I grew up in Scotland, and that was where I first became involved
in music. I'd never been outside the country before I joined a
rock band. Scotland has no music industry per se. Everything in
terms of the industry goes through London, which causes it to be
quite difficult for Scottish musicians to really garner any
national attention in the United Kingdom. Certainly when I was
15, it was only once you made a big splash locally that the
record labels ever took note. I think Scottish musicians work in
isolation a lot of the time. Consequently, that allows a certain
lack of self-consciousness.
Edinburgh is a very cultural city; it's sort of known as the
cultural center of Scotland and also has quite an influence on
the U.K. scene because it has an arts festival every summer and a
film festival every year. There were a lot of opportunities at
that time for us to play live and garner a huge live following.
There have always been a lot of bands. The Scots are very
congenial and really love to get together. It's a real pub
culture. Playing in the pubs, not just in clubs, was a very
common way of reaching a live audience. You would play for a lot
of drunken Scotsmen. They would all sing along—that's just the
way the culture is over there.
There are a lot of great things coming out of Scotland now, which
is very exciting. There's a Chemikal Underground record label
that has great acts. Travis, the Delgados and Idlewild—they're
all Scottish bands. It goes in waves. It becomes fashionable for
the record companies to come north of the border. And at the
moment, I think Scotland's enjoying a sort of renaissance in that
sense.
For a long time in London, they believed that the Irish,
Welsh and Scots were heathens and had nothing of value to
contribute to the music scene, and then of course with the huge
success of Scottish artists, Irish artists and Welsh artists over
the last couple of decades, they've had to rethink. And they see
an opportunity to make money, so of course they spread their
probes out now into those regions that they once considered the
wilderness. There's just a lot of creativity and much more
diversity now than there was when I was 15.
