Epitaph Records – Who are they? Epitaph Records are an Independent Hollywood based record company, owned by Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz. It was originally created to release Bad Religions records in the 1980’s. In the 1990’s more Punk bands has joined the label, such as The Offspring, Claw Hammer, Pennywise and Down by Law. Epitaph have had and currently have some huge world wide known metal bands such as: Bring Me The Horizon, Sleepwave, Parkway Drive and Escape the Fate.

Epitaph Records – Breakthrough Success Epitaph Records gained their success in the 1990’s. Despite being owned by the guitarist from Bad Religion, they changed record labels to Atlantic in 1993 and the guitarist was said to have left the band due to internal disputes, but actually left to run Epitaph full time. That year Epitaph received wide spread fame from inside and outside the punk band community when Bad Religion, The Offspring and NOFX all released hit albums. That was big year for punk in the mainstream having Rancid appear on Saturday Night Live.

Epitaph Records – Current Bands Pennywise Pianos Become the Teeth Plague Vendor Propagandhi Refused Retox Roll The Tanks SayWeCanFly Settle The Sidekicks Sleeping With Sirens Sleepwave Social Distortion Survive This! This Wild Life I Killed the Prom Queen Jamie T Joyce Manor The Lawrence Arms Letlive Matchbook Romance The Menzingers Millencolin (U.S. only) Motion City Soundtrack Now and On Earth (formerly Skip The Foreplay) Obey The Brave Off With Their Heads Parkway Drive (U.S. & Europe only) Alkaline Trio Anthem for the Unwanted Architects (U.S. & Europe only) Avion Roe Bad Religion Beautiful Bodies Big Talk Converge Dangerous! Defeater Desaparecidos Every Time I Die Falling In Reverse The Ghost Inside

Universal Music Group – Who Are They? Universal Music Group is an American Worldwide music corporation that operates as a subsidiary of Paris-Based French media conglomerate Vivendi. It claims to be the largest music corporation in the world. UMG (Universal Music Group) also owns Universal Music Publishing Group which is cited as the second largest music publishing company in the world.

Universal Music Group – Success Its origins go back to the formation of the American branch of Decca Records in 1943. The Decca Record of England spun American Decca off in 1939. With the 2004 acquisition of Universal Studios by General Electric and merging with GE’s NBC, Universal Music Group was cast under separate management from the eponymous film studio.

Universal Music Group – Current Bands There are too many bands to list all of them, this is just a short list: 10 Years 3 Doors Down 4minute The 1975 5 Seconds of Summer 50 Cent Λucifer Raven-Symoné Razorlight Reba McEntire Redman Rev Theory Rick Ross Rich Boy

Difference Between the Two The difference between the two companies is obviously the size, one is an independent company owned by an ex guitarists from the band “Bad Religion” whereas Universal Music Group is owned by a French conglomerate “Vivendi”. The idea behind Epitaph is that its more a personal record label, than something like Universal which is less personal and more business orientated. There is a significant difference between the amount of bands each company employs, the larger Universal Music Group has far more bands than Epitaph.