The Leadmill Sheffield: Founder says he would 'strip everything out', find a new venue and go back to 'basics'

The team running the internationally renowned city centre club are fighting to prevent themselves being evicted by their landlord, the Electric Group, which runs music establishments elsewhere and wants to take over when the lease expires next year.

Thousands of people have signed a petition to protect the venue as it is now, and famous musicians including the Arctic Monkeys, Pulp and Richard Hawley have backed the #savetheleadmill campaign.

Now John Redfearn, The Leadmill’s original founder, has shared his opinion on the ownership struggle and revealed what he would do were he still involved.

“If it were me in this situation, I would strip everything out, take the sign down and get the council to give us another building to start back from the basic principles upon which The Leadmill was founded. I would take the legacy with us,” he said.

“If they did that, half of Sheffield would come out to support it because its reputation goes beyond a single building.”

He also told how he believed The Leadmill had already surrendered some of its soul since becoming a corporate ‘cattle market’ venue, focused on profit, and he saw this as an opportunity to return to its founding ethos as a cooperative ‘community hub’ which had made it so special in the first place.

John described how The Leadmill had been inspired by the Esquire Club, which used to be on the upper floors of the building on Leadmill Road and which he had frequented as a teenager in the 60s at a time when he said the city was ‘really kicking’.

He visited the site, where he met the building’s owner Don Fox and set out his vision for a ‘multi-faceted arts centre’ to fix what he said was a ‘dearth of cultural energy’ in the city at that time. Having heard him out, Don replied ‘do it then’ and agreed to hand over the premises for free.

John said he got the ball rolling, teaming up with co-founders Chris Andrews, Adrian Vinken and Phil Mills to make his dream a reality, but he had to pull out before the licencing application was submitted as he had been arrested in an acid drugs bust during the early 70s and didn’t want his past to jeopardise things.

He also hailed the role in The Leadmill’s early success played by Martin Bedford, who designed the iconic logo and created the posters promoting the early gigs.

And he gave a nod too to Dave Wickett, his former economics lecturer at Sheffield Polytechnic, now Sheffield Hallam University, who went on to set up the famous Fat Cat pub and who he said had been a big inspiration.

John, who is now 73, living in Gloucestershire and semi-retired, having set up an organic food firm, said he visited The Leadmill for the first time in 35 years at the weekend and was slightly disappointed at what it has become.

“It’s lost its soul and it’s lost its energy. It was founded as a cooperative, with the net income being redistributed equitably on wages and on the budgets for in-house activities and outreach projects,” he said.

“Now it’s just a corporate gig venue, a cattle market where you take people in, take their money, sell them expensive beer and throw them out at the other side.”

As well as returning to the cooperative model, he added that he would like to see the breadth of cultural activities it hosts widened and for it to open throughout the day again as a place where people can exchange ideas and get the creative energy flowing.