History

Empire Records was established by Paul Higgins and Trevor Carter in 1991. The label started as an offshoot from the recording studio, Studio 52. It was initially setup as a development label for artists that the studio wanted to sign and ‘shop’ to major labels. The most notable name from this period was Delta Goodrem who was signed to Empire at the age of just 14, in a joint venture with her parents before being on-signed to Sony Music going on to achieve worldwide success. Some of the other artists Empire signed during the early years were Michelle Smith who went on to a musical stage career in LA, Remedy Stone, Teramaze who have continued and are still releasing music today and a young Sydney band named Fyna.

Empire was also used as a label for release and distribution of the Studio’s Blues recordings, namely the Real Australian Blues Series and certain Dutch Tilders Cds. For a while Empire traded as a distributor dealing direct with retailers and distributed a mixed catalogue of Ausralian Blues, Jazz, Country and other indy titles.

In recent times Empire has given away the distribution business and contracted it’s distribution through MGM in Sydney. The label has also got a lot more serious about developing its roster and has gained a range of small investors to drive its activities to a higher level. The first major signing and commercial release has been Marc Collis. Marc had been an earlier signing in partnership with Roadrunner Records with his band Plunja and later The Whiteroom, so when the band split Empire resigned his solo career.

Empire has since signed two young Sydney based pop artists, Natasha Duarte’ who is just 15 and Rose Arbuckle who has just recently turned 19. The label also signed pop rock band Zero Degrees from Canberra, boy popstars Boyracer and still looks after the Blues catalogue of Dutch Tilders. Empire also distributes music from Katie Underwood and Queensland based artist Colin Crosbie.