They may be heralded as the saviours of punk, but Idlewild weren t around for the first round of safety pins and three-chord tricks. Together almost four years, the Scottish four-piece are still barely out of their teens, and with their next album they re ready to move on from the pounding punk fury of their early work.
The quartet met in Edinburgh, where three of the four were at University [only bassist Bob Fairfoull is actually from the Scottish capital], and immediately decided to form a band.
None of us could really play but we started straight away, had a few practices and played a concert. That went OK, so we did another one and it just snowballed from there, remembers Roddy Woomble, vocalist. We didn t have any sort of pretentions or serious motives, we just wanted to be able to write a song, and we ve kind of managed to do that.
Roddy and Bob, along with Colin Newton on drums and guitarist Rod Jones, quickly proved their ability, and the Idlewild train was in motion. Their manic tunes and, eh, hyperactive stage presence soon saw them becoming regulars on the Edinburgh and Glasgow gig circuit, but it took a while for their fame to spread beyond their native Scotland.
We went down to London once and it was a total disaster, it was a complete waste of our time and money, recalls the frontman ruefully.
Undaunted, Idlewild released their debut 7 single, Queen Of The Troubled Teens in March 97 on Edinburgh punk label, Human Condition, and the ball started rolling in earnest.
That got picked up by people like Steve Lamacq on Radio 1 and so the next time we went to London there were a few people there. It all started like that, explains Roddy.
Interest started to flood in, and the band recorded a single for the Fierce Panda label and a mini-album, Captain, for Deceptive Records, in late 97. This in turn brought even more attention on them, and they eventually signed to Food Records just before Christmas 97. October of the following year saw the band release their impressive Hope Is Important album to almost universal acclaim. In fact, the press have been surprisingly good to Idlewild.
I still think that not many people have heard of us, says Roddy modestly. We haven t had any massive TV exposure or anything like that, but there has been a great amount of goodwill from people like NME, Melody Maker and Kerrang. But we have had stinking press as well, like The Guardian, who reviewed one single with the line Fuck off, indie band . But generally, our reviews have been quite good.
Suddenly, Idlewild went from playing clubs in Edinburgh and Glasgow to supporting the likes of Ash, The Manic Street Preachers and Placebo throughout Europe, a large step up by anyone s standards.
It was a bit of a surprise to suddenly be playing to 7,000 people at an ice rink in Finland with the Manics, but it was a nice one, laughs the vocalist.
Part of the reason why Idlewild have won so many new fans, even on support tours, is because they have garnered a reputation as being absolute fucking nutters on stage. Is this deserved?
To begin with, it was almost to cover up for the fact that what was going out was not in tune and was quite incoherent, admits Roddy. Our first gigs were a case of getting shit-faced and just going crazy. I think that has filtered out and diluted to the point that what is coming out of the PA system now resembles a song much more than it used to. Obviously, with the nature of the music, we always get into it. It s not quite as frantic these days but it is more focused, and it s still as energetic.
While admired for their spiky, three-minute romper stompers, and revered in some quarters as the antithesis of all things Britpoppy, Idlewild, by their own admission, are rather tired of the shouty punk blueprint that initially brought them to our attention.
I think we ve proved that we can do three-chords punk quite well, but much as I like it, I m not so interested in doing it any more, opines Roddy, so we ve started doing more melodic work, concentrating more on harmonies. It s still recognisably Idlewild, it s not a radical departure, but it s definitely more melodic.
Their new single, Little Courage is released on September 20th, and the band are currently ensconced in studio, working on the follow-up to Hope Is Important, which should be released early in the new year, just 15 months after the debut hit the shelves. No difficult second album syndrome, then?
We tend to write songs quite quickly. We write a song and then see how it goes down live, and quite a lot of our songs tend to get scrapped, he admits with a laugh. In the past, we ve been in the studio mucking about, wrote a song and recorded it there and then. None of us have been in bands before, and it s just the way we ve always done it and it seems to work well.
If you can t wait until the new year to hear their new songs, fret not, because Idlewild have two Irish dates lined up in October. They play Dublin s Temple Bar Music Centre on the 17th and the following night they re in Cork s Nancy Spains.
We ve only played twice in Ireland before, says Roddy. We recorded most of Hope Is Important in Westland Studios in Dublin, and we did a wee gig in Whelans but no-one really knew who we were so it was a bit dead. But the last time we played, in the SFX with Placebo, it went down really well, so hopefully this time it s be very busy. n
Little Courage is released on Food Records on September 20th, and Idlewild play the Temple Bar Music Centre, Dublin, on September 17th, and Nancy Spain s in Cork on the 18th.