From: Andrew McRobert (a.mcrobert@ELVIS.MURDOCH.EDU.AU)

This is a recent interview with the boys from my local street mag
X-PRESS dated 24/7/97


TEENAGE FANCLUB  Their Aim Is True

They're a band who have truly been overlooked. Recognition of Gallagher
levels is what they deserve. Year after year, album after album
they(sic) turned in the goods, Bandwagonesque, Thirteen and Grand Prix,
all filled with irresistibly enchanting melodies, superb guitar pop/rock
chops and a sense of their playful personalities.

Today, they're back with Songs From Northern Britain, their most low key
affair, as the band's guitarist, Raymond McGinley, tells GARETH GORMAN.

What's in a name?

    It's a common enough asked question. So some explanation is required
as to why Songs From Northern Britain was nearly going to come out under
the moniker of Sasquatch or Caveman. What's with the primate
fascination?

   "(Lengthy guffaw or possibly two) I'm sure we went through all of
those," Raymond McGinley says. "I'd forgotten about Sasquatch, actually.
We usually go through a lot of different working titles. Songs From
Northern Britain was an idea we'd had for quite some time. We just like
the 'proper' ring it had to it. We always toy with album titles: Let's
just call it More songs...or More New Songs..., From Us or maybe even
The New Record. So Songs From Northern Britain had aspects of that
literal absurdity, plus it also had a mythological aspect to it or a
title Kenneth McKellar may use."

   The cover of the new album, goes against the sporting tradition of
the last two with their soccer balls and racing cars and sports a truck
attached to a monstrosity boasting Disco Fever.

   "We drove around Scotland taking pictures for the album cover and a
few singles, with a photographer called Donald Milne and we woke up one
morning in this place called Abbeymoor which is a winter sports resort,
except that not enough snow falls there most of the time for it to work,
McGinley explains. "But we woke up one morning and that thing that Disco
Fever waltzer thing with a truck beside it was there, in front of our
hotel. We thought it looked great. If we'd woken up half an hour later
it wouldn't have been there because they were dismantling it that day.
If we'd had a lie-in, we would have missed it. Half an hour later and
that carnival thing was in the back of the lorry. Gone. I don't know how
they fit it in, the lorry must have been a Tardis."

THE APPROACH

After the critical and commercial success that Grand Prix was, we asked
McGinley how a band approaches its successor.

   "When we make a new album, it's almost like we knid of forget what
the previous one was like," he says. "It's only once we've finished a
record that we get any kind of overview."

   The creative process, McGinley suggests, is also completely random.

   "The way we do things can be put down to random factor or random
effect," he says. "It wasn't like we set out to write a more mellow
affair, for example."

   There also seems to be much harmony in the highland air.

   "We'd deliberately kept Grand Prix relatively simple harmony-wise
and, as we recorded the first song (Ain't That Enough) we realised that
the harmony thing was really working, so we worked on extending it. It
was a case of, 'Hey, we're quite good at this, let's work on this and do
loads o it on the other songs'. We thought why not just do it. No one
else is really doing it and if we can, why not go for it?"

   Raymond's finest recording moment, thus far turns up on Your Love Is
The Place Where I Come From, a candle-lit piece which flickers massive
shadows up on the landscapes of you mind.

   "For Your Love Is The Place Where I Come From I started noodling and
had some of it, but in the end I had to sit up all night to polish it
off.

   Yes you do get inspiration, but it's inspiration you have to work for
and then work at. The basic idea comes from nowhere -- out of the air.
I'm not someone who'll wake up or walk about with a tune in their head,
I need a guitar in my hand and then it comes to me and I'll go 'Ok, I'll
have that' and I'll store it in the back of my head to develop later on.
Usually, I never record it and sometimes it will take me hours to find
the exact bit I thought was really good. Sometimes you don't find it
again."

PUT 'EM AWAY ,LOVE

Whether or not they'll make it to Perth the next time they get out to
Australia is in the hands of the ancient Norse Gods of Ragnorock and
roll, but as with many bands who head over from the British Isles, they
have selected memories to treasure for quite some time.

   "One of the things I remember about Australia is the fact that there
were all these crap '70s British TV shows on there when we got there and
this was just after touring Japan which was a culture shock. But we get
to Australia and you check into your Hotel room, put the TV on and The
Professionals and The Sweeney are on. Aah, The Sweeney ... good old
British '70s TV -- you canna' beat it."


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Hope you enjoy this as it was a pain in the butt to type up :) . The
article is accompanied by a photo of the lads, all with short hair!
(Photo by Tom Sheehan).