An Interview With Glasvegas Bassist Paul Donoghue

By Kimi Inglis

Glasvegas bassist Paul Donoghue enters the bands dressing room dressed all in black, keeping to their traditional look.

The band has been together since 2003, but began playing under the name Glasvegas in 2007. They released their self-titled debut album Glasvegas in 2008, which lead them to be nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2009. The Glasgow four piece released a second full length album named Euphoric Heartbreak in 2011 and a mini album named A Snow Flake Fell (And It Felt Like A Kiss) in 2008. Glasvegas will be releasing their new album in 2013 named Later…When The TV Turns To Static.The band has just finished their sound check in preparation for their show in the Garage tonight. A show that promises full on energy, with their intense stage presence. The anticipation of tonight’s show is electric in the air backstage.
He pulls up the brown leather sofa looking relaxed and we start to chat. Immediately, he is easy to talk to, making jokes about life on tour, talking about the bands recording process and their new album.

Kimi Inglis: What was it like making your new record Later…When The TV Turns To Static?

Paul Donoghue: Yeah, it’s the first time we’ve done an album in Glasgow. It made a big difference because, when we’ve done albums in the past, the first album was in New York, the Christmas album was between New York and Transylvania, Euphoric/Heartbreak was in London. It makes a difference being able to go home at the end of the night. Certain albums you need to get away from everything to do it but I think this one really had to be made in Glasgow with the way it sounds. I remember hearing the Raveonettes album Chain Gang of Love and me and James (Allan) were talking about it and it sounds like Glasgow, like the summer in Glasgow, like warm concrete. Our album doesn’t really sound anything like that but it has that kind of feeling to it, that kind of gritty, electric feel, so I don’t think it could have been anywhere else.

KI: Do you think that progressing into more electric music has been natural to you? Because you’re very first album, Glasvegas, was quite raw and more guitar based.

Paul Donoghue: That’s the thing, everyone thinks that the second album Euphoric Heartbreak had loads of keyboard on it and there was like two, mostly it was like guitars. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a little bit of an excuse, it was more like guitar through synthesizers but the music just kind of progressed how we progressed,. We didn’t think, right we’ll put lots of keyboards on it; it was just what felt right at the time. We don’t like keeping ourselves in one little comfort zone. I hate that sorry (Paul laughs), I actually done the David Brent hand thing as well. It’s good to explore different sounds and even on this album, James produced it so we had complete control over everything.

KI: What is it like playing Later…When The TV Turns To Static; since you recorded it in a live environment is it easier to play live?

PD: Yeah I think it is. The second album was really weird because Jonna had just joined the band after the album was made. When Jonna first came over to rehearse with us, Rab and James were working on it so we didn’t really get a chance to rehearse it until we were actually on tour. This time, to have the time to spend as a band has made a huge difference. The new songs seem to slot right into what we were doing. This is the best the band has felt and everyone has notice that, even my girlfriend says there’s a difference this time to what we’re doing. We feel better; we’re a lot more professional now.

KI: Why did you choose Sweden to release your demos?

PD: We still don’t understand why Sweden has kicked off as big as it has. We’re just as big in Sweden as we are in Britain, in fact, maybe a little bigger in relation to the country. The second album went number one and the first album went gold. I don’t know what it is, the only thing is, when the very first album came out, Rab and James did an acoustic tour and the Swedish people just seemed to really get it. The biggest show we’ve done was about 3,500 in Sweden. Not to sound big time but when I went to New York and I stepped off the plane I felt really at home, I don’t really travel too well sometimes but Sweden was the exact same. Everywhere I go in Sweden it’s got a connection with the way I was brought up.

KI: How was spending five months in Santa Monica, did you feel like that sort of helped you be more creative getting away and taking your ideas somewhere else?

PD: Yeah I think it did. It was quite a weird time as well though; there was a lot of madness around us then. I think that was the point where we stopped being the little kids that just done whatever they wanted and actually knuckled down. That album (Euphoric Heartbreak) wouldn’t have been the same if it wasn’t recorded in Santa Monica. We had been touring for three and a half years before that so to actually just get away from everything and go to this beach house in Santa Monica was just what we needed. It let us concentrate and get a lot of things sorted out that had to be sorted. It was great, I was about six feet from the beach and I was on it twice, one of them was because a ball got kicked out the living room of the house and I had to go out to get it.

KI: Did you take inspiration from other artists for your new album or did you think we’re going to make our own album and we won’t listen to anything else, it’ll be our own ideas?

PD: You do listen to other bands but sometimes inspiration comes from the weirdest places. James writes all of the songs and he doesn’t actually sit down with a guitar, he’ll go out for a walk and the song will form in his head. It’s hard when James does that to say who inspired it because there are so many random things that can happen. James was listening to a lot of Bob Dylan and I think lyrically that’s kind of came across. The Bob Marley film came out and we all started blasting him for like eight months, so I’m surprised it’s not reggae. I’ve been trying to throw a reggae bass line in somewhere. I know James loves orchestral music, he actually wanted to start playing Swan Lake at our gigs in between the bands and we were like “mate you can’t, Glasgow on a Saturday night won’t listen to Swan Lake without singing here we fucking go over the top of it”.

KI: Who do you feel is you’re most influential bass player?

PD: When I was younger, when I first started getting serious about it, it was Andy Rourke from The Smiths. I don’t know why, it’s maybe because I met him really early on, the first tour we done was with Ian Brown and Andy Rourke was playing with him on a couple of songs, so I kind of met him and stood mumbling at him for 20 and he was like “I don’t know one word you’re saying”. I was just star struck. We went to see the Raveonettes and Sharin (Foo) was playing bass guitar again, the last few times I seen her she hasn’t played but she was great as well and she looks really good with it. That’s the only thing, you always come away a little self-conscious about the way you look.

KI: How do you feel your live shows have progressed, do you feel your live shows are getting bigger?

PD: Aye, it’s good but because we went to America so much and Europe there was a year and a half where we didn’t play in Britain. We jumped from like 400 people in a venue, and then it was an Academy tour, which was 2000. They both have really really good points. Now we’ve come back, we’re a little bit smaller again, like tonight is 600 and there is something about that that suits us really well. We could play to one person and have the time of our lives playing together. The smaller venues create that buzz of electricity. It’s good playing any venue, we played stadiums with U2 and then we played to like 100 people and that was great.

KI: Do you always think about your Scottish fans when you’re doing albums?

PD: We do but we try to write firstly for ourselves so it feels good for us. We’ve been lucky we’ve been blessed with great fans all over the world. The fans seem to dig what we do, sometimes, it’s better to go in without any pre conceptions and just do what feel natural to you. We are always very aware that Scotland has been amazing to us and that’s why when we can we always tour here first. We’re playing five nights in Scotland on this tour, it’s mad and they’re amazing nights.

KI: What’s your funniest tour story?

PD: The first ever gig of Euphoric Heartbreak was in Shetland and after it we were in the hotel bar. It was this really nice place with really old wood everywhere and an old fire place and this guy and his girlfriend came in. This guy was from Stirling and he said his party piece was kicking himself in the head. He sat down in this bar and started kicking himself in the head and it was the weirdest entertainment I have ever seen. It actually got to the point you’re like “Right mate, gonnae stop that now”. His girlfriend wasn’t even bothered, she was like “He does it all the time; you don’t need to live with him”.

KI: When will you be releasing Later…When The TV Turns To Static?

PD: I think around April or May. There’s going to be a single in March, we’ve not decided yet. The album is 99% done, we just have to put the track listing together so once we do that we’ll start thinking about singles. I think we’ve got January off to get the artwork, track listing and singles and B-sides done. James usually has a vision for the album, we really respect that. He will always listen to our opinions but we know him that well, that if he feels something works better we will go with that. We have complete faith in that.