An interview with Nathaniel Cramp from Sonic Cathedral

We talk about the 20th anniversary of the club night and label, the eternal appeal of shoegaze, working with your heroes, and those excellent SHOEGAZER tees that have become an unexpected cash cow.

I can’t remember exactly when I first heard the name Sonic Cathedral, but I can still remember reading that unforgettable slogan of “The Night That Celebrates Itself.” In the mid-2000s, it was everything I could have wanted from a club night. Featuring performances by bands such as The Radio Dept., Beach House, Mark Gardener (Ride), The Clientele, Jim Reid (The Jesus & Mary Chain), Sennen and Pete Fijalkowski (Adorable), and DJ sets by Sonic Boom, Emma Anderson (Lush), The Telescopes, Alan McGee, Simon Raymond (Cocteau Twins) and Ulrich Schnauss, I’m still not over the FOMO. Feast your eyes on this mouth-watering assortment of posters from the first few years. Unfortunately I lived 5,700 kilometres away.

The man behind Sonic Cathedral is Nathaniel Cramp, a former NME editor/writer whose love for bands such as Slowdive, Ride, My Bloody Valentine, Lush, Chapterhouse and the rest of the bands that made up the scene that celebrated itself, inspired him to launch the night. Once the club night caught on, Cramp decided to extend the brand by launching a companion label in 2006 that he described as “The Label That Celebrates Itself.”

While it was all supposed to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, the label’s success has been anything but a joke. So many independent labels have since come and gone in that span, but Sonic Cathedral has continued to build an impressive catalogue, thanks to Cramp’s discovery of nu-gazers such as Whitelands, deary, Lorelle Meets The Obsolete and bdrmm, and supporting the solo careers of original ‘gazers like Andy Bell (Ride), Emma Anderson and Neil Halstead (Slowdive).

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Sonic Cathedral as an entity. In the fall, Cramp intends to break out champagne with help from Slowdive, Ride, and A Place To Bury Strangers, who will headline four special shows (a secret guest will play the fourth night) to mark 20 years of the celebrating themselves.

It’s been 20 years since Sonic Cathedral first launched. I’m guessing your aspirations for that club night were exceeded by what you were expecting?

Nathaniel Cramp: Yeah, it's gone on about 20 years longer than anticipated. Nothing's ever been planned really. I mean, obviously I do make plans for things now, but all the best things that have happened have been sort of accidental or happened organically rather than because I set out to achieve something.

What were you doing before that?

My day job then was working at NME. I was a freelance sub-editor there, and ended up doing that for about 15 years. I never had a full-time job, but I was just freelance, so sub-editing, writing headlines and captions, and occasional bits of writing when they would allow me.

When did you give that up?

In 2015. They made me redundant when they sort of stopped production. That was my lifeline completely.

NME was very important to me growing up. It was pretty expensive here in Canada but I bought it regularly. How long were you with the company?

I ended up being there for basically 14 and a half years, or something like that. I would also freelance wherever I could, so I did a few days a week at NME, but then I did stuff for MOJO and Q, and other random non-music-related magazines. But by the end it was just NME.

So was there any conflict of interest after starting the label with you working for a music publication?

I mean, you could say there was, but loads of people had done it before me, right? There's a good a good lineage of people who worked at NME with labels, like Steve Lamacq, who started Deceptive and signed Elastica. There was also Costermonger, the label that was set up for Gene by a few journalists [Keith Cameron and Roy Wilkinson], and Simon Williams started Fierce Panda. There have been loads. So I rather see it as me following in the grand tradition of things. I mean, you've just got to use the situation to your advantage.

Is the club night still a thing for you?

I haven't done that regularly for years but I still occasionally promote gigs. I find promoting gigs really hard work these days though. It’s just a changing landscape, so I'm mainly focused on doing the label. I guess I only have so many hours in a day. But I'm doing a series of special shows for the anniversary later this year, which I'm getting help with from Bad Vibrations, who are London promoters. We've got like Slowdive, Ride, and A Place To Bury Strangers playing. So that's pretty cool.

Is indie clubbing still a big thing in the UK?

It may well be but I'm getting too old for it. There are still club nights that play indie stuff, but it doesn't seem to be as big as it was in the early 2000s with Club NME and all those sorts of big clubs. I see they do that kind of thing in smaller rooms.

I think it may be a generational thing. I don't think kids go out and party in clubs the same way they used to.

That's true. A lot of them go out when you put on shows here, regardless of the age of the band, but the people attending are always, largely, the average gig-goer age. Even if the band themselves are young people.

Yeah, my daughter's 14 and she’s been going to more and more shows. I took her to see Slowdive last year, where there were a lot of younger fans.

Yeah, Slowdive bucked that trend. It's crazy that at all the tour dates they did here there were huge queues before the venue opened and pretty much everyone in it was 21 or younger. For some reason, I think Slowdive is separate in that realm. I don't know how they've done it really. I've been told it all kind of happened with TikTok and I guess that's just not the same for other bands.

You mentioned doing promotions for the label too. Do you do every single thing for Sonic Cathedral?

Yeah, I do all of the social posts. All that stuff. I mean I've got Marc Jones and Stuart Jones, who do loads of design work for me, and occasionally I'll get some people to help out with a bit of PR depending on the releases. But otherwise, it's just me, which is ridiculous. I don't know why it is the case, but I don't know, it never feels like it's sort of become a proper thing in a way.

How do you find artists these days? Do they still send in demos?

It varies a lot. Like the band Whitelands, they’re a lot younger and come from a completely different angle, which you know, is a good thing. But they just sent me a pretty terrible email that said “poppy shoegaze from London.” No info, nothing. The song was “How It Feels,” which is on the album, and I thought it was really good. And then I kind of met Etienne the singer and went to see them play, and now here we are. So yeah, it depends. It's good learning for me as well. I mean a lot of times one thing leads to another where you meet people through other people. The word “organic” is always a bit cheesy sounding, but it kind of is like that. There's no five-year plan or “I must sign a band that sounds like this or looks like this or does this.” I guess that's the beauty of it being just me. I can do that kind of thing and I don't have to run it by anyone.

Has there ever been a band you wanted to sign because they sounded a lot like another band?

I've always tried to avoid finding bands that sound exactly like Slowdive or whatever. From the start of Sonic Cathedral I definitely didn’t want it to be a retro thing because there's something a bit depressing about that. Even this year, because it's the anniversary, I've been going through old photos and stuff because we're putting together various things, and as much as it's kind of nice to see what you've done, it's also gets a bit depressing. So, even from the first club night it was always going to be a mixture of new bands and old bands. I don't just want to release records that sound like Slowdive - that would be terrible.

It's funny because this Substack is very much about nostalgia for me. But in a way there is some looking back with the label because you’ve had the opportunity to release music by Neil Halstead (Slowdive), Emma Anderson (Lush), Dean Wareham (Galaxie 500, Luna), and both Mark Gardener and Andy Bell (Ride). What does it mean to you as both a fan of those artists and a label to have worked with them?

I just feel really proud that they've trusted me to put out their music. It's incredible. I always have to pinch myself that I am able to put records out for them and help them It's amazing. I've never tired of being able to work with people like that.

Going back to the nostalgia thing, I wasn't criticizing nostalgia because obviously there's a lot of that. I'm releasing all these great artists but I feel that it's important to try and make things move forward at the same time.

I find it slightly depressing going into Rough Trade or any of the shops where the majority of the records are “classics that you should own,” that kind of thing, and then your release is always somewhere else. And you know, it's getting harder and harder to break through with something that is new or new-sounding. I don't want to stop doing it because it just would seem like giving up. People say, “Oh, you should just release reissues. It's an easier way to make money.”

Well, it's funny you mentioned that because I was gonna ask you about the Mojave 3 reissue Sonic Cathedral put out all those years ago. Were you ever planning on doing any more reissues?

I can't even remember how that came about really. Obviously that record was super expensive on vinyl, so it was just small amount that was pressed originally. Genuinely I can't remember how or why it happened. It's just one of those conversations that became a reality and then, well, “We could do it with a mirror board sleeve? Oh, let's do that.” If they'd have said let’s carry on and release the whole Mojave 3 catalogue I'm sure I'd have said yes, but I guess they’ll be doing that at some point soon. That's not to say I wouldn’t love to do the same for loads of old records.

Last year Neil Halstead told me that 4AD plans to reissue all the Mojave 3 records at some point, so it’s just a matter of time. What do you remember of the music industry back in 2006 when you started the label? It was a tricky time because downloads and piracy were up, CD sales were going down, and vinyl hadn't really made its comeback yet.

Again, when I started the label I worked at NME and I had that kind of experience with music, but I had no idea about how to make records or put records out or what to do. I used to buy records so the idea of just doing a 7”, well, I didn't really know how to make that happen. I mean the initial idea, I think, came from when I was talking to Mark Gardener, when we did a few dates around the country. I think we were in The Social in Nottingham and I said, “I can release a 7” single for you,” but then I was thinking, “How would I do that?” But I just said it and he said yes, so then I met that band The Tamborines, who ended up with the first single.

For some reason the test pressings with that were awful and they were rejected. Then a weird argument erupted. The guy at the pressing plant left me a very threatening answer phone message and just said, “I'll make sure you never press a record in this country ever again.” And so I guess he didn't manage to achieve that. Those were some of the scary things we got involved in, but yes, I mean it was a very slow kind of start to doing that. Back then it was just 7” singles. You'd press them, try and sell them and then move on to the next one. It was another few years before getting into doing albums and all that, but yeah, the first album I ever released was a Sad Day For Puppets record and we didn't even do it on vinyl. We did 7”s and then just a CD, which is very telling. And then the vinyl thing kind of followed a few years later. It wasn’t really until 2015 that it blew up. I mean, I always bought vinyl, like vinyl singles when I was younger, because I couldn't afford always to buy albums.

What is the one release on the label where you think to yourself, “I can't believe that actually happened.”

Oh, that’s a good question. That Slowdive 7” was pretty cool. It was an “if you don't ask, you don't get” kind of thing. Like I said before, doing the album for Neil just sort of happened accidentally because I'd got to know him and then Universal didn't want to release it in the UK. So he just asked if I wanted to do it. Things you wouldn't believe would have been possible just happened.

So is Slowdive that band for you?

I guess they are, yeah. The 7” of “Catch the Breeze” was the first thing I bought by them when it came out.

I first spoke to you back in 2008, when My Bloody Valentine were resurfacing and Eric Green was releasing his documentary, Beautiful Noise. Shoegaze (and dream pop) have come in and out of fashion over the years, but it’s never been bigger than it is right now. How surprised are you with how popular it has become over the past few years?

Very. When Slowdive went in at number three on the U.S. charts it was hard not to think, “Wow, this is ridiculous.” In my heart when I started all of this I wanted those bands to be massive. It’s an amazing thing because they've made me feel stuff and I think that is what's happening with Slowdive at the moment. Shoegaze is music that conveys an emotion, a fairly non-specific emotion, but it just makes you feel something and I think a lot of other music doesn't. So I think that's why it has cut through on TikTok. It’s an easy way to convey emotion if you soundtrack your TikTok with something like “When The Sun Hits.” It adds a gravitas.

I’m fascinated by the reaction to it. Because I’ve chewed up and spat out so many different subgenres or movements over time, but it’s one of the only ones that has stayed close to my heart. I can’t say the same for nu-rave or the garage rock revival. I was a huge Britpop fan in the ‘90s and now half of that stuff sounds awful to me.

Genuinely I think that Slowdive are our generation’s Velvet Underground. Obviously they weren't massively successful at the time, so they've come back and they are now. But there's just the influence and that sort of sound has seeped out through the years. There have been so many shoegaze revivals since I started doing this, and each one has got bigger and bigger, and then the last couple years has been crazy. I do wonder what can happen next. Maybe that's it.

Has it changed anything on your end of things? Have sales increased?

Well, I'm not rich. So I think just perception has perhaps changed. People are a bit more open to the music. There are obviously more ways of getting exposure. Like that Spotify playlist Shoegaze Now, which has loads of followers. Just the general atmosphere and environment for that kind of music is better. I mean, Whitelands supported Slowdive on tour. There are more opportunities perhaps now more than ever.

Your SHOEGAZER shirts seem to be a best-seller. Miraculously, I still wear my white one after a decade.

Those shirts have probably kept me afloat for the last couple years. I'm not even joking. It's quite funny seeing them in the wild. Quite often now I see people wearing them. A friend of mine was in New York and sent me a picture of someone walking along the street with one. I mean, that shirt was just an accident. I misremembered an old Sonic Youth T-shirt. I was convinced there was a shirt that said “SONICYOUTH” that didn’t even fit. And then I remembered it was actually a picture of Thurston Moore wearing a shirt that said “ABCDEFUCK.” And that was my misremembered thing, so we turned that into SHOEGAZER shirt and sold thousands of them.

Let me ask you about your thoughts on how the word “shoegaze” is used by fans now. It doesn’t seem to take much for an artist to be called shoegaze. How do you feel about that?

Going back to that playlist, there are a variety of things on there, from more metal-y stuff to all sorts. I'm not protective about it. I don't want new bands to sound like other bands from 30 years ago. I don't think that's necessarily healthy. If people are acknowledging that it's part of their sound, it's not a bad idea. I had this conversation with someone recently in that it's weird that back in the day bands were pigeonholed by writers and they were told they were this, they were that, but now bands have to pigeonhole themselves before they even get anywhere. If you want to upload your music you have to apply genres to it. So artists are gonna put shoegaze or dream pop or whatever. They might not really be that but they might think they are. It’s funny that it's out there as a description anyway.

Tickets for all four Sonic Cathedral 20th anniversary shows are now on sale here.