Founder Shawn Stern Country of origin United States of America | Founded 1982 | |
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Location Los Angeles, California Artists Albums Walk Together - Rock Tog, To Sell the Truth, And No One Else Wanted t, If You Swear - You'll Cat, Sound & Fury | ||
BYO Records is a Los Angeles, California based independent punk rock record label created by Shawn and Mark Stern, two of the three brothers of the seminal California punk rock band Youth Brigade (the third being Adam Stern who plays bass but does not run BYO). BYO stands for Better Youth Organization and aims to promote punk and other alternative youth cultures in a positive light. BYO records serves as an extension and realization of the ethos promoted by Youth Brigade such as the belief that "youth is an attitude, not an age," and that "every generation has a responsibility to change what they feel is wrong in the world." It has released records by a number of influential, if not genre-defining bands, including 7 Seconds, Agression, and SNFU in the 1980s and Leatherface, Kosher, The Unseen, Throw Rag, Jon Cougar Concentration Camp, Automatic 7 and The Briefs more recently. It also started the BYO Split Series of full-length records shared by bands from other labels, such as Leatherface/Hot Water Music, Swingin' Utters/Youth Brigade, NOFX/Rancid, The Bouncing Souls/Anti-Flag and Alkaline Trio/One Man Army. The label celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2012.