Today we’d like to introduce you to Harry Mason.
Hi Harry, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
For me, it all started probably in 2007 when my friend introduced me to Horrorcore. Before that point, I found myself mainly listening to grunge and punk rock music and I didn’t really have too much interest in rap. There were a few artists that I was interested in but I would have never thought that I would be so involved rap let alone make rap music until about 2010. In 2010, I started making my own music and quickly realized that I couldn’t do it alone so I recruited some of my closest friends to form the label Pro-Found Records. After 8 years of working with countless artists and putting together a lot of shows and cyphers for hip hop artists and rap artists in my area, I decided to rebrand not only myself but my label as well. In 2018, myself (Hollow) and fellow artist All Zen Ninja we formed Plague Doctor Entertainment.
Shortly after the formation of Plague Doctor Entertainment myself and all the ninja created the group project “Results may Vary” and we were featured on two mixtapes from Underground Nation Magazine, alongside other prominent horror core artists. At the time we had only made our first EP “The Nightmare” as well and as participating in a local challenge called the #RGVChallenge, which was a challenge for local artists to test their merit in the community being from horror core beginnings we never really had too big of a place in our community. That’s not to say that we weren’t known just not respected until we as well as another artist named Tha Surgin dominated the challenge. Results may vary did not necessarily get respect, but we were known now.
I noticed a producer named Yoshie Goreboy, from Noise Complaint Productions. I’m not sure if he had heard of any of my music by that time or not but I actually really enjoyed his Beats I felt like they were right up my alley so I reached out to him and soon after began work on my first EP as Hollow, Diary of an Insomniac.
From that point forward we began working closely on other projects such as singles a full-length album and another new EP that released last month. After working with him for about 2 years I decided that we should just make a general partnership out of what we do me on the engineering side him on the production side and the artist that we know and have gathered over the years to form the full label that is Plague Doctor Entertainment/Noise Complaint Productions. I slowly started recruiting artists that I felt not only shared a peculiar uniqueness music-wise but also artists that I felt were strong enough to push out consistent and quality music.
Aside from having Hollow, The All Zen Ninja and Results may Vary, the next artist that I picked up was A.o.D, I’ve worked with him for years as well, he was actually at my very first show performing back in 2010, but it wasn’t until now that I decided to bring him on as a full-fledged artist for our label. After A.o.D I recruited the indie artist Devoid, he was a friend that I met working at a previous job and we kind of hit it off just talking about things that we enjoyed and kept in contact after both of us departed from said job. One day he sent me a song that he recorded and I asked him hey can you send it to me so I can clean it up and when it was all said and done it was actually an amazing track so at that point I asked him would you like to join up with us and from that point forward we’ve been making music.
After that, I recruited an artist that was actually an inspiration to me when I first started he went by the artist name Filo, when we first met and I think it’s pretty cool because it sounds like the word sharp in Spanish and he is one of the sharpest MCs I have ever heard, very smart guy naturally I reached out and he was down.
There were other artists that I had in mind but unfortunately some turn down the offer and others may not have really considered it but I keep them close and will always work with them and support them because I do have faith in them. I’ve never seen anyone else as competition or opposition because I don’t feel threatened by them. They are friends, now not to say that there aren’t people that I do consider something less than allies, but these are not them.
After I had everything settled on my half Yoshie reached out with some of his artists that he recorded and we’re kind of part of his organization and all of them are ridiculously good. When I heard Yoshie and Charlos on the song losing it I flipped out I was like there’s no way that this song came from our region it’s too good it’s too strong, but I was sadly mistaken because these guys actually didn’t live too far from me at the time. After that I was introduced to two Nfektado, our resident industrial artist his music is actually really really good it just has a nice clean sound to it will put together well thought out.
Finally, there’s PradaG I actually first heard him on a song that he did with Charlos and another guy named Gemini Notice called Test Sound, that track blew me away as well I still listen to it their versus mesh well with each other and it was a solid track and then I heard Drowning and I was like wow!
So now we’re in the current day we have a strong roster of artists we have a pretty decent catalog of music and I feel like we’re ready to move up to the next level. Things are tough considering we all work have our own personal lives and are trying to live them to the best of our ability but it never stopped us from doing what we love to do which is making music and we do it well. #SpreadthePlague
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
So honestly I wouldn’t say it’s been an easy road especially in the beginning it was actually really difficult because I had no idea where to even start. I had never recorded anything before I didn’t know anything about microphones I didn’t know anything about DAWs hell I didn’t use it now how to get my vocals over a beat but slowly over the years, I started to learn. In the beginning, it was actually really difficult outside of the recording process the type of music that I put out even the type of music that we put out now is so different than the Norm our region, it’s often met with either negative responses or no response at all. We are starting to gain traction now but when I first started back in 2010, I felt I had to work harder than anyone else to prove myself I got a lot of hate in the beginning until people started to realize I’m not a bad person and I’m not a bad artist. I feel like that really was the beginning of the groundwork and foundation for what we’re building right now. Things are different now than they were when I first started the music I made back then was not accepted people didn’t like it and it kind of bothers me to see how now people are getting away with watered-down version of what I used to make and the same people that would talk trash about what I was doing or eating it up. The only advice I can give is to work hard have a good work ethic be consistent and grow into an artist that cannot be denied. Force people to recognize your greatness but not with words with actions you have to show that you are getting better you have to show that you are working hard because talking about it just isn’t enough.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I personally am an Artists, an Audio Engineer, a Manager, Promoter, and I dabble in production and Videography/Editing. As a whole our team is full of talented Artists and Producers. I am proud of the moves we have made, I’m proud of every song that we make, every show, and everyone that is our team. What sets us apart from others is the subject matter what we talk about and how we do the things that we do. In a saturated market such as music it’s very difficult to stand out but in my mind, I think starting small like regionally and gaining a following in your region or at least making a name can grow into something statewide which can grow into something national which can grow into something worldwide. When artists are a dime a dozen it’s imperative to stand out like a sore thumb and I feel like that’s what we do.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
Well, you can follow us on our socials for starters, that way you can stay up to date with what we are up to, and our latest releases. You can find all of them easily here https://linktr.ee/PlagueDoctorEnt. You can support us simply by leaving a comment, liking a post, going to a show, and just helping up realize that what we do is enjoy. you don’t need to buy our merch (would be cool though!) you can simply stream a song you like, and share it with a friend you think may like it. Support isn’t strictly monetary, it helps us keep going and growing our business, but what really helps is supporting the artists as people. Helping them grow as well. If you want to collaborate you can always reach out to us on social media and we can go from there.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plaguedoctorentertainment/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlagueDoctorEnt
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/PlagueDrEnt
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/PlagueDoctorEntertainment
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/plaguedoctorent
Image Credits
The art is done by Lycanberry a local artist that we work with quite often! She has pretty reasonable prices and outstanding work, The album art is done by either Yoshie, Myself or Lycanberry. You can find more of her stuff: https://www.instagram.com/lycanberry/. She also has a neat Etsy Shop, some of the Merch is made by Dead Doll Shop: https://www.instagram.com/deaddoll.shop/
