Interview with Arab Strap

Dave: Well, thanks guys for coming on the show today.

Malcolm: You're welcome.

Dave: To begin with, you guys are from around Glasgow in Scotland. How do you see the scene in Glasgow and in Scotland in general developing?

Malcolm: There's about four good bands including us, and that's about it, I think. There isn't really a scene as such. There's Austin Mogwai and Delgados. Belle & Sebastian are very popular, certainly.

Aidan: It's kind of weird 'cause it's ______________. It's ______________, but it's only like four or five bands, so you can't really call it a scene. Then they can grow, but then no one else kind of comes out of there for a while. I mean, there's not been any like new bands since the four or five mentioned, so that's stagnant just now I'm sure. In a couple of years other bands will start coming through as well.

Malcolm: And Bess. ____________. Great guys.

Dave: Do you guys think that it's largely influenced by American indy music, or more kind of growing out of its own thing?

Malcolm: I think it probably was, and there's certain parts of its roots will be there, but I think all the bands that we mentioned certainly have grown to have their own distinct sound. There would be no point in listening to us if we didn't have any other angle as opposed to, and any other influences.

Dave: Do you guys see your music at all as a product of your environment, or is it more something that kind of grows out of different situations that you experience?

Malcolm: I don't think it's a product of our environment, no, but I think we're certainly influenced by things we're doing _______________, but I think basically what we do comes from inside ourselves, you know. I'm sure we'd make the same music no matter where we came from, you know.

Dave: Yeah. Is it a more emotional thing?

Malcolm: Well, I think it sounds like us, so probably is, yeah.

Aidan: I think that the environment things are a very small part of it. I think most of it would be emotional, as Malcolm said. Wherever we're from, wherever we were born, we probably would make the same sounding records. I think specifically because they're _________ and touchy, so there's a folk element there and stuff. And obviously, my accent, people associate that with the environment ________________. That's an assumption to make _______.

Dave: That kind of brings me to my next question. There does seem to be a very extreme emotional content to your music. Do you guys think that you're pretty emotional people as compared to other...

Malcolm: I'm one of the jolliest people you'll ever meet, and I think the records are how it is. Aidan: I don't think we're more emotional than other people, but I think, no, that's not true I thought we just said, because basically, it's because of our influences and you were saying like do American music that we listen to time as well, and we're making songs in the studio, we try to put emotion into it and get emotion out of the songs as well, so it's a creative process, you know. It's not like we have more sense of our emotion than other people, it's just that is what we like to hear in music and that's the music we're making.

Malcolm: Basically we've got more balls than most.

Dave: To put emotion into your songs. Is it cathartic at all for you to get your emotion out that way, or is it...

Malcolm: I suppose it must be. Yes...

Dave: I mean, do you come out of playing music feeling ahhhhhhhh.

Malcolm: No, I come out of making a record feeling like that. Playing live is a different thing completely. That just drains me.

Aidan: Yeah. I think we enjoy ourselves in the studio, but it's not like we start throwing like TV's through the window and go _________ on there, but we know what songs we like and what we'd like to listen to and probably want to go home at the end of the day, it's like a finished song, you know. I think playing live's different because it does drain you when you've got to through the...I mean, when you make the song in the studio, you're building it and you know what you want hear, but when you've got to do this night after night, it can be quite draining, yeah. But I mean, you've got to do that, otherwise you'll just be going through the motions if you don't like feel it. I think with us especially, it won't sound as good, because we've got to be focused on what we're playing, otherwise it will just sound like we're ____________ or going through the motions, you know.

Dave: So you invest quite a bit in each live performance?

Aidan: I think we'd like to, but about 50% of our gigs are terrible and we don't, but the ones that are good really work, but we can't do it all the time. I don't know why we can't, we're just not a professional band, you know.

Malcolm: I think if we did sound excellent all the time, there wouldn't be any point in continuing. I don't see the point and I don't want to sound over-practiced and too glossy. But getting bad __________________ like everybody else and I get too drunk like everybody else, so sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Aidan: On our records, as well as playing live, to listen to our first couple of albums, the best parts and mistakes, because we just record it, like first time, so the mistakes add to, I mean, we're not like Steeley Dan when we play live. We're not tight. So the mistakes we make ________________. ___________________ if are passed off ______________. You always laugh about it later on, you know, so, we don't want to be over practiced, we just want to try, you know.

Dave: There also seems to be kind of a romantic aspect to your music. Do you think that you guys are hopeless romantics, or...

Malcolm: Only in song.

Aidan: Hope-ful romantics.

Dave: Cool. I'm actually asked to ask this because of our sponsor, which is Samsung Electronics. Who are your influences?

Aidan: Samsung Electronics.

Malcolm: ______________ Samsung.

Aidan: Influences musically?

Dave: Sure.

Malcolm: Last week I've been listening to, actually, mostly for the past three months, I've just been listening to us, so.... Tom Waites.

Aidan: For influences, _____________, but the music we make, for influences, we'd have to go with bands we hate. I know ____________ to make the records we do because no one else is filling that gap for us personally, not for everyone, but just for us, so I'm not going to sit and tell you ___________ the people we hate, it made us ___________ been a band, so.

Dave: Give me an example.

Aidan: You know if you see an advert in the street or just someone in the Top 10 charts, it's just like music like that, you know. Just soul-less music that's just manufactured. Or even to go _____________ just overly affected music that's just so pretentious.

Dave: Teen pop music you mean?

Aidan: Yeah, but the way it's manufactured is bad, but somebody will get some writers writing songs for these artists, you know. But just sell their souls ___________.

Dave: Do you think that there's been kind of a resurgence of that kind of music recently?

Malcolm: There was a big pop resurgence a wee while a go. Which was fair enough. Kids need records. Children listen to music as well as grownups, but we just don't want children to buy our records, that's all.

Dave: Cool.

Malcolm: Brittany's nice.

Dave: How about outside of music, what are your influences?

Malcolm: Um, alcohol and drugs mainly. And comics in my case.

Dave: Being from Scotland, do you guys mostly drink scotch whiskey then?

Malcolm: I fuckin' hate whiskey. No, I detest it.

Dave: Really? What do you drink then?

Malcolm: A good imported American beer.

Dave: Budweiser?

Aidan: Jack Daniels. So if anyone wants to send us any of these....

Malcolm: Not Jack Daniels ___________ whiskey.

Aidan: Then are we boring drinkers or just used to drink beer.

Malcolm: I like cider a lot, actually. I'm a big fan of cider. Very strong English cider.

Dave: I had some of that when I was over there. We don't really have that here.

Malcolm: That's the first problem I've first seen ______________. That's the first problem we have tonight. No cider. _____________ some suitable thing to fill its place.

Dave: We might have some Budweiser. Oh yeah, yeah. It's cider.

Malcolm: Yeah, I think. Well, I'll try that.

Dave: It's not too bad. It's not as strong. That's great stuff right there. What advice do you guys have for up and coming bands? This show is kind of based around finding up and coming bands that nobody's real heard of, and we try to talk to larger bands about what they've done, where they're going.

Malcolm: I don't think we're in any position to give advice.

Aidan: Yes we are. Just be yourself. Try not to be influenced by too many people. Just play from your heart. Feel what's inside and swear a lot and drink lots of cider, you'll be fine.

Malcolm: It's funny. We spend a lot of time at the Chemikal Underground office, and every time I'm there, I listen to some new demo tapes, and you have to realize there are thousands of bands trying to make records, and at least 999 are never going to get anywhere, so you have to be brilliant first of all. You have to be a genuine genius before you're going to get anywhere.

Aidan: Or just like us and be really lucky.

Malcolm: Or lucky like us. We were very lucky.

Dave: How did you get lucky? What happened?

Malcolm: We sent a tape to nine record labels. Only one of them wrote back, and they wanted to sign us, so we were very, very lucky I think.

Dave: Who was it?

Malcolm: Chemikal Underground from Glasgow. The famous label in all the world.

Dave: And they put out your record? In the United States as well?

Malcolm: No, the first two albums were on Matador over here, and the new one, the last two were on Jetset over here, but virtually everything in the U.K. has been on Chemikal Underground except the two that were on Matador, but there's been, everything from now on and everything else.

Dave: Have you guys done a lot of U.S. tours?

Malcolm: We did the northeast for two weeks a couple of years ago, and it was in the middle of a heat wave, and it was a fuckin' nightmare. I don't like to swear, so it was a hm hm nightmare.

Aidan: _________ I said West as well in 1998. This is our third time over, so it's good. Hopefully something next year we'll be able to come back with our next record which is finished and do a proper tour, you know.

Dave: Yeah, it doesn't seem like you've made it all the way across to wherever I've ever been living.

Aidan: Oh, no. But that's just because we've just been changing labels, but we're kind of settled now, so we'll be over next year hopefully.

Dave: Great. This is one more question. How do you guys see the difference between major labels and independent labels, or being on a major label and being completely independent, no label at all?

Aidan: I think there's definitely benefits of both. The benefits of major labels being there's more money, that's the only benefit. And the benefit of independent label, you can like, the label we're on, you can talk to everyone in the label and there's not like some massive chain of command there, your voice gets weaker as it goes along. We've been on a major label, and it was crap, you know. But I'm sure some are suited to that if that's what they want. I mean, if you want to sell like, be like Cheryl Crow or something and go that way, but if you want to not compromise the music you're making, then you're better being on an independent label, definitely.

Malcolm: I think you'll find that most independent labels have far more respect for music and their artists than any major will, but that doesn't make it necessarily any better. Sometimes there's been quite a few independent labels who have never had records on, but I know who are unpleasant shall we say.

Aidan: Major labels as well. I mean, it's called the music business, and lots of these people go to work for these record companies like to get a job. I mean, fair enough, because the jobs are there and the money's there and your people need to work, but I think music and business don't really go together that well, so a lot of people don't care about the music they're putting out. So it's just like a business, just run by lawyers and accountants basically, you know.

Dave: How do you see the business end of it? I mean, you guys are, as a band, reasonably successful and therefore forced to deal with the business end. How has that happened for you? Did you get a manager? Did you remain self-managed? How did that work for you?

Malcolm: Presently we're doing everything ourselves and I think that's probably the way it'll stay for a considerable amount of time. We did have a manager who disappeared at some point, and the whole business end, we'd done it all before. The only time anything went wrong was when we got a manager, so it's not hard to work out.

Aidan: It's a pain in the ass, though. I mean, we don't want to manage a band, but then do this to become part of the music business, but in order for us to come to America, for instance, and play tonight, or just tour, we've got to do it ourselves, so, it's a pain in the ass, but someone's got to do it, you know. So that's one of the down sides of it.

Malcolm: In fact, if we want anything done right, we're going to have to do it ourselves. I don't trust anyone. Well, there's one guy I trust, but he's too fuckin' stupid to do it. I didn't mean that.

Dave: If I could just get you guys to do some id's, we're about done.