Lookout Records (stylized as Lookout! Records) was an independent record label, initially based in Laytonville, California, and later in Berkeley, focusing on punk rock. Established in 1987, the label is best known for having released Operation Ivy’s only album, Energy, and Green Day's first two albums, 39/Smooth and Kerplunk.

Following the departure of co-founder Larry Livermore in 1997, the label departed from its "East Bay sound" and proved unable to match early success. In 2005 the label ran into financial difficulties after several high-profile artists rescinded the rights to their Lookout Records material. After a period of rapid contraction the label slowly expired, terminating operations and removing its music from online distribution channels early in 2012.

During the fall of 1984 Larry Livermore (née Larry Hayes), a resident of the small town of Laytonville, California, of countercultural proclivities, felt the urge to opine about the problems of his community and the world in a small-circulation periodical. Thus in October of that year was launched a circulation magazine called Lookout, the first issue of which was typed and photocopied with a "press run" of just 50 copies. Opposition emerged to the controversial local topics upon which Livermore opined and so he turned to the theme punk rock, a form of music he had followed in the late 1970s.

Livermore began to reacquaint himself with the ongoing punk music scene by listening to the Maximum Rocknroll (MRR) radio show, broadcast weekly from Berkeley and featuring prominent scenester and future fanzine publisher Tim Yohannan and his cohorts. Livermore also decided to start a band, drafting a 12-year-old neighbor to play drums — given the punk rock name "Tré Cool" by Livermore. Cool would later gain fame as the drummer of Green Day.

After a few ill-attended shows in 1985 Livermore took his band, The Lookouts, into a local recording studio to record their songs, with a 26-song demo tape resulting. He also began living part-time in the San Francisco Bay Area, splitting his time between the city and his home in the mountains of Mendocino County.

The Lookouts began playing out more in San Francisco and Berkeley and began to develop a fan following and to make the acquaintance of other local bands, including a melodically friendly group called The Mr. T Experience. A vibrant local scene began to congeal, based around the Gilman Street Project, an all-ages venue inspired, bankrolled, and coordinated by the popular Maximum Rocknroll, launched the night of December 31, 1986.

Early in 1987, Livermore decided that it was time for The Lookouts to release a record. Livermore chose to take the Do It Yourself route to create such an album, self-releasing the one-off LP under "Lookout Records." At the same time, the new bands emerging around the vibrant 924 Gilman Street venue, including Operation Ivy, Crimpshrine, Sewer Trout, Isocracy, and others were documented for the first time by local scenester David Hayes on a 17-song double 7-inch compilation entitled Turn It Around, released through Mordam Distribution on the Maximum Rocknroll Records label. The duo would soon join forces as co-founders of a permanent label.

Both Lawrence Livermore (née Larry Hayes) and David Hayes (not related) were deeply inspired by the energetic East Bay punk rock scene and sought to further document its leading bands. David Hayes initially wanted to start a new label of his own for the purpose, to be known as Sprocket Records, with a view to a first release for the band Corrupted Morals. Livermore, a columnist for Maximum Rocknroll (MRR) who knew Hayes as a so-called "shitworker" for the publication, convinced the latter that a partnership was in order to advance their common goal. As Livermore's release had an independently controlled label name, Lookout Records, while Hayes's debut release borrowed the well-known MRR moniker, the former name was decided upon as the label name for the releases of the duo moving forward.