Altair Records was started in 1982 when Rick Gianatos began working with Tom dePierro’s Airwave Records (2). Tom offered a distribution deal for Rick’s label and he advised Rick to pick a name at the beginning of the alphabet so releases would show up at the top of the list of a distributor’s catalogue. Rick chose Altair because it sounded good and was at the beginning of the alphabet. He was also inspired to use that name because it was a star referred to in a favorite film, Forbidden Planet.