Meet the all-female record label and radio station on a mission to take over a male-dominated industry
This is A HOT MINUTE WITH, a quick-fire interview series championing all the rising talent catapulting into fashion, art and music’s fickle stratosphere. From pinch-me moments to bad dates and even worse chat-up lines, think of it as an overindulgent conversation – like the ones you have in sticky club toilets at 4.A.M. Except these guests don’t regret the overshare…
Powered by an all-female team, Foundation FM’s newly launched record label wants to offer the visibility and opportunities lacking for women in the industry.
NAME FOUNDATION FM
FOUNDERS FRANKIE WELLS and BECKY RICHARDSON
LAUNCHED IN 2018
LOCATION London, England
Ry Gavin: So, if we just start off with: what is Foundation FM?
Frankie Wells: It’s a female-made community radio station and newly-launched record label.
RG: Why did you decide to start a record label alongside the station?
Becky Richardson: It was a really natural progression. We’re obviously always finding new, amazing female talent and it just kind of naturally happened.
RG: Can you share with us who your first signing is?
BR: Yes! Our first signing is an amazing multi-instrumentalist producer from Switzerland called MILYMA.
RG: What is one track you are obsessed with at the moment, both of you?
FW: Got to be Twice by Milyma, all the cheeky plugs.
BR: For me, I can’t stop listening to BABY KEEM and TRAVIS SCOTT, Durag Activity.
RG: Nice, no OLIVIA RODRIGO?
BR: I haven’t actually listened to her album yet but it’s on my list.
RG: What do you think the industry is lacking that your label will make up for?
FW: I think it’s just representation and opening doors. I think that’s the thing we’re very happy to bring to people that haven’t necessarily been championed before or deemed part of the scene. If we think you’re good then you’re good. We’re happy to throw our whole support behind someone and really invest in their careers. We want to grow alongside them, so I think that’s a bit of difference we have.
BR: Also, more females running businesses in the music industry, more female A&Rs.
FW: Yeah, sound engineers.
RG: Can you name one person you’d like to join your label, like lofty ambitions or dead or alive?
FW: Oo that’s a really hard question. Oh My God, there’s so many people!
BR: Amy Winehouse.
FW: Oh that’s a really good one, I don’t know, um, I feel like it’s got to be MEGAN THEE STALLION or something. ‘Cus like we would just have the best parties and everyone would get involved in rapping and singing with her at Foundation FM.
RG: What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen take place on the tube?
FW: Probably like a sing-a-long…but I probably started it.
BR: Oh my god, a woman feeding her daughter anchovies from a tin!
FW: That’s awful!
BR: Yeah, it was horrendous. She was putting it on tiny little scraps of bread and feeding it to her.
RG: What’s been the hardest part of starting a label during Covid?
BR: I think the hardest part has been meeting everyone over Zoom, it’s not really the vibe. Luckily, as things are opening up now we’re starting to be able to meet all of our artists face to face which is amazing.
RG: How are your experiences as women working in the industry different from a man’s, for example?
FW: I think when you don’t see a lot of women doing a role, you don’t know that you can do it too. I didn’t know I could be a radio producer until someone was like ‘but you’re already producing radio’, I just had no clue that was a role for me. I think people feel boxed into smaller things.
RG: And did you feel the same starting up a label as well? Did you feel that you hadn’t seen much women representation in that?
BR: I think it’s really easy working as a woman in the music industry to find it kind of difficult to talk about music or find it really hard to say confidently that this is what I think of this song. Whereas every man I’ve met in the industry just says what they think about music confidently and everyone just nods and goes along with it. So yeah, just having some confidence in ourselves to be like this is what we really like and this is really good and actually we know what we’re talking about.
RG: If you could be anyone for a day, who would you be?
BR: That guy from Amazon who’s just a billionaire so I could give away all of his money.
FW: That’s a really good one! I was going to say I’d like to be the Prime Minister so I could change loads of laws and stuff but he’s gross and I don't want to be him. Maybe someone in charge of things. No, I’ll tell you what, the woman who is the Prime Minister of New Zealand and I would just get on the phone with all the other female leaders of the world and I’ll be like ‘we’re doing a coup and we’re going to save the rest of the world, let’s do this!’
RG: If Nile Rodgers is the answer, what is the question?
FW: Who do I want to go to a party with?
BR: Who have you been backstage at a festival with wearing plastic bags over their shoes?
RG: What is your biggest guilty pleasure that you listen to and not just the one you say for this question but one you actually feel guilty about?
FW: The thing is that everyone thinks my music taste is guilty but I don’t think it is. I’m a big fan of ARIANA GRANDE and I’ll probably be in love with Olivia Rodrigo. I’m still a teenage girl at heart and everyone's like ‘Frankie, get a life.’
BR: Mine is so bad. My guilty pleasure is BIRDY. *laughs*
FW: Birdy?! Of all people, that’s so funny.
RG: Why is now the time for a record label like this?
FW: I think everyone needed some good news.
BR: Yeah, I think also we’re still so far away from the music industry being balanced in any way. So, now is always the time, you know?
RG: If only one club can reopen, which one should it be?
FW: Can I pick two? If it’s a club club I really love Village Underground but I also just really miss the Alibi, it closed before Covid but I really miss it. It was always free and you would just bump into everyone there. Everyone hated it but loved it.
BR: Yeah, I’d say the Alibi as well.
RG: What is your best and worst festival highlight?
FW: I hate camping with a passion, I hate being in a tent especially if the weather’s shit. But I like going to festivals on my own and meeting loads of new people and seeing bands. Oh, and seeing MISSY ELLIOTT at a festival once, that was amazing.
BR: My best would probably be seeing ADELE at Glastonbury and the worst is probably one of the Reading and Leeds I went to when I was really young and probably drank too much WKD or whatever we were drinking at the time.
RG: What music will the label focus on?
BR: We’re definitely genreless because who in this age is not genreless. Young people love POST MALONE and then love DUA LIPA. But I think we’ll be focusing on kind of undiscovered stuff or really just people who align with Foundation FM and everything we stand for.
RG: Name one person who is featuring on your main character playlist?
FW: Mine’s actually really sad, mine would probably be BON IVER. I’m imagining my main character playlist is at the part when I’m having a really sad realisation.
BR: Mine’s Baby Keem because I just love it so much.
RG: Finish the sentence, the world needs more…
FW: Female lead music businesses.
BR: Females in the music industry.
RG: What do you miss most about pop culture in the noughties?
BR: The parties.
FW: The lack of social media.
RG: What are two things you’d like to change about the music industry?
FW: I think access, getting access into the industry is really hard. When you’re starting out, the sacrifices you have to make are really hard. You have to miss the nights out, your friend’s birthday and you don’t get any money. It’s a very stressful time.
RG: Any last words?
FW: Tune in to Foundation FM and listen to Twice by Milyma!