Shred Is Back For The Attack

When the 22-year-old producer Mike Varney founded Shrapnel Records in 1980, it became the first dedicated metal label in the United States, beating Jonny Z’s Megaforce and Brian Slagel’s Metal Blade to market by two years. That’s perhaps a surprising distinction for a label with such a narrow stylistic focus. As the burgeoning thrash and death metal scenes pushed American metal to the bleeding edge of heavy music worldwide, Varney stuck to his guns. Shrapnel was founded to serve “a niche within a niche,” as Varney explained to Guitar World in a 2023 interview: “I wasn’t finding enough heavy rock records, and as a consumer, I was looking for the next guitar hero. As I tried to narrow the scope of my record label, it dawned on me that I could be the guy to discover the best new guitar players of the decade. I didn’t have any competition I knew of, so it seemed like a great niche where I could dig in and do something I loved.”