Make all the High Fidelity jokes you want, but Sonic Boom Records owner Jason Hughes makes no bones about his unabashed love of music. After all, he’s surrounded himself with a record store that he lovingly describes as “almost a social hub in Seattle. It’s a place to come, hear new music, meet people, do a little digging, find stuff.” An extension of his music-filled life, it seems for Hughes that record store ownership was the natural next step.

Hughes recounts his formulate years as him alone with a guitar. “I was kind of a latchkey kid growing up, so it was one of those outlets,” he says. “I’d come home, plug in my guitar, put on a record, and play along with it. That’s kind of how I learned a lot of it. I’d put on Side B of The Who Live at Leeds and just learn it through and through…it was great.”

Despite a mother whose musical influences leaned more to the folk side of the spectrum (She was a member of little-known outfit, We Three. Says Hughes, “I’ve been trying to find one of her records forever. She has one, but I kind of want one for myself.”) Hughes admits he was a classic rock kid until college when he fell into San Diego’s collegiate radio scene. “Working at a college station was such a huge help because not only would you play what you wanted to play, but you’d go though everything in rotation.” Hughes explains his discovery process. “Everything from Nonesuch Japanese birdcall recordings to avant-garde jazz to blues to soul, great electronica to Kruder and Dorfmeister, that whole genre that was coming out then, I picked all that stuff up in college radio. It’s great.”

After brief stints in Seattle based bands and production studios (including famed KEXP), that base of knowledge would go on to serve him well as Hughes and his business partner opened Sonic Boom on a dream and a series of maxed out credit cards.

Part of Hughes job—the way he sees it—is to provide guidance to his many loyal customers looking for the next big thing. “I hope stuff like our employee picks, our reviews, the stuff that we actually bring in here is stuff that helps people find what they’re looking for,” Hughes says. “I think of record stores as a filter. If you look at a new release book, every week there’s a thousand CDs coming out. And we pick and chose the stuff that we believe and think is what our customers want…we filter stuff so people don’t have to waste hours and hours going though the sludge to find the gems.”

When not recommending his favorite indie standards Built to Spill and Elliott Smith (of Smith: “Elliott was a poet. He was just brilliant. I think [he’s] Nick Drake times and I know I’m going to get a lot of flack for that!”) Hughes has used his position to champion a few underdogs. One such promotional success was his championing the unknown band, Miracle Fortress. He explains his victory, “One of our employees picked it up, and loved it. And I think we were the number one market in the country. Because we put it in listening stations, we played it in the overhead we were telling people about it. We sold a few hundred copies of it with no real label support or anything like that.” As if this wasn’t testimony enough, Hughes joyfully continues his pitch, saying, “It was just a great record. And it was one of those records that just flows from beginning to end. It has that great sound and it’s a really really great record.” (Note: Please see our list of streaming albums this week—Panel wholeheartedly agrees with this statement. The other album, Pseudosix, Hughes calls one of his favorite albums to be put out on the Sonic Boom label.)

At the end of the day, after making sure the bathroom gets cleaned and his employees get paid, it all comes down to a love for music. Hughes pauses to considering the sway that music has held over him, “I think the thing—and this probably speaks true for a lot of people—is that music defines a certain era in their life. Certain relationships, certain feelings, certain places. It’s like smell; it really brings back memories and has a tangible affect on the way you think and feel. And that’s what makes it so great.”

Photos by Laura Totten

Written by Laura Studarus

(Sonic Boom Records Official Site)