Sound Records

Jack Doyle and Ed Oldham talk us through their Sound Records vinyl shop and their decision to cap the prices of their records

Transcript

00:00And this is Sound Records, yeah?

00:08The downstairs of Sound Records is also upstairs as well and we moved here about three years

00:15ago. Before here we had a little shop down in the old Peter Louis building, sort of outgrew

00:20that and now we're here.

00:23So the price of everything in life is going up isn't it? So it's sort of just our way

00:28of trying to mitigate the increase in price on our customer really, trying to make it

00:34so it's not so unacceptable or unreachable for a lot of people. We're always getting

00:40new people in here and if their first view of a record is like 30 odd pound, 40 pound

00:44they might be like, whoa! Whereas for us it's like, we've seen it since the start, it's

00:49been like when we first opened it was like 20 to 25 pound and now it's like 30 to 35

00:55and we just want to try and keep it below that 40 mark if we can.

00:58A couple of years ago with the start of the war, Russia and Ukraine, oil prices shot up

01:05and vinyl is a by-product of the petrochemical industry and all of a sudden we were finding

01:10that sometimes we were having to pay a price for a record that we used to be able to charge

01:14people didn't we? So things have kind of settled down a little bit since then but that's one

01:20factor and also just the popularity isn't it? Popularity and demand of certain artists

01:25and just records in general. It's become a much more popular thing over the last 10-15

01:31years and the popularity only ever seems to increase as well.

01:34So it does get busy in here and we're still here, 7 years down the line, 2018, 8 years

01:39nearly. We're still here and people keep coming back and I think what keeps us here is returning

01:47customers and regulars and that's what's really important and that's what we're always

01:51trying to do and that's another thing with trying to keep the prices down is trying to

01:54be fair to everyone.

01:55Because at the end of the day it's a business but it's a community as well and we've become

02:00friends with people that come in here regularly and some of the kids in particular, people

02:06that we first met as teenagers, they've now gone through high school, the upper part of

02:10high school, they've gone to uni, they're back on the island and a lot of them get involved

02:14in music as well, don't they? So yeah, you're seeing people grow up as well.

02:19Just give it a go. There's absolutely no harm in trying. If you try and you fail, you're

02:25back where you were at the beginning so you might as well give it a go and try it and

02:28play with other people because it's amazing how quickly you develop by playing with other

02:32people. It's hard to do but just jump by the bullet and go for it.