Sub Pop founder Bruce Pavitt on finding culture where no one is looking

Sub Pop founder Bruce Pavitt on finding culture where no one is looking
Things I Learned Along the Way — Huck's Fiftieth Special collects lessons learned and creative advice from fifty of the most inspiring people we know. Each day we'll be sharing a new excerpt from the magazine. Today, Sub Pop founder Bruce Pavitt explains how culture can spring from places where you least expect it.

#16 – Bruce Pavitt

Sub Pop founder Bruce Pavitt can trace his career arc back to attending an alternative high school in Park Forest, Illinois. “It wasn’t all about listening to the teacher,” he says. “It was always, ‘What do you think?’ And that’s punk rock, right?” In 1986, while attending college in Olympia, Washington, Pavitt started a cheaply printed music zine full of album reviews and anti-corporate rants called Sub Pop. That zine gradually became a record label, and the label became home to some of the best underground music in America, including an unknown trio from Aberdeen, Washington, called Nirvana. Pavitt explains that zeitgeist altering culture can spring from anywhere in the world:

“I discovered Devo’s first 7-inch single in 1977 and just said, ‘What is this?’ It was so creative and different and unusual, and it was from Akron, Ohio. That was the surreal part. A year later, I happened to go to Max’s Kansas City nightclub to see the B-52s, who I read about in the Village Voice. I had never seen anything like it. Their sound and aesthetic and the way they presented themselves, it was so unique. And the B-52s were from Athens, Georgia. So it felt like the weirdest stuff in the underground was actually from small towns in the middle of nowhere. I became a firm believer that culture could happen anywhere. A band could start in a basement in a small town and go on to change the culture of the planet.”

This is just a short excerpt from Huck’s Fiftieth Special, a collection of fifty personal stories from fifty inspiring lives. 

Grab a copy now to read all fifty stories in full. Subscribe to make sure you don’t miss another issue.

Latest on Huck

Bobby Gillespie: “This country is poisoned by class”
Culture

Bobby Gillespie: “This country is poisoned by class”

Primal Scream’s legendary lead singer writes about the band’s latest album ‘Come Ahead’ and the themes of class, conflict and compassion that run throughout it.

Written by: Bobby Gillespie

Vibrant photos of New York’s Downtown performance scene
Photography

Vibrant photos of New York’s Downtown performance scene

‘Balloons and Feathers’ is an eclectic collection of images documenting the scene for over two decades.

Written by: Miss Rosen

Picking through the rubble: Glimpses of hope in the US election results
Activism

Picking through the rubble: Glimpses of hope in the US election results

Clambering through the wreckage of the Harris campaign, delving deeper into the election results and building on the networks that already exist, all hope is not gone writes Ben Smoke.

Written by: Ben Smoke

US Election night 2024 in Texas
Photography

US Election night 2024 in Texas

Photographer Tom “TBow” Bowden travelled to Republican and Democratic watch parties around Houston, capturing their contrasting energies as results began to flow in.

Written by: Isaac Muk

In photos: “Real life is not black and white” – Polaroid x Magnum Open Call winners
Photography

In photos: “Real life is not black and white” – Polaroid x Magnum Open Call winners

See pictures from the competition organised by two titans of contemporary photography, which called upon artists to reject the digitalisation and over-perfectionism of our modern world, technology and image-making.

Written by: Huck

In photos: Rednecks with Paychecks
Photography

In photos: Rednecks with Paychecks

‘American Diesel’ is a new photo series that looks at the people, places and culture behind the stereotypes of rural America.

Written by: Ben Smoke

Sign up to our newsletter

Issue 81: The more than a game issue

Buy it now