Trade Mark

Trademark was formed around the time of 1995 by two teenage cousins Oliver Horton and Stuart Meads. They had previously played music together as children, and by their mid teens they wanted to formulate themselves as a group. The pair were both heavily into electronic pop music. After a number of experimental projects, the pair began to produce material of some substance around 1997. By the Christmas of 1997 the group played their first live gig. The set list comprised of tracks the pair had written during the previous year. Oli & Stu continued to write and record like this for the next few years. In 1999 the pair were joined by Paul Soulsby. Paul had been recording songs with different friends since he was ten, in the same way that Oli and Stu had. The first material to be completed with the new line up was and album they called 'Audiologue', recorded in the summer of 1999 (not available).


Trademark performed for the first time in their current line up at the Truck Festival in Oxfordshire, in 2000. Two new songs were recorded in winter months of 2000, whereupon a long period of inactivity occurred as the members time was taken up by university degrees. There were plenty of new songs but they were all consigned to demo form for a long time. Once everything had settled down, Trademark started work on new material. The band self released 'Fear : Disconnection' (no longer available) in January 2003. Trademark also began to gig regularly, and for the first time were premiering unreleased material to their audience.

A highly successful gig at the 2002 Truck Festival (where Trademark were noted as being the only band without guitars) led to a series of performances in Oxford, including Trailerpark at the Cellar and Gappy Tooth at the Zodiac.


The band also played regularly in London with a few notable appearance at The Fan Club at The Verge in Kentish Town. As the band's reputation grew, Trademark supported Chicks on Speed at Oxford Zodiac and The Human League at Ocean in London. 'Fear : Disconnection' was sold by the band at gigs and over the website to a great reception. Trademark's growing reputation lead to them being signed by Truck records and the putting together of "Trademark Want More" which features tracks from "Fear:Disconnection" and the self released follow up "This is Our Trademark" plus a few new tracks."Want More" was released in June 2004 to the critical acclaim of The Sunday Times among others. In December 2004 Trademark went on a 20 date tour of the UK with The Human League. 2006 sees the band preparing to release "Raise the Stakes", a brand new album which the band have been working hard on for the past year. Trademark also recently remixed the theme music for Five's Brainteaser, which can be heard every week day on Five.

source : http://www.trademark-online.co.uk/Biography.htm