From funding the first Record Store Day to producing limited one-step pressings of Pet Sounds, Prince, and Dr. Dre, Tom "Grover" Biery is one of the most influential figures in modern vinyl culture - Hear all about his next adventures with the vinyl artform.
Topics Include:
- Tom "Grover" Biery spent 20 years at Warner Bros. Records
- He pushed vinyl internally around 2004 when nobody believed in it
- His boss Tom Wally gave him the green light to proceed
- First pressings were Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman catalog titles
- Warner's vinyl billing exploded from $300K to $5M in 18 months
- Failure's Fantastic Planet was among the earliest titles he championed
- Neil Young gave an impassioned in-office speech about the importance of sound
- That speech directly inspired the "Because Sound Matters" brand name
- BSM is Warner's audiophile imprint; DSS covers Interscope and Capitol
- Tom now operates as a consultant to both major label groups
- His own label, Slow Down Sounds, has been running nearly a decade
- One-step pressings go lacquer to stamper, skipping generational quality loss
- Each stamper yields only 500–750 pressings, requiring multiple lacquer cuts
- Neotech's D2 vinyl compound produces exceptionally quiet, revealing pressings
- Mastering costs alone run nine times higher on one-step projects
- Sources are vetted exhaustively — flat masters, tape, or high-res files
- Artists and managers approve every test pressing throughout the process
- A newly discovered 1972 Pet Sounds master changed everything for the reissue
- Chris Bellman confirmed the tape matched a 1972 white label perfectly
- Only 6,000 copies of the Pet Sounds DSS one-step will ever exist
- Tom has been transparent about sourcing since 2005, long before the MoFi controversy
- Quality now ranks second or third in why fans buy vinyl
- Beck's Morning Phase and Tom Petty's Wildflowers one-steps surprised even skeptics
- Soul Coughing's Ruby Vroom reissue came from original tapes at Warner
- Nate lobbies for Frusciante, Jellyfish, Beck's Sea Change, and Marilyn Manson reissues
- Dr. Dre's The Chronic from tape is among the first hip-hop one-steps
- Neil Young has still never done a one-step, despite inspiring the whole program
- Tom was one of the original funders who got Record Store Day off the ground
- Record stores are reporting their biggest-ever RSD sales figures this year
- His label Slow Down Sounds is releasing Terry Callier's Occasional Rain this June
High resolution version of this podcast is available at: www.Patreon.com/VinylGuide
