Digby Pearson

Digby Pearson, also known as "Dig," (born 1962) is a British musician and businessman who founded Earache Records, which signed some of the most infamous heavy metal acts worldwide in the 1980s and early 1990s.

He was raised in Nottingham, UK where he began playing music focusing on heavy metal. He played for a while in the DIY punk band Scum Dribblurzzz, who never released any records or accepted payment for playing shows.

In the mid-80s, he founded Earache, and gradually began releasing records. He says the first year of business, 1986, was spent doing very little. He claims he initially set up the label as a way to continue to claim social security benefits without having to go to the unemployment office every two weeks - "I didn't fancy doing that". He started releasing flexi-discs, and then moved on to putting out a split between Concrete Sox and Heresy, and an album by the Accüsed. In 1987 he compiled two sessions by different line-ups of the band Napalm Death, and released them as the album Scum. The album proved popular, peaking at 7 on the indie chart and receiving airplay on John Peel's show on BBC Radio 1. Both Napalm Death and Heresy are considered to be pioneering grindcore bands.

As his business success grew he signed relatively unknown acts such as Bolt Thrower, Carcass, Cathedral, Godflesh, Anal Cunt, Entombed, Morbid Angel and many others throughout the 1980s. Into the 1990s, Sony Music expected death metal and grindcore to be "the next big thing" and Earache Records licensed Earache's main bands such as Cathedral, Fudge Tunnel and Carcass to Sony.

When the success never occurred Earache was without its main acts and Cathedral and Carcass were left in label limbo. Digby pushed on and signed acts such as Deicide, Mortiis, and The Berzerker, as well as releasing more techno oriented music and reissues of the label's earlier albums.

In 2015, Pearson won the "Pioneer Award" from the AIM Independent Music Awards.