Hi, Who are you?
We are Gavin Foord, Aki, and Bitr8, and we are the founders of Garage Shared and GS Dubs
What’s your ethos?
Our ethos when we first started was to share garage music from all around the world, that’s why we’re called Garage Shared. Seven years ago, when we launched, there wasn’t much new garage being released. There were only a handful of producers and labels, so our mission was not only to release new garage ourselves, but also to shine a light, to share others doing the same and help kick-start the scene again.
Today, the core ethos of the label is to help identify and develop new garage talent from across the world.
Since then, garage has come on leaps and bounds. Now there are loads of new releases every week from around the world, and the standard is really high. So while we still champion global garage, the ethos has evolved: we now focus heavily on developing talent. Each year, we highlight four Ones To Watch artists, and we’ve given some of the biggest names in the scene their debut releases including Oppidan, Badger, Banquet, Jackum, Soulecta, and Prozak, to name a few.
Tell us your origin story
Our origin story goes back seven years, when we were invited to mix the final edition of the iconic Pure Garage series, the legendary compilation made famous by DJ EZ. That series is actually what got us into garage music in the first place, so being trusted to curate and mix it was a huge moment for us.
We were given the opportunity to compile it using new garage music, which didn’t have much visibility at the time. We spent months researching, digging through radio shows, podcasts, pirate stations, mixes and eventually discovered around 130 tracks, which we narrowed down to the best 60.
During that process, we uncovered some incredible up-and-coming producers. We’ve always worked closely with vocalists and seen garage as a vocal-driven genre, so the idea came: if we paired these new producers with vocalists we already worked with, we could start a label. That’s exactly what we did and Garage Shared was born.
Where are you based?
We’re from and based in Southampton. The city has deep roots in UK Garage through artists like Artful Dodger and Craig David. We worked in a record shop (Movement Records) around the time garage first kicked off, which is a big part of why we wanted to help spark a revival when we started the label, we experienced that excitement the first time around.
The local Southampton scene is showing real promise again. We’ve worked with Ashdunn a Southampton-based producer we’ve nurtured since he was 11 who is now only 16. More talented artists are emerging locally, which is exciting.
We’re also hosting our first Garage Shared event in Southampton to celebrate our seventh birthday: the GS Cup, at Suburbia on 6th December, where four artists will be drawn FA-Cup-style to play back-to-back.
Do you have a particular sound or vibe?
When we launched, Garage Shared focused on vocal garage, while GS Dubs leaned more into the dubbier, club-driven sound. That distinction still roughly exists, however the lines are more fluid and at this point we simply release interesting, forward-thinking garage from around the world.
Do you have a regular artist roster?
We work long-term with a core roster, and each year we introduce four new Ones To Watch who join that wider family.
Our current roster includes artists such as Lockerz, Ashton, HiRobbe, XDBR, Tom Le Chef, Jessi Lowkey. and R2R, to name a few, alongside ourselves ‘FooR’
Tell us about your A&R process…
Our A&R process is quite rigorous. We receive hundreds of submissions every month from all over the world. Our A&Rs go through the inbox and “star” anything the rest of the team should hear. Those tracks are then played at our weekly A&R meeting. If we’re interested, we follow up with the a
rtist, we always ask for more than one song, and we like to know where they’re from and as much background information as possible.
What makes you different from other labels?
The main thing that sets us apart from other labels is that we’re artists ourselves. We work directly with our artists on their production and mixdowns to help get their music sounding as strong as possible. We’re heavily focused on artist development, sometimes we hear someone with great potential and invest time in helping them realise it.
We’re also committed to pushing garage globally. We run a project called Around the World in UKG and this year we released the first ever garage EP from China, as well as a US-focused EP. Our mission is to share garage from all over the world.
What does it take to run a bass-music label in 2026?
Running a bass-music label or any label today takes a huge amount of time. There are so many platforms to manage, so many different areas to develop in order to get artists heard. We spend every day in the office coming up with ideas and strategies to get our artists’ music in front of as many people as possible worldwide.
It’s very time-consuming, and you have to constantly juggle platforms, trends, and creative concepts. Of course, we’re always looking for artists with a unique sound and consistent in their creative output.
What have you got coming up that we should be looking out for?
Looking to the future, we’ll be announcing our Ones To Watch 2026 four new artists we’ll be supporting throughout the year. We have some exciting, larger artist projects coming, including more albums and EPs. Even though today’s landscape is very singles-driven, we’ve always been passionate about albums and love working with artists who want to push boundaries.
Lockerz releases his debut album in the summer with a tour, so that’s one to keep tabs on.
Follow Garage Shared: Soundcloud / Instagram / Youtube
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