Featured Conversation: Superdestroyer

Published on Jan 5, 2025

You know, a lot of those are really beat up that I find though, I actually don’t buy them very often because they’re in bad condition. I bought a copy of Black Flag Damaged. Yeah, it sounds like shit. I would expect nothing less from a bunch of punks who probably played that vinyl to death.

Would you like to introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about your projects you have going on?

Hi, my name is John. I recorded a new record this year. I put out a lot of new music in general, but I put out a new record recently called Nelson Comes to Visit which I made with my friend Nelson. For about 20 years I had an affinity for independent music for a long time, and so my friend and I started labeling, we started investing in stuff, and that really got me thrown into this music thing a whole lot more, collecting tapes and all that kind of stuff. So it’s a feedback loop here, but I would say that’s probably the most important thing to know about me is this project.

We’re going to talk about your record collection today. Do you have any albums you bought strictly for the artwork?

So I grew up in an era where you still bought CDs from the store well into high school. And I’d go to the store and know who the band was. I would see an album, it looked cool. I would check the genre section, if it was punk or alternative rock or something heavier, you know, if it had cool art, I would buy it. They’re actually canceled now, and I don’t listen to them anymore, like Dance, Gavin dance, for example. That’s how I found out about them. Downtown Battle Mountain had cool white and gold colored drawing and it was so neat. That’s how I got into them. There’s an album called Cerulean by Baths, that album cover was really cool. It’s actually on my wall. It’s like an orb, a blue orb that’s floating. And my favorite thing is when the album actually sounds like the cover makes it look like it’s gonna sound and that’s why, like, now, as I do my own album art more, I’ve started to enjoy it, because it’s this thing where you start to realize, looking at the art, making the song, changing the art, changing the song, like they start to go hand in hand, and it helps to kind of give you an idea of where you want to go. I love that when people seem to have incorporated that into the process.

Great answer. So what’s the first area you head to in a record store?

 Well, now my record store would be more like Bandcamp, probably, and DIY bands on Twitter. Unfortunately, with physical copies, I don’t buy a lot of stuff from bigger artists. But the answer would always have been the punk section generally. I always would start there; punk, hardcore. You know, alternative rock depends on how niche they go. I know the vinyl stores around Columbus, they can get pretty granular, which is cool. I like to look at the old 80s punk vinyls a lot because, like that sound is cool on vinyl, and they have cool art, and it feels just so retro. You know, a lot of those are really beat up that I find though, I actually don’t buy them very often because they’re in bad condition. I bought a copy of Black Flag Damaged. Yeah, it sounds like shit. I would expect nothing less from a bunch of punks who probably played that vinyl to death. So I’d start at the punk section and go from there. You know, punk is kind of a broad term at record stores also, but that’s how you usually can start to find like, emo, hardcore, some of the other alternative stuff.

What’s your most treasured record? 

 So I have the album More Songs by the band Grown Ups. They’re an emo band. The album came out in 2010. I have the test press of that album, and I bought it years and years ago on eBay, \for like, 80 bucks. And it’s one of my favorite albums of all time. I could never find the actual vinyl of it at the time, but I found a test press, and it is the real test press, so that was cool, so that’s probably my most treasured just because I, like, really love that album, and it’s also one of them that got me into collecting vinyl. Actually, I bought this test press, not really knowing much about vinyl. I used to buy a lot of T shirts and CDs at shows, and then I quit buying CDs, and I just buy shirts. Then I kind of started being like, well, this vinyl thing might be cool to have one on my wall. I bought that test press, and I was like, oh, this is a real collector’s thing. People really get into this, you know. And so, yeah, I’m not a hardcore collector. I don’t get crazy about it. I don’t know what anything’s really worth, per se. But I try to buy albums that I really like, stuff that’s rare, obscure bands that I think are really awesome, that, like, maybe would go somewhere, even if they don’t. It’s just like, this might be the one time to ever own something right from them. That’s kind of what helped kick it off, is just finding this test press, after spending so long just trying to find a copy of that album and realizing, like, wow, these are, in fact, rare.

There’s a few other ones that are neat. I mean, my other most treasured are kind of obvious. We’ve put out some vinyl as a label now, and all of those are important because when I started the record label, I never thought we’d be making vinyl. I thought it was going to be a loose tape label or something. The fact that we’ve been able to do so much of that, and to be a part of that process, and we’ve worked with so many companies already and learned a lot. So it’s just like those are a labor of love. And I love those albums as well. And I think it’s awesome the bands can have something that proves they existed.

You’re having friends over, what record would you play as the night is winding down?

I have a pretty easy answer for that one as well. Trilogy by The Weeknd. it sounds so good on vinyl because of the vibe of that album, that when you play it on vinyl, it feels like you’re stuck inside on a rainy day and if you’re just trying to hang out and chill like that is the album I think to play. I’ve actually done that with my friends several times, where they’re like, Hey, why don’t you come over and like, we’ll listen to The Weeknd on vinyl.

Do you have a favorite live record?

I don’t really have a favorite live record, per se, but I did recently see NOFX at Riot Fest. They are on their final tour. They were like a huge, huge formative band for me, to the point where I didn’t realize how formative they were on me until I just saw them. And I haven’t listened to them, probably in 10 years, and I knew every word to probably about 75 of the songs they played. And I was like, these are deep cuts and B sides and stuff, you know it’s so funny, but mentioning that to say I have I Heard They Suck Live by NOFX. I listened to that album more than the non live versions of those songs, bro. 

So seeing them live helped you make a connection.

I always liked a lot of old hardcore and punk from the 80s. I always liked the rawness of that recording. To me, that sounds more like punk, I miss when people were willing to have a little bit of the ugliness in their music. I miss when people were willing to make it fuzzy and not be overly polished and overly compressed, where your heavy guitar could be a synthesizer. Literally. I mean, some of my stuff that I do, people think my synths are guitars because I put amps on them, because that’s how cleaned up guitars are, right? I like when these sound like shit sometimes, you know? Yeah, I like that sound still, and that’s why I like DIY, because people still make Lo Fi music, you know it’s still] rough, It’s a feeling like,  this person didn’t try to contrive this too much, they did something, and then they felt like this says what I needed to say, and they move on.

What’s your white whale?

There are original pressings of some Modest Mouse records I would have liked to have, because I’m a huge fan of Modest Mouse. There’s some original pressings of just stuff that I have, like Weatherbox, I would have liked to have the original pressing of Flies in All Directions.

What’s your favorite record to listen to on headphones?

Okay, so not necessarily my favorite, but one that gets me every single time, is the production on (Modest Mouse) Moon and Antarctica, and some of the older, early, Modest Mouse albums sound so good. I don’t listen to them as much in headphones, but every time I do, I’m like, that’s crazy. This was made in the year 2000 and the vinyl experience of when I listen on headphones, it just always pops, those kind of albums pop . And Tyler The Creator. I have Flower Boy on vinyl, and that one sounds really cool in headphones. 

What genres most represent your collection?

Punk and electronic music, if I had to guess. I have A Soundtrack to a Death by Mura Masa. I have Bad Vibes by Shlohmo. I try to buy electronic producers albums on vinyl, because I actually think electronic music is the best genre to listen to on vinyl.

What’s the weirdest record you own?

The seven inch that Virginity put out When Casey blew his knee out, that has the dynamite on his knee. I own that on vinyl. And it’s actually a square cut seven inch vinyl. And it’s printed right on there.They didn’t put a lot of them out, but it was to help raise money for the surgery he needed there. But that’s a really cool one. It looks neat.

Superdestroyer is an anonymous experimental punk artist from Columbus, OH. He co-owns Lonely Ghost Records, a DIY record label that focuses on experimental pop, punk, and emo acts from across the internet. To see more about Lonely Ghost Records or Superdestroyer you can visit lonelyghostrecords.com