Source: Blog – Alliance for American Manufacturing

The vinyl presses at Erika Records in Buena Park, Calif. | Courtesy Erika Records

Woman-owned Erika Records got its start decades ago servicing the punk and metal scenes, and has ridden the wave of vinyl’s resurgence.

At the age of 71, Liz Dunster has become known as simply “Vinyl Mama.”

It was almost 45 years ago that Dunster became the first woman to own and operate a vinyl record pressing company in the United States. It has been a bumpy ride through the years, but her Erika Records in Buena Park, Calif., is still cranking out the hits.

While vinyl record collectors will celebrate this Saturday’s Record Store Day 2025 by shopping for new and reissued recorded music to add to their collections, Dunster and her team will be pressing the music of old and new onto vinyl discs that will make their way into record store bins.

“I started pressing records in 1983 with two presses in Bellflower [Calif.],” said Dunster. “I got started with metal bands and then the punk labels doing small amounts and whatever people could afford.”

There are approximately 50 independent record pressing companies in the U.S. that have filled the void created when the major record labels stopped pressing the music of their clients. Compact discs (CDs) and cassette tapes had become the vessels that transported music into our cars and homes in the 1990s. It seemed that vinyl records were headed for extinction.

But aficionados of the raw analog sound began purchasing whatever vinyl they could find. Up and coming recording artists began to issue their music on vinyl albums along with the popular CDs and cassettes.

A younger generation was discovering the thrill of owning an album that contained photos, lyrics, and beautiful cover art. And older audiophiles began to play their music again from their old album collection that was most likely in storage.

“I started out with the heavy metal and punk, and I will never forget where we started.”

Erika Records Owner Liz Dunster

Dunster initially got involved in the record business in 1980 when she would meet bands and take a small batch of their records to the local swap meet every week.

“I just decided to get into it, so I would go down to the clubs, the Troubadour, Madam Wong’s and the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach and talk to the groups,” said Dunster. “They didn’t have enough money, and I didn’t have enough money so we saw how much money we could put up together and we would make so many records, and we would split them. I would sell mine at the Paramount Swap Meet and that’s how I got started.”

Affectionately known as “Vinyl Mama” by coworkers and clients alike, Dunston grew Erika Records so efficiently it eventually needed to move into a 20,000 square-foot facility in Buena Park. It is not only woman-owned, but it is also a family business. Her son John is the plant and production manager, and she named the company after her daughter Erika.

Today Dunston has 32 employees but as recently as two years ago her roster included 100 workers.

“It has slowed down the past couple of years because more pressing plants have opened and the major labels went out of the United States for their pressings,” said Dunston. “They went to Canada and Mexico. Shame on them.

“I am so upset that these people are going to Canada and Mexico and all over to make vinyl records when you can make them right here in the United States. I am so all about USA-made.”

During the height of CD and cassette sales, Dunston also took a job as a salesperson for a CD plant where she was the representative for orders of less than 25,000 units.

“CDs and cassettes almost killed the vinyl business, and I almost gave up,” she said. “The CD job kept me going for a while, but I never gave up and eventually there was a vinyl resurgence.

“When the vinyl business was slow, I started doing specialty stuff, the picture records, the shaped records. We’ve done a lot of things that were different along with pressing the traditional black records.

“We do different colors, we do shapes, we do up to six colors, a splatter and etched records that have music on one side and an etched design on the other side.”

Erika Records has 48 record pressing machines, which is an enormous amount for a smaller, family business. Dunston also has another 10 presses in storage that she uses for parts.

“We refurbish the machines to keep them running. That’s how I got started,” added Dunston. “The very first thing I purchased was a machine shop. My father, Joe Bellak, helped invent the semi-automatic presses. My son came on board and learned how to do it as well.”

Among the many artists Erika Records has manufactured for are Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, and Iron Maiden.

“I started out with the heavy metal and punk, and I will never forget where we started,” said Dunston. “That’s why we still do small runs for them.

“We’ve done pretty much everybody. Selena Gomez is one of them, and we do a lot of Disney movie tracks. We’ve done Michael Jackson here, also Johnny Cash. We did Taylor Swift picture records and when business was booming a few years ago we were pressing Adele and a lot of other bigger names.

“And there are newcomers trying to make it and we help then out as much as we can.”

When the vinyl copies come off the press the production team makes sure the label is on the correct side before letting them sit for about 3 or 4 hours to cool. During the production run, the Erika team listens to the vinyl every 25 records for quality assurance. The records are then put on racks to sit overnight before they are packaged and shipped.

“With our semi-automatic presses we do picture records and shaped records,” said Dunston. “With the automatic presses we do standard records. On a typical day now, we run about 14 or 15 presses.

“When CDs took over that almost put a big hurt locker on a lot of people. Would you rather look at a little 5×5 inch CD or grab an album? We even have kids in here who open up an album and they smell it. The records are made with non-lead materials, but I don’t quite understand why the kids smell them.”

It is likely they are breathing in the sweet smell of success that Dunston has found in the vinyl pressing business. As the matriarch of Erika Records and to many in the Southern California music scene, Dunston wears the title of “Vinyl Mama” with pride.

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