Magic maker

MANAGEMENT:He opened a music shop because he couldn't find the records he liked. He began a music label because he couldn't find the bands he liked. Music owes a lot to the ideas of Geoff Travis

The day before this interview, Geoff Travis, who runs Rough Trade Records in London, had been to an all-day festival to see 12 new bands play; the day before that, he had been down to Brighton to check out another two new acts, and after this interview, he will be in some grotty pub in Camden Town running the rule over some other new contenders.

Add to that, a whistle-stop tour, just yesterday, to Music Ireland '07 - an industry seminar - where he gave a public interview and advice to those starting out in the music idustry, and you realise the man never stops.

"I'd be at gigs four to five times a week after work," says Travis. "This is the music business. But there is no business without music. There is no business without great tunes, great melodies and a band who can pull it all off on the live stage."

Travis should know. He's a music industry legend. Since he opened the Rough Trade record shop in Notting Hill, London, in 1976 and unveiled the record label two years later, he has been the man behind many of today's household names. When, in the 1980s, a young Manchester band had some songs they thought were worth releasing, the first person they called on was Travis - on the basis that they had liked all the other records he had put out on the Rough Trade label. Travis took one listen to the band, and signed them on the spot. The band was The Smiths.

More up-to-date and Travis is the man behind five of the best acts of the last decade: the bands are Arcade Fire, The Strokes and The Libertines, and the solo acts, Antony and the Johnsons and Sufjan Stevens.

Travis also had Pete Doherty's new band, Babyshambles, but dropped them a few months ago.

At the time Travis said: "We were in the process of renegotiating a deal with Babyshambles, but the talks broke down because it just proved to be so difficult to deal with Pete and the people he surrounds himself with."

Coming from the man who worked closely with acts such as Morrissey and Jarvis Cocker, the statement said everything about how an artist's drug use can break up even the closest creative relationships.

His knowledge and love of music is astounding. Whenever there's a panel discussion anywhere in the world about the music business, he's the first person to be invited. He routinely turns the offers down.

"I don't do them because I haven't retired yet," he says. "I'm still out there working with bands and anyway, I always keep getting asked the same questions; 'How did it all start?' and 'What's Morrissey really like?'"

He did, however, make and exception for Dublin. Travis was one of the guest speakers at Music Ireland '07 yesterday, an important industry seminar (with plenty of bands playing) which took place in the RDS over the weekend. "I just though it would be churlish to turn it down," he says.

From a business point of view, Travis has never felt the need to tell tales out of school about the many famous names he has nurtured over the years, besides, he is too busy protecting the acts on his roster.

His passion is undimmed, today for example he's not very happy about how some of his bands are being treated. "Take Arcade Fire," he says. "When they first broke, the editor of NME (an influential British music magazine) publicly said he would never put them on the front cover because they were 'too weird' for his readership. That's ridiculous. And Antony and The Johnsons, one of the most stunning new voices to emerge in recent years still can't get radio play. These things continue to annoy me."

Travis has never had a business plan but he has built a mini-empire on intuition. "When I first opened the record shop, it was because, at the time, I couldn't find the records I wanted to buy. When I first started the label, it was because I wanted to release bands that I thought were really good and weren't getting a chance with the major labels," he says.

He has long been hearing that record companies are a thing of the past - given that bands can now have an internet presence and distribute their music that way - but with the Rough Trade label more buoyant than ever, he's quietly dismissive of such claims. "I've never heard a good act who was broken by the internet," he says.

"The simple truth about this business is that a new band needs a lot of financial support at the beginning, and they also need expertise. A record label can, and will, provide that. It's the old thing about bringing a horse to water - sure, you can record an album in your bedroom and release it on your own label, but will anyone buy it?"

One thing he has noticed about working with talent is that there is no substitute for drive. "You have to be patient in this business," he says. "I've worked with great talents who get disillusioned early on - they either go insane or go off and work in something else, but the really great artists are driven."

Travis doesn't feel that part of his job is "imparting wisdom" to his newer signings. "That would change the relationship," he says. "For me, it's important that a band feels comfortable artistically on the label. The relationship I have with them is that they go away and make the best possible record they can and then hand it in. We are not the masters, they are."

Having just signed a big new distribution deal with the Beggar's Banquet label, Travis is now planning a new phase of Rough Trade's development - making serious inroads in the US. "A big part of this new deal we've just signed is that we now have 30 people in the US working for us," he says. "It's like starting all over again."