Andrew Lauder

Lauder was born in Hartlepool, County Durham, England on 22 May 1947, the son of a timber yard owner. He attended Wellingborough School in Northamptonshire. He moved to London around 1965 to look for work and joined Southern Music as an accounts clerk.

In 1977, Lauder was offered major role at Arista Records, but instead, he co-founded Radar Records with Martin Davis. Radar took on several Stiff Records acts, including Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello and the Attractions and Yachts. Lauder and Jake Riviera opened F-Beat Records in 1979, and several acts, notably Elvis Costello and the Attractions and Nick Lowe, transferred from Radar Records. Lauder and Riviera also started Demon Music Group in 1980, to concentrate on the singles market, early signings including Department S and Bananarama.

Lauder was briefly with Island Records, signing U2 in March 1980 and offering Buzzcocks frontman Pete Shelley a solo record deal. In 1988, he formed the UK based Silvertone Records under the Zomba Group of Companies. Initially focusing on indie bands such as The Stone Roses, he expanded their roster to include Peter "Sonic Boom" Kember John Lee Hooker, J.J. Cale and The Men They Couldn't Hang.

In 1993, Lauder started "This Way Up" label whose signings included Ian McNabb, The Warm Jets, Tindersticks, Redd Kross and Pal Shazar. By 2002, he was living in Knowstone, Devon, where he ran Acadia and Evangeline (not to be confused with the US Evangeline Records label) releasing albums by Ronnie Lane, Spirit, Gov't Mule, Loudon Wainwright III and The Steepwater Band and employed local schoolgirl Joss Stone on work experience. These labels later became part of Floating World Records.

Happy Trails: Andrew Lauder's Charmed Life and High Times in the Record Business (ISBN 147462359X), a memoir co-written by Lauder and Mick Houghton, was released in 2023.