Punk mog

“How long did they play ‘Marquee Moon’ for? Did they look like they were enjoying themselves? Was the drummer good?” Mogwai’s Dominic Aitchison and Stuart Braithwaite seem less concerned with talking about themselves and far more fascinated with the recent Television reformation. “ I’d love to see the Stooges reform cos it would be totally disastrous and that appeals to me as much as anything,” raves Braithwaite, occasional singer and self-styled front person with the noisiest band from Scotland since the sense-shattering live assaults of The Jesus and Mary Chain.

But while there are earplugs sensibly being sold at the merchandise stand before their blistering Red Box show, there is a hell of a lot more to Mogwai than sudden blasts of white noise, Celtic tops and naming your band after a creature in Gremlins. Their first two albums were seventy minute plus affairs, but now on the brand new and very gorgeous Rock Action LP they are short, sharp and very sweet purveyors of subtle melodies and dreamy otherworldliness. “The only thing we talked about before going into to record the album was that we wanted it to be short and less than 45 minutes,” states Dominic. “In saying that it might be thought that we didn’t have enough material,” pipes in Bratihwaite eager to dispel rumours of a slump in Mogwai proficiency. “A lot of songs that we had were a bit shorter. We had about 21 songs recorded. We thought that we’ll have serious problems and lots of arguments but it was totally fine. We sorted it out very quickly and nobody got too upset.”

Eagle eared Mogwai fetishists will recall the haunting recording featuring Stuart punching Dominic during an in studio fracas which mysterious surfaced on ‘Tracy’ from their debut Mogwai Young Team. “That was a joke,” deadpans Dominic. “Aye, but it was really stressful doing our first album,” adds Stuart “There were a lot of things going on that had nothing to do with the record. Also, up to then we were an EP band and we weren’t used to spending a very long time in the studio. We were terrified basically. I think we rushed in too early. We had never really considered ten songs or twelve songs. We didn’t realise the tedium of recording. The studio was in Hamilton in the middle of an industrial estate, so there weren’t that many distractions apart from McDonalds. So as you can imagine we ate ever so well. And then we went away to Edinburgh and when we had came back some cunt had drawn a nooses around our Joy Division poster,” cackles Stuart, suddenly interjecting some atypical ‘Gwai surreal hilarity into the conversation.

Whereas Young Team and Come On Die Young took their cue from gang graffiti, the Rock Action moniker is grounded in slightly more obvious territory. “It just comes from the label we were first on and the Stooges drummer. It was a kind of a compromise because we had a lot of album titles. I remember someone saying the titles of our songs were the character and souls of the music. All we could tell him was that we make them up when we’re drunk. ‘2 Rights Make One Wrong’ is just a stupid thing that John says. They all come from times when we’re pissed and drunk and come up with things that really, really amuse us. ‘Dial:Revenge’ is probably the most serious title in it. When you pick up a payphone, it just says dial, and dial is the Welsh word for revenge. With Gary Lightbody it was a case of him just coming in and making all these strange noises That was kind of like a freeform wailing session basically. It wasn’t that well taught out or serious. We just reckoned Gary would be in the pub near the studio.”

Later that night, Mogwai will dedicate their blistering set to the memory of Joey Ramone. In 1976, The Glasgow Evening Times picked up on the song ‘Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue’ on the eponyomously titled Ramones debut. The band and their fans were derided by the local media, MPs and Greater Glasgow Health Board. “We’re a wee bit young to exactly remember that, but I remember all the propaganda of don’t take Es and speed and don’t sniff glue,” recalls Stuart. “There used to be posters of skulls with glue dripping off them. Things like curfews are still continuing and you even have stupid things like skateboarding getting banned in Glasgow. The licensing laws are still a bit draconian but they’re not as bad as London. But compared to New York, Glasgow is a police state. Its open later in Edinburgh and that’s forty five minutes up the road, but they don’t deserve to drink longer.”

Finally, on suitably alcoholic note, Mogwai were noted early on in their career as proud demolishers of every single rider they ever laid eyes upon, requesting 72 cans of lager and obligatory bottles of Buckfast for every show. “Its about 72 each now,” grins Stuart. “Its not really much of a feat to drink all that because you always have all our mates scabbing around backstage,” adds Dominic. “That’s when it all disappears very quickly.”

Rock Action is available now on Southpaw