From the hills of the University of New Haven, you can hear the sound of music coming from the lower level of Dodds Hall. The university launched its first student-run record label company, Purebred Records. And the company has already signed two artists.

Started as a committee in the Music and Entertainment Industry Students Association (MEISA), it spread out to become its own entity within the Music Department. Doug Foley, the founder of Purebred Records, has come a long way in three years. Foley, a junior, brought this idea to the table as a freshman and said that the process was pretty long. “It took several people to make this work,” said Foley. One of them was Shaun Sintic.

Progress was initially not easy to come by. Sintic, a senior and Foley’s partner in crime, said that in order to get this off the ground, he was doing research on other student-run label companies to see what they can do to start. Sintic even emailed students from other colleges to see how they went about starting a record label. “It’s a lot of work,” Sintic said.

However, Sintic did mention how rewarding this experience has been. He said that he has made a connection with the artists, and created networks across the board.

“This is the prime example of experiential education,” he says. The University of New Haven’s main focus for education is experiencing it, to do the hands-on work.

Foley agreed and said that this experience was truly realistic to the real life job, as he and Sintic hold immense responsibility over their shoulders. The two students are also in charge of creating a class schedule and class meetings for the record company, with UNH professor Murray Krugman as their advisor and guide.

Krugman, who has 10 gold and platinum albums under his belt and listed in the Top 500 Producers in Rock History by Billboard Published Book, said to the New Haven Register that the idea for a student-run record label company has been floating around for years.

According to the article, Krugman said, “Students are going to have to bring bands in and determine that they want to sign them, what kind of a deal they want: licensing, recording, a single, an EP, a multi-record single album.”

Not only do Foley, Sintic and other students deal with the legal aspect of the company, but with the creative and business sides to it as well. Sintic admits that marketing is not as simple as it seems. He tells that you are basically selling music to people that they may not actually like, so it is all about reaching different audiences.

The company has signed two different artists to the label: Lansky Aloi, a hip-hop artist and a University of New Haven graduate student, and Hannah & Maggie, a folk duo from New York.

Sintic, who works with Lansky closely, said that he is amazing, while Foley could not agree more towards the label’s female duo, Hannah & Maggie. Foley first encountered the duo at the Connecticut Folk Fest in 2012, with fellow students Tyrus Watson and Christina Constantinopoulos. Foley said after they won, they went up to them and explained who they were, exchanged some numbers, and the rest is history.

Foley and Sintic hope that after they leave UNH and pursue their careers that Purebred Records will continue to produce music for amazing artists, such as Lanksy and Hannah & Maggie. They both also hope that label will be profitable, and dream that the program will grow and become a well-known college record label.

For more information on Purebred Records, you can follow them on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/PurebredRecords.