In December, our president Cameron had the privilege of sitting down backstage with Mogwai guitarist and occasional vocalist Stuart Braithwaite before their grand homecoming to Glasgow’s Barrowlands after a seven-year absence. The band had just started their 2022/23 UK tour in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and their conversation took place just a couple of hours before they were set to come onstage in Glasgow.
Starting off, Braithwaite chatted about how good it was to be back on tour. He was particularly happy to be back playing in the Barrowlands, which he described as a “very special place to play”, and one that has been important to him as a fan and an artist. Due to lockdown, the band hadn’t had a chance to play headline gigs in Scotland since last year’s critical successes.
As the Love Continues, Mogwai’s tenth studio album, not only reached number one in the UK charts within a week of its release, but also won them Scottish Album of the year 2021 and a nomination for the prestigious Mercury Award. All these accolades came as a shock at the time, and according to Braithwaite, still haven’t quite sunk in. Even though Mogwai have thundered through multiple decades, building cult hero status in the UK music scene as pioneers of their unique form of loud instrumental rock music, he claims that he never believed the band would ever garner such widespread critical acclaim, or better yet, commercial success. Braithwaite shared his thoughts on the band’s successes in comparison to their beginnings:
“We always wanted to play the Barrowlands, but I don’t even think we really thought we’d be headlining. I think we just thought it would be us supporting someone or something like that… our ambitions were quite modest.”
Despite these “nice surprises” as he put it, his attitudes toward the band haven’t changed. He did not seem to become wrapped up in these successes and didn’t wish to dwell much on the album’s reception. He instead preferred to discuss the ways in which the unique context of the album’s creation and release impacted the band’s usual processes. Stuart called the creative process behind As the Love Continues “bizarre”: the COVID-19 lockdown separated the band from their producer, but also meant they had far more time to work on each track.
Not only that, but they weren’t able to tour for their album release. As soon as the album dropped, the UK government plunged the country straight into another lockdown. Shows were cancelled, but spirits remained high. The first show back for Mogwai was the Green Man festival. The festival itself was mired in uncertainty and wasn’t even assured to go ahead a week before it was meant to start. According to Braithwaite, finally ending that long wait to get on stage resulted in a “very special” experience, which marked the end of the COVID era and a move toward a brighter, louder, future.
Touring and playing live is nothing new for Mogwai. Their impressive career has stretched over four separate decades, playing support and headline gigs across the world. For Braithwaite, the most special places out of the country to play have been the most iconic ones: Paris, London, Tokyo, New York. When queried about venues in Edinburgh, he listed the Usher Hall and the Playhouse as his favorites to play, but also lamented the loss of some older locations, such as The Venue or the Picture House (which our readers may be more familiar with as the spoons on Lothian Road) which were his top picks as a music fan.
Knowledge of defunct music venues wasn’t the only marker of Braithwaite’s experienced career: reminding him that Mogwai’s 4th studio album (happy songs for happy people) was released the year that I was born helped emphasize the band’s impressive longevity (if making him feel a tad old). Braithwaite claimed that both continual reinvention and inspirational diversity were key to maintaining a creative project that was not only innovative and important, but exciting and fun for twenty seven years:
“We try and do something different with every record, we don’t really want to do the exact same thing again… we’ve never really paid that much attention to trends or anything.”
He claimed that travelling around the world and meeting musicians who make various types of music has helped him reinterpret the way in which he conceptualizes his own music. He also touched on the fact that his music tastes have developed as he’s grown older, and that he’d never even heard a lot of his favorite music now when the band was starting. Listeners can hear this in the evolving ideas and concepts which are developed on each Mogwai record; borrowing from psychedelica to electronica, each Mogwai record is a unique and remarkable musical journey through the minds of its creators. Although, critics and fans have found a label which they feel best suits the eclectic, loud, instrumental nature of Mogwai: Post-Rock.
Pulling at the Post-Rock thread, his thoughts on the label were not entirely positive. Despite the genre now being well established, associated instrumental titans such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, and Sigur Ros, Braithwaite has never been satisfied with title for Mogwai. Instead, he would prefer to describe the band as “a psychedelic rock band… or just a rock band.” Nevertheless, Post-Rock and Mogwai have become inseparable. They have often been described as “pioneers” of the genre, but Braithwaite isn’t quite as sure:
“I’m not bothered about it, but it wasn’t something we’d heard of when we started the band, so it feels weird to be pioneers of something someone else made up once you’re already going”
Post-Rock or otherwise, one thing that could never describe the band as would be boring. A large part of that comes from the storied history of Mogwai itself. Tales of drinking and rebellious youth are remembered in the title of the penultimate track on As the Love Continues: Supposedly, We Were Nightmares. And they were. But Braithwaite did note that he finds that drinking culture for modern youths has changed. Young people may be less likely to engage in toxic or unhealthy levels of drinking, but that does not mean he feels there needs to be any regret for his past:
“You think that’s not how you would do it now, or that’s not how people that age would be now. But it’s just the world you’re born into, you’ve just got to navigate it the best you can”
If there is one thing he does admire of today’s youth, it’s their refusal to comply with conventions. He commented on his delight at the proliferation of alternative music in the UK at the moment, especially by young, up-and-coming musicians such as bdrmm, the support act for the night. Hailing from Hull, the band are another carrier of the cross of Post-Rock, merging loud, effect heavy guitar parts with crushing drums and punching bass lines to create wild walls of sound, much like Mogwai. Braithwaite had this to say on why there seems to be such a revival of alternative music in the UK:
“People are a bit sick of the mainstream, the mainstream is very pervasive isn’t it, so I think that maybe people are having a look at it and saying ‘let’s try to do something different’”
Before leaving him to prepare for the show I asked first for some words of inspiration for the artists and musicians in our society, especially those who make weird and wonderful music which may not fit into conventions or identifications (especially those imposed from outside). For Braithwaite, the most important thing is to “enjoy it”, although it may be hard work, he urged young artists to appreciate it while they can.
And finally, he looked forward to the future of Mogwai. After 27 years, 10 albums, critical acclaim, worldwide tours, a book, and cult hero status, what’s next for the band? Although he laughed off the possibility of 10 more albums, he claimed:
“we’re thinking about making another one… we’re gonna make another one, we’re not planning on stopping any time soon”
Good news for everyone that loves loud cascading guitars, built into non-conventional song structures, and punctuated with soft, melodic breaks. But it’s still definitely not Post-Rock.
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