Mogwai are some very silly people
who make quite serious music. If you're already a fan of Mogwai,
you probably know that they come from just outside of Glasgow,
make primarily instrumental music, and have recently released
a slew of cds, eps, and the like, including the latest, Come On
Die Young. I recently spoke with some of the members of Mogwai
regarding such diverse topics as Sting, shagging, Glasgow, and
of course, their music. This interview, while a bit long, was
so sillly and interesting that I thought it would be best to leave
it as is, as a transcript of our conversation.
Here's a guide to who's who:
Janine Papp - Queen Bee of Temple of Sting
Anastasia Signoretta - friend of Janine, also has an insane knowledge
of all things Britpop
Stuart Braithwaite - guitars / keyboards / percussion
Dominic Aitchison - bass / guitar
Barry Burns - flute / guitar / keyboards
Janine: This is my zine, Temple of Sting.
Dominic: It's great, because they wrote down descriptions of all
the people that were doing interviews, and for you he wrote that
you like bees but you don't like Sting.
Janine: That's me.
Dominic: Oh, I can't stand him.
Janine: Oh, great. One of the questions that I always ask people
is if they've had any run-ins with Sting, or have any good stories
about Sting.
Dominic: No, I don't. The only big rock star I met was Bono when
I was on a ski holiday when I was nine and he was skiing in the
same place. He was skiing about in leather pants. Bono was crap
at skiing, he kept falling on his arse and he fell on his arse
right in front of me. I helped him up, but I was nine at the time
and I was asked "Are you Bono, aren't you?" and he was
going "No, no, I'm not Bono." I can't believe he was
saying this to me but he had leather pants.
Janine: So you play bass and guitar in the band, is that correct?
Dominic: And I sing. Mostly I play bass because I'm not very good
at the guitar.
Janine: And you come from Glasgow?
Dominic: Outside. I live actually outside Glasgow, in the country.
We all live around Glasgow.
Janine: It seems that lately there's a lot of attention given
to bands from that area. A lot of these bands don't really sound
that much alike, but they all seem to be coming from the same
area - like Belle and Sebastian, Arab Strap, Delgados.
Dominic: You don't think we sound like Arab Strap? I sort of thought
we sounded like Arab Strap, because no one ever points out that
we sound like Arab Strap, but we sound like them in so many cases
and no one's ever mentioned it.
Anastasia: I think that of all the Glasgow bands, I would put
Mogwai and Arab Strap the closest together, but at the same time
you definitely do different things. I wouldn't neccesarily put
Mogwai and Belle and Sebastian on a double bill.
Janine: Do you think there's something about that area is conducive
to the amount of bands in the area, or are there not more bands
there than anywhere else, but the media is just potryating it
that way?
Dominic: Half of it is just pure coincidence. There's a lot of
good bands coming from Glasgow, always has been. Because Glasgow
is a really small place and it's really far removed from the music
industry scene in London - most people in bands in London are
in bands because they want to be stars, and everybody in a band
in Glasgow just wants to make the best music they possibly can.
There's no way you could get away with the star thing because
of Glasgow being such a small place. If anyone was in a big band,
like Belle and Sebastian, could quite easily justifiably walk
about acting like rock stars, because they're huge, they've sold
so many records, and they could be such a bunch of asses about
it, but they're not. If anyone tried to do that in Glasgow you'd
get horse whipped, you just wouldn't get away with it.
Anastasia: Do you think Glasgow is becoming the new London of
Britain, as far as music is concerned?
Dominic: Not really, no. There's all these good bands, but it's
always been like that.
Janine: Do you find that there's a particularly supportive environment
there, though?
Dominic: All the bands do get on with each other, we're all friends.
Because it's such a small place, there's only a certain amount
of places to play, there's only a couple of pubs that people go
in. I suppose everyone knows each other, everyone's pals with
each other, but it's not quite the media portray it, it's not
quite as calculated or cliquey.
Anastasia: Are there people coming from England to Glasgow trying
to be in the scene?
Dominic: I never met anyone from England, I met someone from Halifax,
Canada. The band was called the Rentals.
Janine: How did you first start playing music, how did you learn?
Did you learn from other people or bands in Glasgow?
Dominic: No, it's like my brother bought a keyboard and bass guitar
for about 40 pounds and he just never used it. I've got three
big brothers. Two of them play guitar. So my oldest brother was
a total punk fan, so he bought the bass, he thought, right, it's
only got 4 strings, it must be really easy to play. He's one of
these people if he can't pick it up right away, he can't be bothered.
So I just taught myself. See, I was playing for about three or
four years before I started the band with Stuart. I was in loads
of really, really shit bands with people I knew from school.
Anastasia: What kinds of bands?
Dominic: I mean, bands that did Rolling Stones covers. I was absolutely
mortified, I would never enjoy what we were doing, but there was
nobody else I knew that liked the same sort of things I did to
start a band with, so we'd sit there arguing "let's do a
cover of Brown Sugar," and I'm like, "No, let's NOT
do a cover of Brown Sugar."
Janine: So how did you meet the other people in the band?
Dominic: I met Stuart when I was sixteen at a Ned's Atomic Dustbin
gig. They were my favorite band when I was fourteen. I thought
that Ned's was the best band I'd ever heard.
Anastasia: They're a great band, highly underrated.
Janine: And they have two bass players.
Dominic: That's it. I met Stuart because he was a friend of my
best friend's big brother. Stuart was actually a bit of a legend
to me when I was a wee guy, because my best pal was always going
"My brother knows this guy Stuart, and apparently he can
play guitar chords." I just bumped into him because he was
in odd bands and our bands played with each other a couple of
times. One day e called me up and asked me if I wanted to start
a band. He knew Martin because he went to see this band when he
was fourteen called Birdland. John used to go to school with me.
Janine: So, why does the band choose to work in a format that's
mainly without lyrics, vocals, or singing?
Dominic: Well, when we first started, all the songs had singing
on them, but there were a couple of tunes that were instrumental
and we realized that we were a lot better at it.
Anastasia: When you first started playing with Stuart, was it
the same type of thing you're doing now?
Dominic: No, actually it wasn't. It was pretty awful. It was pretty
funky, there was a couple of tunes that I would even describe
as being slightly grunge. We just got to the point where we realized
that if the song didn't need vocals, if the tunes were good tunes,
there was no point in putting them on and none of us are really
good singers. Stuart's the best out of all of us.
Anastasia: The first time I saw you guys play was '97 at Brownies
with Snow Patrol, that was great, and then you played at Other
Music, and while I was at the show I was watching everyone in
the crowd. And it was all men, all boys. And these were definitely
people who when they were younger were metalheads. What influence
does metal have on Mogwai? Were you guys into metal at any point?
Dominic: No, but the weird thing is, it's just that most people
go through a heavy metal phase at about thirteen, but that stuff
never appealed to me. But as soon as we started the band, about
a year into it, we all started getting into Black Sabbath. And
I'm disgusted to admit I absolutely love it. But it has absolutely
no bearing on the music whatsoever. I don't know, we all like
Black Sabbath, and that's about it. Maybe George used to be really
into Poison and stuff like that. We all liked Guns n' Roses before
we started. I don't know if they're really heavy metal, but we
all liked Guns n' Roses.
Janine: I have to admit that when I was about twelve I was really
into Poison and Guns n' Roses.
Anastasia: Everybody was, that was what you were exposed to. Remember
the bad bands, like Anthrax and Skid Row?
Dominic: Whenever we come to New York, I always see Scott Ian.
I saw him last night in a restaurant, who was sitting in the window
but Scott Ian? What was I jabbering on about?
Janine: Well, since a lot of your songs don't have lyrics, where
do the song titles come from? What's the relation to the song?
Dominic: It's all rubbish.
Anastasia: What was the Puff Daddy one?
Dominic: Puff Daddy Antichrist.
Anastasia: I want to know about that one.
Dominic: Sometimes we get really drunk before we go on and we
write things on our arms just because we're bored stupid. One
day I wrote "Puff Daddy Antichrist" it was just in between
that Police sample one, I always hated that song.
Janine: Good for you, it's the worst!
Dominic: Stuart, every time he really wants to piss us off, he
starts playing it. It was in between that and that massacre of
Kashmir that they brought out, and I just can't stand him, and
I just wrote "Puff Daddy Antichrist."
Janine: He takes the worst samples of the most overplayed songs.
Anastasia: I just saw him on MTV and he said "Well, if this
is what I'm famous for - taking other people's songs - at least
I'm famous for something." Such a bad attitude.
Dominic: I reckon he's a really sharp guy, because those really
bad songs he samples... As soon as I start watching MTV, I can't
stop watching, I wait for a good video that never comes on.
Anastasia: How do you see Mogwai in relation to the rest of the
music that's coming out of Britain now? Or, where would you place
yourselves, like the stuff you read in NME, like the bands that
NME is touting as being really great right now?
Dominic: I don't know, I mean the thing is with NME, they have
to cover the bands that sell in the papers, so it's very rare
that you ever read about good bands in NME. But we did a tour
with the Manic Street Preachers. I can't think of a more strange
coupling of bands.
Anastasia: Well, how do you feel about the Manic Street Preachers?
Dominic: I think they are lovely guys, but musically they suck.
Anastasia: Were you into them when they had Richie?
Dominic: No, I've never liked them, never have.
Janine: I have to say I'm really not familiar with their music
at all.
Dominic: They were huge in Britain. The singer went missing a
couple of years ago.
Anastasia: Richie was a depressive drunk, he used to slash himself,
then he just disappeared. When he was in the band, they were kind
of not really punk, but rock.
Dominic: They used to wear ski masks. They came back as a sort
of soft rock kind of band, then they had their terrorist sort
of look, and then this guy went missing and they came back as
stadium punks.
Anastasia: Are they fans of yours?
Dominic: They asked us because they liked us, they'd come see
us quite often. It was like a warm up tour for them, much bigger
places than we'd ever play. We'd get pure abuse every night. The
first night we played I was really shaking, because we're so used
to playing to people that want to see us. A couple of nights you
got a handful of people to see us, but most of the time the people
looking at you didn't understand it. They kept going "Where's
the singing?" They hated us, the front three rows would be
rows of teenagers. Every night it became our mission to go on
stage and inflict as much noise as we could, just ruin 45 minutes
of the night, it was great. You get so angry at these people.
Anastasia: I think the British press is freaking out because they
had Britpop to ride all their press on, and now it's completely
gone, and they're still putting Blur and Suede and Oasis on covers
because they don't know what else to do.
Dominic: If we got completely slayed in the press, nobody would
like us. Not nobody, but we would lose a lot of fans.
Janine: When you play live, do you do any improvising?
Dominic: Not really, most of our songs are so loosely structured
anyway, we can go off a tangent. We don't really do it that much
any more, we used to do it all the time when we first started.
30% of the time it was brilliant when we got it right, but 70%
of the time, when you got it wrong, which is quite often, it really
sucked.
Janine: Now when you're writing or recording the songs, do you
all do it together, or separately? How does that work?
Dominic: When we first started the band it was usually Stuart.
For the last album, Young Team, it was half me and half Stuart.
Now, it's usually in rehearsal, somebody plays an idea and then
we play our own parts to it.
Janine: So it's turning into more of a collaborative effort?
Dominic: Definitely. Most of the songs on this album are Stuart's,
but two of them are mine, but they're more the whole band's this
time, not mine or Stuart's.
Janine: When there's not one person singing, it seems easier to
focus on playing really well together, I think they rhythm section
tends to improve that way.
Dominic: They're so many bands that we like where the singing
ruins the tunes. They've got amazing tunes, but really bad singing.
It's a mistake, it's a convention that you've got to have singing,
but you don't have to stick to normal songwriting structures when
you don't have singing.
Anastasia: Do you feel like because you don't have singing on
most of you songs, that it makes you inaccessable?
Dominic: I would like to be as huge as we possibly can, make some
money to get a house, that would be great. Before we did the Manics
tour we thought it was possible. They're just good basic tunes,
there's no reason why people can't get into it. But most people
will never like it, no matter how great the tunes are, because
there's no singing, they can't understand it. We had a lot of
people come up to us at those gigs, like "You're alright,
we like the music, but there's no singing, you need to have singing."
Janine: Well, when you think about it, it's only for the past
fifty years or so that singing has become an integral part of
popular music. If you go back before rock n' roll, to big band,
jazz, even classical, there's no singing. People responded to
the emotions that the music brings out.
Dominic: A lot of people like dance music, which is really big
in Britain. And there's no singing on it, it's all instrumental.
I don't know if I even answered the question.
Janine: Well, there really was no question, it was just an observance.
Anastasia: It's easier to listen to a top 40 song. Music without
words can be almost more rewarding, in a way.
Dominic: A lot of people don't see music like that. It's background
music or something to dance to when you're going out to the pub.
That's why you get stuff like Boyz to Men, Backstreet Boys...
Janine: Oh, I have to admit a weakness for the Backstreet Boys...
Dominic: "Backstreet's Back" is a fuckin' great tune.
Janine: Oh my god - that's the song I'm obsessed with! I'm not
joking. I heard it on the radio and I literally almost fell down
laughing. "Am I sexual? Oh yeah..." I have the album,
someone gave it to me. I put it on at work for a laugh, but now
everyone loves it.
Dominic: "Backstreet's Back" is such a good tune, there's
no messing with it. The video's great. Stuart really loves it
as well.
Janine: So, getting back to Mogwai - you recorded this album in
upstate NY?
Dominic: Yeah, in a place called Cassadogas - just outside of
Fredonia. It's absolutely beautiful. As soon as we arrived there,
David said it was full on redneck country, he said because it
was hunting season, so be careful if you're going for a walk.
I thought, he's joking. But we went to a local store, and as soon
as you walk in the store, you've got your armor section. You see
the shotgun, the platic deer for the target practice, deer heads
on the wall... all the arrows. We just wanted some beer and food
and stuff. When we went back in the car and we were adjusting
the mirror, someone was targeting us with a laser sight, like
they were shining it on David's head. We thought, this is really
bad. We were up there for about three weeks. We really wanted
Dave to produce the album, but he doesn't really go anywhere else
because he's got his family.
Anastasia: Did being in America, instead of Glasgow, have a different
influence on the record?
Dominic: In Glasgow we were stunted because we'd go off to see
girlfriends, or go off to the pub or something, we'd never concentrate
on the album. So here, there was nothing else to do, you've just
got the album to concentrate on. It took us absolutely ages to
come up with the first album. There was rubbish because of it
as well, cause we all had too many things going on at the time,
too many distractions. It was great to concentrate on the album
because there was absolutely nothing else to do.
Anastasia: So how do you see Mogwai fitting in with American music?
Young Team was hugely successful at college radio.
Dominic: I think that basically most of the bands that are influences
are American bands. Basically, Slint. When we first started the
band, Stuart never heard them and I made a compilation tape up
for Stuart, then I got a phone call from him going, "The
tape's alright, but Slint is just the most incredible thing I've
ever heard in my life" and that's the same thing I thought.
Stuff like Slint, Rodan, Tortoise. I think most of what we do
musically is not different at all from American bands, but we've
got our own sort of British slant on it. I know some people are
quite fond of the shoegazing scene that happened in Britain. That
was a joke. A lot of people thought it was a lot of pretentious
art school students, rich kids with guitars. I can't believe we
saw in Other Music all these Slowdive records and Chapterhouse
records and they were all for a ridiculous amount of money.
Anastasia: Speaking of shoegazing, you're working with Kevin Shields?
Dominic: He mixed on the album.
Anastasia: What was it like working with him?
Dominic: Well, we never actually met him. We just asked him if
he'd do the remix and he did it. He came to see us a couple of
times.
Stuart and Barry enter.
Janine: Where are you touring besides NY?
Mogwai: That's it.
Janine: Are you serious?
Dominic: Doing press and stuff.
Anastasia: Where else have you played in America?
Dominic: We've only done east coast.
Stuart: We're doing Chicago as well.
Dominic: We had to drive overnight from Chicago to Boston.
Janine: You should play in Pocatello, Idaho.
Anastasia: She's got this weird obsession with this little town.
Janine: I've become obsessed with Pocatello, Idaho.
Stuart: Have you been there?
Janine: No, I haven't. But, there's this band called Hovercraft
- have you heard of them?
Mogwai: Oh, yeah.
Stuart: We saw them play once. That guy's drumming was total heavy
metal. We were like, what the fuck is he doing? It's like this
post-rock jazz with heavy metal drumming. There was a film about
like, spaceships. They were playing before Labradford.
Janine: Well, anyway, Hovercraft was playing in Pocatello. I was
working for their record label, it was on their itenerary, and
I said "I've never heard of Pocatello. Where is this?"
So I looked it up, and it's in Idaho. So I called the one record
store in Pocatello, and I said, "Can you tell me a little
bit about Pocatello?" It turns out that the last concert
they had was in 1984, and after that music was banned.
Dominic: It's like Footloose!
Janine: Yes! I watched that movie just the other night as research
for an article I'm writing on Pocatello. The last show was Van
Halen in 1984.
Stuart: Probably Eddie got the kids fucking in the streets. He
got both hands on the fretboard and everything went insane.
Dominic is now dragged away by Nils, Mogwai's publicist.
Janine: You've got to play Pocatello. They haven't had live music
in ten years.
Stuart: We'll do it. When Hovercraft went there, how was the gig,
do you know?
Janine: I think it was pretty shitty. So, I understand one of
you has a fascination with the drummer from Def Leppard?
Barry: No, it's not actually true. That was a classic Select lie.
We thought it was funny.
Anastasia: We've got this VH1 program here, do you know "In
the Music?"
Stuart: Have you seen the Motley Crue one?
Anastasia: Have you seen the Def Leppard one?
Barry: That was where it came from. "He was known simply
as the Thunder God."
Anastasia: The quote he says is "I'm a drummer and I've lost
my arm."
Barry: "Help me, I'm a famous drummer and I've lost my arm."
Stuart: Stupid cunt.
Anastasia: It was a good lie to read about.
Stuart: No, no, we're very amused and slightly obsessed by anyone
who can play the drums with one arm.
Anastasia: It's pretty amazing.
Stuart: I can play the guitar with one hand.
Janine: If you tuned it right, you could...
Barry: yeah, just go like that and feed back.
Janine: I think you guys should play a show where everyone only
uses one arm.
Anastasia: It could be a benefit show for one armed drummers.
Should I ask the sex question?
Janine: Go for it.
Anastasia: OK, we brought you in in the middle of the interview,
so Dominic got all the serious questions and now you're getting
all the silly ones.
Stuart: No, ask us about sex. I can only imagine what it'd be
like if you'd asked Dominic!
Anastasia: When I got Young Team, friends of mine said "this
is a really good record to have sex to." How do you feel
about that?
(Mogwai giggles.)
Stuart: That's terrible.
Barry: I'm not happy with that.
Janine: No? Why not?
Barry: I'm pleased if someone finds happiness through our music,
but...
Anastasia: Well, we were on this Belle and Sebastian mailing list,
and they were discussing music to shag to...
Stuart: You can't have sex listening to Belle and Sebastian. I'd
just imagine wee Stuart Murdoch in his shorts!
Janine: So what's your album of choice for doing the deed, then?
Stuart: Actually, Dominic's never had sex listening to music,
we've discussed this before. Probably just something I like, like
Bedhead or Low or something.
Barry: I'm not happy with people having sex listening to our record.
Anastasia: So, what kind of mood, then, what sort of activity...
Barry: Cooking!
Stuart: Maybe wanking.
Barry: No way with two people. Solo sex, not with two people.
No shared experiences. Only cooking and wanking.
Anastasia: So cooking, maybe cleaning the house?
Stuart: No, no cleaning.
Barry: Botany!
Stuart: Any agricultural intention. Driving's probably the ultimate
activity we could designate our music to be used as a central
activity, just driving about on the motorway.
Anastasia: How about wanking while driving on the motorway?
Janine: No, that might cause some accidents.
Anastasia: Haven't you ever seen truck drivers doing that?
Janine: No, I haven't.
Stuart: Sometimes you just get bored.
Anastasia: Truck drivers get really bored, and they can do two
things at once - I'm going to shut up now.
Janine: Have you ever had any run ins with Sting or any stories
about him?
Barry: I don't like Sting. I had a story but I completely forgot
what it was. Some guy, some famous guy, was pissed off at Sting,
and chained up his driveway so he couldn't get out. It was some
guy like Eric Clapton or something. I read it in Q. I don't like
Sting at all. I disapprove of him thoroughly.
Stuart: I hate him as well.
Anastasia: The tantric sex thing bothers me.
Barry: That he can shag for a long time? So can Jimmy Page. Jimmy
Page uses sex magic.
Janine: If he and Sting had a contest, who would win?
Stuart: He's got a (makes a hand gesture, with his pinky, indicating
that Sting has a small and flaccid member.)
Barry: I reckon on Jimmy Page. He's a horny player. But Sting?
There's nothing sexual about that at all. I think there's a big
contradiction between his sexual claims and his music.
Anastasia: This whole side of the tape is going to be nothing
but us laughing.
Janine: We did ask serious questions about the songs and stuff,
we just used them all up on Dominic.
The aforementioned publicist comes over and breaks it up at this point, as the members of Mogwai are getting sillier and louder by the moment and have other interviews to conduct with real journalists.