2M1 Records has a number of soundtrack releases in its catalogue, but this month the label will release two high-profile scores on limited CDs: Andy Garfield’s music from Frozen (2010), and Hatchet (2006) / Hatchet II (2010).

In our conversation, Toronto-based co-owner George Fox describes the company’s founding with Oklahoma-based Jeff Johns, the company's machinations, and the resilience of the compact disc among collectors and audiophile connoisseurs.

Mark R. Hasan: How did you become involved in soundtrack distribution?

George Fox: I knew my business part Jeff Johns for a while online. We both knew industry people, and we shared a love of film scores, and eventually it came up: Maybe we could start a record label.

We also knew some people who owned other record labels, and they were very supportive of us. We’ve never had any bad relationships with other labels.

Everyone’s been helpful, so it seemed like it was something we could definitely work with, and from that, I guess, over a couple of nights of discussion we came up with a name, we came up with our whole model, what we could do differently, and what we would try and improve upon as a label.

Then obviously came the work – we actually had to get the scores. It was originally kind of tough because we had no name, and it’s really tough to find a composer and say ‘Give us the rights to your score.’ Because we didn’t have money, we offered them 50% of our sales.

We first got End of the Line (2006). That turned out to be a moderate success. We sold probably 20 copies, but for a small label’s first release for an unknown movie, it’s a pretty good sale, so that’s kind of where we started.

MRH: I guess that’s the hardest thing after setting up the business plan – attracting composers – but you explained you already had a familiarity with the marketplace in addition to contacts.

GF: Yeah, we definitely knew people in the industry, more on a personal basis than a business relationship, but we had those connections. Jeff knew these people long before me. He used to do fan sites for composers, and he still builds sites for certain composers now, so that’s how he had a lot of these contacts.

MRH: For the composers themselves, did they approach you, or did you approach them beforehand?

GF: We have had composers approach us, but normally we have to seek them out because right now our label is still in a stage where we are generally unknown;  
in the future, hopefully that will change.