States of Independence – Details, episodes & analysis

In States of Independence hear first-hand the stories behind the world's greatest independent record labels. The series includes new interviews with luminaries signed along the way, including Gary Numan, Pete Murphy, Brix Smith and founder Martin Mills. All of them come together to tell the story of an organisation with the spirit of punk rock baked into its very DNA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gary Numan has gifted Beggars Banquet their very first number one. So why is neither he nor the label happy? We step inside the intense backlash that comes with fame, as a painfully young Gary Numan tries to make sense of sudden superstardom. Plus, Martin Mills scrambles to define Beggars Banquet as more than just one very big artist… which brings us first to John Rocca’s delightfully unpunk electro pioneers, Freeez and their massive NY club hit, I.O.U, and then to something altogether more sombre. Peter Murphy introduces us to Bauhaus, the band who announce the dawn of Beggars Banquet’s ‘decade of darkness’. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was Beggars Banquet. The story starts in 1974 with three mates, a little bit of cash, and the dream of opening a record shop. But when punk happens, it changes everything – and suddenly there’s a new fantasy to chase. Label founder Martin Mills drops us into the chaotic formative years of Beggars Banquet and introduces us to their very first signing, The Lurkers. Then, we meet their first star, Gary Numan, who details his meteoric rise from just another punk rock pretender to one of the definitive voices of the new wave. In the process, the legend of Beggars is born. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are two sides to every story… In part two of the Gene Loves Jezebel saga, Michael Aston shares his own recollections of the band he formed, loved, and lost with his twin, Jay. Funnily enough, his story doesn’t always align with his brother’s account. But then that’s what makes the whole story of Gene Loves Jezebel so very interesting… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rock and roll partnerships are tempestuous at the best of times. Throw twin brothers into the mix? That’s a recipe for Armageddon. Gene Loves Jezebel were, for a stretch in the mid-80s, one of Beggars Banquet’s flagship bands, but when differences between the twin frontmen at the heart of it all became irreconcilable, they split apart – and eventually launched two competing versions of the same group. Which is why episode four of States of Independence gets the ‘two parter’ treatment. First up, we hear Jay Aston’s side of the Gene Loves Jezebel saga. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After the split of Bauhaus, a whole new wave of goth bands step into the breach. But none will prove so pivotal in the story of Beggars Banquet as The Cult. Here, Martin Mills and legendary Cult guitarist Billy Duffy tell the story of his band’s dizzying ascent from the ashes of Southern Death Cult to full-blown Californian rock gods. It’s a story filled with all the usual trappings of rock and roll fame – with money, drugs, and hard-fought creative differences all leaving their mark on the band – but for a gothic odyssey, this one has an unusually happy ending. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mark E Smith was many things. Visionary songwriter? Certainly. Enduring champion of DIY culture? Without a doubt. Lifelong grunt-worker at the Post-Punk factory? Sure, why not. But one thing he most certainly wasn’t, is easy-going. In this episode of States of Independence – the accounts of two people well placed to testify to that effect: firstly Beggars boss, Martin Mills, who had the distinct pleasure of attempting to wrangle the famously industry-hating Smith during his most prolific and marketable years; secondly, his former bandmate and wife, Brix Smith, who is widely credited with injecting the pop sensibilities that defined The Fall’s imperial era on Beggars Banquet. As you might expect, there are stories galore for Fall fans both young and old… Accompanying Playlist: https://bit.ly/StatesPodPlaylist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s the dawn of the 90s and Beggars Banquet, after a decade of goth darkness, are due a little refresh. Enter, The Charlatans – a band surfing the crest of the baggy zeitgeist. Every label in Britain wants to sign them, and lo and behold, where others fail, Martin Mills succeeds. It should be the beginning of a long leisurely stroll towards ‘happily ever after’, but the story of The Charlatans is burdened with more than its fair share of catastrophe and tragedy. Here, frontman Tim Burgess reflects on the reality behind a rock and roll fantasy and the band’s extended tenure as one of the most important bands ever signed to Beggars Banquet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe to ⁠Fela Kuti: Fear No Man.⁠ In a world that’s on fire, what is the role of art? What can music actually…do? Can a song save a life? Change a law? Topple a president? Get you killed? In Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, Jad Abumrad—creator of Radiolab, More Perfect, and Dolly Parton’s America—tells the story of one of the great political awakenings in music: how a classically trained 'colonial boy’ traveled to America, in search of Africa, only to return to Nigeria and transform his sound into a battering ram against the state—creating a new musical language of resistance called Afrobeat. For years, the world’s biggest stars made pilgrimages to Nigeria to experience Fela’s Shrine, the epicenter of his musical revolution. But when the mix of art and activism got too hot, the state pulled out its guns, and literally opened fire. Fela Kuti: Fear No Man is an uncategorizable mix of oral history, musicology, deep dive journalism, and cutting edge sound design that takes listeners deep inside Fela’s life, music, and legacy. Drawing from over 200 interviews with Fela Kuti’s family, friends, as well as scholars, activists, and luminaries like Burna Boy, Paul McCartney, Questlove, Santigold, and former President Barack Obama (just to name a few), Fela Kuti: Fear No Man journeys deep into the soul of Afrobeat to explore the transformative power of art and the role artists can play in this current moment of global unrest. An Audible Original presented by Audible and Higher Ground. Produced by Western Sound and Talkhouse. ©2025 Higher Ground, LLC (P)2025 Audible Originals, LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In part two of this Go-Betweens special, frontman Robert Forster remembers his dear friend, the late Grant McLennan, the band they began together as schoolboys, and his group’s quest to find a creative home that would last after the turmoil of moving from Brisbane to London. After a couple of false starts, that quest would eventually lead them to Beggars Banquet. The Go Betweens might not have found the fame and fortune that they’d travelled across the world for, but with Martin Mills, they did at long last find a place to truly realise their potential. As with the Gene Loves Jezebel episode, different band member’s memories don’t always match up and resolutions can take years to come by. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices