Richard Branson is one of those fixtures of British life who seems to be have been around forever. Part of that is because he started so young – Virgin Records, the record mail order business that became a shop that became a label that became, well, everything else that Branson has done – was set up when he was still in his teens.
The 75-year-old entrepreneur was recently honoured by the Ivors Academy for his immense contribution to British music, and has also been talking to the NME about his long career.
Virgin’s empire was built on the success of two contrasting acts – the introverted prog auteur Mike Oldfield, and the Sex Pistols. Branson remembers the teenage Oldfield staying at the his studio The Manor, at Oxford. “He worked with Tom Newman to make Tubular Bells. He played us the tape, we loved it, but we couldn’t find any record companies to release it. In the end we thought, ‘Screw this, we’ll set up our own record label and put this out’. Virgin Records as a label was born off the back of that.
“I brought John Peel to my houseboat, I played him the whole album. He loved it so much that he dedicated his whole show to playing the whole of Tubular Bells that night. Off the back of that, it took off.”
Meanwhile, Branson swooped for the Pistols after A&M fired them in March 1977 and gained much industry kudos for appearing to ‘tame’ the notorious punks. “I was hoping that Sex Pistols could stay together and go on to become the new Rolling Stones of their era, which I think could have been possible, but obviously they imploded. Sid died, Rotten and McLaren fell out big time. I went with Rotten to Jamaica after that, and he was giving me advice to sign reggae bands to our new label, Front Line.”
In the wake of this Virgin invested heavily in new wave and shed its hippy-ish image. Early 1980s successes included The Human League, Culture Club and Phil Collins, who recorded In The Air Tonight at Virgin’s London studio, The Townhouse. “I was actually in the studio at the time,” Branson reveals. “It sounded great, but I don’t know if it felt like history was happening. It might be the most famous drum solo of all time. That studio just had a wonderful sound.”
Interestingly, when asked what his advice would be to someone looking to start a label in 2025, he says: “Find somebody from the tech world who has made a ridiculous amount of money and loves music and get them to invest in your company. Have a lot of fun giving it a go, but knowing that the person who has invested can afford to lose it all. There are trillionaires out there who’d be worth tapping up.”
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