After the bleak years dominated by news of endless record shop closures, the arrival of the first of Rise’s four stores at the end of 2007 was a welcome signal of hope to music retailers and fans alike. Over the last four and a half years, managing director Lawrence Montgomery has established the youthful indie chain in Cheltenham, Worcester, Swindon and Bristol, where its flagship store occupies two floors and vinyl is given joyous prominence. ClashMusic caught up with Lawrence to find out how Rise continues to be on the up.
All four Rise shops are relative newcomers to the indie retail scene – how easy is it to establish yourself in these leaner times?
It is very tough, but we have a great team in each shop who get to know their regular customers and build up trade from there. We’re an indie shop but a lot of things we do aren’t seen as traditional indie record shop fare. We sell a lot of books including tonnes of kids books, cookery books and cult classic fiction and we sell lots of DVD too, mainly concentrating on World Cinema & Classics. We have to adapt our product offer to reflect the customers in each location and three of our shops are in shopping centres so we sell plenty of Adele CDs! But all the ‘hardcore’, regular record shop customers know that we have great ranges of CDs and vinyl across the genres and that we know our stuff!
Every year there seems to some national news article about the ‘return of vinyl’. How popular is it as a format these days?
We are experiencing large increases in sales across all our stores. I think that the return to vinyl is a reaction to the disposable nature of MP3 culture. MP3s and streaming have their place in modern music consumption and are important formats, but vinyl is the purist’s way to enjoy music. It is better quality, it is a tangible piece of art and buying it is often an exciting, engaging social experience. I was DJing the other night and I realised that for all the pros of technology that vinyl is the most trustworthy format and, if you learn how to treat it, it can be the best way to collect music.
Record Store Day has just been and gone for another year. How was it for you?
It was beyond words. The whole day was a little bit overwhelming! Where do I start? It was a record sales day for each of the four Rise stores but, beyond that, the atmosphere & camaraderie between staff, bands & customers was something special – everyone seemed comfortable and enjoying it. The shops were full of proper music lovers who appreciate good music whatever the genre or style. We had young kids who we had to refuse selling beer to, young professionals, middle aged couples, even pensioners, all revelling in a day-long celebration of music. I am still buzzing now and it was adrenalin alone that pulled us through a mammoth 15 hour shift – the whole team commented on how it didn’t feel like work; they really enjoyed the work.
How important a day in the music calendar is it for you?
It is THE most important. Despite this, I want people to be aware that we are open 362 days a year and we have great records in every day! I hope that Record Store Day reignited a lot of customers love of record shops and that it showed them why they should be frequented. We’ve got lots more instore performances coming up, continuing the theme of the day. Record stores need to evolve to become relevant in this day and age but we challenge ourselves every day to do this and we hope we’re succeeding.
Many of your staff seem to be pretty creative people themselves. Does it help to have music fans on both sides of the counter?
Absolutely. It wouldn’t work if we didn’t have such enthusiastic and creative staff. I was overwhelmed with the input from them this year – we had limited releases from three of the Bristol team, mixtapes, cakes and dream festival lineups across the stores. I am really proud of my teams of staff, and they should be proud to be part of something special.
Are all of your shops surrounded by thriving music scenes and how involved do you get with local bands?
As much as possible. Nothing gives me more job satisfaction than some of the success stories we’ve had with local acts. On the first week of the new Official Record Store chart, Jim Lockey was at number seven. Over 50% of the sales had come from an instore he did in Rise Cheltenham – we’ve been supporting him since we opened and Tom in the store did a great job of promoting the instore and the new album. In fact, Cheltenham had two weeks running where local acts were their bestselling albums! I realised earlier in the year that to be a special retailer you should make things yourself – I am buying a screen printing machine next month for us to make limited tees, tote bags and posters and, if I had the money, I’d buy a vinyl press and get all local acts to record in the shop and press it with us – that way we don’t have to compete with Amazon or HMV on stupid discounting – we can create our own products with creative local artists.
As shrines for youth culture in the past, are ‘the kids’ still visiting record shops?
Yes they are, but not in the same numbers that they used to. 15 years ago, the only, easiest and cheapest way to buy an album was at your local record shop. Nowadays, it is cheaper, easier and more convenient to buy via iTunes/Amazon/Spotify, so it’s no wonder we’re not as busy and our clientele is becoming older. That said, I think vinyl is cool again – the kids see it as the antithesis to an MP3 – a novelty at first but then something they want to collect. ‘The kids’ have more access to music than any other generation and you could argue there is as much or even more passion than ever for great music. The challenge for me as a retailer is to make my shop relevant, so instores, good prices and diversification into different products are all techniques I use to achieve this.
Have any artists or even specific records come to define Rise’s life to date?
Here’s eight which come to mind:
1. Wooden Shjips debut – the first album we had big success recommending in Cheltenham five years ago.
2. The xx – the first instore we did in Bristol and the recipients of my infamous tip ‘you’re gonna get nominated for a Mercury!’
3. Mumford & Sons – the breakthrough instore in Bristol for launch of the album. And we’ve sold so many of this record it is unbelievable.
4. Hot 8 Brass Band – ‘play this album and it WILL sell’
5. Bon Iver – For Emma – our first ‘album of the year’
6. Caribou Swim – probably my favourite album of the last 5 years.
7. War on Drugs – our album of 2011.
8. tUNE//yArDS – I won everyone over to this one (eventually!)
Make a bold prediction about music retail in the future:
Record retail is dead, long live record retailing. There is no reason to be optimistic about record retailing in the future – sales are on a terminal decline and the industry is no closer to finding a decent model to get people paying decent money for music, so we’re all doomed! Despite this, I am optimistic because I never consider my business to be part of ‘the industry’ and only partly music retail. I think to survive in the future a record shop will either be very niche and excellent in service & product (stores that spring to mind Piccadilly, Resident, Drift,) or part of a multi-sensory, diversified offer (Rough Trade, Urban Outfitters, Banquet.) I have a massive amount of respect for what the above retailers do, because they each have a different way of making ‘music retail’ work for them; there are parts of them that I admire greatly.
What lies ahead for Rise? Any plans you can tell us?
That’d be telling wouldn’t it! We’ve just opened a vintage clothing concession in Cheltenham which is going really well so we’re looking at options to do with that. I am also exploring the possibilities of introducing a different sort of retailing to our Bristol store which will include up to 10 different uses for the shop – music, film, books, events, art, coffee, food, fashion, booze, screen printing. A place that is really engaging and exciting every time you walk through the door; a place where as long as you love music/art/culture you can spend time and money in, even if it’s not on a record!
Words by Gareth James