A music producer in Quilcene has been producing and selling music recordings with old-time style - in form as well as content. With a drum kit, audio engineering and recording equipment squeezed into an Airstream trailer beside his garden, John Soriano, who records and produces as Royal Graves, has put together an unusual music company, selling actual records - 12-inch vinyl recordings.

"Vinyl is a growth market," said Soriano.

"It's the fastest-growing sales market" in recorded music, "though it's a small percentage of the market."

Before this, he ran an electronic-music label. He now focuses on "new underground Americana music."

"I've always had a soft spot for country music," he said. "I grew up singing, I grew up in the church."

Formerly of Portland and Manzanita, Oregon, Soriano was "imported" to Quilcene in 2007 by his wife, Erin Yeakel. They have two children: 4-year-old Mesa and 6-week-old Boris.

"Electronic music and hip-hop was just kind of the vital artistic currency of my youth ... you'd make beats ... freestyle, kick raps."

Preferring "content to conceit" in country music, Soriano eschews so-called "new country," which he calls "bro country," in favor of "strong songwriting and a more nuanced musical production." He's pro-backyard music. "All day," he said.

He plays guitar and pedal bass in a duo called Dowsing with a friend from Portland, who is a classical Indian singer. They play "hillbilly drone gospel."

And he's still involved in electronic music; he's done a handful of DJ gigs.

Some local "underground events have required my services," he said. But when he started WhatBang Records, he was in a sense returning to the "backyard" nature of country music.

"There's an honest feeling to country music," he said. "I found myself ... at social events hoping somebody had brought a guitar," to communicate in a truer and more uplifting way, he said. He likes "the simplicity - no bells and whistles. Unless somebody actually brought a bell and a whistle, which would be awesome."

In 2009, Soriano began doing some remixes for the Cedar Shakes. "Those turned into a long round of demos, which became the first 10-inch record, 'Royal Graves meets the Cedar Shakes at High Noon' (2013), a precursor to WhatBang and the foundation of our style imprint," he said.

In January 2013, Soriano met the band in Austin, Texas, and they recorded their album "This Western Road," the first LP on WhatBang, released in January 2014.

"Recording happens mainly elsewhere," Soriano said when asked what it means to run a record label. "I aggregate design artists and musical artists and executive-produce the records."

The second LP was by Austin artist Leo Rondeau, and the third was the Lonesome Heroes, also from Austin.

Soriano is also producing a series of 7-inch 45s by the Pine Hearts, Bennet Arse-nault, Nick Ferrio, and Megan Trenary and the Coal Miners; on the flipsides are remixes done by himself as Royal Graves.

The recording studio, he said, is "wherever we are and there's microphones."

By "we" he means himself and whoever he's recording with; it's often Jonathan Isenhower, Coal Miners bassist and sound engineer at the Cellar Door in Port Townsend, where Soriano also works as a mixologist.

As with his music production, Soriano says he's had no formal training in mixology. He learned to do both in the real world, with practical experience. "And impractical."

Why make records instead of CDs or digital files?

Soriano likes the tangible, permanent nature of music pressed on vinyl. He said digital recordings "get buried in the back of your iTunes" and "are super forgettable and super disposable. The efforts of these musicians should be preserved in a more permanent format."

Record players can easily be found on Craigslist.com, he said, adding "the DJ standard turntable, the Technics 1200, is back in production."

Soriano hopes to get a record player in use in the Cellar Door's back room, perhaps a "45 player - the little old-school beach ones? Those are legit."

He's the guest DJ at Cellar Door on Thursday, May 21, and has also made a mix - accessible via the Internet, no record player required - especially for Leader readers. Check it out at whatbangrecords.com.

WhatBang Records are also available at Quimper Sound, located in Port Townsend's Undertown at Taylor Street.

"There's an honest feeling to country music."

John Soriano

WhatBang Records

"I found myself... at social events hoping somebody had brought a guitar."

John Soriano

WhatBang Records