Varèse Sarabande's roots trace back to 1972, with the introduction of a predecessor imprint called Varèse International. The first LP release was "Lumiere" by Dub Taylor. Varèse International Records was originally conceived as an avant garde classical label. In the years that followed, under the management of the founder–owners, Dub Taylor and Chris Kuchler, the label expanded its catalogue to include jazz, classical and other genres of recordings. In 1977, Tom Null's Sarabande Records merged with Varèse International to form Varèse Sarabande Records. The early LP issues of the label were reissues of classical recordings from the American Decca, Remington and JVC labels. The first film soundtrack LP album was released in 1978 though the advice of fledging Hollywood writer/director/actor Bruce Kimmel, who was offered an ownership but politely turned it down at that time and would return to head the label's Broadway division in the early 1990s. The labels' sudden success was mostly due to the soundtracks they released more so than their classical releases and eventually the label leaned heavily towards soundtrack releases many of which became best sellers for the label that included John Carpenter's "Halloween", Goblin's "Dawn of the Dead", Fred Myrow's "Phantasm", five albums of the music from the classic TV series, "The Twilight Zone", which were huge sellers and their still popular reissue of the music from the late George Romero's classic horror film, "Night of the Living Dead". They still produced classical releases under the supervision of Null and even created an offshoot label named Andante, which didn't last long and was a variation of their classical releases on Varese just under that brand. The late Scot W. Holton was also a producer during the label's early years until his passing.