“We do things differently”: tunes, tattoos and making dreams come true at Derbyshire record shop

I should feel that I’ve lost cool points, but I don’t. This place has a distinct vibe of come on in, relax. “It’s got a positive atmosphere. That was the biggest thing for me. It’s inviting, it’s welcoming… I wanted it to be known as ‘Oh! Alfreton’s got a record shop! What? We’ve not had one of these since 1980! And they do band merchandise. They do vintage clothing. And they do tattoos.’ It’s like all my favourite things in one.”

Looking through to the back room tattoo parlour, a screen has the Bloodhound Gang dancing in monkey suits, as a guy (later to be introduced as Vince) sits drawing. This place drips character. How did it start? Adam smiles.

“I’d had a week off work. We went to North Wales. Me and my partner Chloe, and the dogs. And I just thought, I’m not going back. I can’t do it… there’s more to life than money… I’m going to set up a record shop.”

Adam tells of his previous job. A high-flying management post involving posh cars: “Head of after-sales. Looked after fifty-odd members of staff. I was very proud of where I’d got to in such a short space of time, but…”

So how did selling records and tattoos come together? Adam shrugs.

“When I came back from Wales, the day after I was booked in with Vince, where he used to work. And I’m sat there, and he’s tattooing my leg, and I said to him ‘Have you ever thought of putting vinyl records and clothing in, over a few storeys, with a tattoo studio?’ And he stopped, and went ‘That’s a great idea’.”

And then, Adam and Vince found this shop. “I just fell in love with the place. I always wanted an old building, a Victorian style shop. I look at Church Street, and think, with a bit of luck, a couple more businesses, it could be the West End of Alfreton.”

Adam shines with optimism, his ambition not one of grab: “We do things differently. Putting people first… forget everything else.”

The shop has been open a year. Has it found its place? “Best community I’ve ever been around. Even if somebody’s not coming in to buy something, they’ll poke their head in, they’ll have a conversation. I’ll make them a drink.”

This open-handed approach could even go further. “We’ve got plans downstairs with the cellar. I’m hoping to open up a music venue. It’s not something I want to get reward from financially. Just a place where people can come. Chill out. Play some music.”

As we walk through to the tattoo parlour the sound of 70s rock gets mixed with 90s grunge, each space a different song, yet a relationship is clear: “We bounce every idea off one another. It’s a collective.”

Carly Simpson, 19, is part of this collective. "I’m the junior artist. Vince is my mentor. I’ve been doing it just over a year. Love it. I’ve always liked art, since growing up. It was a kind of ‘screw it’ kinda thing. I was in uni at the time, doing social work. But I didn’t enjoy it.”

Carly laughs. “An old friend tattooed me, and I just got talking to her. And I thought ‘screw it’, bought a machine off Amazon. Then I tattooed a banana, a melon, then my ankle. A little smiley face… And then I tattooed my family.”

“It kinda picked up really quick. But, there’s always something to learn with tattooing. But I’ve never struggled or doubted it.”

Carly’s confidence is apparent. Watching her tattoo an eternity symbol on a customer’s wrist, the care and attention is clear. “I’m leaning more towards dot work. Tattoos made up of individual dots. I like doing dainty pieces.”

Vincent Heinze, 34, is Retro & Ink’s lead tattoo artist. Baseball cap, hoodie, face tattoo. As an 80s synth-pop song plays in the background, I ask this gentle character his opinion on how appearance can read as intimidating. He smiles.

“Some of the most heavily tattooed people in the world are the nicest people in the world. Just because we look intimidating doesn’t mean we are.”

“In the 90s it was everything underneath clothing, nowadays it’s the opposite. People are getting their hands done first, face done first… There’s a massive stigma about tattoos, which is madness. Because tattoos are everywhere. I think it’s getting to the stage now where it’s actually strange to know someone without a tattoo.”

Vince talks of the relevance of designs. The colour of a Japanese dragon. The backstory to new school designs of disproportionate characters. His own design style that he calls demented food: “A box of fries with a gnarly face on it. A chicken nugget that’s got gnarly buck teeth. Food that looks like it’s out to get you.”

His reputation seems built on trust: “Most of the stuff is custom hand-drawn. There’s no copying other people’s work. There’s a few customers of mine that will just say to me ‘Right, I want a tattoo’. They just let me choose my own idea. And then there are people who will bring in artwork and go ‘Right, I want different aspects from different things’, and then we put it together for them. There’s always a stage of they ask for the idea, we do a draft, we show them what we’re thinking, and if they don’t like it we change it. We don’t do anything final until they go ‘Yeh, I like that’.”

Tears For Fears are singing Shout, but this place is a soft chorus of calm. Vince smiles: “The response we’ve had, not just in the shop, but in the town, is just incredible. It’s an incredible place to work. It really is.”