Over the last two decades, Transgressive Records has evolved from DIY beginnings into a label, publisher and management operation that is a powerhouse of the UK independent sector. As the business celebrates its 20th anniversary, Music Week meets co-founders Toby L and Tim Dellow and third partner Lilas Bourboulon to discuss industry politics, growing older and wiser and why their fierce commitment to nurturing unique talent will never waver…
WORDS: JAMES HANLEY
PHOTOS: CHLOÉ AZODANLOO
If there is a story that captures the essence of two decades of Transgressive, it’s the one with the gig that almost never was.
The fearlessly independent music group has been toasting its 20th birthday this year by holding a series of special events in London. Arlo Parks and Marika Hackman were lined up to star in the kick-off show in July at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, only for the weather gods to do their best to upset the apple cart.
“We were told on the afternoon of this big outdoor show that there was probably going to be a biblical downpour,” recalls Transgressive co-founder Toby L. “We were given the option to postpone and we all spoke backstage. There were some nervous cigarettes being smoked as we deliberated and the energy was,
‘Fuck it, we’re here. The audience has got their tickets. We’re going to go ahead, come rain or come shine.’”
And despite Parks’ microphone needing to be replaced three times due to it being full of water, and the theatre instructing fans to leave during a forced intermission before the singer hurriedly called them back in, the rain-sodden evening was a five-star triumph.
“It was one of the most memorable, beautiful gigs,” reflects L. “It was about perseverance and resilience. I love that it’s a very contemporaneous story of what Transgressive is, linked to our 20th anniversary. Against the odds, music will shine through.”
The four-month run in partnership with the Music Venue Trust features the great and good from the Transgressive roster, including its first management client Johnny Flynn, as well as University, The Moonlandingz, The Joy, Mystery Jets and Kokoko!.
Toby L (the ‘L’ stands for Langley), fellow co-founder Tim Dellow and company partner Lilas Bourboulon congregate for their first proper chinwag with Music Week since 2019. Comprising a record label, publisher and management arm, Transgressive recently expanded into the US with the appointment of senior label executive Jack Hedges as GM, North America. It also renewed its long-running partnership with Warner Chappell Music UK last year.
“There is cohesion in the madness of our roster,” says Bourboulon, who uses Transgressive’s presence on this year’s Glastonbury line-up – namechecking Moonchild Sanelly, Alvvays and Johnny Flynn – to illustrate the depth of its talent pool.
“And she didn’t even mention Arlo Parks,” laughs L.
Indeed, while Transgressive has worked with Foals, Bloc Party, Regina Spektor, Loyle Carner and many more, Parks might be its biggest breakthrough of all, claiming the Mercury Prize for her 2021 debut, Collapsed In Sunbeams. The BRIT winner’s second LP, My Soft Machine, dropped last year.
“We’re massively proud of the last album,” says former Association Of Independent Music (AIM) chair Dellow. “The idea was to show pathways of where she could go as a career artist, working with different producers to help deliver that, and I think we did that really well.”
An emotive upcoming project, meanwhile, is the posthumous self-titled second studio album by pioneering artist and producer Sophie, who died in 2021 following an accident.
“The music we released when she was with us was – and still is – some of the most groundbreaking music we’ll probably ever put out,” says L. “What makes it bittersweet is knowing that there was always the intention to put out this forthcoming record. It was always going to be a two-album project and it’s just harrowing that she can’t be with us to see the impact that this record will inevitably make on popular culture and music.”
Today, the trio welcome Music Week inside their deliberately no-frills North London base.
“Our office, as you can see, is low-key and is meant to be welcoming and not showing off,” explains Bourboulon. “We’ve got a few discs on the wall, but it’s not to show any sort of imperialism or anything like that. We’re human and we want to work with humans; we’re not after artificiality and bullshit.”
Time to make ourselves at home then, as we get ready to cover 20 years of indie history…
How does it feel to reach the 20-year milestone?
Tim Dellow: “I feel massively proud of what we’ve achieved. We’ve put out important records that, in such a transient world, are going to stand the test of time, and we’ve made a number of career artists over this period. But it’s an interesting time because you feel simultaneously very proper and quite established, but our natural instincts are always to fight against the status quo and keep things fresh. We’re working with so many younger breaking artists, so as well as nostalgia, it’s a good opportunity to get excited about what’s next.”
Lilas Bourboulon: “It’s also happening at a time where we’re expanding the team. We’ve opened a North American office and hired a head of international. It feels like we are consolidating the past 20 years in terms of the spirit of the team, while growing carefully and keeping our core identity.”
What does it mean to have built something that’s lasted in an era where that’s increasingly difficult?
Toby L: “It started as a hobby-plus – and what I mean by that is we had grand ambitions and aspirations, but a lot of people have those and are then met with the real-world consequences. So it’s not lost on me what a privilege it is to have a teenage dream become an adult reality. If people revere Transgressive, or indeed appreciate how long it’s lasted, that’s testament to the quality of artists we’ve been blessed to support.”
LB: “We’ve always been very honest about what we are, our ambitions and even the people we want to work with. We’ve built long-lasting relationships. A lot of the feedback we get from collaborators and artists is that they ‘get’ us. We’ve got a great camaraderie and people feel safe and comfortable with us. Ideas flow faster, projects go quicker, people work better and that leads to more satisfying and rewarding work overall.”
Why do you think you’ve managed to sustain yourselves this long?
TD: “Number one, we’re all hard workers. We have created space for different ideas. We’re all obsessed with music, but we’ve made space for individual passions in terms of taste, so that diversification of the roster has put us in good stead, versus historic indie labels who maybe did one thing very well and fell in and out of fashion. Business-wise, we’ve always been entrepreneurial; we learned a lot in the very early days, but diversified quickly. Also, picking the right partners. We’ve always managed to keep doing deals that work for artists.”
LB: “It’s all about identifying opportunities and routes to markets. And I guess that having three hats on – with a label, the management company and the publishing company – means you have a clear overview of the landscape and what campaigns work. That’s been really helpful over 20 years.”
TL: “A&R-wise, we don’t like to repeat ourselves, and we’re fearless. Personally, I don’t think I would enjoy doing it if there wasn’t a sense that every artist could be the last signing you make. That romance and idealism is crucial because a lot of people second guess their own tastes, or trends that the industry is falling into, and all that stuff’s bollocks. At the moment, we’re seeing a brutal phase of the music industry where commercialism is being strived for, and constant growth is being aspired towards. But no one can guarantee that and we need to remember the essence of what makes art powerful and meaningful in culture and society, and pursue people that have got important voices. Then the business will follow.”
TD: “Across time, the reason that most income in the music industry has been driven by catalogue is you had mavericks signing special, one-off geniuses and giving them album on album to develop. When you go into hit-chasing, it’s a diminishing return and even though our windows might be shorter and we might be smaller, we’d much rather invest our time creating meaningful art, careers and relationships that are going to last. Making good records consistently with the same artist is a real dying art.”
How has Transgressive changed you as execs?
TL: “At the core of it has always been friendship and having fun. If there wasn’t a conviviality and a social element beyond the day-to-day, I don’t think it would work. We feel slightly more confident in our knowledge, and we challenge each other and ourselves constantly to keep learning new tricks. The music industry is often talked about as not being for the faint-hearted if you don’t like change. But thankfully, we all quite like change – my job description adapts by the week.”
LB: “When you work intuitively with a team, you can embrace change and problem-solve and work creatively because there are no set ways of doing things. If you’ve got a dynamic team that knows how to work together, you can move mountains.”
TD: “We are all 40, or turning 40 this year, so we’re hitting the crux of spending more of our lives having done Transgressive than not having done it.”
LB: “In the early days, you’d meet artists of the same age, so there’d be a less daunting dynamic from a young artist’s point of view. Now, we’re a bit older, but we’re really approachable.”
What about the relationship between the three of you?
TD: “It has changed a lot. I’ve definitely mellowed and am less angry than I was when I started because I felt like I had a lot to prove. But we’ve made space for each other’s passions to come through and get to a position where we’re all more comfortable. And we still hang out. We’re really good friends, which I think helps with the honesty factor as well, because you can have proper fights.”
TL: “We’re a bit less argumentative than we were, although we still have our moments. They’re not big arguments. And again, they’re coming from that place of idealism and aspiration.”
LB: “The solution always comes out of it, that’s what matters.”
Can you tell us the biggest row you’ve had?
TL: “I remember an early one shortly before Lilas joined us. I saved Tim’s life because of this. We used to have a very small office and we’d hand-deliver seven-inch records to the likes of Rough Trade, but we also did postal service and I’d done the last post run.”
TD: “He never did the fucking post run, this is what the argument is about...”
TL: “I had done the last post run, which Tim obviously still hasn’t accepted! In any event, I said, ‘Tim, I think it’s your turn,’ and we had a bit of an argument about that. But here’s the twist: he left, took all the records, and then I was on a phone call and heard this rumbling sound in the ceiling above where his desk was. And suddenly, the ceiling caved in and there was dust everywhere. My point being, had Tim not actually gone through that argument and delivered the records, he might have died.”
How do you assess the mark the label has made on independent music over 20 years?
TD: “We deserve more credit, to be honest…”
TL: “That’s quite an Alan Partridge thing to say!”
TD: “We’re delivering some of the most important records of our times in innovative ways. Maybe where we’ve suffered is our ambition is so big. If you look at historic labels, I guess only somewhere like Island did so many genres under one roof, credibly, for so long. I think because we’re not the ‘garage rock label’, or the ‘marketing-to-teenagers label’, then it’s harder to maybe say, ‘This is their moment’ and celebrate it. But I think it’s been really good work across the board for a very long while and it’d be nice to have the OBE to turn down.”
What lessons can be learned from how you’ve approached being an indie?
TD: “Do something with friends and share credit. This would have been impossible individually. I may have had a solid A&R run and then done something else, with music as my hobby, but doing this with friends and celebrating our ideas is really valuable.”
LB: “That’s the key and that’s just general advice for everyone: identify what you’re good at and surround yourself with people who have complementary skills. We don’t do the same things, but we work towards the same goals.”
TL: “Working out what your values are early on is important. Having some guiding principles for any new company is crucial. The other thing is to be in awe and be humble to your heroes. I consider myself a student of the masters – the great artists and music moguls that form the pillars and foundations of the music business. You don’t always have to blindly carve your own path; sometimes it has been partly made and you take it forwards.”
Is the independent music sector functioning as it should?
TL: “In many ways, yes. The opportunity for artists to self-release and work with independent companies has only increased. There are some brilliant independent labels out there: the rise of Partisan has been wonderful to watch; Rough Trade have had some of their best years recently, which is amazing. The level of service and acumen that’s required now to support artists is greater than it’s ever been. As ever, that presents some challenges, in terms of, who are the people that are going to be in it for the long haul? What are their motivations? But those things have always existed.”
TD: “There’s quite a lot of chaos at the top end of the industry...”
TL: “The skeleton key that the larger companies used to have doesn’t exist any more. I think we all can achieve that level of greatness, if not surpass it. Being smaller and more nimble means we can achieve radical worldwide results without endless departments and levels of bureaucracy.”
Ahead of the release of Sophie’s second album, how do you reflect on her impact?
TL: “Her music has changed the game in so many ways. Her influence currently is undeniable – you only have to look at people like Charli XCX and all of the genres that have formulated underneath, alongside and subsequently to see her influences everywhere. She was always ahead, blazing that trail for other people to go down, and all of those people are very humble and sweet enough to acknowledge that influence. All I can express on a personal level is just the immense gratitude and fortitude that we all felt from knowing her and working with her. She was one of the most incredible people we’ve ever met.”
What will her legacy be?
TD: “She is one of the actual greats. It’s just such a great record and people are going to absolutely love it. I had
a sad moment recently listening to her drum sound on one particular track. It’s one of the best sounds I’ve ever heard and it feels amazing, but also heartbreaking that people will be studying it and trying to figure it out,
but it’s the lost work of a genius who was constantly pioneering. The story is really her family’s to tell,
who we’ve been working with really closely on this, but we’ve definitely been really conscious about doing this properly and exactly as she’d want.”
Looking to the future, do you feel pressure to sign more acts who will define music culture?
TL: “Always. That’s why we exist – because we’re mad and we believe that’s what we’re doing every time we sign an artist and more importantly, that’s what they’re doing. That’s the impetus.”
TD: “We all love music, but we probably hate most music that comes out, so finding the really good stuff and getting passionate about it is the joy.”
LB: “Watching music connect is just such a powerful feeling. You chase that.”
In terms of new artists, are enough coming through?
TD: “Well, the great thing with the music industry is you can present success in so many ways. You can look at streaming, chart results, creative successes, ticket sales… All of these things manifest into career building, so I feel quite positive that we’re able to present reasons for media and audiences to keep engaging with our acts and the sector as a whole.”
TL: “We have chart moments every now and then, but we try to resource and build projects where it’s not important. And I think having that flexibility is better for an artist than forcing them into a mould which befits the company rather than their own career. Artists want to be able to exist in their own space. Because is success actually success if it doesn’t feel good? You could be No.1 or headlining festivals, but if the artist isn’t enjoying it,
I wouldn’t see that as success, I’d see that as a failing of the infrastructure.”
Lastly, your slogan is “good things happen” – how optimistic are you feeling about what’s next?
TD: “When the money went out of the industry a while back, lots of the dead wood left with it. Now we’re in a situation where most people in it really love music and artists, and want to be doing a good job. It’s not always easy, but it is still the best job in the world if you care about those things and have those values.”
FOLLOW 
