It has been a year of expansion for the friends who set up Next Door Records in Shepherds Bush, a popular live music venue, bar, coffee and record shop in Uxbridge Road.
While still supporting local musicians and artists in Hammersmith & Fulham, the trio of Thom Parris, Louis Raworth and Alfie Aukett have taken their thriving business to east London, setting up a second venue in Stoke Newington.
Since opening in May the Stoke Newington Road venue "has been really positively received", co-director Thom said. "We've gone from Shepherds Bush, which is more under the radar in terms of [electronic music] to Stoke Newington ... so it is quite interesting just to see how different that is."
Big names, small venues
It has also been a busy year at the Shepherds Bush site, with a visit from Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl as he filmed an MTV documentary at the start of the summer.
"[MTV] needed a backdrop space. We basically got an email saying this artist called Dave Grohl [was coming] ... as if we wouldn't know who he was," Thom explained.
"It's like. Oh, yeah, I think I've heard of him. It was bizarre but it was really cool. We spent a couple of hours, actually just sat watching him, as he got interviewed. It was just really nice to watch something like that in a space we created. It sort of feels like it has come full circle in a way."
Actors Ben Miles and Toby Jones have also graced the DJ booth at the Shepherds Bush venue, Thom added. But Next Door Records is not just about celebrity spotting. As part of its support for musicians, this week 'Next Door Sessions' was launched, a concept similar to NPR's popular 'Tiny Desk' in the US. Forty-minute sets performed by local artists will be filmed and posted onto the YouTube channel of Next Door Records as part of the initiative.
The first video posted on 15 October features Yaz, a French and Palestinian singer-songwriter based in London. "It's just expanding that reach as much as possible for us, so people know what we represent and the music that we want to champion," Thom said.
Next Door Records also prides itself on putting on free gigs in Hammersmith & Fulham. "The live music industry is struggling for lots of reasons. Artists' fees are going up. There are less bands playing. Probably people aren't spending as much on tickets," Thom said.
"So we've always been able to do things like free tickets as much as we can because of having those other supporting factors like food and daytime drinks."
The team has big plans to mark five years of Next Door Records in 2025, including becoming involved in festivals and external events such as stage hosting.
Festival and venue support
In 2023, Hammersmith & Fulham Council financially supported their new local music festival – called Off the Rails – which saw Next Door Records organise and curate an eclectic mix of music from more than 45 artists performing across venues in Shepherds Bush.
"The [local] response was there and the audience ... it was really well received. It was great for the local area and great for culture," Thom said.
This year, H&F Council helped with fundraising efforts to keep neighbouring live music venue Bush Hall open. "Lots of places are closing, but the ones that are opening are adapting to newer ways of experiencing music and socialising," explained Thom. "We are a music venue, but we also do food, and in the day it's a coffee shop and we do records. The multifaceted approach is a lot more common now."
Off the back of Next Door Records' success, Thom encouraged creative entrepreneurs to consider Shepherds Bush as a starting point. "It would be great to see more people follow suit. I think if we'd have started in East London straight away, we would have been super out-of-our-depth and probably failed straight away."
He urged people in Hammersmith & Fulham to continue to support local music venues. "People need to be informed of the scale of the crisis that live music venues are in at the moment," he explained. "So do as much as you can do to support them, whether that's just going to a random gig at a random venue you don't know of and buying one drink - this will help.
"At this moment, I think we can't take music venues for granted. Without the venues, it would be a huge loss for culture in London and beyond."
