In the romantic world of indie rock, where idealistic notions are often worth their weight in vinyl, sensibility tends to be ignored. But for Brett Gurewitz - axeman for Bad Religion and owner/founder of Epitaph, sensibility has allowed him to keep his SoCal punk label afloat for seven years running.

Gurewitz, who in 1987 began Epitaph with experience in both the recording and distribution side of the industry on his resume, has seen the label come a long way since L7's self-titled debut and Bad Religion's Suffer, its first two releases. With time, Epitaph established a reputation for what Gurewitz describes as "hard-fast-catchy-melodic music," eventually breaking through the corporate bastion of chain record stores. "I don't think it makes sense for an indie label to be so elitist that their records are impossible to find," says Gurewitz. "As a label, I feel like we owe it to our artists to make their music accessible to people."

And the accessibility's paid off. Epitaph's most tel release to date - Offspring's aptly titled Smash - went gold, and the indie recently opened a European branch office in Amsterdam, events Gurewitz is taking in stride. "We're not starving, we're doing fine," he says. "We've been doing well enough that we can stick around for awhile." And though Bad Religion has moved on to major labeldom ("We're just hoping that Atlantic could sell more records for as than Epitaph," Gurewitz admits), Epitaph's future looks solid, with a rooster including Clawhammer, NOFX, Rancid and even a future release by Wayne Kramer, founder of the legendary MC5.

- Jason Verlinde