Mute.

(I wrote this blog post a few months ago, but for one reason or another I never shared it.......)


Something happened a few days ago that has got me thinking about what the public expectations are as to what a band in the 21st century should be saying, or not saying, out in the public domain.

I saw a photo of Chancellor George Osbourne holding up his little red budget briefcase, and it reminded me of the case used in popular US Wrestling brand WWE's Money In the Bank match, so I joked via the bands Facebook page that if parliament was more like the WWE then someone would take it off him and hit him with it, indicating that this is something I would quite enjoy to see. I didn't think too much of it really. Innocent enough. Here in Scotland to suggest that George Osbourne should be hit in the face with a briefcase would be considered so tame that you might be labelled Tory sympathiser and be swiftly catapulted over Hadrians Wall.

It was no surprise that it was a statement met with one or two grunts of anger from miffed Sun reader types, in many ways I feel like I've let myself down when I say anything that isn't growled at by a Union Jack profile picture or two. But what shocked me a little was the sentiment put across from more than one person that it wasn't what I had said that was wrong, but that fact that I, as someone in a rock band, should be saying anything political at all.

I cringe a little to even use the term "political". Like a lot of people in the UK I find everyday party politics completely tedious and pretty much impossible to rise the slightest passion towards. I am naive and uneducated, I will happily admit that. I'm not going to attempt to give any in-depth analysis of the modern political landscape. I couldn't if I wanted to. But I don't really see having complete contempt for a government that shamelessly spits in the face of the most vulnerable people in society in favour of business and the wealthy as exclusively a political issue, at its core it is a human issue. To have strong feelings about this and not say anything would seem quite dishonest to me. It would be really easy to sit silently, trying to hide out in a haze of ironic cool, hugging a rare Shellac cassette and sneering at anyone who opens their mouths. But it doesn't appeal to me. I am fully aware of being a nobody in a band that no one has heard of but I feel like I can sleep easier at night knowing I have used what small voice I have to try and land on the right side of the evil empire.

Modern rock n' roll is morphing into a sort of neutral, wipe clean, sexless blob. The fear of offending and alienating a potential sales market outweighs any desire to have an opinion or to stand for something. The main reason I started writing this was to ask whether bands should open their mouths on any sort of social or political subject matter, or on any subject matter at all that isn't "buy my records and buy tickets to my gig and buy this T-shirt"?
Have we reached a stage where the idea of musicians as dead eyed sales drones has been pushed so much that people now want and expect nothing other than this? I have no problem with selling things, I want people to come to our shows and buy our records, but that can't be everything. End of transaction. Warm smile. Have a nice day.
So much great rock music has been based on attitude and rebellion, on being a thorn in the side of the mainstream and offering some form of "alternative" culture, surely that can't be allowed to die. At least not without a bit of a fight. A little bit of fire in the belly, some uncontrolled rage, just a little injection of fight would be wonderful. Can you imagine any popular guitar bands rolling up to a major televised show and putting on a performance like Kendrick Lamar's at this years Grammys? I really can't. And that scares me a bit.

Is it any real surprise that rock music is wheezing out a slow death gasp when you actually listen to the voices out there now? Much like a lot of the arts and journalism it is a rare thing to hear a voice from a modern band that isn't coming from a well educated upper middle class mouth. Other than perhaps that one token band that's allowed to slip through the net every now and again to be "the band of the people" and rip out a few rehashed Live Forever covers, when do you get to hear a working class voice, or even one which originates anywhere south of London? In the BBC Sound Of 2016 long list of 15 new acts that are tipped to soundtrack the year ahead only one of the final 15 acts came from outside the London area. I'm not saying that any of these acts, or any popular bands of the moment don't deserve all the success in the world, just that there should be a balance. Variety is a healthy thing. If those in the creative industries all come from the same place then what representation is there for the rest of society? From personal experience I have always found music and books to be the best thing in the world for battling loneliness. To hear or read something that makes you think, "holy shit, there are other people out there like me" is beautiful thing, and for that to continue and to be a sensation available to all then there needs to be a whole spectrum of backgrounds and opinions in art.

The way things are currently set up it is nearly impossible for anyone to make a career in the arts unless you can afford to sustain yourself with no income. I sometimes find it quite hard to figure out how bands ever "made it" at all. The way things are in this current moment are so deeply ingrained in my mind. The digital revolution in music hit so hard that I think it will still be some time before anyone really knows what the hell is going on, or how a new band is ever expected to make a living.

Last February we all gave up full time jobs to try and make a real go of this. We spent nine months touring and recording an album, and the minute we got home we were all straight back to the job centre, drowning in debt and uncertainty. Granted, we wouldn't change it for anything in the world, we'd all sell organs to keep doing the things we've been doing, but it is really fucking hard. I guess we have the benefit of really understanding and supportive girlfriends and families. I can sort of understand why so many bands in our area had to jack it in and find a proper career. I don't know if its necessarily a good or bad thing that we have no skills or proper qualifications. I guess it's good in that it reaffirms our feeling that this is all we can do, all we want to do and all there is for us. But bad in that if it all falls to pieces we are completely fucked.

Right now, if the pop charts and major radio stations are anything to go by then the most popular genre of music is a sort of watered down, corporate hip-hop/ R n' B where the consistent subject matter is a mumbling brag about all the expensive things the performer has or how good they are at sex. Can the idea that material wealth and sexual attractiveness are the two highest goals in life be the undisputed narrative of our generation? I really hope not. For that reason I am a big fan of raised voices.

I may have gotten a little side tracked on the way, but the point I'm trying to make is that I like bands that mean something, and that speak out, bands that are filled with rage and alienation. I think it is a healthy thing for everyone. I would like to mould my band around those that I love and that mean so much more to me than just a collection of sounds. I will try hard to think more before I speak from now on, but I certainly wont be shutting up anytime soon.

Peace and love,
G

Simulations Thoughts....

When we were preparing to release our new album in Japan I was asked to write a small blurb describing every track on the album. Aware that it would all be translated i tried to keep it fairly straight forward and simple. If anyone is interested, here is what I wrote.......

SIMULATIONS

Under The Glass Towers

This is the heaviest and most in-your-face track we have every written, it made perfect sense to us that it should be the opening track on the album. Under The Glass Towers is a song about financial inequality, about a world where the vast majority of people have to work themselves to death merely to survive while a small minority, the 1% as they have been labeled, hide out in untouchable “Glass Towers” hoarding wealth and resources. This song is intended as a battle cry, one that squares up to these seemingly immovable powers of the world with a raised middle finger and says “Come on then, take your best shot, we are ready for you”.

New Trance

New Trance is a song about addiction. A very modern addiction. Our generation, myself included, finds it almost impossible to go five minutes without needing to look at phones, iPads or laptops for new information and content. We get nervous that we might miss something, while in reality we are missing everything. I wrote this song at a time when I was feeling frustrated at having no time to do the things in life I loved, but was still managing to spent hours of my day mindlessly scrolling through online content streams that I had no real interest in. I get scared that we are becoming a generation that will never achieve all the great things we are capable of because we are too lost in technology.

No I.D.

Identity is a big theme running through this entire album. I often wonder why I do the things that I do, and like the things that I like. Are these my own free choices, or are they merely dictated to me by the social group to which I belong? I think it is getting increasingly hard to find people acting entirely on there own free will, at least culturally. The rise of social media has provided a blueprint for every type of modern character, meaning that people no longer really need to think for themselves. Are you a masculine sports guy? A comic book nerd? A hippy traveller? Political? Celebrity obsessed? There are so many boxes that people can be squeezed into. I sometimes wonder when speaking to someone if I am speaking to that individual person or just an example of a character, and if I myself am just going through the motions on auto-pilot.

Something About Forever

This is another track concerned with the way modern technology is changing our social lives. It is a kind of sister track to No I.D. in a lot of ways. This song follows a character that has given up on the physical world and has recreated themselves as a completely new person online. The real world can be hard, people can be cruel, it is a world filled with rejection and hardship, but to me these are things that help to shape us as people and make us stronger. To live without them is to live as a child. The character in this song lives behind a closed door, projecting a false and idealized version of themselves to the world.  It may seem like an easy way out, but I think can only lead to us becoming a generation of self obsessed zombies.

Piranhas

Piranhas is a song about fear. It is a song about a potential future that I felt my life was heading towards. I had a job I hated, and I got drunk to try and forget about it, I had no time for a social life. I felt numb and helpless. Living like this I knew that it would never be any of life’s great issues that got me down, just all the little meaningless things, all the small bites, the circling piranhas pulling at my flesh.  This song is a scream of frustration and the starting point on a road to change.

Joyride

This is perhaps the one song on the album I find it hard to talk in detail about. In its most simple form it is a song about doomed and tragic romance. Sometimes two people can be involved in a sort of wild romance that is too destructive to last so it ends up destroying them both.

Second Life

I suppose Second Life is last of the albums modern identity trilogy, coming after No I.D. and Something About Forever. It is a song about the little lies that people try and sell to the world about themselves via social media. Not everyone has the perfect life, with the perfect family and the perfect well informed opinions, but one look on Facebook, Instagram etc and you would start to think that maybe they did, and this might make you start to feel bad about your own life. When every picture is taken from a certain angle with just the right filter it can be easy to forget that none of it is real. I know so many people who are pretty fucked up, and who have a ton of problems and flaws yet project an image of themselves online that is perfect yet ultimately very far from the truth. It is all a lie. I don’t want to see an airbrushed version of humanity; I love people for their weird little quirks and the blemishes that make them more interesting.

Muscle Memory

Muscle Memory is a song written around the same time as Piranhas, and I guess it comes from a similar sort of place. I was starting to think I was going a little insane and quite possibly turning into a robot. Everyday was the same. I was lying to the world and myself in the hope that no one noticed I was falling to pieces. I found myself getting up and living each day mechanically, for no other reason than that I had to.  This song is written as an admission that I might need someone to help me break out of the routine and become a living, breathing person again.

Elixir

I think it is safe to say that Elixir is perhaps musically and lyrically the simplest track on the album. I wrote Elixir about a guy I used to work with. He was young, single and healthy, free to do and to be whatever he wanted but he opted to work every hour of every day. And its not like he was building his own business or making something new, he was just a small cog in a massive multinational company that dreamed of one day becoming a slightly bigger cog. He chose to work for free on his holidays to gain favor with his bosses; he attended every conference and licked every boot. I always thought that one day, maybe twenty years down the line, he was going to wake up and think, “Holy shit, I’m old and soon I will die, I think I may have wasted my life”. But I guess it is entirely his choice, maybe he found some sort of perverse joy in it all.

Bleach Your Bones

If we had been a prog-rock band this song could have lasted for three hours. Thankfully we are not a prog-rock band. I had so many verses written for this, it was more like a short story than a song. On an album filled with concerns about where society is heading I think it made sense to end the album with a vision of a sci-fi dystopian future. Consumerism and technology scare me; this song is where I think we are headed if both are allowed to continue unchecked. Bleach Your Bones is rambling stream of consciousness set in a world of burnt out supercars and murderous children, where billboards swallow shoppers and a darkened sky is heavy with rain clouds of guilty men. I guess I had been reading a lot of George Orwell, Aldus Huxley and H.G Wells, probably watching too much Blade Runner and probably drinking too much coffee.

BONUS TRACKS

Mount Olympus

Mount Olympus is another track concerned with people trying to present an unattainable, idealized version of themselves.  It seems to me that a lot of people are seeing photoshopped images of celebrities online and in magazines and trying to imitate them. Everyone is striving for the same gym fit body, with the same tattoos and the same flawless hairstyle. It’s slightly ironic that in doing these thing which aim to make them more sexually attractive they are turning themselves into hallow, sexless bores.

Processed Air

In a strange kind of way Processed Air is a love song. As much as the lyrics talk about money worries and bad skin the over-riding goal is a positive one. I think it is one of the most musically uplifting songs we have ever written. It’s a song about the desire to step outside of everyday life and say “Fuck this, I’m going to jack it all in and start again”, a desire that I think simmers gentle under the surface of many people.

Five High

I wrote Five High when I was going through a phase of obsession over 80s and 90s UK indie bands. Bands like Pulp, Blur, The Smiths or Suede. They all have a very British sound, and tend to write about very British things, romanticising the little characters and events that will seem so very mundane to most people. Five High was written in that spirit, and is an ode to a certain type of woman in British culture. She is an older lady, but one who still images she is young and desirable. Always a little drunk, always holding a cigarette, dressed from head to toe in animal prints and drenched in an eye watering perfume. She refuses to give up on glamour and romance, and for that reason she will always have a place in my heart.

Devils

Devils is the last track we worked on when we were in the studio recording this album and is one of three tracks that were written in their entirety while we were based in Thailand. It is a song about that little streak of evil that lives within all men. Sometimes I think it can be hard to understand the ways in which the world is organised, and the suffering inflicted on certain groups within society until you face up to the fact that within us all lives a potential for wrong doing that we do well to control in our everyday lives. In spite of its optimistic sounding chorus this is a pretty dark song all round. Devils is probably the one track from the Thai recording session that I wish we had done differently, and may well appear on a future release in a completely different form. 

Simulations - Words

THE MIRROR TRAP - SIMULATIONS

TRACK BY TRACK LYRICS

UNDER THE GLASS TOWERS

Cash for gold? I'd sell my fucking bones to get through one more week, 

to prove that I'm still half way human. 

Where do we go when there's nothing left? 

How do you know when there's nothing left? 

Come all you wrecking balls, you masters of the world, 

What are you waiting for, just roll me over, roll me over again.

Throw me down and roll me over.

I've been working for the last two hundred years, 

in fifty more I can afford to live like you. 

Where do we go when there's nothing left? 

How do you know when there's nothing left? 

Come all you wrecking balls, you masters of the world, 

What are you waiting for, just roll me over, roll me over again.

Throw me down and roll me over.

We're the ants in the magnifying glass, 

We're the ants in the magnifying glass, 

We're the ants in the magnifying glass and we're all on fucking fire...

Come all you wrecking balls, you masters of the world, 

What are you waiting for, just roll me over, roll me over again.

What are you, what are you waiting for? 

NEW TRANCE

Im starting on a new life, an arms length from my face, 

In HD hyper-vision, twenty four hours a day.

I'll join the conversation, but I don't have anything left to say.

Always an alibi, always a reason why I'll never leave

Always an alibi, always a reason why I'll never leave

My eyes have turned to glass, I don't know when I last blinked, 

All out of new sensations, we'll do it all again, 

I am bewitched, I'm spellbound, my new Medusa won't let me escape

Always an alibi, always a reason why I'll never leave

Always an alibi, always a reason why I'll never leave

Always the reason why, always the reason why.

NO I.D.

These years of walking around in someone else's skin, are doing me in. 

These years of lying have me believing everything, I've ever said.

Choose a life, choose a life. 

I wonder where I start and where we're crossing over, 

remember, remember, it's nothing personal.

Dry clean my only suit, dye my hair a lighter shade, staple my face. 

I've learned the phrases, I need to get me through the day, I'll throw them away. 

Choose a life, choose a life.   

I wonder where I start and where we're crossing over, 

remember, remember, it's nothing personal.

Taking my face off, been wearing it all the time, 

I don't even know who I am.

I wonder where I start and where we're crossing over, 

remember, remember, it's nothing personal.

I wonder where I start and where we're crossing over, 

remember, remember, it's nothing personal.

SOMETHING ABOUT FOREVER

I try to justify giving up on life and living like a leper, its easy if you try

and in the bluest light, I get lost in time, I'm gonna live forever, I told you that, 

I told you its alright.

I'm waiting up all night for a little simulation, 

its a modern way of life, for the taking

My digital desires give me all I've ever wanted, 

I'm the lonely superstar of my bedroom.

I try to justify giving up on life and living like a leper, its easy if you try

and in the bluest light, I get lost in time, I'm gonna live forever, I told you that, 

I told you its alright.

I want life without the hits, I want friends without rejection

I want sex and viral clips with no affection. 

When you touch me I get sick, overwhelmed and disappointed, 

I prefer a double click, every time.

In the glow of your screen, I'm reborn I live again, 

now I'm weightless, free of flaws, I can be anything I want. 

I try to justify giving up on life and living like a leper, its easy if you try

and in the bluest light, I get lost in time, I'm gonna live forever, I told you that, 

I told you its alright.

Its alright, its alright, its alright.

PIRANHAS

We're up to our eyeballs, in half a million problems

Piranhas come calling and tear the flesh right off us. 

I woke up this morning, with three bears in my porridge, 

with no good news in paper, no let up in the weather.

I live for the weekend, a bowl to put my keys in, 

I hide my desires, so you wont kick me out the gang.

How can you see with the sun in your eyes?

How do you know when you're feeling low? 

It takes you over, it takes you on. 

One stop, ten years, I was young when I first got here, now Im sick, I can't breath. 

I love her, I hate her, I couldn't live without her, 

I think I might kill her so no one else can have her.

I would turn to drink but I just don't have the stomach, 

I'm F.Scott Fitzgerald without the money or the wife. 

How can you see with the sun in your eyes?

How do you know when you're feeling low? 

It takes you over, it takes you on. 

One stop, ten years, I was young when I first got here, now Im sick, I can't breath, 

and all I see is a brick wall, just another mother-fucking brick wall, 

its all there, its all there, and its never going to go.

JOYRIDE

You led me off with a shaking hand, and gave me the keys to a house you'd built on sand.

I'll be here, I was here. 

We come to life in the street light glare, you're shadow handsome, I can't help but stare.

I'll be here, I was here. 

We drank so much that we couldn't stand, so we fucked where we fell and we called it modern romance. 

I'll be here, I was here, all along.

Ignore the sun, ignore the moon, come on the joyride.

Tell me I'm wrong, bite on my tongue, just come with me.

You dye your hair and you sleep with a gun, if this is dreaming someone wake me up.

I'll be here, I was here. 

I want to stand as a pillar of strength, but my knees are weak and I can't take the weight.

I'll be here, I was here, all along. 

Ignore the sun, ignore the moon, come on the joyride.

Tell me I'm wrong, bite on my tongue, just come with me.

Ignore the sun, ignore the moon, come on the joyride.

Tell me I'm wrong, bite on my tongue, just come with me.

Just come with me, just come, just come, just come.

I'll be here, I was here, all along.

I'll be here, I was here, all along.

I'll be here, I was here, all along.

You're just a roman candle, 

like fire in the night, 

embarrassing the stars, 

putting shame in the sunlight, 

Forever and deadly, and bad for the eyes, 

staring straight ahead I am ecstatically going blind, 

you're perfect

you're perfect and your mine, 

you're perfect

there's nobody left alive

there's nobody left alive....

You tattoo coins to the lids of your eyes, 

you say it will help you to get to the other side. 

SECOND LIFE

I get the feeling that something is not quite right, he was a real mother-fucker but now you call him Christ. 

Isn't he wonderful.

I remember him back when he was wild, he had the face of a man but dressed up like a child.

Isn't he wonderful. 

What are you like? Show me the bad times, I want all you're giving out.

Tell a lie, tell me it twice, 

paint me a portrait of ideal life.

Do you wonder where it all went right?

You start yourself off on a second life, you know you messed it up once you've got to make it right, 

to make it wonderful.

You see the world through a filtered eye, there was a warm pink glow around your bed last night, 

and it was wonderful.

What are you like? Show me the bad times, I want all you're giving out. 

Tell a lie, tell me it twice, 

paint me a portrait of ideal life.

Do you wonder where it all went right?

You get all you wanted, 

when all that you wanted, 

was something for nothing, 

so you can talk about it. 

Tell a lie, tell me it twice, 

paint me a portrait of ideal life.

Do you wonder where it all went right?

MUSCLE MEMORY

Lately I've been feeling electronic, waking up and never asking why, 

maybe we can down a gin and tonic, and talk about the things that keep us alive.

I've been lying to myself, I lie a million times a day. 

I wake up inside a conversation, someones talking but its not to me, 

"would you like to make yourself a fortune", I just shrug and look the other way. 

I've been lying to myself, I lie a million times a day. 

I think I'm falling, under the weather, lately I can't seem to keep it together,  

I think I'm falling, under the weather, lately I can't seem to keep it together.

We die in the suburbs, under the floorboards, 

up in the high-rise, watch time fly.

We die in the suburbs, under the floorboards, 

up in the high-rise, watch time fly.

There's a feeling sitting in my stomach, the seed of something I might never find,

maybe when you get me six feet under, you might see me in a different light.

I've been lying to myself, I lie a million times a day. 

I think I'm falling, under the weather, lately I can't seem to keep it together,  

I think I'm falling, under the weather, lately I can't seem to keep it together.

We die in the suburbs, under the floorboards, 

up in the high-rise, watch time fly.

We die in the suburbs, under the floorboards, 

up in the high-rise, watch time fly.

I've been lying to myself, I lie......

We get sick inside a population, we live together but we don't connect, 

I get scared of losing all emotion but every day I'm feeling less and less. 

ELIXIR

He saves his paperwork for his one day off, 

and wont do holidays, says he'd rather work.

He'll be in charge of you when he's twenty nine, 

he hates the ladder but he loves the climb. 

He loves the climb, he loves the climb. 

Hold tight, just got to bide your time, 

I'm not sure you know what you are.

You live like your never going to die, 

I'm not sure you know what you are. 

He gets himself online where he finds a wife, 

and does her to conceive then turns out the lights.

And when he's sixty-five he'll head for the sun, 

and think of all the things that he should have done.

He should have done, he should have done. 

Hold tight, just got to bide your time, 

I'm not sure you know what you are.

You live like your never going to die, 

I'm not sure you know what you are. 

BLEACH YOUR BONES

I'm the carrier of a broken gene, I'm the son and I'm the father, 

I'll go right down.

There's an open door and I'm walking through, I can see the fire rising, 

I'll go right down.

Out on the window ledge, I'm doing semaphore, 

to tell the world what I've done wrong.

My blue eyes turning grey, my blood is gasoline, 

there's plastic leaking from my pores.

Been having world war dreams, I'm dying in my sleep, 

I'll walk with match-sticks in my eyes

I'm the carrier of a broken gene, I'm the son and I'm the father, 

I'll go right down.

There's an open door and I'm walking through, I can see the fire rising, 

I'll go right down.

The billboard and the screen, spit black dirt over me, 

and sell me ways to clean it off.

Been having world war dreams, I'm scared of everything, 

I'll light the matchsticks in my eyes.

In the torture garden, this is love

By the murder orchids, getting off 

I'm the carrier of a broken gene, I'm the son and I'm the father, 

I'll go right down.

There's an open door and I'm walking through, I can see the fire rising, 

I'll go right down.

It's eternal war, it's eternal war, and the city streets are burning, 

in the empty shells of the super-cars street children skin the millionaires, 

skin the millionaires, skin the millionaires, 

And in their blood they'll write the words, 

"We're all in this together, we're all in this together"

"We're just so much better together"

PIRANHAS

The Mirror Trap - Piranhas (Official Video)

Piranhas is a song about fear. It is a song about a potential future that I felt my life was heading towards. I had a job I hated, and I got drunk to try and forget about it. I felt numb and helpless. I'm sure it's a similar story for many people. Living like this I knew that it would never be any of life’s great wonders that got me down, just all the little meaningless things, all the small bites, the circling piranhas pulling at my flesh. This song is a scream of frustration and the starting point on a road to change.

The video for Piranhas was the brain child of director Stuart Breadner. There have been mixed reactions to early previews, some people thought it was a bit too extreme, and that its violent conclusion goes too far, while others, including myself, found it to be the perfect visual accompaniment to the song.

We live in a society where the piss stream of neo-liberalism flows unchecked into every aspect of life. Competition is encouraged and forced upon us. It is survival of the fittest. We have to compete in schools, at work, in love, there is no place for compassion or community. The weak are to be mercilessly crushed.
I think this video is a sort of ultimate conclusion of that idea. The youngest son must fight to death while the blood thirsty family looks on, it's not dressed up or subdued in any way, if the world must be organised like this then let's show it in its purest and most brutal form.

PIRANHAS 

We're up to our eye balls in half a million problems, 

Piranhas come calling and tear the flesh right off us.

I woke up this morning with three bears in my porridge, 

with no good news in my paper, not let up in the weather.

I live for the weekend, a bowl to put my keys in, 

I hide my desires so you wont kick me out the gang....

How can you see with the sun in your eyes?

How do you know when your feeling low?

Its takes you over, It takes you on.

One stop. Ten years. I was young when I first got here, 

Now I'm sick, I can't breath.

I love her, I hate her, I couldn't live without her, 

I think I might kill her, so no one else can have her.

I would turn to drink but I just don't have the stomach, 

I'm F. Scott Fitzgerald without the money or the wife. 

How can you see with the sun in your eyes?
How do you know when your feeling low?
Its takes you over, It takes you on.

One stop. Ten years. I was young when I first got here, 
Now I'm sick, I can't breath.

Now all I see is a brick wall, another mother-fucking brick wall,

Its all there, its all there, and its never going to go...

How can you see with the sun in your eyes?
How do you know when your feeling low?
Its takes you over, It takes you on.

One stop. Ten years. I was young when I first got here, 
Now I'm sick, I can't breath.

Now all I see is a brick wall, another mother-fucking brick wall,

Its all there, its all there, and its never going to go...

G x

Some Battered Pages

I like having a small notebook that fits neatly in a pocket or bag. I took one such notebook to Thailand with us when we went record our album, but then in an impressive act of bad luck and stupidity I lost it the night we arrived. The only thing I could find at short notice to take down to the studio with me was a big hardcover A4 monster. 

I just found it at the bottom of a bag, and am having fun reading through it. It was a pain in the arse to carry around, but the additional space did lead to me having more room to fill with random nonsense, as you can see below.....

Somewhere in amongst that mess is a song called Bleach Your Bones. This track will on the album, and a live session video of us playing it will be online in the near future. 

We've been working on a bunch of live videos and other fun things over the last month or two, basically keeping ourselves busy until we can get back out on the road again. All of them will be online soon, though I'm not sure exactly when. 

Love n' kisses, 

G

Suits

Four grey haired men stand together,
looking like ageing gangsters,
in their black suits and longs coats.
They silently smoke in the doorway
of the cheapest bar in town,
seventy nine pence vodka and mixer,
pints for a pound fifty.
They enter the final stages of a sombre day.

They are at that age
when friends and acquaintances die
with an ominous consistency,
as a generation fades out.

Black suits become a uniform
and gather the scents of the day,
polished wood, cigarette smoke,
and an eye-watering widows perfume.
One day soon each of these men will take his turn
to put on that black suit for the final time,
and like those before them,
a glass will be raised to their name
at the cheapest bar in town.

NEW TRANCE

Later this month we will be releasing New Trance, the first single from our new album. 

New Trance will be available from all the usual online music stores and streaming sites, and will have a glamorous new music video to go with it. 

New Trance was one of the last songs we worked on before going into the studio. When we headed to Karma it was a half written thing known only as the "Smiths Song", due to Mikeys Jonny Marr-esque lead guitar parts in the choruses. Working with producer Shane Edwards we increased the tempo of the original track and added a large slice of beef, I finished off the lyrics while we were in Thailand, and from a list of around eight potential titles christened it "New Trance". 

One of the consistent themes on the album is new technology, and its effect on our lives and personalities. It may seem like a silly, almost shallow thing to even consider, but I don't think it can be underestimated. You would just need to look back in time ten to fifteen years to see how massive an effect things like smartphones and social media have had on people, individually and socially. If we don't all take a moment now and then to think about what we are doing and how we are letting these almost universally accepted advances in "communication" into our lives we may soon pass a point of no-return. 

New Trance is a song about the hypnotising effect of smartphones. I myself often wonder how much more I would get done if i didn't have one. I find it hard to concentrate when my phone is nearby, when there are emails to check, news websites to read and random pictures to view. I get frustrated and angry with myself when I notice that I've been sitting doing nothing for half an hour because my phone has gotten hold of my attention. I complain that I never have enough time to do and learn new things, but then waste so many hours staring at a 6-inch screen. For me it's a sneaking feeling that I'm missing something. I will be sitting reading a book when I hear my phone buzz, I ignore it, but then in the back of my mind I start to wonder if that buzz might be something important or exciting. I'll decide that whatever it is, it can wait. But then that original feeling remains and distracts me until I give up reading and check, just to get it over with, using the logic that the quicker I can see that its nothing important the quicker I can get back to what I was doing. But it never quite works out like that. I know a lot of people who suffer this more than I do, and I'm certain that there are millions more all over the world, and that many of them will never notice it is happening to them. There is a global epidemic of distraction sweeping the earth, if we are not careful then nothing will ever get done, we will remain trapped in the one moment, afraid to move, the human race will turn to stone. 

NEW TRANCE

I'm starting on a new life, an arms length from my face, 

in HD hyper-vision, twenty four hours a day, 

I join the conversation, but I don't have anything left to say....

Always an alibi, 

Always a reason why I'll never leave

Always an alibi, 

Always a reason why I'll never leave

My eyes have turned to glass, I don't know when I last blinked, 

all out of new sensations, we don it all again, 

I am bewitched, I'm spellbound, my new Medusa won't let me escape, 

Always an alibi, 

Always a reason why I'll never leave

Always an alibi, 

Always a reason why I'll never leave

Always a reason why

Always a reason why

Into the Wilderness

We had an incredible year last year, we played a lot of shows, in a lot of countries, and wrote a lot of songs, before eventually heading off to Thailand to make an album.

But it wasn't all plain sailing, there were a few "interesting" moments along the way. It sometimes blows my mind that we managed to pull it off without any major casualties. 

I shall withhold the names so that the interested parties can keep a little dignity, but here are some of the truly special moments we endured, I'm sure those that know us can guess the culprits of each....

• Someone blacked out and went missing in Bangkok the night before our album recording began, so had to be taxied to the studio on their own once found. This person may also have lost a lyric book on that same night. 
• Someone got bored after being home for a few weeks so attempted to do a little DIY. They failed, and managed to set their arm on fire with a petrol can. At a later date, while once again back home and bored, this same person managed to break a ladder and get stuck in an attic. Its best that this person is never left home alone. 
• Someone thought they were a modern day Steve Irwin, so started messing with some killer jelly fish, only to end up being stung and hospitalised.
• Someone hates mosquitos. They hate them so much they bought every type of mosquito repellent they could find, from creams to sprays and incense sticks, and decided to use all of these things at once, in a poorly ventilated room. This person briefly went blind. 
• Someone misplaced a passport while in Switzerland, and didn't realise it had been misplaced until the passport had made it halfway across Germany in the back of a van. With half of the band in Germany, and the other half in Switzerland, a mad dash against the clock commenced, with flights and ferries to be caught and vast distances to be covered the odds were against us, but somehow we pulled it off and all made it home. But this leads me to my next point......
• Someone, with the threat of missing a ferry and being trapped in Holland looming over them, decided to go rouge and try board said ferry on foot as it was about to depart. They were caught and threatened with arrest, but managed to charm their way out of it and he, along with a van full of gear, was then allowed to board. 
• Someone grew frustrated with a confused taxi driver taking us in the wrong direction while looking for a house on the outskirts of Bangkok, so decided we must all vacate the taxi in a traffic jam and walk down the middle of the motorway into on-coming traffic. Ten minutes later we found the house we needed and were sitting happily with iced gins in hand, laughing nervously about how it had all worked out for the best while we each sat secretly trying to figure how were had managed not to become Thai roadkill. 
• Someone discovered a free bar at a Belgian music festival. Eight hours later that same person was kicked out of the dressing room of a popular 80s pop combo for trying to "borrow" a coffee machine while draped in Belgian flag. This person was very ill the next day. 
• And a special mention must go to a member of the extended TMT touring party that kept us all on our toes for the whole year. This brave soldier managed to do many adventurous things, ranging from simply putting a hole in his own hand, to locking himself in the back of a van, at an airport, with the engine running, resulting in him almost arrested as a suspected terrorist. At one point our van was hit by a dangerous driver, so our hero chased them down like a ninja warrior and kicked off their wing-mirror. Yes, he may have ended up in the back of a police car, but our scratched van was avenged! 

Our new single will be released later this month, so the whole operation is about to swing into action once again. This year promises to be busier and more intense than last, its going to be a hell of a ride, we hope you can join us, and lets see if we can all make it out alive.

G

Настоящая любовь

Other than a few random "It was great!" quotes in a few rarely read interviews we've never really said anything in detail about our trips to, and relationship with, Russia. So in keeping with our new spirit of saying more words about more stuff, I think now might be a good time to go into it.
I apologise in advance, this will boring and of no merit at all, it is simply a list of things that happened and long overdue love letter...

I think I first heard of Fyodor Dostoyevsky when he was mentioned in a Sartre novel. I was obsessed with Jean Paul Sartre. So anything mentioned in a Sartre novel I would undoubtedly go out and investigate further.

I bought a second hand copy of Notes From The Underground and a new romance was born. I began devouring everything by Dostoyevsky I could get my hands on, Crime and Punishment (the book and BBC film), Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, the whole lot. It would often take weeks to get through a single book, and glorious weeks they would be. I'm not sure if it maybe had something to do with me being from a small town, in a small country, but I loved the vastness of these novels, the epic landscapes, the unhinged characters and almost unbearable psychological torture in every situation. When I finally finished a book I felt so sad at having to leave all of these people and places that had taken over my life. When I had finished with Dostoyevsky I moved on to others, Tolstoy, Gogol, Turgenev, Bulgakov, Grossman. I read more into the history and setting of these novels, I even wrote a song called St Petersburg, all about my desire to run away from mundane every day life and flee to the darkness of Nevsky Prospect. Russia became my "thing". Other people liked cars, or collected vinyl or played sports, whereas I had Russian books. I bought a full length great coat and grew a beard.
I'm not quite as intense (and odd) as I was during this initial period, the coat has been binned and the beard shaved off, but I am still a lover and enthusiast.

So alas, it felt like a kind of poetic coincidence when our first ever major tour happened to be in Russia, starting in the depths of Siberia and moving slowly west. In all honesty I had never heard of some of the unpronounceable cities we were to play on that tour, but they have come to be some of my favourite places on earth, and home to some of the most incredible people I have ever met.
Those first shows, when we supported Placebo in a selection of huge Ice Hockey stadiums will always be some of our best ever. I'm not really sure quite why we had such an amazing and instant bond with the audiences at those shows, I guess the people in the crowd will be better placed to explain that than me, but we were humbled and amazed. Having played tons of small shows around the UK before this Russia trip we had grown accustomed to subdued and reserved audiences. A few head nods and Twitter follows coming from a show was a real success. In contrast those Siberia shows where pure chaos, glorious mad energy and enthusiasm, we fed off of it, and loved it. We came home from that tour as a better band, the Mirror Trap that takes to any stage today was born in Siberia. On arriving back in Scotland we wanted to go back straight away, but sadly the logistics and finance involved in taking a small and poor Scottish rock band into the middle of Russia where too huge for us to do it quickly.
One year later we were given the chance to return, and to play in Moscow and St Petersburg, two cities we missed out on the first trip.

That second trip was a real whirlwind in which our feet barely touched the ground, we flew in for two days, played two shows and didn't sleep at all. In St Petersburg we played our own show, to a small but wild crowd of people. During our one day in St Petersburg I managed to squeeze in a four hour walk all around the centre of the city, I went over the bridges on which so many great literary scenes had taken places, I stood in front of great palaces and drank coffee in small cafes, this was a dream come true. The following day we met up with Placebo again to play a show in Gorky Park. Gorky Park. Gorky freakin' Park. Boys like us don't get to play to ten thousand people in the centre of Moscow, it just doesn't happen. But then it did, and it was surreal, incredible but so surreal. I don't think I was really in my body during that entries 45 minute set. We even had a little "cat walk" at the front of the stage, I felt like Mick Jagger!
We went from the show straight to the after show party, we drank and danced and made fools of ourselves until 7am. We piled into a taxi, were taken to the airport and were home before we could blink.

We are still in contact with so many of the people we met on those two trips, and are extremely grateful for the support we have been given. We have our new album finished, and are in the process of arranging a year of shows. We will be coming back to Russia. I don't know where, or when, but it will happen, and if it is anything like our previous trips it will be incredible.

спасибо!

G