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Mogwai Is the Definition of Rock
"We’ve been watching a lot of Family Guy in the bus, too much Family
Guy actually."
By Anna Kirsch
 Here
is my chat with guitarist John Cummings and Drew “The Merch Guy”.
Mogwai is a band that personifies the definition of rock. Their music is rich
with guitars and is extremely well structured and enigmatic. They are one of
the few bands that I am aware of that should be experienced live rather than
at home in your stereo to fully grasp the richness of their sound. From melancholic
instrumental soundscapes to insane metal-esque guitar medleys, Scotland’s
Mogwai is a band that is nonpareil to the average rock band.
YR: How would you describe the process of how you write music?
Do you guys write songs beforehand or do you guys just have a jam session?
I guess a combination of the two. Jams remind me of Santana or something-not
that Santana is bad, but we certainly aren’t like Santana. Sometimes someone
comes in with a piece that is more structured, but it doesn’t really work.
It takes months and months.
YR: Your music is often described as melancholy and cacophonic
at times. What influences the way your music is constructed?
There is a band that I like, My Bloody Valentine, and I supposed in a way they
have influenced us. There are clearly a lot of things in [their music], and
it has been one of our bigger influences.
YR: You have more vocals in your earlier recordings than your
recent ones. Is there a preference for this?
We have a preference for not physically doing the singing part rather because
we aren’t that good at it. Recording for it takes a long time and it takes
a lot of work to mix and stuff. We tried it in our last album; there is more
singing in it. That was kind of by chance, somehow.
YR: What has been your most memorable live show and which was
your worst?
We’ve had quite a few terrible shows, a couple of bad ones in Greece earlier
this year, because it was the first shows we’ve done with the new songs,
and we didn’t really know what we were doing. There was a really good
show in Tokyo a couple years ago, and it was a huge place, filled, and everyone
seemed to be into it. I enjoyed it, and we seemed to play quite well. Didn’t
make too many mistakes, didn’t have any disasters. I only almost fell
off the stage, if anything. It was a great night and everyone had fun.
YR: How does San Francisco compare to the other places you’ve
played at?
We usually have a much better time in San Francisco than most of the rest of
America. We tend to play bigger venues here than everywhere else, even in New
York. It seems more relaxed here, and it’s probably one of the cities
where most people like us. A lot of people come to the concerts and enjoy it,
and that’s nice.
YR: Why do you guys hate Blur so much?
We saw them as musically evil, and lazy and incompetent and rowdy.
YR: Well there are a lot more worse bands than Blur, right?
So what makes them so different?
Well there are a lot of bands that aren’t as technically professional,
that don’t play instruments, or compose music, but we had to quit bullying
bands that we saw as bad.
YR: ...That everyone else likes?
That may have been something to do with it as well, but I’m not saying
that these bands are not as bad as we said. I think it’s healthy to an
extent to not totally deny what’s popular, but to try to explore things
other than what’s popular and basic, or postmodern, funny or amusing.
There are a lot more serious matters. There are bands that have a seriousness,
not in their persons, but in the music that they make. And it seems to be worth
that kind of effort.
YR: What kind of things do you guys do when you aren’t
making music?
We’ve been watching a lot of Family Guy in the bus, too much Family Guy
actually, for my liking. Go to the cinema, bowling…
YR: What do you guys listen to that Mogwai fans wouldn’t
expect? What influences you?
I like Funkadelic- I don’t know if that’s weird. Dominic [the lead
guitarist/singer] listens to really obscure, complicated heavy metal, like,
ridiculous. And lots of random noise stuff.
Drew “The Merch Guy” makes an entrance mid-interview:
D: You can ask me how in Georgia no one knows what S-M-L-XL
means. (Drew continues) In Georgia four different people didn’t know what
“S-M-L-XL” meant on the t-shirts. It was on masking tape written
in marker and stuck on the collar and they thought it was part of the shirts.
Pretty nice. I laughed at first- I thought they were joking. And then the third
time I just tried to be calm and uncondescending like “Oh, that’s
small, medium, large, or extra large. Which size would you like?” Georgia,
it was great. But not as great as Tucson.
YR: Where did you play in Texas?
J: We played in Austin with the (And You Will Know Us By The)
Trail of Dead.
D: it was awesome. They were off the first night, but the second
night was the best I’ve ever seen them. They did “Wasted”
by Black Flag, and then hit a guy in the head with a guitar, and he was bleeding
behind the ear. It was pretty awesome. He was psyched too, he was like “Dude,
I’m bleeding!” Blood was gushing. That was after we ran out of video
tape and I couldn’t remember how to rewind it.
*BONUS GHOST STORY
We are going to play in Newport, Kentucky. The place is haunted by this woman
named Elizabeth, it’s a really tragic story (the ethereal sounds of Mogwai
in the haunted house).
This woman during the Civil War I don’t remember which side her husband
was on because Kentucky was neutral; I’m guessing since it was bordering
Ohio she’s the wife of a union general or something like that and he was
a riverboat captain.
She got a letter saying when his boat was coming back (it was an armory boat)
that was bringing nothing but canons and guns and stuff, and I think confederate
soldiers. She knew that he was coming up in this boat so she went up to the
“Widows Walk” of their riverside mansion just to wait for her husband
to come back up. It was a place where women went to wait for their husbands
to come back, but their husbands don’t come back a lot of the time. So
she was waiting for him to come up and then I guess confederate soldiers snuck
up under the armory boat and blew it up, so she just watched the boat burn and
explode and I guess thousands of people died. She hung herself in the “Widows
Walk”, and then two days later it turned out that her husband was on a
different boat, and he came back and found her. So she’s kind of a tormented
spirit.
There’s a club there, and she messes with the rockers all the time. I’ve
heard a lot of stories. If you don’t go up to the attic, you’ll
be fine. It’s also a historical landmark in Kentucky because it is the
birthplace of the man who invented the Tommy Gun. Ohio’s very conservative,
and this is right across the river from Ohio. So in the 30’s Newport,
Kentucky had always been a mob town, and still is. And there are tons of stories-
lots of people have died there. And it was a brothel for a long time. So that’s
the Kentucky show, the second to the last show (on tour)...
So that’s it. John will take you out.
J: Thank you, Drew.
[Drew’s last random words…]
D: I get called “The Merch Guy” I got yelled “I
hate merch guy!” by this midget who was working as a handstand guy in
Tuscon, Arizona. He was really rude, but he could do this incredible thing where
he would sit on his own legs as if they were a chair. It was really adventurous
on the road with Mogwai…watching a lot of Family Guy.
Okay, Youth Radio. (Drew hands the mic to John)
J: Good evening and good night.
Anna Kirsch is a senior at Leadership High School in San Francisco.
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