(First published in NME, April 26)

North Carolina is in the throes of March Madness, a national basketball tournament between first division college teams. In Durham, Chapel Hill and Raleigh — the three corners of the state’s Research Triangle — team pennants wave from cars and bars roar all day long. There’s an aggressive school spirit in the air unlike anything you’ll see in the UK. At 6am on a Saturday outside a Chapel Hill high school, a different kind of March madness prevails: 700 of us are gathered, wearing fluoro Lycra, to run 25 kilometres to Durham in honour of the 25th anniversary of Merge Records, home to Arcade Fire, Superchunk, The Magnetic Fields, Neutral Milk Hotel, Spoon, Wild Flag, and hundreds more. But really, what better way to let fans share in the exquisite agony of running a beloved independent record label than to compress a quarter-century’s worth of blood, sweat and tears into a three-hour schlep between its former and current hometowns?

“I’m not running it!” says Durham-raised label co-founder Mac McCaughan. “I wish I did have the fortitude to run 25 kilometres, but I’ll be doing what I can, playing records at the end.”

His fellow Merge co-founder — and bassist in their band, Superchunk, which also turns 25 this year — Laura Ballance blows the air horn to signal the start of the marathon. Weaving through beautiful woodland roads, the race doesn’t trace the exact route that Ballance drove on July 1, 2001, the day she moved Merge’s offices from a house in Chapel Hill to a storefront they had bought in downtown Durham. But it’s symbolic nonetheless. “That day felt momentous to me,” she says. “We had always rented space before, and long before we moved we’d realised, ‘Well, this isn’t going away’.”

“Everything is so personal when you have a small record label” — Mac McCaughan

At this point, Merge was 12 years old, the major releases in its catalogue Superchunk’s post-Matador albums (1994’s ‘Foolish’ onwards), Neutral Milk Hotel’s ‘In The Aeroplane Over The Sea’ (1998), and ‘69 Love Songs’ (1999), the triple-album opus by The Magnetic Fields. Their pianist/frontwoman, Claudia Gonson, went to New York’s Columbia University with McCaughan in the mid-‘80s, though he returned home to Chapel Hill to finish his degree and run the nascent Merge with Ballance. (At the time they were a couple, though ‘Foolish’ documents their break-up.)

“I ran into Mac again at a record store in New Jersey in, like, 1992,” says Gonson. By then, The Magnetic Fields had released a couple of singles and albums on tiny labels, including Gonson’s own. “He said something like, ‘I love that ‘100,000 Fireflies’ single you guys did!’ And I said, ‘Cool, do you wanna release our record?!’” That’s how it worked back then, says Gonson, “sort of a wild west of independent labels.” Most of the labels they had worked with ripped them off and dissolved. There was no telling that Merge wouldn’t be the same. “That’s sort of the way things were: someone struck you as a cool guy, and you said, ‘sure’.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Merge’s beginnings weren’t particularly serious. “It was more of an impulse to do something, similar to being in a band,” says McCaughan, who came of age in North Carolina’s 1980s hardcore scene, watching Corrosion Of Conformity play church basement shows. “I don’t think I ever really thought, ‘Well, is that Calvin’s [Johnson, K Records] job?’ Everyone’s just doing cool stuff and putting out records; we wanted to do that. That comes back to approaching the label as fans. Every decision we make is informed by that. Everything is so personal when you have a small record label.”

THE SEED for the label was sown by an ambitious pre-Merge project that Mac organised in 1988 with his Wwax bandmate Wayne Taylor, after they realised that it’d be easier to release their own records than wait for anyone else to do so. They put out an extravagant box set comprising five 7”s by local bands. Bill Mooney, now co-founder of Tannis Root Productions, a local merchandise company, screen-printed the boxes. “That was one of the first local DIY record projects, before ‘indie rock’ was even really a term,” says Mooney. “It came from looking at Dischord, SST — what few labels existed in the American underground prior to that.”

Tannis Root also turns 25 this year, and currently occupies two premises in Raleigh: a screenprinting factory by the local jail, and a nearby warehouse. They produce merchandise for an array of indie bands, controlling licensing for iconic acts like Sonic Youth, and still have extremely strong relationships with Merge. When I visit the factory the day before the marathon, it’s the last day to ship t-shirts for Coachella. “Like Merge, most of the artists we work with aren’t local,” says Mooney. “We try to be supportive of the local scene, and like Merge, it’s always been a goal to keep the business here, whereas it would make more sense to be in New York or LA.”

Merge are a product of and huge contributors to the local character, says Mooney. Over in Carrboro (a tiny town bordering Chapel Hill) 40-year-old venue the Cat’s Cradle kept North Carolina on the touring map, allowing Merge to exist in this part of the world, he says. There’s always been great college radio at the Triangle’s three universities, to which Ballance says Merge is totally indebted. “But then by Merge being here, it’s kept North Carolina on the map even more,” says Mooney. “People focus on the local culture being whether we have a good symphony or ballet — to me those things don’t really matter. Things like Merge and the live music scene make it more vibrant.”

Merge’s influence around the Triangle is palpable: Later this year, Mac will throw the first pitch at a Durham Bulls baseball game where Heather McIntyre, singer with Merge band Mount Moriah, will sing the national anthem. John Cook, author of Our Noise: The Story Of Merge Records, a fantastic oral history released to celebrate the label’s first 20 years, tells me about going to a Chapel Hill bar with Mac, where everyone wanted to talk to him: “It was like grabbing a beer with the mayor.”

On my first night in Durham, three days before the race, I head to The Pinhook to see Krill, a Boston band from Speedy Ortiz’s scene. The young venue has non-gendered toilets, the signs to which read “Gender neutral (milk hotel)”. Owner Kym Register credits Merge — whose office is across the road — for ensuring the venue’s success. “It was really hard for us to make a local splash at first: there are insanely awesome venues around here. They took a chance on us and encouraged their bands to play.” Superchunk are taking her band, Loamlands, out on tour in April.

But when Merge moved to downtown Durham 12 years ago, it was anything but vibrant. In the early 1960s, construction of the freeway decimated a thriving black community known as Hayti. The tobacco industry left in the 1980s. McCaughan chalks the town’s demise to the newspaper leaving in the early ‘80s: “Ever since then, everyone’s been saying, ‘Downtown’s coming back’. But it never really did until a couple of years after we moved there.”

The upswing wasn’t down to Merge, he says, but property prices in Chapel Hill and Raleigh becoming prohibitively expensive. Merge own their building — a handsome three-storey office with wooden window frames and old-fashioned gold lettering in the windows, flanked by posters for a local homelessness charity — and the one next door, which they lease to a playgroup. The American Tobacco warehouses were redeveloped in 2004, and Google recently designated it a “Tech Hub”, investing millions. For all the development, Downtown still feels quite eerie — it’s deserted and lots of buildings stand empty, purchased by speculators waiting for values to appreciate. “There used to be a big gay club, there was all this weird, cool stuff going on,” says Ballance. “The bad thing is, as it’s gotten more developed, all of that has gone away.”

“Their track record of complete loyalty to their bands is, frankly, unprecedented. They never forget that there’s a real human heart beating behind every record that they sell.” — Jenn Wasner, Wye Oak

THERE ARE other threats to North Carolina’s character. In January 2013, North Carolina got a Republican governor, giving the GOP control of the executive and legislative branches of government for the first time since the nation’s post-Civil War Reconstruction. They’ve obliterated unemployment benefit (NC has the fifth-highest unemployment in the US) and cut school funding. The Pinhook’s Kym Register tells me about a motorcycle safety bill that was hijacked into a bill to restrict abortion, and passed. She’s been hosting fundraisers for safe access to abortion clinics ever since.

Every Monday since April 2013, protestors have been gathering outside the State Capitol in Raleigh to voice their opposition: both McCaughan and Ballance have taken part. “I don’t know if Merge has strong political capital,” says Ballance. “But it matters to us personally.” It’s indicative of Merge’s approach: they doesn’t prioritise local activity over their national or international work, says McCaughan, but “it feels more tangible, and easier to effect. It’s been cool as the label has grown and as Durham has revitalized, we’ve been able to be a part of that and be more of a local presence, whether becoming more involved in local charities, or just events like the run. There have been people that have taken Merge less seriously because of where we are, but that does our job [avoiding them] for us.”

By contrast, the way Merge does business feels like a liberal fantasy almost too good to be true. Unlike peers Sub Pop and Matador, both burned by dealings with majors, Merge has always remained resolutely independent. They’re not dogmatically DIY, but nearby Washington DC’s punk culture influenced McCaughan growing up. “We took the Dischord idea to heart, even though we realised that it wasn’t feasible for us to say, ‘Pay no more than $7 for this’. But it was feasible to do things in a way where we felt like there was a shared responsibility between the label and the artists.”

“A lot of time when we have these anniversary things it makes me a little bit uncomfortable — it’s so much, ‘Look at us!’ I hope it’s not annoying” — Laura Ballance

Merge splits profits 50:50 with its bands — the industry standard gives artists about 18%. They operate conservatively, not giving bands huge advances, and taking pleasure in paying them. “They keep an eye on the bottom line and they’re great people who want to do right by their bands,” says Britt Daniel, whose band Spoon was rescued by Merge after flailing on Elektra. Merge label has never gone into debt. “I would be very uncomfortable if we did,” says Ballance. “That’s when I’d be like, ‘We’re shutting it down’.”

Although releasing a record like Arcade Fire’s ‘Reflektor’ takes significantly more manpower than, say, a new album by East River Pipe, the project of FM Cornog, a formerly homeless New Jersey man who now works at Home Depot, it’s clear that they approach both with exactly the same amount of love. Records are treated as individual pieces of art, not marks on a profit margin graph.

“That’s probably the thing that has impressed me about them the most,” says Jenn Wasner of Wye Oak, who will release ‘Shriek’, their excellent fifth Merge album, later this month. “I can’t tell you how lucky we feel to be working with a label where we’re not worried that we’re going to be dropped if our next record doesn’t sell as much as the last one. Their track record of complete loyalty to their bands is, frankly, unprecedented. They never forget that there’s a real human heart beating behind every record that they sell.”

Somewhat ironically, Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry was worried his band would get lost among the likes of Neutral Milk Hotel if they signed to Merge. “I wanted our band to be something really unique, something that stood out from the rest of the label,” he says. “But we got along immediately. Being in a band is literally being married to people you never wanted to marry. Mac and Laura have that special bond. It’s palpable at the heart of the label.”

Arcade Fire’s 2010 album ‘The Suburbs’ won Merge their first ever Grammy — 2011’s ‘Album Of The Year’ — though Ballance remains reassuringly nonplussed by such accolades and averse to rock’n’roll behaviour. They refrain from pushing Merge as a “brand” because it’s really just a behind-the-scenes business, as Ballance says, quite sensibly. They sign bands that show commitment to taking the long view, says McCaughan, and they’re hesitant about doing too much marketing because they know no-one likes having music forced down their throats. McCaughan fancies opening a Merge shop, but Ballance says no.

The way Merge do things seems like raw common sense, I suggest to Eleanor Friedberger. “I know, I wish you could find some dirt!” she says. She recorded her first solo album, 2011’s ‘Last Summer’, on her own steam, and emailed it to a handful of labels to see if anyone was interested. McCaughan immediately replied saying yes. “The fact that they’re a label started by a band –they’re on the artist’s side,” she says. “They actually get how it works to be in a band. It’s pretty simple. Though you can’t bullshit somebody who knows exactly what it’s like — it can work to your advantage and disadvantage!”

Mary Timony — formerly of Merge vets Wild Flag, now singer with Merge upstarts Ex Hex — echoes Friedberger’s view. “I don’t think we questioned what other label we’d want to be on.”

OVER 500 releases in, on the eve of the race — and a proper festival to celebrate their anniversary this July — McCaughan and Ballance aren’t letting themselves get misty-eyed. “We’re busy continuing to be a record label,” says Ballance. “A lot of time when we have these anniversary things it makes me a little bit uncomfortable — it’s so much, ‘Look at us!’ I hope it’s not annoying.”

If there’s an analogy for the label within the marathon, it’s about pace. Merge survived for 25 years on their own terms because, as the subtitle of John Cook’s book puts it perfectly, they “got big and stayed small”. The business idea of growth being a goal is weird,” says McCaughan. “That’s never been one of our goals. It’s more just maintaining the ability to do what we do well for the artists we work with.” Thinking about working constantly and running more than one office makes Ballance “want to take a nap,” she says, laughing.

“They’ve stayed true to their musical instincts even as their tastes have evolved,” writes Matador co-owner — and Superchunk’s former label boss — Gerard Cosloy. “But they’ve also learned how to grow their business in an industry that’s mostly run on fear and copy-catting. I’ve never looked at Merge as our competition, and I don’t say that to slight them. I feel like we’re allies in a battle to keep music — or at least its commercial consumption — interesting.”

But modest success and integrity don’t work as insurance for the future any more. “Fewer and fewer records get sold every year,” says Ballance. “It always used to be that we pressed too few. Now it seems like we make too many. With a small band, we could sell 3000 records. Now we might sell 500. We want to keep putting those records out, but no-one is going to make any money if you just manufacture enough to sell 500. Long-term, I don’t know what’s going to happen. If things keep going the way they are, I don’t know how smaller bands will be able to record albums in a decent way and release them.”

The evening before the race, I get a text from Mike Caulo, Merge’s junior publicist and newest employee, asking if I want to go for a beer with a bunch of Merge employees, four of whom are running the race tomorrow. We drink small cans in the bare yard of Surf Bar, chalking it up as totally necessary pre-race carb-loading. Caulo moved from Boston to Durham in December, just to work for Merge. It’s a familiar story: Merge’s longest-standing publicist, Christina Rentz, has been there nearly 13 years. She optimistically followed a friend to Chapel Hill from the Texan Bible Belt — her aim had always been to work for Merge, not in the record industry at large. Two weeks later, she had her dream job. The marathon was her idea, and despite being 38 weeks too pregnant to run, she’s handing out coffee at the start line at 6am, and bounding around more energetically than the rest of us at the finish line.

The agony of running 25k is mitigated by pints of Bloody Mary with bacon and jalapeno at the excellent after-party, where McCaughan DJs. The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle (another Merge luminary) is walking around, and Ballance stands right up at the front of the stage (ear plugs in — hyperacusis led her to quit touring with Superchunk) for performances by The Love Language and Vertical Scratchers, two smaller Merge bands.

A tiny girl in a toddler-size Merge t-shirt keeps running to the front of the stage, pointing and laughing at the bands. Tannis Root’s Bill Mooney told me that they now find themselves making band shirts in adult, kid and baby sizes, as the first generation of indie rock fans grows up and spawns. Today, half a dozen people are wearing a shirt that perfectly sums up Merge’s unassuming confidence and unwaveringly practical nature: “Merge Records: 1989 — ?”