Which Art School has shaped British music the most?

By John Thorp, 17 September 2018

Britain's musical legacy owes much to its art schools, and 6 Music will pay tribute to these influential institutions with a week of special programmes coming live from art schools around the UK ahead of BBC Music Day on 28 September.

Art schools are famously a hub for musicians, designers, sculptors, visual artists and more, introducing many young creatives to a wider world of artistic discovery and collaboration beyond the rehearsal room, regularly creating not just great music, but exciting and transgressive new scenes in youth culture.

But which art school has had the biggest impact on music in the UK? Here are some of the UK’s most influential art schools and the great acts they’ve given us.

• Apply for tickets to see Steve Lamacq’s Art School Tour special in Sheffield

London’s Goldsmiths College has produced some of the biggest names in British culture during recent history - with filmmakers like Steve McQueen and Sam Taylor-Johnson and artists such as Damien Hirst all studying at the south-east London school. The institution has also produced a wide variety of musicians - from The Velvet Underground’s John Cale to Neil Innes (of Monty Python and The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band fame). Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis and DJ Rob Da Bank earned their stripes at the university too.

But Goldsmiths’ most influential era - in terms of music, at least - arguably came during the 90s, famously providing a meeting point for Blur (Damon Albarn, Alex James and Graham Coxon all attended Goldsmiths, with Coxon later inviting his childhood pal and drummer Dave Rowntree to complete the group). Earlier in the decade, Brian Molko formed Placebo while studying drama at the university.

The influence of Goldsmiths extends beyond the 90s though, with electronic artists like James Blake, Katy B and A.G. Cook all coming through its system in recent years - the experimentation of each act can be traced back to their earlier studies.

"I was writing music very quickly; for the first time in my life I didn’t feel self aware about what I had created," Rosie Lowe, another Goldsmiths alum, has said of her experience at the school - a pretty decent reference for any musical-leaning students looking for a place to study next year.

Such is the legacy of Glasgow's brilliant art school bands that many students arrive in the city to this very day with music on their minds.

In 1995, Stuart Murdoch and Stuart David formed Belle and Sebastian at the city’s Stow College (now Glasgow Kelvin College). The pair recorded demos with the help of professor Alan Rankine (a popstar-turned-tutor himself, best known as guitarist and keyboardist for Scottish post-punks The Associates) and released them through the in-college record label, Electric Honey.

Run by students from the school's Music Business course, Electric Honey went on to release music by Snow Patrol (then known as Polar Bear) and Biffy Clyro over the years. The imprint even released Belle and Sebastian’s debut album, Tigermilk, in 1996. Initially limited to a run of 1,000, that record has since gone on to shift over 100,000 copies.

Glasgow has another art school with strong musical ties too, with the alumni of Glasgow School of Art including Franz Ferdinand bassist Bob Hardy, Travis' Fran Healy and late Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison. Orange Juice even played their first gig at Glasgow School of Art’s The Vic Student Union in 1979.

Glasgow’s local art school scene has paved the way for decades of indie and rock royalty to emerge from the Scottish city, with acts like Primal Scream, The Vaselines, Camera Obscura, Teenage Fanclub and - more recently - CHVRCHES spawning from a musically rich, open-minded club scene, where venues like including the notorious Sub Club continues to harness creativity to this day - helped along in no small part by its student population.

Leeds has a rich history of art schools and universities producing top-notch musicians. Gang Of Four cite the Fine Art department at Leeds University as inspiring them to form a band in the first place. That is where “it all came together”, according to guitarist Andy Gill, who said in an interview that “Leeds at the time was a bit weird”.

Leeds University has since kickstarted the journeys of a wide array of artists: Dire Straits, Bastille, Corinne Bailey Rae, Little Boots and alt-J, while Marc Almond and David Ball formed Soft Cell at Leeds Polytechnic (now Leeds Beckett University). The latter band’s striking and provocative early performances - which often involved nudity, mirrors and cat food as well as avant-garde bleeps - would lead to them influencing far more than just their fellow students.

It’s not just those studying that are producing great music in Leeds either; the teachers are too. Before finding fame in Kaiser Chiefs, Ricky Wilson was a lecturer at Leeds College of Art (now known as Leeds Arts University). “I did it for a year, a couple of times a week, and I don't think I was the best art teacher in the world,” Wilson said of the experience, later adding: “It was like a gig - loads of teenagers in a room that you've got to impress… I'd be sick before I went in.”

Art schools in Sheffield have played pivotal roles in the careers of many musicians over the years, directly and indirectly. In 1978, The Human League performed their first-ever gig at Psalter Lane’s Sheffield School of Art (now part of Sheffield Hallam University), a well-known spot for gritty experimentation that would help spawn post-punk acts such as Clock DVA and Cabaret Voltaire.

This local open-minded atmosphere paved the way for left-field labels like Warp Records, founded in the city during 1989, as well as acts like The Long Blondes, the five-piece led by Kate Jackson in playful art-school tradition.

Meanwhile, quintessential Sheffield band Pulp first formed when Cocker handed John Peel a demo CD while the famed broadcaster was DJing at Sheffield Polytechnic (now Sheffield Hallam University). That encounter led to Pulp getting their own Peel Session and the rest, well, is history.

“I expected to have to fight through hordes of other local scenesters to make my presentation - I mean this was the John Peel - but no, here he came, on his own, carrying his record cases,” Jarvis later recalled. “I made my move; he put one of the cases down to take the tape, mumbling something about 'giving it a listen on the drive home', then left, no eye contact. The job was done.”

"She studied sculpture at Saint Martin’s College, that’s where I, caught her eye," crooned Jarvis Cocker in the immortal opening line to Pulp’s Common People. While Jarvis may have studied Fine Art and Film (not sculpture) at Central Saint Martins, his iconic lyric indicates just how famous the London arts institution has become. In fact, the school’s name itself is pretty much synonymous with aspiring artistes.

It was here that Malcolm McLaren laid the foundations for punk, and that, decades later, M.I.A. first encountered her mentor and collaborator, Elastica’s Justine Frischmann, who was a fan of the work Maya Arulpragasam had been producing as part of her Fine Art degree.

Central Saint Martins’ influence spans several decades and scenes of British music though. Faris Badwan founded The Horrors while studying illustration there during the creatively fertile hotspot of the mid-00s indie boom. Badwan eventually deferred his studies to concentrate on the group’s career, a decision that seems to have worked well so far (The Horrors released fifth album V in September 2017).

Need any more convincing of the sheer breadth of CSM’s influence on music? Well, The Clash's Joe Strummer and Paloma Faith are among the school’s famous alumni. Meanwhile, Helen Folasade Adu, a British-Nigerian student undertaking a fashion degree, would begin musical experimentation at the college that would lead to her career under the mononym of Sade.

Proving that you don't need scholarly success to succeed, PJ Harvey applied to study sculpture at Central Saint Martins - years prior to the Pulp lyric - but dropped out before she even attended a single class. Polly Jean has since gone on to win two Mercury Prizes, being awarded an MBE and even picked up a honorary degree from another London art school - Goldsmiths - in 2014.

• Apply for tickets to see Steve Lamacq’s Art School Tour special in Sheffield

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