HardKandy Records Inc. is a label that focuses on unique forward thinking music while always paying respect to music's glorious past. The label is home to groups in many genres including Hip Hop,Rock,Trip Hop,Pop,Pop/Rock,Spoken Word,Dance and many experimental/Hybrid styles. The Focus is on Independent spirit with major label quality.
Love as Conqueror-Gothic Rock Top 10-Multiple times
Trouble Maker-Gothic Rock Top 10
First Sight-Gothic Rock Top 10-Multiple times
Fantasize-15-24 Top 10-Multiple times
Latest News
Love As Conqueror Hit #1 on the Gothic Rock Charts and #4 on The Nj Top 10...(Congrats to House Of IllRepute) Trouble Maker hit the Top Ten on The Gothic -Rock Charts..
Congrats to Brother Noyze and Melinda Davis.First Sight Hit The Top ten on the gothic Rock charts (Congratulations to the Alphafemes)
Fantasize Hit the 15-24 charts in position #6 thanks to all those who made this possible and Congratulations to the Lj,Louie and Murdock...
Bio Of The Founder Of HardKandy
Born: Newark, New Jersey
Early on, it was evident Greg enjoyed entertaining. He would do "Shows" for his family, perfectly imitating cartoon characters such as Donald Duck and making sound effects. In grammar school he participated in choir and many school plays. At home he was exposed to a wide variety of music by his aunts and uncles. They listened to every thing from Elton John to Otis Redding, Parliament Funkadelics to the Beatles. He was first exposed to musical instruments like the violin, guitar and turntable by his cousins.
In the early days of Hip-Hop Greg Beat Boxed, Pop Locked, Break danced and dabbled in Graffiti art and DJing. Greg was influenced by artists such as Run-Dmc and The Beastie Boys for their hybrid of Rock and Rap. He was also heavily influenced by Prince for his blending of musical styles, the marriage of visuals with music and the fact that he produced, wrote, performed and sometimes played all his own instruments. Classical music and Ethnic music of all styles were also very influential to Greg. He started blending Hip-Hop with Ethnic styles and Classical years before it was heard on main stream radio. At an early age he saw multiculturalism as a cure for many of the worlds ills, long before it was a "Corporate Catch phrase".
His first original song involved five human beat boxes "orchestrated" and mixed with original sound effects he recorded with a tape deck. Greg's other "Love" (because music came before eating and second only to God and Grandma) was writing short stories and poetry. This lead him to meet world famous poets Sonya Sanchez, Gwendolyn Brookes, Maya Angelou and Amiri Baraka. He also had the experience of having Maya Angelou read one of his poems aloud. Still music called and Greg thought by turning his poems into lyrics, he could make them more kinetic. The first band Greg joined was a four member group called Region: XIX (A blend of Jazz, R&B and Pop sensibilities) which soon expanded to nine revolving members. The band broke up after high school and only three members including Greg remained. The remaining members formed Region: XIX Productions and went on to produce numerous unsigned artists. They specialized in artist development as well as production inspired by the early days of Motown.
Greg was named Brother Noyze The Mad Musician, due to the fact he used odd sonic textures in his musical compositions whether R&B, Club, Rap or Rock. He has produced groups and Cd projects with diversities in Hip-Hop, World, New Age, Jazz, Industrial/techno, R&B and Pop. Greg says his love of noise and odd sonic textures come from his love of Sci-Fi and from years working in a factory (where he used to "Human" Beatbox in time with the machinery).
After eight years of music production, Greg developed a project with himself as vocalist. The project soon became the Electronic/Industrial/Funk group "House of Ill Repute". The result was the unreleased concept album "Corruption". The group was compared musically as a cross between Prince and Nine Inch Nails. Vocally it was compared to David Bowie. House of Ill repute eventually released the EP "Are You My Eve?" and the full album "Confessions of a Lover Gone Mad". The group had some local success and received local press and college air play. They also performed many "Lively" shows in New jersey as well as New York. Eventually, Greg aka "Brother Noyze the Mad Musician", returned to music production specializing, but not limited to, Hybrid music types. He soon started HardKandy Records as an outlet for his own unique yet commercially viable brand of music.