About Warren Fahey

Record Producer

As executive record producer, Warren’s first recording projects were with EMI and, in 1974, with his fiercely independent Larrikin Records, and, from 2002, Rouseabout Records, he has been responsible for more than 800 Australian recordings. He has also developed projects for ABC Music, Universal, Sony, Festival Records and many international labels. His preferred genres are folk, documentary, indigenous, country, classical, theatre music & soundtracks, jazz, and children’s music. He has worked with some of the country’s most talented musicians, bringing their unique sounds to audiences around the world. In 2002 he was acknowledged with the Industry Person of the Year and, in 2015, the Australasian Sound Recording Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Larrikin Label

Larrikin Records was established by Warren Fahey in 1974. Folkways Music, the retail outlet, had been established the year earlier and both were small cottage ventures sharing a small Paddington shop front at 38a Oxford Street. It was never intended that the label would develop into a large business, and the first release of Australian mining songs ‘Man of the Earth’ (Larrikin LRF001) probably set the label’s fate.

Fahey ran the label, and its offshoot labels, Rissole, Jarrah Hill and Green, for twenty-two years until selling the company to Festival Records in 1995.
Essentially the label was funded by Folkways, which had a healthy daily cash flow – a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul and visa versa. In retrospect, Fahey admits he should never have produced many of the albums released on the labels, but he became consumed with the projects and the need to issue Australian music when no one else appeared to care. Financially it was always a struggle, and this eventually spurred the desire to sell it was also Fahey’s 50th birthday and he had other challenges.

After a few years, the two businesses moved from the original small two-room shop to larger premises a block away at 82 Oxford Street. This was a three-level building and provided room for the third area of the business which was the distribution of imported labels like Rounder, Folkways USA, Topic, Shanachie etc. The businesses moved a third and final time when premises in the main area of Paddington became available in the early 1980s at 282 Oxford Street, Paddington.

Fahey saw Larrikin as a small label for interesting music however it continued to pump out a flow of releases. The first few releases are a good indication that the label was not headed for financial glory!

The label went on to release nearly 600 albums, mostly Australian and included releases by (in no particular order): Eric Bogle, Bushwackers, Phyl Lobl, Chris Duffy, Margret RoadKnight, Jeannie Lewis, Frances Paterson, John Kane, Danny Spooner, Gordon McIntyre, John Morris, Clem Parkinson, Lyell Sayer, John Dengate, Robyn Archer, Bernard Bolan, Redgum, Mike & Michelle Jackson, Mulga Bill, Mucky Duck etc. There was a jazz archive label which released music by Bob Sedergreen, Marie Wilson, Kerrie Biddell, Brian Brown, Serge Ermel, Bruce Cale, and many others. Country music was an active part of the catalogue and an early collaboration with country historian Eric Watson saw over 25 albums of historic country released including the double Country Music in Australia and Country Radio Requests series. There were also classical releases from Capelli Corelli, Flederman and others.

Eric Bogle, Sirocco, Mike Jackson, Kev Carmody, Flying Emus, Robyn Archer and Redgum were the successful elements of the label and, in many ways, their success paid for the miserable but glorious failures like the field recordings of Sally Sloane and the many Indigenous releases.

Green Records was the rock label formed in partnership with Roger Grierson (later to become chairman of Festival Mushroom) and journalist Stuart Coupe (now head of Laughing Outlaw Records). Green issued some terrific material including Tactics, Saints, SpySpy, Naughty Rhythms, and Do Re Me. The partnership was dissolved when we realised that rock needed more money than we had.

The Larrikin label was distributed by small indie distributors starting with Missing Link, then M7, then Crest – all three went out of business owing Larrikin considerable monies. A case of two steps forward two steps back. After these disasters Fahey did a label deal with EMI where he had originally produced three early LPs (Wild Colonial Boys and two recordings of his own Larrikins group). This was a successful relationship for three years when EMI had a change in management. Fahey then decided to handle his own distribution. It was at this stage Larrikin grew at a fast rate. They had good international labels, a reputation for paying their accounts and there was a growing interest in Australian music. An approach to Virgin gave Larrikin distribution of their specialist labels, including Peter Gabriel’s Real World, a relationship that eventually lasted over a decade including after Virgin’s sale to EMI. The largest selling album was Michael Nyman’s soundtrack to The Piano which Larrikin sold over 120,000 copies in two years.

In 1993, Fahey sold Folkways to Jon Foo and Keith Chee, and in 1995, sold Larrikin to Festival. The label overheads had started to threaten the viability of the company and, besides, Fahey needed new challenges. Festival was later sold to Warner Music. Unfortunately the new owners have not reissued the label and it sits in their master tape vault awaiting re-discovery.

Larrikin certainly had an influence on Australia’s musical landscape. Its idiosyncratic stance had seen the release of many genres that would never had normally been released Australian bird song, indigenous traditional and contemporary music, bush sounds, folk songs, field recordings, vintage jazz, blues and, of course, a massive catalogue of singer songwriters. There were many other Australian labels who used Larrikin for distribution and marketing Move, Candle, Grevillea, AIAIS, Eureka, Walsingham, Score etc.

Because it cannot be said often enough – Warren Fahey had nothing to do with Larrikin Music – the publisher who sued Men at Work.

Fahey has never regretted a day of Larrikin but says he would never do it again. (He did.)
In 2003 he established Undercover Music and the Rouseabout label in partnership with Nick and Tony Wales. It celebrated its 20th year in 2023

That same year Warren and Tony & Nick Wales (of the group CODA) established an Australian label, Undercover Music, which included three label identities – Rouseabout Records, Silent Records and Yelp!

Undercover has issued over 150 albums and continues to release folk and ‘interesting’ music on Rouseabout and electro-pop and ambient (strange genre name etc) on Silent. Warren’s main role is as Executive Producer for Rouseabout and, in truth, he is not connected to the business side which is left to the one employee, GM, Stuart McCarthy. Essentially the label group is a not-for-profit enterprise that lives up to its name.

You can see full details of the label’s releases, hear tracks and read about the artists at www.undercovermusic.com.au