Geoff Travis, founder of independent label Rough Trade Records and aman who has radically altered popular musical tastes, talks to Tony Clayton-Lea.
The offices of one of the most fundamentally important and influential (and therefore, in the general scheme of things, commercially ineffectual) record labels of the past 30 years are secreted behind a window front that is too easy to pass by. Yet in London's Golborne Road, Rough Trade operates amid a tiny clatter of music obsessives, constant background music and a whirr of calm enthusiasm.
Here, I will meet the former road manager for Jesus & Mary Chain and current manager of former Cocteau Twins vocalist Elizabeth Fraser, as well as up-and-coming (and downright good) singer Jacob Golden. We will meet the man behind Tugboat Records, whose latest signing is Belfast band Desert Hearts; the manager of Dublin's Marc Carroll, 2002's saviour of power pop; and a man who drinks 12 litres of water a day to flush out all the residue of drugs he took in the 1990s.
I will also meet the head of Rough Trade, Geoff Travis, a 50-year-old who is so self-effacing he probably doesn't realise he has, more than several times, radically altered popular music tastes through involvement with the likes of Stiff Little Fingers, Scritti Politti, Microdisney, Everything But The Girl, Jesus & Mary Chain, The Smiths and, latterly, through the New York hot-to-the-touch triumvirate of The Strokes/Moldy Peaches/ARE Weapons.
Following a Cambridge education and a brief time as a drama teacher, Travis travelled first to Canada and then to the US, hitchhiking from Chicago to San Francisco, all the while buying thousands of records and stockpiling them as he went along.
He eventually shipped them all to London with the idea of starting a record shop. The Rough Trade name conjures up images of depravity in certain quarters, the actual source is somewhat more prosaic: Travis nicked it from a Toronto band of the same name.
Back in London in the mid-1970s, Travis set up shop in Ladbroke Grove, then a hippy/proto-punk hang-out, but soon to be galvanised (as would all of London) by the onset of punk rock. The point of having a record shop, he recalls, was simply to sell records. But events overtook such a basic premise, and gradually distribution of many DIY labels became part of Rough Trade's brief, as well as the dawning realisation that they could actually sign their own acts and release their records.
"It was the whole impetus in being in the punk DIY culture, the era, and the fact that the things you weren't interested in just weren't available in the mainstream," says Travis. "You couldn't buy the stuff you wanted to buy. You had to hunt them down, and of course there's a certain charm to that. But the thing was not to be snobbish about finding something you loved and not wanting to share it with other people, which is one step beyond the ultra cool.
"Rough Trade is irredeemably uncool in many things we do. The greatest pleasure is when you see something that's a bit difficult or challenging get into the mainstream - it's a sweet victory when that happens. It's a purely selfish impulse to work with things you love. And that has been the criterion, the unassailable kernel of truth of what Rough Trade likes to do, for better or worse financially. I don't think we've ever wittingly taken on something we thought was going to be really successful if we didn't really love it at the same time. To our cost, but not to our regret."
Travis says there have only been two great plans for Rough Trade. One was to organise the distribution ideal properly (that is, full distribution of independent records), which he thinks Rough Trade did successfully, until it got too unwieldy and crashed in the late 1980s - "mistakes were made", he admits ruefully. The other plan was simply to run a great record label.
"Lack of a grand strategy is one of its greatest charms, but a little bit of wisdom along the way doesn't go adrift."
The ethos of Rough Trade is pretty much the same now as it was back in the late 1970s: it's culturally important for bands to have a decent home. While the bean counters at the major labels might snigger at this, Travis has been proved right time and time again. The Rough Trade philosophy, says he, is actually quite selfish.
"The first question we ask ourselves is: 'Could we go and see this band every night of the week? Would we get excited each night? Would we buy their records and play them at home all the time?' Every night of the week might be stretching it, but that's the general idea."
While one might think that Travis is a liberal idealist at worst, a middle-aged man living out his boyhood dreams at best, he fully realises he's entrenched in a business where it's not just the talented or the critic's favourites that succeed. He claims he isn't aware of what his reputation is as a businessman, but thinks he's pretty decent. "My likes aren't completely out of tune with popular tastes, but it's no good going your own way if no one else is interested. It's all very well putting out a whole series of albums and then wondering why no one buys them and blaming the world."
The strength of Rough Trade is based on its relationship with musicians, he states, adding that the notion it allows its acts to do anything they want isn't true. Rough Trade, he says, has very high standards, and the context, atmosphere and the peer group that the other musicians are operating in has a very good effect on the music that's made. "It's an important part of the equation. We have a lot of experience, and we are good at helping people to be the best they can be. Essentially, I'm an editor of sound, and as a label we're there to challenge them in many ways."
Weaknesses? Rough Trade isn't particularly overbearing, he says; the label likes to think it empowers individuals, treats them like adults and makes them understand they're capable of doing quite a lot if they do things in a certain way. "You give them confidence, 100 per cent support. We don't employ a reign of terror regime."
Yet the divide between this label and the major players is an obvious one.
Despite the apparent success of Rough Trade's latest media darlings, The Strokes, Travis knows their penetration into the mainstream is relatively minor. "We don't look at major label sales most of the time, because we're not in their arena too often. We don't see ourselves in that particular game.
"People think the point behind having a record company is to sell as many records as possible and, therefore, unless you're having hits all the time you're not successful and what are you playing at? People ask us why we release so many records. It's simple: we support musicians. Out of the records we release we don't expect all of them to make their way commercially. But we do expect the records to be good, have an economy of scale that pays for itself and breaks even, so that they can make another record.
"Putting out a record and judging it a success or failure is on different terms with us. Major labels spend huge amounts of money on launching an artist, a single and an album, and if that record only gets to number 19, then it's: 'Next!' We have an indie label mentality, but we harbour aspirations to every once in a while compete with anyone and do a good job.
"It's what we tried to do with The Smiths, it's what we do with The Strokes, and it's what we'll try to do with forthcoming bands. It's not seeing everything as one homogenous block - everything has its own logic, its identity, and within that logic it either works or it doesn't."
Travis sees Rough Trade as a survivor in a dog-eat-dog business, a company that has managed to succeed on its own terms even as the rules of the game keep changing.
"It's no longer any more about owning copyright or back catalogues; we're equally happy to give or share copyright with the musicians. There is room to do things in different ways.
"It's not so much about trying to build an empire; it's about trying to do good things along the way."