Today we’d like to introduce you to Austin Hammer.
Hi Austin, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
HK started solely off of the fact that we wanted more house music in Orlando. It was really that simple, we had a group of friends who loved the music but would have to travel to Miami most of the time to get our fix. On June 2nd, 2017 we officially became House Keepers Records, giving birth to our slogan “Keepin’ It Clean Since ‘17”. At first, we were not a label by any means, instead, we were building up our local parties at different venues throughout the city.
We knew in due time we wanted to release music but we knew we had to walk before we could run. Once we got our bearings with the events and creating some hype behind the parties, we started adding integral members to the team who were sitting on loads of music. One year later, we released our first music under House Keepers Records which was the “Late Checkout” compilation. From that point forward, we never looked back.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It has been an absolute rollercoaster, to say the least. Growing up not once did I say, “I want to start a record label” or have any experience in the music or entertainment industry. What I did have was a passion for the music and the culture. I knew I always wanted to create something that would bring happiness to people and I saw a hole in the Orlando market that needed to be filled. Like I mentioned before when we first started, it was local parties only. Not having any experience outside of throwing high school parties (sorry mom and dad) I had to learn on the fly.
A lot of trial and error has taken place over these last 4.5 years. Whether that be selecting days to throw parties, what talent to bring to the city, what music we want to release, all the way down to marketing tactics, brand awareness, etc. It has all been quite the whirlwind but it finally seems like we are hitting our stride as a full-service label.
A major part in finally understanding what it takes to stand out from the crowd has been the team behind HK. We have a tight-knit group of people that really care about the music and the brand. It’s a huge boost to be surrounded by like-minded individuals that want to keep progressing. I can’t stress enough how integral that has been to our success.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
As much as I would like to talk about myself, there’s one word that sums this up perfectly. TEAMWORK. We have such an amazing group of talented individuals that wake up and breathe house music. They care about the success of the label just as much as I do and that keeps me going every day. It is a lot of work curating events and releases because so much goes into it but it’s what we love to do.
For 2022 my role is kind of pivoting within HK. Now that we really have some traction and recognition not only throughout the US but Internationally as well, there has been a lot of attention on the artists we have been growing out of Orlando. So the focus for me now is really managing the core team. That includes landing them bookings on festivals and club plays outside of the Florida market, helping land their music on established labels, and continuing to sign established and budding talent to the HK roster.
.But if I had to pick one thing that I am most proud of it would be the fact that I was able to convince a group of friends to just go for it. I had no skin in the industry at the time, I had no legs to stand on whatsoever. I had a vision and I saw an opportunity and I haven’t stopped working towards a goal for the last 4.5 years and I think that really sets me apart from others.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I love this question because I kind of live by the motto of “High Risk, High Reward”. A little background on me…I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and after high school, I was a preferred walk on at a FCS school Western Illinois University for football. There I played two years before getting injured and ultimately leaving the team and school. While I was back home one summer, I was really trying to figure out what my next move was. I was working at LA fitness as a sales associate, living at home and going to community college. I was really at a low point in life and felt stuck. That was until a good friend of mine who was in a similar situation as me (he had just left Northern Illinois University and come back home) said he was moving to Florida for a year before enrolling at UCF. For me a lightbulb went off…this was my chance at a fresh start. A few months later, I was in a car with my friend Jordan driving down to Florida with nothing but $1000 in my pocket and a dream.
House Keepers wasn’t my first crack at trying to build something. When I first moved to Florida in 2011, my cousin hooked me up with his best friend Myles Erfurth. At the time, Myles owned a production company called Big Shot Productions which in turn really gave me my first look into the world of live events within EDM. He hired me as a grip where I learned to set up and breakdown camera cranes and equipment for events such as Ultra Music Festival and EDC Orlando. It was there where I started to develop a love for production and live events. Myles and I are very alike, we want to go out and get it and since we had spent a lot of time together, we started formulating an idea that was really ahead of its time back in 2012.
That idea was Keg TV. Looking back at it, we really were onto something. If you can remember back in 2012 streaming sites were in its infant stage but we had this idea of creating content solely based on the internet for the college demographic (like what you would see with barstool sports on Instagram). We had great slogans in a place like “College Life On Tap” and “F*ck Cable” and this idea started to come to fruition as we started creating content and traveling around to different college campuses promoting our idea. We were really gaining some traction but learned really quickly that if we wanted to make this happen, we would have needed some serious funding. To make a long story short, we ended up going our separate ways but still to this day, I would not trade the time spent trying to make that thing happen. I gained so much knowledge and real-world experience that it really conditioned me for the next venture which was House Keepers Records.
Contact Info:
- Email: austin@housekeepersrecords.com
- Website: hkrecs.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/housekeepersrecords/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HouseKeepersRecords
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/housekeepersrecords
Image Credits
Photo Credit: Janiel Martinez
