Beginning in October 2019, Ben Lovett has been working on constructing a new small music venue near King’s Cross which is now due to be ready in March. The pianist, like most musicians, stepped into the music industry by performing at or attending gigs at smaller, independent venues.
Lovett has noticed the closure of many wonderful venues over the past few years due to lack of exposure and popularity in this new digital era – a time in which lesser known artists find it practically impossible to find space within the industry. These grassroots venues often hold huge amounts of talent and memories of world-famous bands or artists when they were starting out. There’s history there which is being ignored and forgotten. Lovett said “What we don’t have here, which some venues like the 100 Club do, is that Eric Clapton sweat on the walls – legendary stories of people that have played here”.
With a 600 person capacity, this venue is part of a larger space containing a food court and bar. The name of the space will be Lafayette, and the hope is that venues like this one will lay out a path for future headlining musicians. Artists with whom Lovett has played small venues in the past include Adele, Jamie T, and Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine, all of whom performed to rooms of 200 people and now play to stadiums holding thousands.
In 2016, Lovett opened Omeara near London Bridge, which holds 325 people and has put on many successful gigs since then. Performers who have played there are Clean Bandit, Tom Odell, Jorja Smith, and Tom Walker, to name a few. This makes Lafayette the second venue which he has opened, under his company, Communion: a record label, publishing and promotion company. Venue Group is the name of the entrepreneurial venture; the next plan is to open an 8,000-seat amphitheatre in Alabama.
Ben Lovett is one of the founding members of popular band Mumford & Sons, in which he primarily plays keyboards, but also occasionally accordion, drums, guitar, percussion and backing vocals. The band has four studio albums and have been awarded two Brit Awards and two Grammys for their work. Starting out with a folk sound on songs such as ‘I Will Wait’, they have now taken on a more alternative folk-rock style in 2018 album ‘Delta’. Mumford & Sons have always loved and supported independent music, having grown up around it and been a part of it for such a long time.
‘Delta’, their latest release, reached number 2 in the UK charts and October 2019 saw a new single release, called ‘Blind Leading the Blind’. Could there be a new album on the way? The band has plans to play at Glastonbury and multiple other UK and US gigs this year, so either way, we’ll be hearing a lot of them. Lafayette will open in approximately 6 weeks and the acts will be announced very soon.
Featured Image taken by Kalyn Oyer.
