Sound
Asleep Records was started back in 1994 when Jerker
Emanuelson from small-town Vara,
Sweden, decided that there was way too much great American music that
was being heard by too few. The result of this, was the release of
the first Hit
The Hay 
compilation
CD. The mix of pop and more roots oriented stuff on the same compilation
was something new and turned out to be a great success. This CD set
the standards for everything else we´ve released after that.
When we got a chance to release a CDEP with Nashville pop master Bill
Lloyd, we jumped at it right away. Bill examplifies the music
that this label represents, with his involvement in both pop and country
music.
The next thing we put out was our second compilation called, you guessed
it, Hit The Hay Vol.2
including the same mix of pop and roots as the first one.
North
Carolina popgod Jamie
Hoover, from The
Spongetones, was the next one to be included in the labels roster
with the release of the 7" vinyl single "Nobody
Wins This Time"
A new band from Detroit called The
Phenomenal Cats caught Jerkers attention and their debut CD EP
"Seagirl and 5 other
Dogs" was the next outing.
Great
country-rocker Tim Carrol,
formely of the Blue Chieftains, had a track already on the first "Hit
The Hay", but now it was time for his debut CD EP called
"Good Rock From Bad".
A
new concept in the compilation department appeared with "Fireworks".
Taking the same mix of pop and country-rock as the "Hit The Hay"
compilations, but offering two songs by most artists instead of just
one. This turned out to be a smash hit, so soon to follow was "Fireworks
Vol. 2" in the same style.
The next
release was the debut CD by Robert
Crenshaw called "Full
Length Stereo Recordings" Oh yes, Robert is Marshall's brother
and former drummer.
The Fall of 1999 saw the 5th Anniversary for the label, and to celebrate
that, "Hit
The Hay Vol. 3" was released. The new Millennium has seen
two new releases so far. First out was the Mark
Brine CD "Back
In The Country" soon followed by "Hit
The Hay Vol.4", this time being a double CD.
The original idea with Sound Asleep Records was to release compilations
with great, and mostly unknown, pop from the mid 70's to the mid 80's.
Now, we've started a series of compilations called "Home
Runs" that compiles just that. Each volumes will be strictly
limited to 200 copies. The Home Runs series is put together by Jerker
and Christer Strömberg 
More and more great music comes out all the time, so "Hit
The Hay Vol 5" turned out to be a double CD with 46 artists.
In
December of 2002, a second volume of Home Runs was released including
more great and mostly obscure pop.
Early 2003 "Hit
The Hay Vol. 6" saw the light of the day and once more it's
a double CD.
2004
- So, now ten years has gone since the start of the label. Time really
flies. To celebrate this anniversary, we released Hit
The Hay Vol. 7 including 47 great songs by 47 great artists.
We are also proud to announce that we have started to work with the
great band The Accelerators
from Raleigh, North Carolina. We are distrubuting their rocking CD
"Nearer" that came out a few years ago. We are also working
together on a compilation of stuff from their three great hard-to-find
earlier CD's.
The original idea with the label was to release great and obscure pop from the mid 70´s to the mid 80´s, and Jerker and his good friend Christer Strömberg, started to release a series of compilations called "Home Runs" that was including music like that. The first volume came out in 2001 and the second one in 2002
"It was said from the start of the "Home Runs" series that it should only be three volumes, and in 2005, the third and final volume of this series was released. It was sort of sad to put an end to it here with so much more great American pop from 1975-85 still to release, but I guess three volumes is enough and then people hopefully have been inspired enough to seek out more great pop from this era themselves."
The original idea with the label was to release great and obscure pop from the mid 70´s to the mid 80´s, and Jerker and his good friend Christer Strömberg, started to release a series of compilations called "Home Runs" that was including music like that. The first volume came out in 2001 and the second one in 2002
"I´ve had a plan for several years to put out a compilation with my friends and favorites in Nashville, and now that it was exaclty 20 years since I first came to Nashville on a tennis scholarship, I thought it was a great time to do it. "Between Goodlettsville And Murfreesboro" is a compilation including, except for a Webb Wilder track, only previously unreleased tracks by a lot of the great musicians that live and work in Nashville.
The name of the compilation comes from the fact that Goodlettsville is a small city just north of Nashville, and I always stay with friends there when I´m in town. Murfreesboro is a small town just south of Nashville, and Trevecca College that I went to in Nashville is on Murfreesboro Road.
In the summer of 2007, the "Road Chill" CD by Raleigh, North Carolina band The Accelerators was released. The CD includes the 19 best tracks from their first three LP´s.
Jerker has only released records with American or Canadian bands, when he, in the spring of 2008, got the chance to release the new CD by Swedish band The Mop Tops, he jumped on it right away. I´ve been a big fan of The Mop Tops for 20 years, so it was a big thrill to be able to release their great new CD, says Jerker.
In the spring of 2008, Jerker bought a CD with the band Dropkick from Glasgow, Scotland and thought it was their debut CD. The CD called "Dot The i" was really excellent, so Jerker decided to find out a little more about the band. He found that they had made 7 previous CD´s! He bought them all right away and was knocked out by how good they were and that he hadn´t discovered this great band earlier.
The band consists of the two brothers Alastair and Andrew Taylor plus guitarplayer Roy W. Taylor, who amazingly, is not related to the two other Taylors!
Then when Jerker was at The International Pop Overthrow Festival at The Cavern in Liverpool in May, he was lucky enough to get to see the band play two excellent shows. He asked them, if they might be interested in having a CD released on Sound Asleep, and he was very pleased when they said yes.
Now, that CD is out, and it´s called "Patchwork". It´s an excellent mix of the best of The Jayhawks, Wilco and Teenage Fanclub
After the success with the three volumes of "Home Runs", we´re back with another powerpop compilation in pretty much the same style. It´s great North American pop from 1975-95. It´s been compiled by Jerker at Sound Asleep and Christer at Wall Of Noise.
Dropkick is the best new band that I´ve heard in many years, and they are also very productive. I loved being able to release their previous CD, so when I was asked to release the new one "Abelay Hotel", I jumped on it right away. The CD was released in mid September 2009. Dropkick is the first band that Sound Asleep Records releases two full-length CD´s with.
- Jerker September 2009