Q&A with Chris Ziegler

& Kristina Benson editor and publisher of L.A. Record

Q: How did you get started?

Chris: I saw too much music around me that wasn’t getting acknowledged. In 2005, a photographer friend took a really cool photo and I was inspired by it. I wanted to do a poster and then have a band interview on the back. People were super into it and were hitting me up when they found out I had been the one to make it. We started L.A. Record shortly after.

L.A. Record, Issue 124

Fun Facts about L.A. Record

They covered Anderson .Paak right before he became famous.

They were the first U.S. press to interview Flying Lotus.

They interviewed Kendrick Lamar around the time his first record came out.

Each issue of L.A. Record has full page artwork, designed to be torn out and posted up on a wall

L.A. Record, Issue 124

Q: What goes into making each publication?

Chris: We try to keep it really diverse in age, race, type of music and so on, because we want everyone to feel like they can be in it. We mostly react to what [artists] are doing. For example, we’ll see who is putting out records, who is coming to town, and we want to promote people with full length albums coming out. People send in demos and stuff all the time that we try to give attention to too, and there’s a lot of people contributing.

Kristina: There are all these people helping, but we still do all the editing, layout, proofing, and we handle giving out assignments, putting all the pieces together and stuff like that. L.A. Record is still basically a volunteer publication so we let our people do the cool things. And we’re constantly working!

L.A. Record, Issue 124