Tom Lewis
Photo: Carsten Windhorst
Laura Monks
‘WE HAVE TO INNOVATE ALL THE TIME, WE HAVE TO FIND NEW WAYS OF TELLING STORIES’ Laura Monks and Tom Lewis, co-Managing Directors of the legendary Decca label, talk about their plans for Q4 and beyond, the challenge and inspiration that comes from such a diverse roster and the impact of streaming on classical and jazz…
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or a label that is steeped in tradition more than most, Decca isn’t afraid of change or, to deploy a word used by Co-Presidents Tom Lewis and Laura Monks, adventure. In fact, they argue, the label’s roster demands change and ensures adventure. Over the next few months, for instance, the team will be working with artists ranging from outré modern jazz collective Steam Down, to housewives’ choice Andrea Bocelli, to maverick pop genius Brian Wilson, via Actual Living Legend Diana Ross. All aboard! Decca, its joint bosses agree, likes nothing better to surprise – sometimes itself, more often than not, the outside world. It is, to paraphrase Monks, a very
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young label that just happens to be in its nineties. Or, as Lewis puts it: “I think from the outside people might assume that Decca’s a very conventional label, but with the lineup we have and the goals we set, we have to innovate all the time; we have to find new ways of telling stories.” As with many of the Decca team, both were once aspiring and quite serious musicians (Lewis: “I went to Texas to study jazz for a year – the most important thing I learned: I wasn’t anywhere near good enough”; Monks: “As a teenager, I I was going to be Justin Timberlake’s backing dancer/trombonist. I was sure that was a thing”). They have spent close to 30 years at the label between them, Monks
rising through the digital, marketing and commercial ranks, Lewis making his name in A&R. In early 2020, they were promoted to be co-MDs, reporting into Decca President Rebecca Allen – who left the label three months later to go and head up EMI. Monks and Lewis stepped up and are now in overall charge of a label that doesn’t just pre-date rock n roll, it pre-dates the Wall Street Crash. Yet rather than talk history, the executive duo are thoroughly forwardfocused, looking ahead to Q4 and beyond, concerned only with the current roster and excited above all about the continuing (emphasis on continuing) adventures of Decca.
