Hollow Victory

"There was an air of creepy big-brother surveillance," says Kristin Bustamante, a former Victory saleswoman. "He bred a culture of fear in his employees. You were scared to leave and scared to stand up. It's like an abusive relationship. It was, bar none, the worst experience of my life."

Adds another former staffer: "All I can say is thank God I wasn't in one of his bands."

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Tony Brummel has told his story many times.

Like most of the kids who buy his records, the Chicago native caught the hardcore bug in his adolescence, drawn to the unfiltered anger of acts like Black Flag and Social Distortion.

He started a few unsuccessful bands and sunk all his cash into records, shows, zines, and merch. For Brummel, hardcore wasn't simply music -- it was a way of life. He shaved his head, kept his stout frame covered in tattoos, and spoke in angsty slogans. If you weren't with him, you were against him.

In 1989, at the tender age of 17, he moved out of his parents' house and started his label with "$800, determination, and a vision," he boasts on a Victory promo flier.

Brummel declined Scene's interview requests, as did family members. Yet in previous interviews, he proudly notes that he never went to college and never got help from his folks. The label's mascot is a bulldog, in keeping with his underdog ethos.

At first, it was just a hobby. He sold 7-inches from his driveway and hosted shows in the basement.

But by 1993, Brummel was spending every waking hour building his roster and brand. He wrote emphatic press releases that set Victory apart from the industry's coastal pantheons. "Victory is my company," says one flier. "There are no board meetings. There is no corporate office. There are no investors forcing us to make a certain amount of profit. There are no fat, 50-year-old men sitting around a table, strategizing on how to capitalize on our culture, music, and lifestyles."

But it wasn't until 2001 that Victory became a true force. Thursday's second album, Full Collapse, was picking up steam. It sold over 300,000 copies and kicked off the emo craze. Brummel knew he was on to something.

He went on an emo binge, signing bands filled with baby-faced boys, screechy guitars, and heart-on-their-sleeves lyrics. "I've always said that Tony's true genius is that he realizes there is a nonstop supply of kids who just want to get on the Warped Tour, and if they get on Victory, they know that will happen," says Patrick Grueber, former head of the label's radio-promotion department.

Victory became emo's flagship with acts like Taking Back Sunday, Atreyu, and Aiden. Brummel applied the same '80s-hardcore, "fuck corporate rock" attitude to his roster's new sound. Instead of relying on radio play and magazine covers, he dumped millions into building street teams of loyal, obsessed fans, who'd infiltrate shows from L.A. to D.C. Eventually, you couldn't go to a concert without being handed a Victory flier or sampler.

He built his staff from the same base, stocking his office with idealistic scenesters who saw him and his label as God. Brummel expected his legions to live and breathe Victory. This wasn't just a job; it was a life. Everyone was given a BlackBerry so they'd be accessible to Brummel 24-7. "The BlackBerries were just leashes," says a former employee. "He wanted to know what you were doing constantly."

Once, Brummel even bought the entire office New Balance sneakers. "We thought it was kind of cool," says a former staffer. "But after a while, if you didn't wear them, he'd be like, 'Why aren't you part of the team? You're not supporting the label.' People would just leave their shoes in the office and then change them when they came in."

Brummel, they believe, was quickly becoming the corporate despot he so constantly railed against. And as the label became more successful, his guerrilla marketing tactics grew more aggressive.

He launched public attacks on Apple CEO Steve Jobs, accusing the company's iTunes website of "stealing music's soul" by allowing people to forsake the album format for single-song purchases. In an e-mail soaked in paradox, Brummel leveled the same charges his own employees threw at him. "Music consumers would look at your tactics as worse than those employed by the major record companies," Brummel wrote Jobs in an e-mail. "I am surprised Apple operates in such an authoritarian manner when its public image is that of a company run by creative types."

While his outbursts were in line with the us-against-them attitude that drew kids to his crusade, they also earned Brummel enemies.

As Hawthorne Heights' second record was about to hit stores, Victory shot off a "manifesto," calling on the band's fans to engage in a war against rap, according to court documents.