Interview: JT Soar

Phil: It’s a recording studio and a rehearsal and gig space. I used to run the recording studio with a few other people but it became a bit lopsided because they had other full time jobs, whereas it was my full time thing. It was obvious where it was going so I took it on myself.

 

Joe: Phil and I started putting on gigs under the name Coffee Beat. We decided to see if we could expand when Phil was renegotiating the contract on the studio. It was just upstairs originally but the landlord said that we could expand to two floors. We needed to make it worthwhile which is when the gigs and the rehearsal space started to happen.

 

Phil: It was a completely empty concrete room with metal grills because the second floor used to be a store room. Sound was a massive issue. There used to be a scooter garage next door and I had to build a wall to help with recording and to keep the noise in so we didn’t annoy the neighbours when we did have bands play. It looked quite grimy so we gave it a whole new lick of paint, repainted the floor, and we put a new toilet in.

 

Joe: There is nothing illegal happening because of the changes in the licensing laws, you don’t have to have a license to put on an event. The only thing that would be illegal is if we had noise after 11pm, which we don’t as we have a strict curfew. We also have to make sure we don’t have people outside making a noise, but we have it locked down and people respect that and appreciate that something good is happening. It’s not an ‘after-party’ type place, it’s legit. We hand out earplugs, everyone hangs out together, it is very sociable. We want it to be friendly, so if someone came in and didn’t know what was going on we would make sure to say “hi” to them.

 

Joe: There are no bar staff getting arsey, because there’s no bar. There are no bouncers getting arsey and no promoters running around panicking. Well there are, but for different reasons, mostly because people don’t turn up sometimes. The point is is that there are no uniformed people: you come in, pay your money, do what you want as long as you are nice to each other. That’s the atmosphere we are going for.

 

Phil: Everyone is on the same level. Literally, as there is no stage.

 

Joe: The whole idea behind punk is to have no barrier. The promoter, the guy who writes the zine, the label guy, the van driver, they are all the listener and are often in the bands too.

 

Joe: It’s like a Field Of Dreams; “Build it and they will come.” Well, we built it and more people came than we were expecting. We get offered a lot of gigs, it’s very flattering but it can be overwhelming. We have outside promoters and we are building up a little close-knit team. The good thing with doing the DIY thing and sticking with a staunch way of working is that people really want to be part of it. We’ve had bands from the US walk in and say, “Thank God it’s a DIY space” as they were sick of playing club shows. The way it works now is that to get a band from the US over to Europe they have to have put out a record in Europe. So tour bookers, instead of taking a cut or a guarantee to cover their costs, say if you can get a record released in Europe then they will book you some European dates. It’s good to get on that because the records have landed in all of the shops and the distros before the gigs.

 

Joe: It’s a way of distributing records that isn’t a shop. For example, the furthest I played is in Slovenia. The kids there didn’t really know the bands. We are there with a box containing records by our bands, our side projects and our friend’s bands and stuff that we like. You can say to people if you like our band then you might like some of these too. You sell if for as cheap as you can and it means people can get physical copies that they wouldn’t have got otherwise.

 

Phil: Another great thing is that you can meet other bands and do trades. You can go out with loads of your own records and come back with loads of their stuff and you distribute their music in your hometown.

 

Joe: I’ve started booking tours for other bands from overseas and I wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t got hold of their albums or people I trusted gave me their records.

 

Phil: It was a proper High Fidelity moment.

 

Joe: We put this record on by a band called Sect from Spain, people were coming over and asking about it, buying it, then their friends were coming over and buying it. We are calling it a ‘Record Mart’ as opposed to a shop or distro as it sounds more legitimate and it’s more the kind of vibe that we are going for.

 

Phil: Because a lot of bands who play here have already seen the studio they often come back to record. I actually record more out of town bands because of this. A band will come over, record, we’ll hang out, party until 3am, come back and do drunken backing vocals.

 

Phil: It’s taking a lot of responsibility for yourself. A good example is Joe and my old band. We recorded the record ourselves, mixed it ourselves, pressed it, bought our own tape duplicator.

 

Joe: It means that you don’t have to suck anyone’s cock, which is a big thing for us. You don’t need to pay anyone to do anything for you because they will want to do something for you - it’s the whole mutual aid thing. Fugazi are the ultimate DIY band, they did absolutely everything themselves, even booked arena tours themselves. We enjoy the doing and learning how to do this stuff. To make JT Soar we had to paint it and work out how to do the carpentry.

 

Phil: The biggest thing was building the wall over the metal grills. Fortunately I had just finished my Music Technology degree and knew how to build an acoustically treated wall.

 

Joe: Just come to a gig and check us out. If someone comes to talk to us after a gig we are way more likely to give a damn about what they want to do. We get people asking about room hire, but they’ve got to understand that this is a co-operative and there isn’t going to be a manager there. We are your mates and we are going to work together.