“There are only two kinds of music,” says Mark Jones. “Good music and bad music. [I like] music that has been made because it’s real, that’s the first of something and is not a copy of something else. I don’t know if shops would do that, just have a good and bad section, but I think I’d go to the bad section, just to see what’s there,” he tells Music Week.
We’re sat in Maison Bertaux, a French patisserie in Soho where Noel Fielding’s Mighty Boosh-esque art adorns one of the walls. Jones tells me: “This is the oldest patisserie in London.” It is. I’ve checked. But we’re not here to discuss this venue’s past nor to admire Fielding’s art. Wall Of Sound is celebrating a pivotal landmark in its own history - its 20th anniversary. I’ve noticed that the wallpaper behind Jones is a pale shade of pink. There’s also a single pink chair outside, which he insists on bringing inside to sit on before we start talking.
I could be wrong, but I’m certain the choice of venue is no coincidence. If you’re familiar with Wall Of Sound Recordings, you will also be aware of the seminal indie label founder’s inclination to wear the colour pink. And he is indeed wearing a pink jumper, pink trousers and a pink hat, too.
It was Charles Bukowski who wrote that: “Every person has their eccentricities. But in an effort to be normal in the world’s eye, they overcome them and therefore destroy their special calling. I’ve kept mine and do believe that they have lent generously to my existence.”
It’s evident that Jones’s calling was Wall Of Sound and his eccentricities have undoubtedly lent to his existence and even more so, perhaps, to his success as a label owner. In spite of a character that has earned him a reputation of being “frankly a bit unhinged” among many other descriptions, his eclectic taste in music and willingness to support and develop alternative artists has secured a pioneering status for Jones and the label.
“I just do what I do, I am who I am and that’s it,” he says. “I never really think about it from the point of view [of the media], but obviously certain people will have their visions and ideas. To me, it’s just that I never want to not be myself. And you know, sometimes from a business perspective that can be quite difficult, sitting in a room with lawyers and accountants.” I ask Jones if there have been times where ‘being himself’ has made doing business difficult. “Yes,” he laughs. “The whole 20 years!”
Keeping a label afloat for 20 years is no easy feat for anyone. There have been so many changes to the music industry between 1994 and 2014, with countless companies becoming casualties of the digital revolution. Yet Jones is still very much active in the industry and Wall Of Sound is still signing acts and releasing music by new and old artists on its diverse roster. One such release is Röyksopp’s latest album The Inevitable End, which recently peaked at No.2 in the independent album chart. “They’ve never compromised their artistic integrity and that’s what it should be about,” says Jones.
Some of the most significant names in electronic music have put releases out via Wall Of Sound since its inception in 1994, including The Human League, Felix Da Housecat, the aforementioned Röyksopp, Mekon, The Wiseguys and the Grammy award-winning Stuart Price. The label has also worked with a diverse range of other artists, including I Am Kloot, Reverend And The Makers and Grace Jones, who released Hurricane on the label in 2008 - her first album in ten years.
Wall Of Sound was not Jones’s first taste of musical success though. Prior to founding the label, he was the singer in London Records-signed A Perfect Day, a pop rock, or ‘prock’ band, as Jones calls it. The group released four singles, Jones appeared on the covers of magazines, but the group’s album was ultimately shelved.
“When I started the label, I didn’t tell anyone about [A Perfect Day]. Then Stuart Price, or Propellerheads found something and freaked out, but they got it from the artist side and it actually helped. When the band split, I did a couple of solo tracks and releases and then I was back on the dole. I just used go to record shops and I’d get them to play records because I didn’t have any money to buy any and I wanted to hear something.”
One of the record shops Jones would frequent was Flying Records in Kensington, where a chance encounter with Marc Lessner would act as the catalyst for the formation of Wall Of Sound. “Before the band formed, I did all the visuals at all the mad acid house clubs like Trip. Marc used to sell records on a table while we were doing those club things,” explains Jones. “I hadn’t seen him for years and he just said, ‘Oh wow, what’s happened with the band?’ So I told him the whole story.”
Lessner had a distribution company called Soul Trader at the time and Jones explains that he wanted to learn the other side of the industry, so Lessner let him work there. “I was ringing up shops in Soho and other places and selling them records and packing boxes in warehouses and that’s how I learned the other side of the industry.
“People would knock on the door, or they’d send stuff in and we would press them 500 12” singles or whatever. We gave early breaks [to the likes of] Basement Jaxx and Kruder & Dorfmeister - lots of people like that, who didn’t have that opportunity
“One day we were doing this and I said to Marc, ‘Alright, we should do a compilation album of all of these people that we help.’” That compilation was called Give ‘Em Enough Dope Volume One, featuring tracks such as Kruder & Dorfmeister’s High Noon, Phatty’s Lunch Box by Mekon, Breathe In by Howie B and The Real Vibes by The Wiseguys. Mark and Marc sold every copy. “And then we repressed them and repressed them and then we did two other volumes,” says Jones. Give ‘Em Enough Dope Volume Two and Volume Three followed, featuring the likes of Les Rhythmes Digitales, Basement Jaxx and Propellerheads.
“There was an alternative evolution of dance music bubbling. The dance culture had no meaning then and it had been very diluted by certain labels. It didn’t have any feeling or meaning. You weren’t allowed to say, ‘I love Steeley Dan, I love Kraftwerk, or I love hip hop.’ So we threw it all in the mix, literally, and Marc said, ‘So, what? You want to start a record label?’ And I said, ‘Yes and it’s going to be called Wall Of Sound.’ That was because I’ve always been affected by the sonics of music.”
Although one would assume Jones was a dedicated Phil Spector fan to have chosen that name for his label, he insists he wasn’t. But he admits: “I’ve always been a fan of his effect on music and what he achieved and what Joe Meek achieved. I’ve always been really into that.”
Jones’s label now had a name and its first release, but it didn’t have any artists. “Without telling anyone, Marc and I went into the studio and we made the first record,” he explains. “It was E-Klektik, Maracana Madness in 1994, which sampled Edmo Zarife, the Brazilian football commentator. [The song starts with him shouting], ‘Gooooaaaall!!!’ Gilles Peterson heard it and played it like four, five times on one show, because he was freaking out and that’s how it all began. The first actual artist on the label was Mekon [John Gosling] and then it went on from there.”
The label’s first real chart success came in the form of Propellerheads’ History Repeating - featuring the powerful vocals of Shirley Bassey. The track peaked at No.1 in the UK Dance Chart and No.19 in the UK Singles Chart. It was also the first time Bassey had appeared in the Top 10 of the US charts since 1973. The track went on to secure several sync placements in TV, advertisements and movies in the subsequent years following its release.
“That was our first breaker,” says Jones. “John Gosling told me to go see this band in Bath and I went down, saw them and just freaked out. Alex [Gifford] and Will [White] are fantastic and just really on it and they wanted to do it their way. There were people sniffing around trying to [sign them], but they came with us. So obviously that broke through massively. It communicated worldwide and the live shows were great.”
With its first chart hit, interest in the label and its artists began to grow as it started to make its mark in the industry. “All of a sudden I had to employ people and we moved offices then it just evolved even more and I had an office in New York. It just got really crazy when it seriously kicked off in the late ‘90s.”
Jones reflects on how much the perception of electronic music has changed since he began putting records out, especially in the United States where audiences were slow to react to the electronic artists emerging in Europe.
“When I first started taking music to America, people just didn’t get it. Most of the majors back in the day didn’t really get it. Then when you say, ‘Well, it evolved here, in Chicago and Detroit and other places,’ and they were like, ‘What?’
“Production-wise, so much more now is electronically influenced, even certain classic guitar rock bands. You hear their album and you go, ‘What?’ There are certain electronic elements on certain classic artists’ albums now and you can hear it. That’s the evolvement of it. And of course, with the ‘EDM’ experience now - obviously what’s happened over in the United States is crazy. It’s kicked off there.”
Although Wall Of Sound quickly became known as a big beats label in the ‘90s, Jones tells Music Week that this description came about because journalists didn’t know what to define the early releases as. “People were saying, ‘What is this? What is this?’ So they invented the terms ‘trip hop’ and then ‘big beat’. So then everything we released was big beat and put in a box. I was like, ‘What are you talking about? This is rubbish.’”
Three new labels were subsequently launched by Jones in response to his frustrations about how the Wall Of Sound releases were being categorised. The new labels were Bad Magic, which focused on hip hop; We Love You, “a guitar and bands label” and Nucamp, “a banging dance label”. “Obviously, people want to put [music] into a box and certain record shops want to have an area that they can put a record,” says Jones. “But it was quite funny because it’s never been about that for me.
“I just wanted to give artists the platform to do what they do. That’s what it’s always been about for me. It’s never been about sitting in a studio saying, ‘Don’t do it like that, do it like this.’ Wall Of Sound has always been about artists being themselves and it’s always been about being the first at something.”
Wall Of Sound: 20 friends of the label reflect on the last two decades
Zane Lowe
Wall Of Sound was the label. Me and my friends would search for the logo. When I first arrived in the UK we became friends with The Dirty Beatniks who were on the label. Just by hanging out with them, you knew how important the ethos and identity of WOS was to them and the other artists on the team. Its legacy rests on the music.
Röyksopp
Congrats on your 111th birthday.
Duke Dumont
Happy 20th birthday and thanks for commissioning my first ever remix for Mekon in 2006.
Annie Mac
Wall Of Sound had a lot to do with me getting into electronic music. I fell in love with The Wiseguy’s first album Executive Suite, promptly joined the mailing list and had Wall Of Sound flyers all over my bedroom wall as a student in Belfast. Then Les Rhythmes Digitales’ Darkdancer came out and I was a full convert.
Martyn Ware, Heaven 17 / BEF
Twenty years is just the end of the beginning for Wall Of Sound. I’m a relative newbie but already I’m excited and confused in equal measure.
Norman Cook
I once found myself at a urinal in Smithfield pissing next to Mark Jones and realised we were both pissing in the gene pool of pop music. Viva Wall Of Sound for character-based pop fun.
I Am Kloot
Wall Of Sound was the most maverick and creative label we have ever been with and we have been with a few.
Eddy Temple-Morris, Xfm/Secret Garden
Wall Of Sound are part of our musical heritage. The label that’s added the most colour to the glorious tapestry that is British alternative music.
Alex Metric
Wall Of Sound was absolutely instrumental in making me fall in love with electronic music. As an indie kid, their eclectic attitude and releases blew my mind. I’d never heard dance music like it. From LRD, Zoot Woman and Propellerheads, to Royksopp and The Infadels, these albums shaped my musical mind and started me off on the path I am now on. Rock and Rave!
Banksy
Spending time with Wall Of Sound is like being in an epic road movie, without a map. And no road.
Grace Jones
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Rob Da Bank
Twenty years ago I was sat on a cardboard box in a breezy warehouse space enthusiastically stamping logos onto Les Rythmes Digitales seven inches whilst head honcho Mark Jones juggled two phones, a fax machine and held three other conversations with artists, agents and possibly a bank manager or two.Mark’s charisma, endless energy and relentless work ethic doubtlessly rubbed off on me and have always made me want to be ahead of the game and never look back. I salute Mark for that early break he gave me and I salute Wall Of Sound for hanging in here and still making a difference two decades later.
Jon McClure, Reverend And The Makers
Wall Of Sound is a pink runaway train heading full speed to a promised party to end of a long dark tunnel of oddness. There is no buffet cart on board but the company is great and the destination is well worth the ticket price.
Alex Gifford, Propellerheads
I can clearly remember the night we first met Mark. After that it gets hazy.
Stuart Price
Wall Of Sound offer musical freedom.
Mekon (John Gosling)
A well-oiled machine reversing into the future.
The Human League
It had always been a long held ambition of ours to work with a label as cool, as avant-garde and as focused as Wall Of Sound, so the fact that they were all great people with
an encyclopaedic knowledge of music was just the icing on the cake for us. To be allowed such creative freedom and yet at the same time to be so supported and encouraged is a rare and precious thing for a band. Long may they continue to provide it.
Kids On Bridges
Walls have ears, but none as good or pink as Wall Of Sound. It’s always a pure eargasm when you put on one of the label’s tunes. Like all great walls it’s standing the test of time. Here’s to the next 20. If only the rest of the music industry had the vision and passion of Wall Of Sound.
Happy anniversary.
Alex Hardee, Coda Agency
Mark Jones - an individual, a pioneer, an eccentric, pink.
Steve Tandy, managing director, Copmedia
A man like Mark Jones and a label such as Wall Of Sound are both pioneers and one of a kind. Mark was one of the first label bosses to give me chance plugging a chart hit, when I first founded my plugging company, Intermedia back in 1993; with The Propellerheads ft. Dame Shirley! Anybody who loves Carry On Films, Thunderbirds, the colour pink and talks faster and more than I do, is a man you can only admire. Here’s to your next 20 Mr Jones.