Christian Petke
Founder of COP International
COP started in 1991 with offices in both Frankfurt and the Bay Area. The first full-length was the California Cyber Crash Compilation, featuring Diatribe, Battery, Consolidated, Switchblade Symphony, and Christian's own band Deathline International. A lot of those acts went on to become staples of the 90s electro-industrial scene. Over the next few decades the catalog grew past 450 releases, including the Diva X Machina compilations that highlighted women in dark electronic music.
He's never just been the label guy either. As Count Zero, Christian co-founded Deathline International in Oakland in 1991, and the band put out Reality Check, Zarathoustra, Arashi Syndrom, and Cybrid before a long break. Then they came roaring back with a run of EPs, a "Troops of Tomorrow" remake with Jello Biafra, and the 2022 album Pax Americana. So when he talks about the artist side of the deal, he's lived it.
In 2020 Christian partnered with legendary producer John Fryer (Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, Cocteau Twins, 4AD) to build a production company and A&R team under the COP umbrella. They went straight to work on the comeback of Stabbing Westward, who signed to the label and came back with Chasing Ghosts. The roster today is full of artists who've outlasted trends: Stabbing Westward, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, The Cassandra Complex, Azam Ali, Beasto Blanco, Stoneburner, nolongerhuman, Chiasm, Sjöblom, and more. There's a lot coming this fall too, with Stabbing Westward's Wither ReWired out October 9 and The Cassandra Complex's Generating Station Complex landing in October ahead of their European tour.
He's also been honest about the cost. Christian has talked openly about burning out and walking away from music for a couple of years before realizing it was his life's work and coming back. These days he describes COP less as a record label and more as a creative platform, built around a pretty simple idea: build the machinery around the artist without becoming the machinery that crushes the artist.
Maybe you wore out your copy of California Cyber Crash, you've been waiting on Stabbing Westward's next record, you're an artist wondering if you even need a label anymore, or you're meeting Christian for the first time. Either way, this is a conversation with someone who's spent 35 years on the business side of the underground and still genuinely loves the music.
What they get into
- Starting a label on a handshake with Diatribe and building it across two continents
- Frankfurt in the early 90s, when techno was being invented right outside his door
- Running a label and a band at the same time, and what Deathline International taught him about the artist's side of the deal
- Burning out, stepping away, and what it took to come back
- Partnering with John Fryer and bringing Stabbing Westward back
- Bandcamp, Spotify, physical distribution, and what actually pays for records in 2026
- Signing legacy artists like Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and The Cassandra Complex next to newer acts
- What a label is actually for now, and what artists should look for (and look out for) before signing anything