4AD was founded at the end of the 1970s by Ivo Watts-Russell. Like so many of the other people associated with the label, Ivo had spent many teenage hours listening to John Peel's inspirational radio shows; wanting to be around music, he moved to London aged 17 (in 1972) and began working in record shops. While working at a shop in Ealing, he became friends with Steve Webbon, a customer who shared his appreciation for the music of Gram Parsons. When Ivo was promoted to manager, he hired Steve as his assistant.
In 1975, Ivo returned to London after a trip to Morocco. Looking for work, he sought out Steve, who had just opened the second store in the fledgling Beggars Banquet chain. The Beggars Banquet stores sold both new and used records - at the time, a radical concept. Steve told Ivo that a third store was about to open in Ealing; at his suggestion, Ivo went to see Martin Mills, Beggars Banquet's co-founder, who offered him a job.
By 1979, Beggars Banquet had expanded from a chain of five shops into a successful independent record label, tasting early success with acts like Tubeway Army and The Lurkers. By now, Ivo was overseeing all of the shops; he was based at the Beggars offices in Hogarth Road, upstairs from the flagship Earls Court store, which was being run by a fellow music enthusiast named Peter Kent. Bands looking for deals with the label would drop their tapes off at the shop downstairs, which meant that Ivo and Peter were often the first to hear them and the started to make recommendations to Martin Mills and his partner Nick Austin about prospective signings. Ivo and Peter became particularly excited by a demo tape from a band called Moden English, and they urged Mills and Austin to sign them.
Mills and Austin eventually responded by suggesting that they give Ivo and Peter some money to start their own independent label; if anything really took off, they could switch it to the Beggars label for distribution. Ivo and Peter readily agreed, and with a £2000 investment, they proceeded to line up the initial releases for their new venture. After lengthy discussions, the label was christened (at Peter's suggestion) Axis.
Peter and Ivo had been greatly affected by some of the prevailing indie labels of the day - companies like Fast, Factory and Postcard seemed to have as much of an identity as the artists whose records they released. In keeping with that approach, they decided that Axis should debut with four simultaneously released singles.
At the time, it seemed prudent to work with a one-stop company who'd take the lacquers and the films for the singles and press up a finished product. The somewhat unappealing look and sound of what came back--bad vinyl, dodgy sound quality (no test pressings had been made), low-grade paper used for the sleeves, crooked printing on the labels--provided an early lesson in quality control. Still, by the first week of 1980, Ivo and Peter had the records in hand and were preparing to bring them to the world.
Almost at once, they ran into a problem. They'd sent a press release to the British trade publication Music Week announcing the debut of Axis. They swiftly received a phone call from a more established music company - previously unknown to them - who were also called Axis. While granting Ivo and Peter premission to sell off that first batch of singles, the prior Axis insisted that Ivo and Peter find a new name immediately. The solution to the problem came from a promotional flyer that they had printed up to call attention to the new releases. The flyer's designer had added a bit of typography which played on both the new year and the idea of progress: