JACK / ALCOPOP! RECORDS

INDUSTRY EXPERTS JACK CLOTHIER / ALCOPOP! RECORDS

WHO ARE YOU?

Hi - I’m Jack from Alcopop! Records. I started the label with Kev in sunny Oxford back in 2006, and have been running it to this very day.

WHAT ARE YOUR JOB TITLES?

I should probably call myself Owner, CEO or Grand Vizier but it just sounds so bloody corporate. Job titles are tough to pin down with record labels as you have a lot on your plate.

WHAT DOES THAT ENTAIL?

The beauty of running an indie label is that every day is different. There’s no ‘turn up, do your tasks, go home’ – which makes it a wonderful, if at times frustrating, occupation. I’m lucky enough to work with an in-house team of magnificent people at the top of their game who look after the PR, radio, art, digital and that sort of stuff - so I guess a lot of it is organising the chaos that proliferates around them so they can sail smoothly off into record label paradise. Yesterday was tough. There was a lot of long calls, pretty tight scheduling meetings and working out the impact of the global vinyl issues (pushing back schedules, working realistic timescales etc) but today has been far more fun. The new (old repress) Johnny Foreigner arrived on vinyl, so I’ve been checking that for size and the good news is it sounds bloody magnificent. This afternoon I’ve got to build a 3D zoetrope ‘animated duck cinema thing’ that we’re giving away with the new Helen Love album so we can photograph it. Broadly though there’s a lot of creative thinking, uploading metadata, managing budgets, plotting campaigns and hanging about with LOVELY people.

HOW DID YOU GET INTO IT?

Got drunk with my friend Kev. Borrowed some money from my dad. Gambled it on a football match. Trésor Lomana LuaLua scored to give Portsmouth a 1-0 victory, we won and *HEY PRESTO* had enough cash for our first release which was a 3” CD in a 6 part 3” CD series. It’s all sort of spiralled from there really! Not a career path I’d necessarily recommend but it just about worked out for us!

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE OTHERS?

If you want to get into running an indie label then good luck! It’s a wonderful thing to do and has led me to meet and hang out with some of the very best people in my life. If I had two pieces of advice, they are thus… 1) Believe in yourself! The recordbuying public doesn’t want some pale imitation of something else they were into some time ago. They want you. Your ideas. Your creative spin. Your personality and your dynamism. Be you. Don’t be afraid of fucking up and just go for it! 2) No one owes you anything. That’s an important one too. Everyone has their stuff to deal with, so make what you’re doing special. Make people want to be a part of it.

Thanks so much for having me pop by, and if you do fancy having a listen to what we’re up to – do come on over to www. ilovealcopop.co.uk - the Hooch is lovely! Oh – or check out the Alcopop! Bandcamp where you can get a Pay What You Want 2021 Sampler. It’s well worth a listen (I guess I would say that though)