Yudu - Music Week June 22 2012

THINK PINK...

Colourful Wall Of Sound founder Mark Jones talks past, present and future at GoNorth 2012

LABELS BY TOM PAKINKIS

hether it’s the electric pink attire or the hands-free kit in the shape of a retro telephone, Wall of Sound founder Mark

Jones is obviously an outwardly eccentric character, one that thrives on unpredictability and strives to keep people guessing. But he’s also a character that garners

respect, not least because his genre-hopping label Wall of Sound is fast approaching its 20th year. After working his pink jumper into a

makeshift kilt in tribute to our host country at Inverness’ Go North 2012, Jones relaxes in front of a waiting audience for Music Week’s keynote interview to reveal a record exec that’s as passionate as he is quirky and that has driven Wall Of Sound down a path of success and integrity since its spawning

ABOVE/LEFT Sounding off: Mark Jones and Music Week’s Tom Pakinkis at GoNorth 2012. The label owner is about to embark on new journeys with Adamski, Echoes, Killaflaw, Saskilla, Mekon and BEF

RIGHT Some of Wall Of Sound’s early signings: Mekon and Royksopp, whose debut Melody AM went Platinum

“In the beginning it was literally me sitting in a little

shed in the middle

of nowhere. The first call I ever got was from Kenny Gates who ran PIAS. He said, ‘What are

you doing?’ and I said ‘I have no idea’” MARK JONES,

WALL OF SOUND

album Give ‘Em Enough Dope. “We started doing pressing and distribution deals

for artists that we found with music that we liked,” Jones says, remembering his time with Marc Lessner at distributor Soul Trader way back in the early Nineties. “One day I said, ‘Let’s do a compilation album’.

I’d had Wall Of Sound as a record label name in my head for a while because I’d always been a fan of people who affect music sonically. “I remember when the van with the finished

product arrived at the warehouse. I opened the box, picked up the vinyl and stared at it. I knew it was the start of something. I didn’t know what it was the start of exactly, but it was a moment. “In the beginning it was literally me sitting in a

little shed in the middle of nowhere,” he recalls. “The first call I ever got was from Kenny Gates who ran PIAS. He said, ‘What are you doing?’ and I said ‘I have no idea.’” Jones soon left the shed behind with signings

such as Mekon, Stuart Price, Propellerheads and Royksopp, to name a few, racking up sales on the Wall of Sound roster, which diversified over the years to include the likes of Grace Jones and Reverend And The Makers. Jones launched other labels We Love You, Bad Magic and Nu Camp to tackle “lazy journalists” intent on pigeon-holing everything Jones’ put out as Big Beat. “I didn’t let people know that the labels were

associated with us at first and picked up bands like I Am Kloot, The Bees, Ugly Duckling, Blak Twang and others. “It was just to make that point,” he explains.

“Nobody really knows what’s coming next from the label because I don’t.” That’s perhaps truer than ever as Wall of Sound

enters “a new dawn” having recently split from a partnership with PIAS. And Jones is the first to admit that the music world is a very different place compared to the “hazy days” of the Nineties. “The elements that we used to take for granted –

the sync and the brand relationships that we would do as the cherry on the cake - are now the body of what happens,” he says. But indie labels are by no means facing a

struggle: “Look at Adele and XL,” Jones suggests. “When an artist like that comes along - and they used to come along a little bit more than once every five or ten years - it proves that independent culture can work. They have the same ideals that I do, which is to stand by artists.” That simple principle still remains at the core of

Wall Of Sound: “Obviously the journey’s had its ups and downs but it’s about giving talent a platform,” Jones explains. Our interview ends abruptly when Jones orders

that the lights be dimmed before plying the Go North audience with Banoffee pie beneath a shining disco ball as Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax blares over the PA system. A typically eccentric exit and one we couldn’t have predicted.

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