Chess Club
From humble beginnings as a monthly music night at New Oxford Street’s The Fly bar, Chess Club has quickly progressed into a fully fledged and very highly regarded music company via its various arms as an independent music label, promotions company and blog.
For 4 years now Will Street, Max Knight and Jack Lawrence-Brown - the three friends behind Chess Club - have been discovering, releasing and promoting a consistently high quality roster of emerging artists, many of whom have gone on to achieve major critical and commercial success.
Everybody’s has worked with Chess Club on numerous occasions. Their aforementioned club night was responsible for a number of Laura Marling’s early shows and last year they booked her to perform in a second from the top slot on the Greenpeace stage (which they were asked to co-curate) at Glastonbury. Additionally the first three Mumfords & Sons EPs - The Cave & The Open Sea, Love Your Ground and Lend Me Your Ears - where all released on Chess Club Records.
Elsewhere the label has issued releases by artists including White Lies, Local Natives, Peggy Sue, Boy Crisis and The Middle East, amongst many others.
Individually all three members of Chess Club also hold rather interesting day jobs. Will Street is an A&R Scout for Geffen UK and has recently been nominated in the music category of the Hospital Club 100. Max Knight is a photographer and film-maker (see May’s Creative Friends profile), and Jack Lawrence-Brown is a drummer for a little number one selling band going by the name of White Lies.
Find out more about their work and upcoming releases at http://www.chessclubrecords.co.uk/.