Trademark was formed around the time of 1995 by two cousins Oliver Horton and Stuart Meads. They had previously played music together as children, and by the ages of 14 and 16 decided they wanted to formulate themselves as a group. The pair were both heavily into electronic pop music. After a number of experimental projects, the pair began to produce material of some substance around 1997. At this stage it had been decided to try to write and produce an album. By the Christmas of 1997 the group played their first live gig at the Whut 97 gathering in Oxfordshire. The set list comprised of tracks the pair had written during the previous year. Oli & Stu continued to write and record like this for the next few years. Trademark have always maintained a strong visual image this all began when they band asked Stephen Baker, a friend of the group, to photograph them. Several photo sessions were done - one set of photos taken by Stephen involved driving to Brighton on a hot August day and donning suits
The Trademark website was launched in May 1998. In 1999 Trademark introduced a new influence - Paul Soulsby. Paul had been recording songs with different friends since he was ten, in the same way that Oli and Stu had. After hearing some of Paul's demos it was decided that Paul should become the third member of Trademark. The first material to be completed with the new line up was 'Audiologue', recorded in the summer of 1999 (not available). The album was a big step forward from their previous material. The album was accompanied by photographs by Stephen Baker in which the lab coat uniform was introduced. Trademark wore the lab coats and posed around London's Canary Wharf, DLR and Bank tube station. Trademark performed for the first time in their current line up at the Truck Festival in Oxfordshire, where their half hour set comprised mostly of material from Audiologue. Two new songs were recorded in winter months of 2000, whereupon a long period of inactivity occurred as the members time was taken up by university degrees. There were plenty of new songs but they were all consigned to demo form for a long time. Once everything had settled down, Trademark started work on their new album, 'Fear : Disconnection' in the summer & Autumn of 2002. The title is a quote from the music video for Trademark's 'Burn', created by Steve Dawson. Trademark also began to gig regularly, and for the first time were premiering unreleased material to their audience.
A highly successful gig at the 2002 Truck Festival (where Trademark were noted as being the only band without guitars) led to a series of performances in Oxford, including Trailerpark at the Cellar and Gappy Tooth at the Zodiac. The band also played regularly in London with a few notable appearance at The Fan Club at The Verge in Kentish Town. Recently Trademark supported Chicks on Speed at Oxford Zodiac and The Human League at Ocean in London. 'Fear : Disconnection' was finished in Jan 2003 and was sold by the band at gigs and over the website to a great reception. In January of 2004 the band followed this up by self releasing "This is Our Trademark" an EP with a set of 5 slightly poppier sounding tracks. This lead to them being signed by Truck records and the putting together of "Trademark Want More" which features tracks from "Fear:Disconnection" and "This is Our Trademark" plus a few new tracks."Want More" is due out on 14th June 2004