Kingston's Banquet Records has been dubbed "the most influential record store in the UK right now at helping an artist or a band secure a number one," by The New Statesman's Hannah Barnes, in a podcast.

Speaking about the concerts Banquet Records hosts at Pryzm, Barnes said: "They really do bring the big guns to Kingston.

"In the last few years, we've seen some great people […] The Who, Elbow, Stormzy, Keen, Snow Patrol.

"Billie Eilish was there in 2019. This year alone Rod Stewart, who, as if he didn't need to be anyway, but is now confirmed as a legend by his 2025 Glastonbury booking.

"So, they're [Banquet Records] clearly doing something right."

Speaking about Banquet Records more generally, Barnes said: "Well they love music and any kind of music, but what they did very early on, even before it was Banquet Records when it was Beggars Banquet, is they tried to combine the person that buys records with the person that goes to gigs, and more recently they've done this with astounding success."

Barnes goes on to explain that Banquet Records helps artists promote their new albums by bringing them in to play small intimate gigs, "usually about 50 minutes", so that giggers buy the album as well.

When the record store hosts gigs, it usually offers a ticket option that comes with a CD of the album costing around £20, which has become "a really brilliant way for artists to sell quite a lot of physical copies of their album, and that matters because of the way that the album chart has come together," says Barnes.

She explained that the major proportion of sales for artists who have become number one in the charts comes from physical sales of the album with a "real major percentage" of those sales coming through Banquet Records."

She said: "More than a third of the artists who have secured a number one album this year by the end of November have played in Kingston Upon Thames" at a Banquet Records gig.

These include artists such as Snow Patrol, The Libertines, Michael Ball, and Alfie Bow.

During the podcast, an interview by Barnes with Banquet Records' owner Jon Tolley is played.

In this interview, Tolley said: "Banquet has always been focused on new music […] that's the way we can get these huge artists to play in Kingston."

Tolley explains that Banquet isn't the only record store in Kingston as Waterstones and Urban Outfitters sell vinyls, as does the new HMV store.

He said: "If you have access to every song in the world on your phone, there needs to be something else to sort of mark where the songs you love fit in.

"I don't want it to be materialistic, but I do want it to be like the working person's art collection and it can be the same for a teenager as it is for a 60-year-old. 'This is a record, and I own it not because I need to own it but because I want to experience it and it's a different way of experiencing it'."

He continued: "It's a human part of appreciation of art, I think."

Banquet Records owner Jon Tolley was interviewed by 'The New Statesman's' Hannah Barnes (Credit: John Tolley)

You can listen to Tolley's full interview with Barnes here.

Banquet Records has also recently been recognised in The Times.

Speaking about Banquet Records' recent media recognition, Tolley told Kingston Nub: "With The New Statesman and The Times article, we've had a couple of national news pieces recently, and of course we were on prime time BBC1 with Strictly too.

"All of these things are great for us and help us get the word out about what we do and will hopefully help us make existing events more sustainable and help attract other artists to Kingston.

 "Lots of our customers know all about what we do, but there's so many people from around our way that aren't aware of the big things that happen from this little shop."