Broken Skull Records operates out of Ontario, Canada, and is helmed by Matt and Gavin—friends whose connection to punk and hardcore dates back to growing up together outside Ottawa. The label’s catalog has steadily expanded, focusing on filthy hardcore, crust, d-beat, and the rougher edges where punk and metal collide.
With releases from Mortality Mirror, Cell Deth, Warkrusher, and others under their belt, Broken Skull has also expanded its activities into live shows and the 2-day Fragments festival in Ottawa.
I fell in love with the label's recent releases from Vipers (Nick of Coke Bust’s latest project) and Spiritual Law, so I reached out to Broken Skull Records to learn more about the label behind it. I caught up with Matt and Gavin to talk about their introduction to punk, the realities of operating a DIY label in 2026, Fragments fest, and what they have cooking next.
When and how did you come to discover hardcore/punk/metal music? What were some of the bands or records that had an early impact on you? Perhaps there were some local bands that you fell in love with?
Matt: We both grew up in the country outside of a small farming town that had a population of 4,500. Even though our parents worked together, we only met in grades 7 and 8, around ’99. Gavin already played guitar in a band. They covered “Butterfly” by Weezer. I remember skipping school to go across the street and watch them play at his school’s talent show.
One of their older brothers was in a ska/metal band, an insane combination, called Mikes Got Our Back, whose namesake I recently found out was because the drummer was friends with the bass player, Mike, of Chixdiggit on ICQ. Anyway, they let their little brothers’ band open up, and that was one of the first shows I remember us both attending together. A local straight edge hardcore band called Miles Between Us played that night as well. Their singer later formed and plays guitar in Mil-Spec.
But prior to that, it was my dad getting me into Black Sabbath early on and my older cousin showing me Slayer, Dead Kennedys, and Black Flag, while I was really into Green Day, blink-182, and the Ramones at the same time. We were into whatever heavy, aggressive music we could find.
After that first local gig, we were hooked, and we’d go see local bands like Miles Between Us, Experiment In Terror, The Riptides, The Transit, and Buried Inside every weekend; it felt like we were in different small towns around the valley. We spent a lot of time in CD Exchange, Record Runner, and HMV, pooling resources to buy whatever was cheap and looked the coolest, trading CDs, and making mixtapes from local college radio shows like Shouting to Be Heard on CKCU.
Gavin: Matt pretty well sums it up. I still remember the day our drummer came to school in grade 8 and told us his drum teacher showed him how to play “punk drums” so we could start playing faster.
One of my earliest memories of non-local punk music is seeing a Misfits video on MuchMusic in Matt’s grandma’s living room and being very intrigued by this shirtless band in a cave. A couple of years after that very first show at the Almonte Legion, Matt started booking shows with high school bands from around the region, and I guess he never really stopped.
I think the first show we went to in the city together was The Riptides and The Vapids from Hamilton. It’s pretty nice that our love for punk music is tied into our lifelong friendship.
Tell me about the nucleus behind the start of the label. Were you wary of putting your money on the line to do it in the first place?
Matt: We live in different cities now. Gavin is back in Almonte, outside of Ottawa, and I recently moved from Toronto to London, Ontario. I don’t want to speak for Gavin, but I think at the time he was feeling disconnected from the larger punk community. Ottawa has always felt slightly removed and disconnected from what’s going on, whereas cities like Toronto and Montreal are on people’s radar.
Geographically, it’s hard for Canadian bands to tour, and I think a lot of great bands from here fly under people’s radar as a result. Starting a label seemed like a good way to push our friends and connect people so they feel like they are part of something bigger than just their small local scenes.
As far as money goes, we set out thinking we could pay for the first batch of releases out of pocket and just keep reinvesting that initial amount back into the label. The reality is we’ve consistently lost money on every release, including anything that’s sold out. The cost of production is just so high now and the margins so thin, even operating as DIY as possible, that the best you can hope for is supporting bands and people you love and maybe possibly breaking even.
Anyone who does this operates at a loss. People like Pat from 11PM or Chris from SORE MIND operate out of their love of punk to their financial detriment.
Gavin: We had our first few releases lined up before we put anything out so that we could hit the ground running with it. Each of these releases involved working with friends, and that has largely remained the case.
I find the financial aspect of it easy to swallow when it means supporting people we know making the music we love. It would be great if the label becomes self-sustaining, but I won’t bank on that happening soon. We both highly value physical media and music, so it’s more important to put new music into people’s hands than it is to get a financial return on it.
Did you have a clear vision of what kinds of bands and records you wanted to work with and release from the start, or has that evolved with time?
Matt: I think we always had a clear vision of what it would be, but we never really had a discussion about it specifically that I recall. We also know one another so well that we just almost always see eye to eye and agree on things.
Gavin: Yeah, I think we always knew we wanted to focus largely on hardcore punk and raw punk, but we’ve also really enjoyed working with the bands who have approached us that we wouldn’t necessarily have known about. That really keeps it exciting.
We’d be spending our time looking for new bands to listen to even without the label. This gives us the opportunity to work with them and be more involved.
How would you describe Broken Skull Records and the types of records you’ve released to date to someone who hasn’t come across the label yet?
Matt: Hardcore punk, crust punk, death metal played by punks, raw punk, and d-beat...punk.
Gavin: The more we release, the harder it is to describe. By now, we’ve worked with a few bands from further afield, but a large part of what we’ve released could be considered a small snapshot of what’s going on in eastern Canadian punk music lately.
READ MORE: A Conversation with Dollhouse Vocalist Michelle Caiazzo on Punk, Art & Mental Illness
Talk to me about this Mortality Mirror release you recently dropped.
Matt: Gavin plays drums in Mortality Mirror, so I’ll leave this to him. But even if he didn’t, we would have put this demo out anyway, or at least asked to.
Gavin: Mortality Mirror was started by myself and the guitarist/vocalist, Shaun. We had an idea of the type of music we wanted to make together: old-school death metal influences given a punk treatment. We intentionally keep it pretty stripped-down.
It seems like a lot of people don’t know what to make of Mortality Mirror so far, maybe because it’s not strictly one thing or the other. But I mean, look at Winter: punks playing doom, new people offering their own take on an already established genre. I’m OK with the idea that people need to see or hear us a few times before they decide whether or not it’s for them.
I’d love to hear lots more bands that are blending metal with their punk, or punk with their metal. Shout out to Culvert Corpse from Nova Scotia!
Of everything you’ve done so far, what would your personal pick be for the most underrated Broken Skull release and why?
Matt: I’ll say none of them are overrated, that’s for sure. I guess the band that flies under the radar the most is Epaulet. Despite being composed of people who have been active in a ton of amazing bands past and present, and Adam being one of the most incredibly talented and prolific artists within the subgenre, they have rarely played outside of Toronto and have barely even played locally.
Gavin: Yeah, that’s tough to answer. It feels like a few things we’ve done have fallen under the radar. We sell out of certain releases because we do small runs, not because we sell tons of copies. I think the success of any of our releases can be attributed to how hard the bands work.
What’s the story behind the Fragments fest? It’s a tall undertaking!
Matt: Our old friend (Ska) Jeff, who Gavin books shows with in Ottawa under World of Tomorrow, used to book a fest called S.O.T.O. (Sitting On The Outside) and decided not to anymore and suggested we do one instead.
We started plotting and asking bands and just had a huge working list that we went down until it started to take shape. We’re really happy with the final lineup and how it came together and feel like it really represents what we love.
In the end, Jeff booked a birthday show that turned into a fest, but next year we’re teaming up to focus on Fragments. Booking something like this is a ton of work, but it never felt like booking a fest. It has just been an extension of what we’ve already been doing with Broken Skull, only now we’re trying to get as many of those bands we love and support in a room together.
Gavin: Trying to support the bands we love while also bringing bands to town who might not otherwise make it up here. Jeff has lots of great connections from booking shows and playing in bands, so going forward we’ll be sharing the workload more.
I’ll also say there are plenty of people in the Ottawa punk scene who are pretty stoked to help out with things like this whenever they can.
What’s on the horizon for the label for the rest of 2026 and beyond?
Matt & Gavin: Zeal/Warkrusher split 12”, Military School 7” with 11PM, Trenchraid LP, Crisis Party LP, Infernal Spawn demo, Koffin Byrth demo, License demo, and a Durs Cœrs repress.
Plus, there are three or four other releases we aren’t quite ready to announce yet. We both have a bunch of shows we’ve booked outside the label in London, Ontario, and Ottawa; we’re trying to help bands tour more, and we’ve started booking Fragments 2027.
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Get tickets for the 2-day Fragments punk festival here.
Broken Skull Records on social media: Instagram
Tagged: cell deth, mortality mirror, record label profile, spiritual law, vipers, zeal
