Label Profile : Temporary Residence Limited

Interview with Jeremy deVine

Hey Jeremy, how are you? What did you do this past weekend?
I’m fine, thank you. This weekend I worked, as usual. I don’t spend much time doing otherwise these days, it seems, but it hardly feels like work compared to every other job I’ve ever had.

Temporary Residence Limited has been in existence since 1996, but let's go back to the beginning. Growing up, how did you get involved in music?
I grew up listening to stuff like Simon & Garfunkel, Traveling Wilburys, Tom Petty, Bon Jovi, AC/DC and Poison. Then around age 13 I got into Nirvana and almost immediately into local Louisville punk bands. As with most teenagers, the timetable of events in my life moved much faster back then, so the leap from classic and modern rock radio to Endpoint, Slint and Seam was maybe 6-8 months. From there I just became more and more embedded in underground and experimental music.

At what point did you decide that you wanted to run your own label?
There was a Louisville label called Slamdek that worked almost exclusively with local artists. Along with Touch and Go Records they were a big beacon for getting our town’s music heard by the outside world. Discovering that record companies could be made up of only a handful of friends – or merely one person, as in Slamdek’s case – introduced an alternate reality to me
for sure.

How was the label first formed?
I had the idea to start a label while still living in Louisville, but I didn’t want to be a “local label,” and also didn’t want to compete with or be considered an alternative or competitor to Slamdek. So I waited until I moved to Baltimore to really begin. It was officially started it in late 1995 with my college roommate at the time. He and I parted ways soon after, and I ran solo from my bedroom.

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