As a new BBC series charts the era of bands such as Buzzcocks and labels such as Rough Trade, leading figures of the genre discuss how indie evolved – and recommend artists that embody its spirit today

Music genres these days are tricky to define. Pop lurches from chewy bubblegum to artfully polished gloss. Rock can be dirty or slick, electronica minimal or maximal. And along then comes indie, and your dictionary explodes.

BBC4 is coming to the rescue with a new, three-part series, Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie. It explores how artists broke away from the majors in the 1970s, and starting doing it themselves, setting up new avenues of production, distribution and artistry. It investigates whether that spirit has changed (short answer: true indie will never die), what happened when its makers went mainstream, and what form independence takes now in our digital century.

Some facts remain unshakeable. At the beginning were Buzzcocks, with their made-for-£500 Spiral Scratch EP. Labels like Factory, Postcard, Rough Trade and Domino all played a huge part in the continuation of that energetic spirit. But other interesting voices appear in this documentary, too. Take the cutting-edge attitudes of Throbbing Gristle. Or James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers, a band who kept their independent ire despite becoming a huge stadium act. Even colossal industry figures like Pete Waterman feature: after all, Waterman once briefly managed the Specials, and his shiny 80s label PWL was the indie success story of the 80s. Indie, then: always interesting. And constantly surprising. We asked some of those featured in the series how indie has changed – and if it’s still something to be celebrated. Jude Rogers

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STUART MURDOCH

The frontman of Belle and Sebastian, the band credited with starting a new wave of indie in the 90s. Labels: Electric Honey, Jeepster, Rough Trade

Belle and Sebastian never considered ourselves an indie band. It’s a label that was made up by the press. All those groups in the 80s that I liked, like the Go-Betweens, Felt and the June Brides, considered themselves pop acts. They were chasing after a hit, although nobody was buying. But the good stuff has lasted, passed down on shadowy social club dancefloors – a bit like northern soul. There was also a load of bad indie: bands that see the label and think, “I want a go at that”.

As a fan of music, I was an indie kid big time in the 80s: me and a couple of my pals were into this jangly-guitar, independent music. The first time I felt that real vibe was at a club called Rooftops on a Sunday night; it was rammed with like 1,000 people. The girls were wearing granny anoraks; some were knitting at the club. And per head, there were more beautiful girls than I’d ever seen. The guys wore chinos tucked up at the bottom, Doc Martens, stripy tops and, of course, the pudding-bowl haircut.

In the 80s there was this very definite independent scene, and it didn’t mean you played guitar – you could be punky, or hip-hop, or be making electronic records. And by the 90s that jangly guitar sound – with the Happy Mondays, the Stone Roses and Primal Scream – became mainstreamy, it became popular.

I don’t know what indie is any more. I see it crop up in my Spotify playlists: “Darker indie for your moods”. But it’s nothing like what I used to think of as indie. To be honest, I think it’s anything with a guitar or a slightly softer sensibility.

I like that band Real Estate; their guitars seem to shimmer and they have nice melodies, but at the same time there’s a modern sheen on their records. There’s a band called Alvvays, from Canada. Their debut album was pretty good: guitar rock with a female vocalist, pretty melodic, with poetic, wordy, clever sensibilities. Girlpool and Hinds are good. And there’s this great band from Finland called Cats on Fire: really nice, cultured, guitar pop music and some really well-written tunes. If it was the 80s I’m sure they would be venerated. KB

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COSEY FANNI TUTTI



A member of Throbbing Gristle, Carter Tutti and Carter Tutti Void, and an industrial music pioneer. Labels: Mute, Industrial

We formed our own independent label, Industrial Records, in 1976, after going along to meetings with major labels to see how the industry worked. The labels met us because there was still a hippy approach to some of them, left over from the late 60s, that liked the idea of bands doing what they wanted to. This wasn’t long before labels went out there completely just to make money. Anyway, we found they really weren’t worth our while.

Independence, to me, is about having total control of your work. We’ve always kept that. When Throbbing Gristle started out, there were far fewer indie labels, but they were much more eclectic in their rosters, releasing music of very different genres. Most people have really inquisitive, eclectic minds when it comes to music, anyway. Today independent labels often specialise in genres. When you say “indie band” now, you know what that music’s going to sound like, and that’s a real shame.

The independent artists that excite me today are people who stay true to themselves, who make music that is personal, guttural and unapologetic. Like [electronic musician/producer] Gazelle Twin, who’s great. She makes work that’s about those moments when people need to sit and figure out things about life. It gives me something, from someone who wants to communicate. That’s what music is all about, to me: a conversation, a dialogue.

I also love Carsten Nicolai, who records as Alva Noto, and runs the label Raster-Noton [an electronic music label that does multimedia projects in pop, art and science]. It’s a fantastic independent label because they’re very specific about what they do. That’s the spirit I look for in an independent artist: someone who has a particular approach to their work and in how they want to be presented and distributed, and remains true to that. JR

Wesley Fuller: ‘His demos sound like a band, but it’s all just him in his bedroom.’

JAMES ENDEACOTT

Formerly of Rough Trade, the man who signed the Libertines is now manager of 1965 Records (founded 2006, relaunched 2015)

In the 80s, indie meant the independent charts. It was just about distribution, not a style; Yazz’s The Only Way Is Up was No 1, and that was an indie record. Bands that we’d call indie now called themselves “alternative” back then, as they were still to the left of the norm. But then came Britpop, which was the death of it, really. By the time I was in the eye of the storm at Rough Trade with the Strokes and the Libertines, indie was a genre. By then, it meant white boys with holes in their jeans playing guitars, which was great for us at the time, but I became disillusioned with that meaning pretty quickly. Indie for me has always been more about an energy, a spirit and an attitude, about what you’re doing right now, rather than where you’re going. Both bands had that. It’s also about music not being a career path, but something you just have to do – you just have to get in the van and drive to Leeds and bloody play! I think the fact that most people in bands have to have jobs now, that actually helps indie. It means you’ve got to love it to want to do it.

Bands now who have that indie spirit, for me, include Whyte Horses, who are linked to Finders Keepers, a proper independent label. They’ve made a single themselves cheaply, pressing 200 copies, and that’s that. It’s brilliant. I’ve also signed Lusts, who made their record themselves at home, and Wesley Fuller from Melbourne, who writes powerpoppy, glammy, catchy music. I found him while flicking through the internet one night. His demos sound like a band, but it’s all just him in his bedroom. That’s indie to me: having that drive, on your own, to just make fantastic music. JR

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PAULINE BLACK

Lead singer of the seminal ska band the Selecter. Labels: 2 Tone Records, Chrysalis

There’s no way the Selecter could have done what they did were it not for an interest in indie music. Here we were in Coventry, when [Specials founder] Jerry Dammers, who negotiated all of the 2 Tone deals with independent labels, came along. We went to the studio with the £1,000 he gave us and recorded our first single, which went top 10 and got us away.

Back then, indie was an ethos: what 2 Tone stood for was more important to me than anything else. It was being able to put your music with everything you talked about on stage: anti-racism, anti-sexism. It was being in charge of your art: you decided what you wanted to put out, how you wanted to put it out, who you wanted to produce it.

I do think indie still has meaning now. As an artist, with the software that’s available, you can pretty much make music on your laptop, do the artwork, put it out there, and hope for the best. That really is the spirit of indie. If you’re willing to be patient, to build your audience gradually, you can remain independent. If you’re in it to make huge quantities of dosh, you’ll probably be disappointed.

I see plenty of new indie artists coming through: in terms of the spirit of what she does, FKA Twigs is bloody brilliant. Everything about her is independent: the way she’s incorporated performance art into her music, the complete autonomy she has over her videos. I only wish I’d been so savvy at that age. Ghostpoet, who like me has links to Coventry, is also great.

Both FKA Twigs and Ghostpoet have something very solid to say. For Twigs, it’s how women are seen, what sex is, and how women relate to that. That feeds into the anti-sexist ethos I started off with, that as a woman on stage you could do what you liked and dress how you liked. For Ghostpoet, it’s how as a black person you fit into an urban society, and the alienation you feel. The spirit of indie is still there in them: of wanting to do and say something different. RB

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JAMES DEAN BRADFIELD

Singer and guitarist of the Manic Street Preachers. Labels: Damaged Goods, Heavenly, Columbia/Epic

Indie labels still have a place in this world, absolutely, and they can still be influential. The difference now is that if a band is born out of an indie environment, it can become a massive band. That old indie belief that you don’t sell out has gone. Like Arctic Monkeys going on to become one of the biggest acts in the world… that is the well-trodden route now.

But if you actually have some kind of currency as an indie act and get played on the radio a lot, it means that you’re probably going to go on to sign to a major label. Bands tend to just move along, whereas bands that used to be on indie labels were very much more institutionalised, they wanted to stay [on their label]. Now an indie label is seen as a stepping stone.



I don’t know if indie labels have the same impact that they used to. I have a lot of indie records now but they tend to be little imprints – you’re not so aware of the label’s identity. A band I love, Deerhunter – Bradford Cox, he’s a fascinating bloke – they’re on an indie label but I can’t remember its name! You tend not to think that an indie label now is a kind of a sign of quality. Whereas with a label like Creation you used to. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just the way it is.

Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie, BBC4, 2 October, 10pm



