Fueled by Ramen, like many record labels, started in a dorm room. Somewhere in Gainesville Rock City in 1996, a young John Janick shook hands with Less Than Jake drummer Vinnie Fiorello, and the hottest property in north-central Florida pop-punk was born. Its first clients? Ska-punk dilettantes The Hippos and The Impossibles, bands you'd only know if you, like Janick and Fiorello, were in it for life.

"We were operating out of a 150 square foot room, maybe less, with bunk beds and CDs, just running everything from my desk," said Janick over the phone from Los Angeles, where he now lives. "I'd go over to Vinnie's apartment to do mail orders. It was an interesting time, and maybe a little bit naive."

Fueled by Ramen had its first major success when it issued the 1998 self-titled EP from an upstart group of Arizona kids named Jimmy Eat World. It sold enough for the still-fresh-faced label to buy its first office space in Tampa, and served as a sign of things to come. Eventually this Florida-bred, rude-boy indie label became a tastemaking stalwart. It's where Fall Out Boy got famous, selling 250,000 copies of Take This to Your Grave over the course of two years. Gym Class Heroes and Panic! At the Disco would soon follow, and they remain signed to this day.

But shouldn't Fueled by Ramen be dead? We've seen this story before. An era-defining label goes rags to riches with some smart business partnerships and a savvy A&R — swallowing up every hot act in the scene until their brand becomes synonymous with the genre itself. Replace the guyliner with MDMA or a couple bodies hung over hotel balconies, and it's the exact same legacy of powerhouses such as Factory or Death Row. If there's one thing we learned about iconoclastic, hyper-specific record labels, it's that the gravy train doesn't run forever. Suge Knight is bankrupt and locked up; The Haçienda is an apartment complex. By any reasonable estimation, Fueled by Ramen should be floundering, or downsizing, or absorbed — that's just how these stories are supposed to end.

But that hasn't happened. Fueled by Ramen continues to thrive. The old mid-2000s guard of Fall Out Boy and The Academy Is… have been cycled out for a younger, hipper, more dynamic generation of acts such as Twenty One Pilots and fun. That's right, fun. — the band who won a bunch of trophies for Some Nights are signed to Fueled by Ramen. Paramore, the long-standing Hot Topic icons, tasted true, transcendent crossover success with their 2013 self-titled record, propelling their name into nondenominational pop radio, and scoring singer Hayley Williams a guest spot on Zedd's "Stay the Night." Gym Class Heroes are still getting on TV, your mom listens to Young the Giant — Fueled by Ramen's current roster remains an influential modern rock record label.

That's no small feat in 2015. Fueled by Ramen might never be able to escape its emo-pop peak, but you'd be hard pressed to come up with any imprint that's been able to stay so relevant for so long. It's managed it, in part, by becoming a subsidiary of Warner Bros., which earned the until-then indie criticism from punk rock purists. But that, like everything else Janick has built, was a means to an end.

"We wanted to make sure there weren't any ceilings for our artists, while also keeping our culture independent," said Janick. "There were other major labels filling artists' heads with stuff like, 'Oh you're being held back by Fueled by Ramen, they don't have the resources.' For me it was about being an indie label with major ties, where we can build the foundation with a big company there to take you all the way."

That environment is what resonated with a 15-year-old girl from Meridian, Mississippi, who was screaming her lungs off in a band called Paramore.