Ep500: Fred Schneider of The B-52s - Record Collector
The Vinyl Guide - Artist Interviews for Record Collectors and Music Nerds
Nate Goyer
4.7 • 579 Ratings
🗓️ 23 June 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Fred Schneider of The B-52s discusses his massive 10,000+ record collection while sharing stories about the B-52's early days, the original "Rock Lobster" single, vinyl reissues and new boxset.
Topics Include:
- Massive record collection visible in wall-to-ceiling custom cabinets
- Estimates 10,000+ records, considers himself a "record nut"
- Collection includes avant-garde, classical, funk, soul, bad records
- Loves bad Christmas records and Halloween records specifically
- Been collecting since age 13, started in early days
- Currently has broken receiver, can't play main system
- Portable player works for 45s but stops unexpectedly
- Still adding records but doing major purge now
- Selling and donating records, too many to listen to
- Donates to Archive of Contemporary Music organization regularly
- Most precious records are original 45s from youth
- Still has first album mother bought thinking Beatles
- Moved into funk, Led Zeppelin, then New Wave music
- Was Sirius Satellite Radio DJ for three years
- Prefers first pressings, doesn't care about reissues much
- Looking for "When I'm Gone" by Brenda Holloway
- Will clean up scuffed records if sound improves
- Vinyl never left his turntable despite CD popularity
- Listens to music most of day while doing activities
- Plays classical mornings while reading magazines and coffee
- Enjoys electronic music from 50s/60s and harp music
- B-52s sound came from all members' varied influences
- Band was lumped with punk but more "freak punk"
- Original "Rock Lobster" single recorded in Georgia mountains
- DB Records pressed 2,000 copies, sold out quickly
- Eventually pressed 30,000 total copies of original single
- Australia embraced band early, rolled out red carpet
- Band never saw penny from original single sales
- Talking Heads recommended B-52s to their manager successfully
Enter to win a record from us to celebrate Ep500
High resolution version of this podcast is available at: www.Patreon.com/VinylGuide
Listen on Apple: https://apple.co/2Y6ORU0
Listen on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/36qhlc8
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Vinyl Guide, the podcast for record collectors and music nerds. |
| 0:10.1 | Here's your host, the biggest record nerd of them all, Nate Goyer. |
| 0:13.5 | Ah, well, hey, everyone, it's Nate. |
| 0:15.2 | Welcome to yet another episode 500 here on the Vinyl Guide, the podcast for record collectors and music nerds. |
| 0:22.9 | And for those of you who may not be following the story here, we are celebrating the 500th |
| 0:28.4 | episode of the vinyl guide throughout the month of June. Each Monday, we have a new special |
| 0:33.7 | guest on someone I've always wanted to have on the show, and we've had an amazing |
| 0:37.8 | month so far, starting off with Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins, episode 500, then Billy F. |
| 0:45.2 | Gibbons of ZZ Top, another episode 500. Last week we had on the show, Brett Gurowitz, the founder |
| 0:52.1 | of Epitaph Records and founding member of Bad Religion. |
| 0:55.2 | Incredible guests, great guy, another episode 500. |
| 0:58.3 | And now today, and I've always wanted to have this gentleman on the show, Mr. Fred Schneider of the fabulous B-52s. |
| 1:06.9 | Now, for those of you who may not know, Fred is quite the record collector. |
| 1:10.1 | He's got an incredible |
| 1:11.8 | collection of like, oh, 20,000 plus records. He'll talk about it today. He's still adding to it. And we'll |
| 1:17.5 | go through his whole collection, his approach to it and learn all about it today, as well as also |
| 1:22.5 | talking about the rare records and recordings of the B-52s, including the original rock lobster single, |
| 1:29.4 | which is not cheap these days. It's also a different version of the song, which, incredibly enough, |
| 1:34.6 | is even more peppy than the one you may be used to. Now, to be clear, Fred is old school. |
| 1:40.5 | Fred doesn't do Zoom, doesn't do video calls, so the quality of the audio is a little bit different than we're used to here on the show. |
| 1:47.3 | But you could still understand him. I did my best to EQ and bring him up as much as possible. |
| 1:52.5 | And another thing to mention, you'll also want to know about the new B-52's vinyl box set. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Nate Goyer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Nate Goyer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.