Belle and Sebastian are the best Scottish band of all time. Or, at least according to style guide magazine The List, they are. Holding an international poll, the magazine collected 12,000 votes, which saw the poster children of cardigan Indie Pop triumph over the likes of Franz Ferdinand and Teenage Fanclub. “I guess you have to take that all with a pinch of salt.” says the bands resident trumpeter Mick Cooke. “The funny thing about it was that a lot of the people who voted were actually in places like Brazil and Japan even though it was a Scottish magazine that ran the poll.” I don’t know how seriously a poll can be taken when The Proclaimers come in at 10th place and Mogwai at 20th but it’s safe to say that over the last decade, the seven-piece has gathered a legion of dedicated fans around the globe. Starting out all those years ago, was this kind of success imaginable?
“To begin with it wasn’t really a band but just a bunch of people who got together to record Stuart’s songs. It wasn’t until later when we signed to Jeepster that it became a band project and even at that point no one knew if it was going to go pass the second album. It was really just something small that snowballed into something bigger over a period of time.”
I heard a rumor that you turned down the original offer to join the band.
“Basically the band I had been playing with had split a couple of months earlier so I’d been filling in my time by working part-time jobs and playing with Belle and Sebastian whenever I could. At the time the band weren’t that proactive and they weren’t doing an awful lot so my biggest concern was just about spending more time hanging about cause I’d been hanging about for several months and you kinda get itchy feet. I was gonna do a Post-Graduate computing course cause IT was sorta the big thing at the time so that’s the reason I turned it down. It kinda felt part-time for a long time.”
Belle and Sebastian have had a reputation for playing odd venues. Any highlights?
“Our second gig was in a café…a kinda converted church which is unfortunately no more. I think it’s been turned into flats. Our very first gig was actually in a bedroom.
It was at a house party but I wasn’t there for that one. Playing at (late BBC1 DJ) John Peel’s was pretty enjoyable. Occasionally he would broadcast from his house and record the odd session at Peel Acres. We were one of the bands who had the privilege of being able to record a session there. It was great. His wife made a big buffet for everyone. Chris was playing vibraphone in the toilet cause there wasn’t room for him with the rest of the band. We were in the same room as Peel…it was kind of like his study that he was playing in. He was set up in the corner with his turntables and I sat on the stairwell playing the trumpet. They got us pissed afterwards. It was a great night. They were all a really nice family.”
Some of the early recordings really vary from being Lo-Fi to full studio productions. Was that intentional?
“The Dog On Wheels EP was maybe recorded on the lowest budget because the studio was part of a government training scheme but every record from then on was recorded with the same set up. Tigermilk was actually recorded in one of the best studios in Glasgow. The EP’s were generally recorded in the church hall where Stuart was working but that actually cost more than recording in a studio because we had to take a mobile recording truck and park it outside the church hall and then wire the whole place up to be a recording studio. Even though the recording sound came across as being Lo-Fi it actually cost us more than if we’d recorded in a top studio.”
Does it feel strange to working with producers like Trevor Horn and Tony Hoffer?
“To be working with a producer again is like a breath of fresh air. It’d explain why the new record sounds so energetic cause we don’t have to worry about that side of things anymore. The producer takes it off your hands so all you have to worry about is playing the songs as best you can. It makes it kinda exciting again.”
Did the dynamic of the band change when Isobel (Campbell) left?
“I think that was inevitable as she had a big part in the band. When somebody that crucial leaves it’s going to affect the sound and the dynamic. I’d say that things have taken more of a Rock bent since Bobby (Kildea) joined the band.”
Tell us about your side project, The Anphetameanies.
“It’s a nine piece Ska band though at our biggest we were an eleven piece. It’s kind of a Ska Punk sort of thing really. One of our members used to be Alex Kapranos from Franz Ferdinand. He left to form Franz but he wrote quite a few songs for the band along with myself.
Would it be safe to say that then that the music scene is Glasgow is pretty incestuous?
“Everyone knows everyone else really. Most people have played with each other as well in different bands. If someone’s looking for a guitarist or a drummer they usually just borrow somebody from another band, which tends to get problematic if one of the bands gets busier or more successful. There was a guy actually…a guy called Michael. He was playing in a band and in Franz Ferdinand at one point. The singer of the other band said ‘Look, your going to have to make a choice…it’s either us or Franz’ and he stupidly chose the other band, right before Franz Ferdinand become one of the biggest bands in the world. It wasn’t the smartest decision but there you go.”
BEN DAWE
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