Detroit has been attracting many young people in recent years who have an entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to investing in the city’s homegrown talent. This new cohort is mostly composed of twenty- and thirtysomethings — not teenagers — yet it’s a sixteen-year-old who’s behind one of The Motor City’s well-established vinyl record labels.
Jarett Koral founded his Jett Plastic Recordings imprint in 2012 when he was just fourteen years old, inaugurating it with a 7″ by local band After Dark Amusement Park. Since then, the label has put out releases from twelve additional acts — primarily rock ‘n’ roll, blues, punk, and hardcore records. These include a work by Macaulay Culkin’s comedy-rock act The Pizza Underground, as well as The Motor City rocker Bootsey X, otherwise known as Robert Mulrooney.
In an interview with Click On Detroit, the St. Clair Shores’ teen states:
“In mid-2012, I sort of got the idea. I started talking to Greg Beyer, a local musician who was putting out a full-length record at the time, and he was looking for another label to put out the 7-inch. I said, ‘Well, I could do it.’ And I did it without even telling anybody. I sold records from my own collection to gain some money for pressing, since pressing is around $2,000. I’m not really making a ton of money with it, but it’s cool and I have something to show for it.”
Find out more about Jett Plastic Recordings here, and watch Click On Detroit’s entire interview with Koral below: