The record store was opened initially to re-sell records that he and a friend, Nick Austin, had collected for a mobile disco. The disco, and then the company, was named after the
Rolling Stones' album
Beggars Banquet. Mills and Austin had seen an opportunity for a record shop that sold both new and second-hand records. Beggars Banquet soon became a six-shop chain in London, arriving shortly before punk broke through;
"It turned what we did upside down. We all started being interested in a completely different style of music. The kind of concerts we had been promoting suddenly became completely irrelevant, so we started promoting punk gigs instead. It was an amazing, incredibly exciting sea change." In the radio show he was quoted as saying that
The whole point [of independent music publishing] is not giving people what they want but what they are going to want. and the US (A2IM), and the Worldwide Independent Network. He also led the establishment of
Merlin in 2008, the independents’ rights licensing body, which has distributed well over $2 billion to members since launch, and today counts 850 members from 63 countries. He has remained active in other music industry organisations, through his participation in the government’s
Music Industry Forum, the Music Business Forum, being on the board of UK Music, and both as a director of PPL and VPL, the industry’s rights licensing bodies. In addition, he was called by the US Senate to Washington in 2012 to be a witness in the hearing on the proposed purchase of EMI Records by Universal Music. He was awarded an MBE in the 2008
New Year Honours list, as well as outstanding contribution awards from Music Week, Billboard, the Radio Academy, the Featured Artists Coalition,
IMPALA, Canadian Music Week, The Music Producers’ Guild, A2IM, Billboard, and the 'Pioneer Award' at the AIM Awards. A Beggars Group sale of their stake in
Spotify in 2019 earned Mills £8 million. As of 2023, the labels that comprise the Beggars Group are
4AD,
Matador Records,
Rough Trade Records,
XL Recordings and
Young. ==Awards and accolades==