As the founder of Rough Trade records and its growing empire of independent labels, shops and merchandise, Geoff Travis has arguably had a greater impact on the independent music scene than anyone else in the British music industry.
Geoff Travis may not be a name commonly referred to or one many people know of, but over the years he has had a considerable impact on the British music scene, in particular on the emergence of an entirely new genre, now commonly known as ‘indie’.
By signing the Smiths in 1983 he paved the way for a new movement in a previously suffocated independent music scene. All four of the Smiths’ studio albums reached the top two in the charts.
Life before Rough Trade
Geoff Travis was born in 1952, the son of an insurance loss adjuster. As a teen he frequented many of London’s rock venues and immersed himself in London’s music scene, seeing bands such as The Who, and The Rolling Stones.
Specialising in vinyl, foreign imports, and punk and reggae music, Rough Trade was – and still is – considered by many as revolutionary and unique
Travis graduated from Churchill College in Cambridge in the early 70s after studying English and philosophy. In 1974, he flew to America and hitchhiked across the US with his girlfriend, amassing an enormous record collection, 400 LPs and vinyl’s bought in thrift shops and car boot sales.
Inspired by the small scale stores and community spirit he encountered in record stores across the US he decided to set up his own record shop back in west London.
Highs and lows
Travis set up Rough Trade after borrowing £4,000 from his father to help cover the costs of stock and premises. The Rough Trade record shop was born a small, unorganised and somewhat chaotic record shop in Kensington park road, Notting Hill in February 1976. Specialising in vinyl, foreign imports, and punk and reggae music, it was – and still is – considered by many as revolutionary and unique.
The Rough Trade record label was founded in 1978 and literally grew out of the shop itself; with the emerging DIY culture of music, small bands approached Travis asking for his help. At the beginning, little media promotion was undertaken, and Travis would strike deals whereby Rough Trade would pay recording and manufacturing costs and in return gain a 50% share of artists’ profits.
As the ‘post-punk’ genre exploded Rough Trade became too big for its original premises. Its initial growth as a record label and the success of its distribution system, distributing its own products and those of hundreds of other independent record labels, meant that larger premises were necessary.
In December 1980, Rough Trade moved to new premises in nearby Blenheim Crescent. This move coincided with the beginning of what has been called a golden period for the label, where Rough Trade welcomed The Fall, Pere Ubu, Young Marble Giants and Robert Wyatt to the roster, and by 1989 the company had a turnover of 22 million.
1991 was an unsuccessful year for the label; they made an ill fated move to Finsbury Park and after a series of unfortunate business decisions and issues with their distribution, the parent company, Rough Trade International, went into administration. Rough Trade’s time as an independent label and shop were over as the company’s assets were sold off to pay for its distribution debts.
Some have suggested that the label was a victim of its own success. Rob Young argued in Rough Trade, his history of the label, that “personality clashes rotted it away from the inside” and the successful business that had been growing and progressing for the past 15 years had crumbled to nothing, leaving over fifty of the UK’s most prominent independent bands out of pocket and with Rough Trade unable to lift their leftover stock or reimburse them.
The comeback
To make Rough Trade a success again, Travis needed a new band, comparable in substance to the Smiths. After many false starts and unsuccessful new beginnings he finally satisfied this ambitious aim.
In 2000 he was sent a cassette tape of three songs by an unknown band called the Strokes who frequented the clubs of New Jersey in the US. At the turn of the millennium they set a new course for the company by forming an alliance with ‘The Sanctuary Group’ a new independent label and distributor.
Another partnership was established with The Beggars Group in 2007, and with this new investment Rough Trade was able to recreate the success of the 80s, signing some of the UK’s foremost acts, including the Libertines and Arcade Fire. Many in the label’s latest raft of bands enjoy international success, which eluded even the Smiths, so Rough Trade is a sense scaling new heights.
