Mike Varney

Mike Varney is an American record producer and guitarist. He is most notably the founder of Shrapnel Records, the label which produced every Racer X album before Technical Difficulties.

Career
In 1980, Mike Varney had just started the Shrapnel Records label and was writing a column in Guitar Player entitled "Guitar Spotlight". The column featured the country's best and brightest up-and-comers on guitar along with their hometown and a brief description of their playing style. Some "Spotlight" alumni include Vinnie Moore, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Paul Gilbert. Joey Tafolla recalls that Varney could usually be reached between midnight and 4 A.M. Additionally, he says that Shrapnel artists were typically allotted 100 hours of studio time to finish an album, and that Racer X reportedly went 4 hours over-budget on one of their albums.

In a 1988 clinic, a student asked Paul Gilbert about rumors that Mike Varney took significant cuts from his artists. Gilbert answers that, in their contract, they did indeed sign away a 50% share of the publishing revenue. He says that they were in such a rush to handle Harry Gschoesser's visa situation and get him a work permit that they did not have time to negotiate the contract. To Varney's credit, however, he also says that the artists would have remained largely undiscovered without Varney's ability to promote the albums and hire big-name artists to play bass and drums for them, boosting their public profile.

Both Tafolla and Gilbert recall that Varney would often play tapes of up-and-coming artists such as Tony MacAlpine and Yngwie over the phone.