Our story
"We're not in this for the money or the fame but just to help authentic artists tell their story"
In 2011 we were formed. Our founders were Kenneth J Nash, Fran Taylor, J M Jones, Alan Tang & Ross Alexander 11. Our formation was down to our not unique experiences as artists, being manipulated and potentially losing the rights and all monies to our artistic creations. We decided that the old model of record labels was now due a refresh with an artist first perspective. We would 'pool' our collective musical abilities and connections without having to give away any of our rights or royalties. We formed a collective.
Most of our early recording was engineered and produced by Kenneth J Nash in his home studio in a converted Victorian Hotel, initially we recorded a series of Live sessions called 'Live at the Old Hotel', shortly after we adopted the Old Hotel and added Records as our name. Our business model has always followed the traditional record label model in that the recording costs are paid for by the artist, but where we are different is that we won't retain any rights or royalties from our artists. Our artists retain 100% of their rights and 100% of the income generated from the release. We've always offered great value recording which helps the artist to decrease their investment from the normal studio costs.
The days of the golden handshake are now either long gone or thankfully exposed for what they were, giving artists an advance from their possible future earnings which they never quite manage to pay off, this can trap the artists both financially and creatively. We don't ask our artists to sign any dubious contracts. The artist retains everything and can leave us at any time.
We've recently changed our 'umbrella ' company name to OH! Old Hotel, whilst launching OH! Records, OH! Design, OH! Promo, OH! Video & OH! Photo to look after our recording, graphic design, merchandise, promotion, networking, video production and photography - these can now all be standalone offerings to artists.
So, it worked, we have looked after lots of very good artists, bands, poets and story tellers, we've helped them achieve radio airplay, press coverage and gigs. We've also hosted and helped create festivals and showcases.
In the future we will continue to build more bridges and networks for our artists from grass roots to beyond.
We're not in this for the money or the fame but just to help authentic artists tell their story.
We'd like to thank our kind patrons Tim Jon Brophy, Dave Hill, Malcolm Nash and Oli Pearce for their help along the way.