Off Licence 16
Delivered to Stack subscribers in Nov 2025

by Steve Watson in December 2025

Based in Brighton, Off Licence is a champion of underground and independent music. This 16th issue focuses on jazz, shining a light on the British artists, club nights, and grassroots organisations that are driving the genre forward.

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Name
Greg Stanley

Job title
Editor and founder

What is Off Licence?
Offie Mag is an independent print magazine and events platform centred on independent music and the culture around it. I started it in 2018 basically as a way for me — a young writer with no industry connections — to get my work out there. It grew faster than expected. Friends got involved, people started submitting, and a lot of the artists we featured early on were getting their first bit of print coverage through us.

From there it sort of became a cult thing, and suddenly there was an appetite for events, club nights, and bigger projects. The print magazine still grounds us, but the wider platform — radio, events, community projects — is just as important now.

What makes it different to the rest?
We don’t just write about issues in the creative world, we try to do things that respond to them. Over the years we’ve worked hard to fundraise and used Arts Council funding and brand partnerships to run projects around independent venues, artist revenue, and the decline of community radio, for example.

A big part of our identity is also that we’re intentionally unpretentious: documentary-style photography, no stylists, no studio gloss. Just artists as they are, in their own spaces or locations they’ve often chosen. We’ve kept that DIY approach the whole way, at first through necessity and now through choice… and necessity.

Who makes Off Licence?
It’s an absolute buzzword at times, but Offie Mag has become something of a community, especially in Brighton. One of my favourite things is that people feel comfortable coming to our events on their own, knowing they’ll either bump into someone they know or meet someone they’ll get along with.

As for who makes it all happen, I’m the editor-in-chief. Matt Leppier, our Managing Editor, has been involved since the early issues and the very first event. We met through a community radio station in Brighton and he’s been there ever since.

Dan Lovrinov, our designer, is someone I met at university in Brighton. He designed the first issue for his portfolio and is now a seriously talented, well-regarded graphic designer that we’re lucky to still work with.

Lou (Louis Rowland / Wachuwan) is our first-ever intern. We’ve always avoided having interns because we wanted to make sure we could genuinely offer something of value, but Lou’s enthusiasm basically made it impossible to not bring him in. He’s a producer, radio host, a great writer, and a key part of Offie Mag DJs.

Elsa Monteith has been part of the team for years — she originally handled distribution and is now one of our recurring writers and Offie Mag DJs.

Simran Aulja joined us via an NHS placement scheme. (What a scheme that is, by the way.) She already came in with a really strong understanding of grassroots music culture and is a naturally gifted writer. She had her first writing in print for issue 16 and will have more in the next magazine, too.

We also work with a lot of regular collaborators like Marko Marincic, a brilliant writer and DJ who runs our Culinary Corner; Asher Penney, an incredible photographer; and a wide mix of contributors who write short reviews, long-form features, run radio shows, take photos or DJ at our events.

Who reads it?
It’s a real mix. There are people who’ve bought every issue since day one when we were still an A5 zine, and now we’re shipped and stocked all over the world. Our biggest audiences are in London, Brighton, Bristol, Manchester and New York. Our US readership has grown a lot in recent years — almost to the size of our UK audience — although sustaining that has been a challenge with postage costs rising since the Trump administration reared its ugly head. The least of his evils, in fairness.

But overall, the people who read Offie Mag deeply care about independent music. They understand why it matters. A lot of them are creatives themselves — musicians, photographers, designers — and maybe they approach the magazine the same way they might approach digging for records or going down a YouTube wormhole.

Why do you work in magazines?
Many reasons! I’ve always loved writing, and making a magazine myself became the most natural way for me to build a life around it — especially without any industry connections to fall back on. I’m fortunate that my family members have always encouraged me to pursue writing and journalism, and for years, I had other jobs, like copywriting or part-time work in communications or marketing to make it work.

Another factor is that I speak with a stammer, which affects me more than most people realise. Writing has always been a space where I can say exactly what I want to say, how I want to say it. Offie Mag has also allowed me to grow into using my speech on the radio and at events, which I’m very grateful for.

Outside of that, Offie Mag lets me do the things I’d be doing anyway — going to gigs and festivals, discovering music, taking photos, writing about trips. The salary might not be competitive, but the perks are. And being able to pay other creatives to do their thing is something I’m really proud of.

Aside from the magazine, what else do you do?
I’m obsessed with football. Watching Liverpool, playing on Wednesday nights in Brighton, listening to podcasts on Ireland’s football history, and playing far too much Football Manager.

Outside of that, it’s gigs, dancing with my fiancée, time with my friends, pubs, and seeing my nieces whenever I can.

What would you change about Off Licence if you could?
Honestly, I’d love more funding and stability so we could bring in guest editors and expand the team properly. I’d like to not have to be editor-in-chief every single issue and let other voices lead sometimes, but that relies on having the revenue to do it fairly.

More widely, I’d love to see more brands and cultural institutions genuinely invest in independent media and independent music. Not just say they value it when it suits them, or slap their logos on an artist or platform once they’ve already blown up.

Where do you see Off Licence in five years?

Still independent.

Still printing four times a year.

Still putting on grassroots events across the UK (and hopefully outside the UK, too).

Hopefully, with all the subscribers we have now, plus many more, providing more paid work for writers, photographers and musicians, and doing all of it within a healthier underground music ecosystem than we have right now.