The Last Guitarist interviews:
BLACK INTERNATIONAL
With the recent release of their first full album “In Debt” on March 11th, a live set on Radio 1 ‘Introducing’ show, and a full UK tour, Scottish band BLACK INTERNATIONAL are creating some of the most exciting and enjoyable new music I have listened to in a long time and they have been getting fantastic reviews for both their new album and live shows.
These songs are uncompromising blasts of biting lyricism, exciting raw edged musicianship and, for a band that has an uncanny ear for catchy hooks, a vital rebellious vigour that will leave you in no doubt: THEY MEAN IT.
The band is Stewart Allan (Guitar/vocals), Gavin Hargin (Bass) and Craig Peebles (Drums) and they hail from Edinburgh, Scotland. Have a listen to them as you read:
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First off congratulations on releasing a fantastic album. ”In Debt” is a provocative album and a provocative title – why this title and why now?
It just seemed to fit personally, as we did the entire thing ourselves and pumped all our money into it! It also has a whiff of current events I suppose, a little nod to the millions of people getting royally fucked over by our corporate lords and masters.
Do you feel it necessary to stand for something ethically and/or politically?
It’s a tough one; personally I didn’t get into a band to go around patronising people and preaching to them, but it’s kind of hard to keep your personal opinions out of the music all the time. Normally when I see successful musicians going on about politics half of me thinks, “at least they’re using their platform to get a point across” and the other half thinks “what a wanker”, but because we have such a vile government in power at the moment I think more and more people are going to start making their opinions known.
When I was at college in 90′s a friend turned me on to lots of great Scottish music and it seemed to me that the Scottish independent scene was much more vital, honest, and certainly less commercialised than the English ‘indie’ scene. I listened to to the compilation ‘Prole Life: A Souvenir from Glasgow’ and bands like The Yummy Fur, Lungleg, Arab Strap, Idlewild, The Pastels, Belle and Sebastian, and The Vaselines. I loved the rawness, variation, and good honest indie punk spirit I found there. I get the same feeling when I listen to Black International and it made me wonder: do you see yourselves as being part of a uniquely Scottish musical current and, if so, why? Do you think it’s important to reflect where you come from and do you take inspiration from this culture?
I do think we’re part of a Scottish ‘thing’ in historical terms, certainly we’re heavily influenced by Scottish indie from the late ‘70s through to the ‘90s; but as far as a current scene goes, not so much. We’ve never really fitted in, we plough our own furrow and do what we feel like doing, and that suits us most of the time.
We definitely believe you should be true to your origins, whether it’s singing in your own accent or even something simple like not being ashamed of the city you live in. Because it has a fairly crappy reputation for live music, some bands pretend to come from Glasgow rather than Edinburgh, as it’s easier for them to get gigs that way. How lame is that? If you stick to your guns and say “wait, there IS good stuff happening here” then people will start to take notice, and you’ll get to keep your self-respect.
Who do you see as your peers and are there any other current Scottish bands that I should check out?
I’m not exactly sure who our peers are, I think we’re too punk for the pop kids and too pop for the punk kids! There are dozens of Scottish bands worth investigating at the moment, look at United Fruit, Rollor, Pensioner, Bronto Skylift, Hey Vampires, Fatalists, Macabre Scene, DIVORCE, Verse Metrics, French Wives, Super Adventure Club, Birdhead, Kochka, Citizens… I could keep going but I reckon that’s enough for you to be getting on with!
You’ve just toured the UK to support “In Debt”, how did that work out for you? Did you get the audience reactions you’d hoped for?
The tour was a great experience for us, and a bit of a learning curve. Generally we get strong audience reactions, and we nearly always turn heads. When we start playing you kind of see people stop chatting and start paying attention, it’s quite interesting to gauge how they react to us and other bands we’ve played with.
At our level you’re obviously going to have the odd gig in a venue that’s only interested in taking cash behind the bar, but you just make sure never to play there again. Out of the gigs we played there were only two venues I’d be reluctant to go back to, which isn’t bad going.
My impression is that you’ve had a strong demand for the album through your Bandcamp page, what were your expectations for this release?
We didn’t expect all that much, to be honest! This is our first ‘proper’ release, and we only made 200 copies. It’s sold beyond our expectations so far, and we’re really happy with the way it’s going up to now. Surprisingly, physical copies have proved more popular than digital downloads, I think because we put so much work into the objects themselves, making the sleeves and trying to give people something interesting and tactile (and difficult to open!) that’s reflected in the physical sales. We’re never going to have cocaine blown up our orifices by dwarves or anything, but given our current profile we’re perfectly happy with what we’ve sold so far.
We’ve all heard how the music industry is ‘dying’ or at least transforming into something that scares the old industry witless. My feeling is that there are so many positives in the internet age for a new band to make themselves heard. To what extent do you find that the internet, ‘social networking’ sites, and forums like Shortscale.org (where I first ‘met’ Stewart and Gavin) have enabled you to achieve what you have done? Is there any negative impacts to a band like yourself that would not have been there if you were doing this in a pre-internet age?
Obviously technology means that things can happen so much more quickly. Rather than having to know the right person or track down person X who can get a demo to person Y you can just fire off an email with a download link. The trouble with that is, everyone can do it, even the ones who previously would have given up at the first hurdle. There are so many thousands, nay, millions of bands out there it can be a struggle to rise above the filth. Everything is so niche now too that if, like us, you don’t really fit in with a genre or scene it can be bloody hard to get people to talk to you.
The web 2.0 honeymoon period where people were like “hey, there’s this thing called Myspace and you can hear the band’s songs, and their gig dates are there and everything, isn’t it AMAZING?!?!” has come to an end, and it’s been obvious to us over the past while that nothing beats meeting people face to face at gigs and chatting to them; it makes it more likely they’ll want to help you out. Social networking is an extremely useful aid, don’t get me wrong, but buying someone a beer can often be all you need.
What music is currently exciting the members of Black International?
We’ve recently been arguing over the latest PJ Harvey album, my assertion that it’s one of her best doesn’t seem to be going down too well with the other two thirds of the band… but now summer is around the corner I think it’s time to ease into funk mode, dust off the Kool & the Gang LPs, James Brown’s Black Caesar soundtrack, a couple of Afro-rock compilations… we’re enjoying the new Radiohead album too, it had heavy rotation in the tour van a few weeks back. I’m also looking forward to getting my hands on the new Metronomy album, what I’ve heard so far has been amazing.
Can you give an overview of your main gear that you use and why? How important are effects pedals to the Black International sound (if at all)?
I suppose the biggest thing would be my dual amp setup, I split my signal between a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and a Roland JC120. The fender does for crunchy valve tones and the Roland is more for cleans and fuzz. I like to layer dirt pedals, and have quite a few gain stages, I find the limitations of a three-piece band can be overcome with loads of overdrive pedals stacked together! I currently use a Digitech Bad Monkey, a Zvex Fuzz Factory, a Fulltone Distortion Pro, a Danelectro Cool Cat Fuzz (bought second hand, as I try not to directly finance the oppression of homosexuals in America), a crappy plastic Ibanez Tubescreamer and a custom overdrive built for me by Made by Mike Pedals, which is an absolute beast. Gavin uses one on his bass too and it really does sound er, slammin’.
Guitar-wise we tend to be very biased towards Fender, I particularly like their short scale models as they’re easier on my tiny child hands, and I generally prefer the aesthetics of their traditionally ‘unloved’ models, i.e. Mustangs, Duo-Sonics and Jaguars. Gavin has been using a Jazz bass recently, but most of the album was done on a Squier Classic Vibe Precision. Quality instruments!
If Black International got into a fight with SLIPKNOT in a bar who would win?
Slipknot. There are loads of the bastards. Anyway, we’re lovers, not fighters.
What do you think about the current state of British guitar music?
It certainly seems to be better than it was a few years back. I’d rather listen to Pulled Apart By Horses than the shitting Editors any day. Hopefully we’ve seen the last of the “Ooh we’re into this really obscure band… they’re called Joy Division!!” brigade. In contemporary music terms it’s strange how the young ‘uns today get to grow up to so much interesting and invigorating stuff creeping towards the mainstream, while the best we could hope for was Jamiroquai dying in a car crash. Shame it never happened.
Do you foresee another ‘big movement’ in guitar-based music coming from the UK?
I certainly hope not, it’s generally sodding awful when it happens.
THANK YOU TO BLACK INTERNATIONAL FOR DOING THIS INTERVIEW – GO BUY THEIR ALBUM NOW!
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