We sat down with Out Of Joint Records to understand how they not only built a store off the back of their independent record label, but also created a new community in the city of Leicester.
Who are you?
“So we are record and clothing store. We specialise in dance, house, techno, jungle, drum and bass, dubstep, grime, UK garage – the whole sort of span of electronic music and dance music is our specialty.
We have particular emphasis on the golden era of the 1990s, where a lot of the dance music we know today was born. It’s essentially where we come from as well, our backgrounds are all in DJ and producing this kind of music and stuff, so it’s our passion basically.”
How did you come up with the idea?
“We’ve been running our own record label for about five years and putting out our own vinyl. Our distributor was kind of surprised that we sold our records all over the world, but there was no one in our own city that bought into it. We were just ordering from elsewhere online all the time. So it seemed strange to us that there wasn’t a spot for us in Leicester that was like a hub where you’d go and pick up your records.”
How do fashion and music intertwine?
“You can kind of judge maybe someone’s musical tastes by the way they’re dressed and vice versa. If you heard what music they’re into, you could maybe make an assumption of the brands they were into, or the styles and different eras they were into and stuff like that.”
What’s your biggest achievement?
“Opening the store was a massive achievement. Absolutely buzzing, you know, 3 mates that sort of made music, played music and danced to music together for two decades and to have a store that we could be super proud of was a massive achievement. Again how we had the record label first and elevating that to the point where we could then achieve this from that was a massive achievement as well.”
What’s your favourite part about the industry?
“Going out together, like making memories really, like that’s the best part of the industry for me is getting to go to raves and getting to go out there and dance and put on our own events as well. They’re always so like just the best events. So lovely and stuff. It’s really nice bringing people together. So that’s my favourite part about it. The community aspect.”
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What are your plans for the future?
“Long term goals is just to continue to grow the business really, hopefully expand it out more into the clothing side of things. Keep like, you know, growing the hub in Leicester, so we can, you know, grow the scene, the music scene here in Leicester and stuff. Hopefully, you know, that brings better things for the city as well as us.”