, chances are you’ve already heard of famed LA-based production company, iam8bit.

Founded in 2005, the company run by juggernaut duo Amanda White and Jon M. Gibson (Co-Owners/Co-Creative Directors) alongside their dedicated team, has played a leading role in building the popularity and collectibility of merchandise associated with popular video game soundtracks.

Now celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2020, iam8bit has worked closely with some of the biggest names in the industry to produce ground-breaking products for their legions of loyal fans worldwide. We caught up with Amanda and Jon to discuss the early days of the company, their remarkable growth over the years and what they’re working on for the future.

iam8bit today has developed a strong reputation for collectible releases of video game soundtracks on vinyl, but how did the company originally come to be?

Jon: Our path to vinyl might not initially seem like an obvious one, but it all gels together in the end.

We’re celebrating our 15th anniversary this year, and it all began with a group art show in 2005 that, yup, was called iam8bit. It was truly a first-of-its-kind thing, because before us, there was no such thing as pop culture-themed art shows. This was the first time anyone had tapped artists to interpret characters and worlds in fine art form, which spurred an industry-wide trend and created a business model for hundreds of galleries around the world like Gallery1988, Bottleneck, and so many others. Before iam8bit, the idea of remixing the mythology of video games, movies, TV shows, etc. was impossible to fathom — it was all style guides and stock assets. A lot of people take credit for the revolution we started, but the truth is, it began with iam8bit.

That quickly spurred companies like Capcom, Nintendo, Disney, HBO and others asking if we could help with marketing campaigns, bringing a more creative flavor to whatever they were doing. This was so long ago that the kinds of things we were pitching were considered pretty wild, like the idea of producing “community events” for brands. In fact, the word “community” didn’t really exist in the corporate structure of things — it simply just wasn’t a thing companies budgeted for.

Keep in mind, this was before Twitter, Instagram, etc. really took off, so companies weren’t really talking directly to fans in the way they do today. They were advertising at them, but they weren’t engaging on a more personal level. So when iam8bit coined the notion of a “community event,” it started to shift the landscape of video game marketing, because it involved another buzz word called “experiential” that didn’t quite exist yet either. We just called it “theatre.”

Amanda and I have always been obsessed with the human experience being a very tactile one, so we started making really exclusive and premium swag that you could only get if you attended one of these community events or were lucky enough to receive a package in the mail as a superfan. In 2010, we did a project for Disney for the release of Tron: Evolution, which involved minting our very first vinyl. It was a super low run and now sells for well over $1,000 in the aftermarket. We also made three different vintage style 45s for a Wolfenstein community experience in Boston during PAX East, and each attendee received one of the three. Those 45s are also super-duper rare and flip for a lot on eBay or discogs, if you can even find them. They’re also super cool, because they are totally within lore, released under the “Neumond Recording” label and not branded as Wolftenstein and featured American rock classics like “House of the Rising Sun” sung in German.

Seeing the fervor fans had for these exclusive releases made us realize that there was a really tremendous appetite for video game soundtracks on wax… but there were no companies doing it besides us. Best you’d see was an independent release by a composer, like Jim Guthrie, but no labels were dedicated to game soundtracks.

That’s how iam8bit decided to start licensing and selling vinyl, and since, literally dozens of other labels have popped up, inspired by the ground we paved. To set the timeline, we shipped our first vinyl a year before our pals at Mondo. We love what they do — as well as all the other folks in the space like Brave Wave, Data Discs, Fangamer, Limited Run, Laced, etc. — but since there are so many choices, it’s always our goal at iam8bit to remain committed to innovation and trying new things. It keeps us on our toes, but also helps influence industry trends for the better.

Was it clear from early on that vinyl records would be a heavy focus for the company?

Amanda: In retrospect, it is pretty clear, but at the time, I don’t think either Jon and I expected that we would mint 100+ vinyl records over the next decade. We didn’t set out to become a record label, but now that we clearly ARE a record label, the idea certainly fits snuggly within the iam8bit brand. Records are lovingly collected, analog mementos that stir up nostalgia by their very essence. This speaks directly to the roots of our approach to product — they truly are a perfect fit within our greater ecosystem and within our overall product making philosophy.

Your projects are known for pushing the boundaries with the physical components of your packaging. What is the team’s process for imagining new projects?

Jon: That’s a loaded question. Ha!

As a baseline, we’ve tried to carry over our roots from curating art shows and applied interpretive illustration to the album art designs, because from our perspective, it’s a shame to just slap a bunch of logos and key art on an LP jacket. There are way more creative things you can do, from packaging to fun with vinyl treatments to thinking about things in a way more experiential way — you know, the relationship you have with your records as you interact with them, because it’s a very unique friendship between human and sentimental object.

But that’s just the beginning, because everything is a big giant collaboration for us — with composers, developers, illustrators, mastering engineers, material vendors, fulfillment centers and, of course, the pressing plant. For us, there isn’t really a one-stop shop due to the custom nature of everything we aim to do, so we’re really loyal to folks that like to ride on the innovation train with us. Because real talk — it’s really freakin’ exhausting to put as much energy into projects as we do, as it demands a lot of everyone participating. A good amount of folks in every industry are very vanilla and cookie-cutter in their approach, so becoming allies with humans that love to push boundaries is critical to bringing fresh perspectives to life as vinyl.

Clearly, Precision is one of our favorite collaborators of all-time, which is why we’re doing this interview in the first place. You put up with our quest for perfectionism and future-seeking, and lend incredible ideas to the collaboration that always make things even better.

Which three iam8bit projects from the past three years stand out for you and why?

Amanda: Persona 5 – I love the lenticular cover on the 6xLP box and the unique personality of each disc and sleeve – this was a challenge to make, but boy did it turn out beautifully. A close second is our TMNT Pizza Power 7” from Record Store Day 2019. I love the patches that came affixed to the “jacket”. A fitting homage to the heroes in a half shell.

Jon: Rez Infinite, which is actually a wee bit older than three years, but still such a classic of our catalog. Rez, for any newbs, was the “music game” that essentially invented the “music game,” making way for everything from Amplitude to Rock Band to Beat Saber to a bazillion others. The funny thing is, the true story of how Rez came to be developed had never been told, so instead of just releasing this seminal soundtrack on vinyl by itself, we hired an amazing writer named Nick Hurwitch to tell the behind-the-scenes story as a 64-page book that we bound into the vinyl jacket, which was made possible by the access that Enhance Games and the legend, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, gave us. It’s a really impressive, super custom release, and features candid conversations with all of the key creatives integral to making history with Rez. It’s so special.

iam8bit has been one of the industry’s pioneers of direct-to-consumer (D2C) retail, with releases mostly available via the iam8bit family of websites. What benefits did this offer you as you built-up a loyal following in the vinyl collecting community?

Jon: Wholesale margins aren’t great, because there are so many people along the supply chain taking a cut. If you’re solely dependent on that business model, it’s really hard to do anything of premium ilk. You simply can’t afford to make super cool records and packaging without taking a bath on the economics of it, unless you’re moving hundreds of thousands of units… but come on, the only artists doing that on vinyl are The Beatles and a few others.

But with D2C, you can actually invest more into creating something of premium quality rather than cutting corners. The difference of an extra buck or two spent on production is often the divide between “average” and “Holy shit, that is so fucking cool!”

The vinyl industry has undergone a mini-revolution in the years since you launched in 2005. What changes have you noticed and how have they affected or benefited the company?

Jon: We’re hopeful that fans see the role we played in that mini-revolution for vinyl, because iam8bit began minting wax when it wasn’t nearly as mainstream as it is now. When Urban Outfitters and Barnes and Noble started selling vinyl, that’s when the industry hit that tipping point of critical mass awareness that vinyl wasn’t just this nerdy niche thing that got popular for a single holiday season, but that it was actually here to stay. Vinyl is not a Furby; it’s the oldest music medium there is, and its rebirth was a happy collision of collectibility, accessibility and an instinctual craving to need something more permanent and tactile than digital.

Amanda: We’ve noticed that more people are buying records! We’ve also noticed that our ability to produce records well has increased, as if the resurgence has also resurrected the people and places who are truly the best at making records. The audio engineers, the plants, the printers. It feels like we have an increasing number of experts available to us for collaboration, and that’s a dream. Top-notch quality is our goal, so all of this makes us immensely happy.

What’s next for iam8bit in 2020?

Jon: We’re driven to make everything we do more eco-friendly, which is challenging for a variety of supply chain and production reasons. You can’t just flip a switch, but we’re motivated to help lead the vinyl industry into more Earth-conscious efforts, which starts this year with the release of our first recycled vinyl release, pressed using “grind” from reclaimed and ground up discs, as well as a jacket made with recycled, post-consumer material.

Amanda: We’re bringing back some in-demand, but not yet re-pressed favorites to please those who’ve been asking. We’re collaborating with some of the top game studios to bring multiple “first time on vinyl” titles to wax in 2021 and beyond. And we’re digging into the vaults to bring some favorite relics from the past back to light, in surprising new ways. That’s about all we can say without spoiling any surprises.

For more information about iam8bit and its releases visit iam8bit.com.