TONY COLMAN AKA LONDON ELEKTRICTY
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You have to do it for the journey, enjoy it and love the journey. If you don’t feel the drive and inces- sant need to make music, don’t do it. It’s a waste of time. You have to need to do it.”
DJ – Producer & Label Owner Hospital Records
London United Kingdom
Music is one of the most powerful creative expressions. Nearly every experience in modern life is accompanied by a soundtrack and the right one can make or break an experience. It’s an artform that people have studied the science of continuously. What’s the right BPM to get shoppers in the mood to spend money? What’s the ideal soundtrack to a workout? There are metrics against everything. Yet strip all the science out of it and you are left with a beautiful artform.
Where music becomes so fascinating is that many of these experiences are with other people. Could be just two of you, could be two hundred, or even two thousand. It’s that community that brings so many people together with an unspoken connection where you ‘just know.’ That community can be in the form of enjoying music together, or the people that end up working and thriving in the industry.
Tony Colman, aka London Elektricity, is one of those people who gives life to the music industry through what he creates, but also the people he invests his time in. His record label now has 25 employees and has been around for over 20 years, giving birth to many of the best loved drum and bass acts of that time, including High Contrast, Camo & Krooked, Blame & Netsky.
Tony’s released seven studio albums, four live albums and has an award winning podcast (BBC 1xtra) with over 400 episodes and over 30,000 subscribers. It’s clear to see that Tony Colman is someone who lives for the music. I’ve been fascinated by him over the years be- cause of that single minded focus on making the music he wants, supporting the acts he likes and hiring the people he wants around him. Watch any of his live sets on YouTube, or listen to his podcast and you’ll see what I mean, here is someone who lives for those moments.
Jonathan: You have a successful label, your own music career, a BBC award winning podcast. Where did you start out?
Tony: My first job was working at a Bernie Inn as a general dogs-body, then I was cleaning cars for some money, but I wasn’t very good at that. My first job in music was at a guitar shop called Ivar Marants music center in Denmark street, London, which I loved. I did that for a year before I went to college.
So, did you study?
I studied at Middlesex Polytechnique at the Trent Park site. I studied performing art, I majored in music and had to do dance and drama. In the end I got a 2’1 with honors and that was a great three years.
You’ve had a pretty successful career so far, what would you tell you teenage self ?
So, when I was young, I was learning guitar, I became obsessed with it and I would encourage myself to keep going with it. I’d tell myself to have self confidence and to have self belief in what I’m doing because I was lacking in that. Oh, and change my hairstyle.
Would you have any advice for anyone wanting to follow your footsteps in the music industry?
Don’t do it for money. Don’t ever, ever, ever try and sound like anyone else. Don’t ever make a track for a certain DJ or a certain record label, you have to sound like yourself and you have to be original. You have to do it for the journey, enjoy it and love the journey. If you don’t feel the incessant need to make music, don’t do it. It’s a waste of time. You have to need to do it.
Was there a moment you thought, “Wow I can actually get paid for this?”
We had a band at college and that’s the first time I ever got paid for it. We were called Limbs
In Action. We played in the student union and got paid £15 and I still have the invoice somewhere. The time I knew I could make a living from it was when I was selling 4,000 vinyl 12 inch records out of my car around London and Bristol. Ended up with quite a lot of cash so then I realized I had a future in the business.
Can you give me a quick overview of the journey for Hospital Records?
Hospital Records has been going for nearly 24 years. We started in my rented house in Tottenham, North London. It was a two-up-two-down and upstairs was my bedroom, which doubled as the office as it had a fax machine. The other bedroom was an eight-track tape-based studio. Now we are in a very posh building in Hearn Hill with 25 employees. It’s grown significantly. It’s been successful because we have always done what we believed in, not what the industry dictated.
Besides Tony putting together the Hospital Records podcast he also pulled together the London Elektricity big band in a way to bring Drum and Bass music to live in an amazing experience like this… have a watch, Thanks Tony!