Sometimes talking to someone who has been on the other side of the music business for many years can be a little daunting. Someone whose pedigree of listening to music professionally for the best part of two decades stands before him and the knowledge that not only is he an entertainer but he is a man who adores music completely, in every shape and form.
Phil Cooper, founder of Nu Northern Soul, started playing records in a small public house in Chester and from those humble beginnings started a bandwagon that continues today, the love of music and bringing that music to an ever wider audience. From the early days of being a premier D.J. and being asked to work in far flung exotic places, Phil Cooper has always had his keen on what appeals to music fans.
Being a busy man, I was honoured to be able to have a few minutes with Phil and I was curious to find out more about him, the Nu Northern Soul label and some of the artists that he has on the label.
The label that you started last year, was that a natural progression to the podcasting you were previously doing?
“I’ve always had labels and Nu Northern Soul is probably the one that has allowed me to think and certainly started to act proactively. Nu Northern Soul was a wind down to the weekend. In the mid-90’s, I was dejaying at Cream and I went all over the world and I was always a music collector first and foremost and coming back after travelling and gigging in a way I always wanted to play that music I was finding. It could be rare 7 inches I picked up in South Africa to albums from South America. It was just a chance to sit back and play music and to get people to listen to it; that was really the basis of the concept initially. I was listening to a lot of music all the time and I’d got my record label, so I’m going to give some of this music that’s perhaps not getting the best support or because a lot of the artists are so busy creating the music that they don’t have the time or the experience or the business no-how to get this music out there into the public domain as it were, so that’s where I’ve stepped in I think.”
That’s pretty cool; obviously it was the stuff itself but yours is just like this huge, big, industrial scale idea.
“Well I think with technology advances as they are, the market place is a lot smaller now and we can speak to people in far-flung countries about the music they are creating but all the music so far on the label is from the U.K. now. I’m actually speaking to people in other countries and it does make things a whole lot easier and I think I want to establish the label really because when you are speaking to people, there are the language barriers, it’s very easy to be rabbiting on about how good your label is but if there’s nothing to show for it. Enough said, the New site is being built and it will be populated with all the New artists and when we get a few New releases of which this year is pretty taken up with now and the we can obviously try and start to really engage with those people and with music being made in all parts of the world, it’s what Nu Northern Soul is all about. I think it doesn’t matter if you can’t speak in one another’s tongues but when you put on a piece of music, barriers are certainly broken down.”
One of your label acts is Ragz, I have only been fortunate to have seen her once so far but she blew me away. I saw her late last year at Leaf in Liverpool, so was it hard to bring her back into music after her time away?
“I’m friends with her manager Dave, we move in the same circles and we went for a coffee and I just explained about wanting to try basically to join forces with him using Mellotone and the Nu Northern Soul sessions and at the same time I was starting the label. He said I’ve got some artists here and obviously we can work together on these. He sent me some of Ragz’ tracks and the first one he sent me just blew my socks off and she was very much just a straight acoustic singer. Dave has married her up with a guy called Mario Leal, who’s a Mexican guy who studied at L.I.P.A. and he’s added an electronic edge to it so the only way I can describe it is something like Kate Bush meets Jamie XX and that’s literally her amazing vocals and the amazing off-kilter sound that’s happening underneath it and the next E.P. we are putting out it a four tracker, we’re doing vinyl and digital. There are two tracks on both sides, the way it’s cut, it blends from one track into another, it’s just outstanding. It’s gone out to a few so we’re excited about that. She’s got a great voice, literally the hairs on the back of neck stood out when I heard her singing.”
I completely agree, that gig at Leaf was just sensational; nobody knew she was going to come on. It was one of those great moments that will stay with every member of the audience that was there at Leaf that night. Another you have on the roster is Abimaro & The Free.
“Through the podcasts and my fascination with the Band camp platform, I spent hours on there, like you would browse round record shops, I found a four track E.P. by them and there was a track called Mark and they were giving it away and I spoke to them and I said this was incredible, it was a couple of years old but I still thought it was incredible so we took it and remixed it and I’m sending it out to an outfit called Smith and Mudd who are quite prolific who have similar sorts of tastes to what we do so they are looking to do a bit of a re-work of it and it should be out at the end of August. I’m not a musician by trade, I’m just a passionate music person and if it does that to me then there’s got to something I think, hence me contacting them and signing them up to the label.”
Quite right! I look forward to hearing some of them over the next few months.
“The track that’s on the website is a live track of hers so you’ll get a feel for it.”
What comes across talking to you is the excitement about new music; did that all start at a very young age or was it something that came later?
“I’m not going to be one of those people who say yeah, I was listening to my father’s collection, my old man was into country, my mum was into Cilla Black, there was no real passion experienced, music was just background for them. I just think it was when I got to school in my teens really, all those little cults knocking around – I suppose you’ve got kids into rock, hip hop, pop, I just found I was into all those. I didn’t put myself into one group and then all my money I earned from my paper rounds and stuff went into buying records again, looking back, there was no real moment or person who walked into my life and said this is music and I just really stumbled onto it and took it by the horns and I’ve been completely addicted to it.”
In a world where big labels are struggling to have the same effect they are in the 70s and early 80s how do you see those independent labels coping with the new demands?
“I think we put out vinyl because we know people want vinyl but it’s become an art form. For me, music presented in that format is just the ultimate for us to do that. I also think that I’m not that I’m not aiming for a young audience, I’m going for a 30 something audience who still respect the vinyl and what it as part of their lives. With regards to the major labels, yes, they’ve had a rough time but they are still making a lot of money, they’ve just got to change their game massively. They say that vinyl sales are on the up which is fine, I don’t know where they are getting these figures from they are certainly not up to those glorious 60s and 70s years. I always put this down as an expensive hobby.
I’ve always been involved with music with my D.J. work, the P.R. Company that we’re involved with and the music publishing business. I get so much enjoyment out of doing this from every angle with designing the artwork for the website, the regular podcasts, I’m listening to so much music and selecting those tracks and then speaking with artists and sharing with them their passion. They are obviously passionate about their tracks and I think you know I show that I’m passionate about it, it should be packaged in a certain way, be presented in the right way and all I want to do is to leave a little mark and see that music is given the chance to live and breathe really.”
Ian D. Hall