Jarett Koral is a 16-year-old teenager living in Detroit, Michigan. He does all of the regular things we all did when we were that age, like running his own vinyl record label, which he started on a whim when he was just 14.
Yes, here to make you feel really, really, really unproductive, Koral founded hit Jett Plastic Recordings imprint back in 2012 to help local Detroit band After Dark Amusement Park, who were looking to release a 7-inch. Koral put his hand up, despite having no experience.
Well, that’s not entirely true. He did basically grow up in his father’s record store and he’s been unofficially dubbed the world’s youngest rock journalist – as the Daily Tribune reports, Koral started penning music reviews for the Metro Times when he was just 12.
“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,” Koral toldClickOnDetroit.
Most of the records released via Jett Plastic Recordings are rock and roll, blues, punk, and hardcore recordings, including a record from Macaulay Culkin’s infamous pizza-inspired Velvet Underground tribute band, The Pizza Underground.
“I sold records from my own collection to gain some money for pressing, since pressing is around $2,000,” Koral said. “I’m not really making a ton of money with it, but it’s cool and I have something to show for it.” Of course, since he’s not old enough to own a company, his mother is technically the CEO.
“I was alongside these 30-, 40-, even 50-year-old veterans in the business. I was just getting started and they told me I was doing good, so I believed them. It’s just a fun thing, to go and meet some of the people that have influenced me in the music industry,” Jarrett told the Daily Tribune.
When he’s not busy penning music reviews, hanging out in his dad’s shop, or freaking running his own record label (for which he coordinates two separate vinyl pressing plants, did we mention that?), Koral is a straight-A student? Yeah, told you you’d feel unproductive.
You can watch a short interview on Click On Detroit here
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