Twin Atlantic interview, Kerrang!, December 7, 2012
AT ONE end of a big New York board room is Twin Atlantic’s frontman Sam McTrusty. Next to a massive flat screen TV and hulking black stereo, he sits awkwardly on a stool clutching an acoustic guitar. His band lurk uneasily nearby in an untidy group as they wait for their singer to do what he has to do.
At the other end of the same board room sit the massed ranks of the Scottish band’s American distribution company. All chivvied from their desks and brought in to hear the songs of Twin Atlantic, as played on McTrusty’s acoustic. The gap between singer and staff is almost as gaping as the atmosphere in the room.
A man says some words – that Twin Atlantic are going to be big stars, or something similarly bullish and American – and introduces McTrusty who, to his credit, sings his songs and looks pleased to be there but for a brief “this is so cheesy”. Then the distribution company staff clap politely before getting stuck into the buffet behind them. Everyone shuffles their feet for a bit, wonders what the little session has achieved, and gets on with their lives.
Half an hour later, in a different office, in front of different staff, this same scene is played out – minus the buffet – as Twin Atlantic do the rounds, shaking hands, smiling, gripping and grinning, and saying hello to, as drummer Craig Kneale puts it, “people who have much more money than we do”.
“It’s a funny thing,” he adds, very good naturedly, “no-one tells you that you have to do this stuff when you grow up dreaming of being in a rock band.”
Welcome, then, to what it takes for a band to make it in the US.
And if it seems a little surreal, it’s nothing compared to the rest of Twin Atlantic’s time in New York because, in the three nights they’ll spend here, they’ll wander the streets and marvel at Manhattan, they’ll stroll past dinosaur exhibits and pieces of moon-rock in a vast museum, have questions fired at them by a mad Mexican, meet industry executives by the score, have their pictures taken in a late night, neon-clad Times Square and even, at some, point manage to actually play a show. Welcome, indeed, to the life of a band on the brink.
IF YOU believe the executives who are shaking Twin Atlantic’s hands, this could be their time. There’s a buzz about the band both here in America and back home in the UK. Album sales are good, ticket sales are healthy and there’s a sense the Glasgow fourpiece could be the next British band to break through. At least that’s what the men in suits are saying.
Fortunately, you don’t have to take their word for it. Tonight, they play at Webster Hall and, though they are first on a three band bill, the venue is nearly full by the time they take to the stage. Those in the front row sing along to almost every word, those further back bellow the choruses. Even those at the bar, here only for the headliners, turn and become fascinated by a band of Scotsmen blaring intense and passionate rock from this New York stage. You don’t need those men in suits to hype up a buzz when you can see one with your own eyes.
It’s been five years in the coming. Since the band formed at the beginning of 2007, there’s been a sense of <<something>> about them. In their hometown of Glasgow they – McTrusty, Kneale, bassist Ross McNae and guitarist Barry McKenna – built up word of mouth support, using MySpace to drum up fans further afield. Enviable support slots followed – Smashing Pumpkins, Biffy Clyro, Blink 182 and My Chemical Romance – as the promise of their debut EP A Guidance From Colour graduated into their impassioned debut mini album Vivarium after they signed to the American label Red Bull.
Then they hit some problems, a slight entanglement with the music industry – too much belief in those people who told them they’d be stars, perhaps – and they admit they lost their way as others began to make decisions for them.
“We let go of the reins,” says Kneale. “It took us a while to realise we needed to keep a firmer hold on what we believed, because otherwise we weren’t going to be standing for anything.”
It meant a reassessment and refocusing before this year’s Free, their second record for Red Bull, and with that came their best work to date – anthemic, bold and soaring, it’s an album that marked them out for bigger things.
It’s why everywhere they go today in New York – from board rooms to concert halls – people are telling them as much.
“People have been saying that to us in the last few months,” agrees McTrusty. “But it’s not something we’ve realised, though, because we’re in a bubble. We’ve been so involved in playing gigs, travelling and writing that we’ve not stopped for a second to think about it.”
It’s not hard to believe him. Since Free’s May release, they’ve been on the road permanently bar a month’s break enforced by McTrusty’s voice problems. In just the last two weeks their van has carried them from America’s west coast to its east, via great numbers of anonymous American nowhere towns in between: Fort Collins, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Lansing and more. As soon as this tour ends, in support of Canadian alt. pop band Awolnation and wailing power duo Middle Class Rut, they’ll be out on the road around the UK.
It’s a far cry from those early days in Glasgow when the four of them came together from a clutch of local bands who, though serious, were never serious enough. But even from those early days, they had a plan which they’ve followed.
“It was always our intention to take little baby steps,” says McTrusty. “We’d much rather slowly gather up the people who care about our music so that, six or seven years later, we’ve got some solid foundations of people to who our music actually matters.”
“People who get into you on the basis of a hit single don’t have as much connection with a band,” adds Kneale. “They haven’t invested any real time and so they move onto whatever the next thing is straight away.”
“We’ve always had a very fixed idea and we’ve stuck to it so far,” says McTrusty. “The bands we look up to all had a defined quality that couldn’t be fucked with. Bands like At The Drive-In and …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead had this thing: an honesty and an ethos. You believe in them as people, which means you believe in their music. That’s quite powerful.”
IT’S THIS that they’ve based their band upon: an honesty of emotion and feeling, and it’s why Free packs its punch. However, it is live that they’ve always been happiest – McTrusty reeling around the stage, Kneale pounding his drums, McNae and McKenna shaping the textures of their music.
They say they’d prefer to be constantly on the move, always on tour. Even here in America, where they face seven or eight hour drives between shows, they seem dazzled by the excitement of it.
“I love it,” says Kneale. “After a couple of days at home I get really frustrated. When we’re on the road, it feels like we’re working and achieving something.
“Making a record is such an investment of your personality, life and various commitments that, when you’re sitting at home twiddling your thumbs, it’s frustrating. You don’t feel you’re doing the record justice,” adds McTrusty. “We’re used to being away, and other people are used to us being away too. So when you get home for any length of time, it disrupts everyone’s life.”
On the road, all four share a room in cheap hotels by night, their crew sharing another room next door. Then, by day, they drive. Most occupy themselves with something – Kneale has a blog, McNae programmes music – but McTrusty just stares blankly out of the window.
Then they’ll arrive, play and, before moving on, chat to whoever happens to say hello. It’s when they’re in the middle of America, away from the cool spots on the coasts, that they say they meet the most interesting people.
“You meet these people who hate their lives in these places and they use gigs as an escape,” says McTrusty. “They tend to be quite memorable. But there are other times that it’s a little depressing. Sometimes it makes you feel how lucky you are to be doing what we’re doing.”
McTrusty says touring has humbled him – travelling and seeing life that his friends in Glasgow will never to experience has had a levelling effect.
“Anyone that travels has to change,” he says. “I used to feel a bit sorry for myself, I thought I’d had a tough upbringing. It’s not until you drive through some deprived places that you realise that you’ve been worrying about nothing for years. Those have been the moments that have changed me, rather than getting to see a big, famous, fancy place.”
Still, there have been times they’ve allowed themselves to have fun with it all. After a photo-shoot in Las Vegas in which they’d been asked to wear suits, they entered into the spirit of the town and, for a laugh, hit the casinos all dressed up. Hours later, roaring drunk, they stumbled out of one place to find a limo for hire. Quite rightly, they thought, “Why the hell not?”
So it was that a band who all grew up with punk rock ideals about integrity and not selling out found themselves rolling around the back of a limousine, pissed, and dressed in three-piece suits. “It was very surreal,” admits Kneale.
McTrusty, laughing, says that, had it been possible for him to have been shown a photograph of the incident before he started the band, he’d have gulped at what it appeared he’d become.
“I’d have hated myself,” he says in mock horror. “I’d have thought we’d sold out entirely.”
“If I’d seen that picture, I would have immediately not wanted to have been in a band anymore,” adds Kneale with a smile.
ALL THE touring means they’ve finally pitched up here, in the middle of Manhattan and there’s work to be done. First they make their tour of the boardrooms. To an outsider, it might look forced – these handshakes with strangers – but the band are deeply professional about it, handling it with a panache that does them credit. After all, it’s these behind-the-scenes people who will be doing a lot of hard work for the band, and Twin Atlantic – always polite, always friendly and open – not only know this, but value their efforts.
Still, smiling at the industry is not exactly what anyone of them got into a band for in the first place.
Fortunately, there’s barely time to breath before they’re whisked from one appointment to another. Next they’re off to do an interview for a local legend, flamboyant Mexican TV presenter Eddie Muentes, who runs a TV station, Hit Records Nightlife Video, from what looks like a million dollar apartment high up near the 40th floor of a glorious New York skyscraper.
“Hey you guys!” he whoops, clicking the heels of his alligator-skin cowboy boots, swishing his ponytail, lowering his mirrored shades and doffing a fedora as he greets the band. “I always knew you were going to be stars!”
Smiling and jabbering, he ushers them in, past the Wurlitzer jukebox and into a room which unveils the entire New York skyline through a window behind him: the Empire State building in front, the tip of the Chrysler Building to the right, and a million miles below the lower half of Manhattan stretching into the distance. The band smile at the strangeness of it all.
Eddie plonks them on a sofa, turns on his cameras and launches into his patter without recourse to punctuation or breath. “Hi I’m Eddie Muentes and you’re watching Hit Records Nightlife Video and I’m here with Twin Atlantic and I tell you these guys are going to be stars these guys are going to be STARS they are on their way guys introduce yourself to the viewers,” he blurts at speed. They barely get their names out and he’s off again, “You guys are on your way. You are on your way. Tell me about the band.”
It’s bewildering but Eddie is a warm-hearted man who sweeps the band along in his bluster. They ride with it, laughing and smiling – just the latest thing in a peculiar day.
And then we’re off again, a sound check, a show, then later a photo-shoot against the glittering neon of Times Square, all done in a rush in case the lurking police demand to see a licence that no-one has got. It’s a breathless day.
TWO DAYS earlier, it was calmer. Twin Atlantic spent their first night in New York simply wandering the streets, gazing up and around at the wondrous buildings and atmosphere the city has to offer.
The following morning, as McKenna and McNae sleep, McTrusty and Kneale are exploring again. The first place they end up is the American Museum of Natural History on the Upper West Side. They peer at meteors, lumps of the moon and bits of space debris. Then they head upstairs and gaze at dinosaur bones and a massive Tyrannosaurus Rex.
It’s a strange place to interview a band, but in some ways apt – the top floor of a New York museum being as good an indicator as any that Twin Atlantic have come a long way from their birth in Glasgow.
“When we started, we played gigs to no-one,” says McTrusty, as tourists scrape chairs in the cafeteria around him. “We played awful shows and we did it because we had this determination to get to where we are now.”
They’d fake official-looking posters when they grew to eventually headline local venues like King Tut’s (“Like playing fucking Wembley to us,” says McTrusty) and hammer away at the internet to get their name out there.
“I’m not sure what people saw in us then,” says Kneale. “All the songs were so disjointed but I think we were exciting to watch because we were very passionate. We still have that. We were intense to watch. But each song was a melting pot that would go from Point A to Z, via every stop in between. It was a bit crazy but hopefully it was interesting enough to get people’s attention.”
Mostly, they just wanted to make a connection by pouring honesty into their music. That realness was something, however, that worked against them later. McTrusty tells the story of one industry person who told him not to sing in such a strong Scottish accent – no matter that it’s <<his>> strong Scottish accent – as it could be off-putting.
“If you can’t be yourself, what’s the point in putting your ideas out there?” he says, still baffled by the advice. “It’s an identity thing. What’s the point in making music without it?”
“Writing a song is one of the most personal things you can do,” adds Kneale. “It was peculiar to us that people wondered if we could dilute that by putting an accent over it. It’s very strange to us that you might write a personal song, then hide that.”
“A lot of British rock bands don’t have much identity and they’re stealing more and more from American bands,” adds McTrusty later.
It’s the singer who tends to write most of Twin Atlantic’s songs before bringing them to the band.
“Then Ross will make Sam’s ideas a little more musically accurate,” says Kneale. “He’ll convert Sam’s made-up chords into actual chords, for example.”
They admit they have never been able to jam – McTrusty’s concentration span doesn’t last long enough – and so he’ll bring in bare bones of songs, often completing lyrics in a splurge of auto-writing.
“I write very quickly and by just throwing things down,” he says. “When I write, it’s almost straight from my mind to the page. It’s only later that I read it back and work out if it’s any good. I’m just putting feelings into music…”
He pauses for a second, then shakes his head.
“That’s so emo, isn’t it? ‘Just putting feelings into music’? That’s so fucking emo. I’m sorry!” he says, laughing. “What I mean is that it’s all done on instinct, rather than being something clinical and thought through. I’m not trying to deliberately say something with our songs, I’m just expressing who we are.”
IT’S THAT expression that’s evident when they take to the Webster Hall stage. McTrusty is an engaging frontman, the centre point as he attacks his microphone before falling away, sometimes playing on his knees, sometimes lying flat out on his back. Both McNae and McKenna drive the band onwards, their musicality adding light and dark to Twin Atlantic’s sound as Kneale pummels with surprising force for someone so slight.
In the crowd is McTrusty’s father. He lives in Canada but drives for hours to see his son play whenever he can. The singer is delighted but admits that his dad once tried hard to steer him away from a career in music. Now, though, he is one of his biggest supporters.
Perhaps this is the final sign that things might soon be about to come good for Twin Atlantic. Because if even the people who worried most the band would not make it are now standing in the crowd singing along, the omens look very good indeed.
“I hope so,” says McTrusty, finally. “I don’t really know what next year will hold. All I want it to just keep on being Twin Atlantic. As long as we keep on being ourselves, everything will be alright.”
© Tom Bryant 2012
At the other end of the same board room sit the massed ranks of the Scottish band’s American distribution company. All chivvied from their desks and brought in to hear the songs of Twin Atlantic, as played on McTrusty’s acoustic. The gap between singer and staff is almost as gaping as the atmosphere in the room.
A man says some words – that Twin Atlantic are going to be big stars, or something similarly bullish and American – and introduces McTrusty who, to his credit, sings his songs and looks pleased to be there but for a brief “this is so cheesy”. Then the distribution company staff clap politely before getting stuck into the buffet behind them. Everyone shuffles their feet for a bit, wonders what the little session has achieved, and gets on with their lives.
Half an hour later, in a different office, in front of different staff, this same scene is played out – minus the buffet – as Twin Atlantic do the rounds, shaking hands, smiling, gripping and grinning, and saying hello to, as drummer Craig Kneale puts it, “people who have much more money than we do”.
“It’s a funny thing,” he adds, very good naturedly, “no-one tells you that you have to do this stuff when you grow up dreaming of being in a rock band.”
Welcome, then, to what it takes for a band to make it in the US.
And if it seems a little surreal, it’s nothing compared to the rest of Twin Atlantic’s time in New York because, in the three nights they’ll spend here, they’ll wander the streets and marvel at Manhattan, they’ll stroll past dinosaur exhibits and pieces of moon-rock in a vast museum, have questions fired at them by a mad Mexican, meet industry executives by the score, have their pictures taken in a late night, neon-clad Times Square and even, at some, point manage to actually play a show. Welcome, indeed, to the life of a band on the brink.
IF YOU believe the executives who are shaking Twin Atlantic’s hands, this could be their time. There’s a buzz about the band both here in America and back home in the UK. Album sales are good, ticket sales are healthy and there’s a sense the Glasgow fourpiece could be the next British band to break through. At least that’s what the men in suits are saying.
Fortunately, you don’t have to take their word for it. Tonight, they play at Webster Hall and, though they are first on a three band bill, the venue is nearly full by the time they take to the stage. Those in the front row sing along to almost every word, those further back bellow the choruses. Even those at the bar, here only for the headliners, turn and become fascinated by a band of Scotsmen blaring intense and passionate rock from this New York stage. You don’t need those men in suits to hype up a buzz when you can see one with your own eyes.
It’s been five years in the coming. Since the band formed at the beginning of 2007, there’s been a sense of <<something>> about them. In their hometown of Glasgow they – McTrusty, Kneale, bassist Ross McNae and guitarist Barry McKenna – built up word of mouth support, using MySpace to drum up fans further afield. Enviable support slots followed – Smashing Pumpkins, Biffy Clyro, Blink 182 and My Chemical Romance – as the promise of their debut EP A Guidance From Colour graduated into their impassioned debut mini album Vivarium after they signed to the American label Red Bull.
Then they hit some problems, a slight entanglement with the music industry – too much belief in those people who told them they’d be stars, perhaps – and they admit they lost their way as others began to make decisions for them.
“We let go of the reins,” says Kneale. “It took us a while to realise we needed to keep a firmer hold on what we believed, because otherwise we weren’t going to be standing for anything.”
It meant a reassessment and refocusing before this year’s Free, their second record for Red Bull, and with that came their best work to date – anthemic, bold and soaring, it’s an album that marked them out for bigger things.
It’s why everywhere they go today in New York – from board rooms to concert halls – people are telling them as much.
“People have been saying that to us in the last few months,” agrees McTrusty. “But it’s not something we’ve realised, though, because we’re in a bubble. We’ve been so involved in playing gigs, travelling and writing that we’ve not stopped for a second to think about it.”
It’s not hard to believe him. Since Free’s May release, they’ve been on the road permanently bar a month’s break enforced by McTrusty’s voice problems. In just the last two weeks their van has carried them from America’s west coast to its east, via great numbers of anonymous American nowhere towns in between: Fort Collins, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Lansing and more. As soon as this tour ends, in support of Canadian alt. pop band Awolnation and wailing power duo Middle Class Rut, they’ll be out on the road around the UK.
It’s a far cry from those early days in Glasgow when the four of them came together from a clutch of local bands who, though serious, were never serious enough. But even from those early days, they had a plan which they’ve followed.
“It was always our intention to take little baby steps,” says McTrusty. “We’d much rather slowly gather up the people who care about our music so that, six or seven years later, we’ve got some solid foundations of people to who our music actually matters.”
“People who get into you on the basis of a hit single don’t have as much connection with a band,” adds Kneale. “They haven’t invested any real time and so they move onto whatever the next thing is straight away.”
“We’ve always had a very fixed idea and we’ve stuck to it so far,” says McTrusty. “The bands we look up to all had a defined quality that couldn’t be fucked with. Bands like At The Drive-In and …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead had this thing: an honesty and an ethos. You believe in them as people, which means you believe in their music. That’s quite powerful.”
IT’S THIS that they’ve based their band upon: an honesty of emotion and feeling, and it’s why Free packs its punch. However, it is live that they’ve always been happiest – McTrusty reeling around the stage, Kneale pounding his drums, McNae and McKenna shaping the textures of their music.
They say they’d prefer to be constantly on the move, always on tour. Even here in America, where they face seven or eight hour drives between shows, they seem dazzled by the excitement of it.
“I love it,” says Kneale. “After a couple of days at home I get really frustrated. When we’re on the road, it feels like we’re working and achieving something.
“Making a record is such an investment of your personality, life and various commitments that, when you’re sitting at home twiddling your thumbs, it’s frustrating. You don’t feel you’re doing the record justice,” adds McTrusty. “We’re used to being away, and other people are used to us being away too. So when you get home for any length of time, it disrupts everyone’s life.”
On the road, all four share a room in cheap hotels by night, their crew sharing another room next door. Then, by day, they drive. Most occupy themselves with something – Kneale has a blog, McNae programmes music – but McTrusty just stares blankly out of the window.
Then they’ll arrive, play and, before moving on, chat to whoever happens to say hello. It’s when they’re in the middle of America, away from the cool spots on the coasts, that they say they meet the most interesting people.
“You meet these people who hate their lives in these places and they use gigs as an escape,” says McTrusty. “They tend to be quite memorable. But there are other times that it’s a little depressing. Sometimes it makes you feel how lucky you are to be doing what we’re doing.”
McTrusty says touring has humbled him – travelling and seeing life that his friends in Glasgow will never to experience has had a levelling effect.
“Anyone that travels has to change,” he says. “I used to feel a bit sorry for myself, I thought I’d had a tough upbringing. It’s not until you drive through some deprived places that you realise that you’ve been worrying about nothing for years. Those have been the moments that have changed me, rather than getting to see a big, famous, fancy place.”
Still, there have been times they’ve allowed themselves to have fun with it all. After a photo-shoot in Las Vegas in which they’d been asked to wear suits, they entered into the spirit of the town and, for a laugh, hit the casinos all dressed up. Hours later, roaring drunk, they stumbled out of one place to find a limo for hire. Quite rightly, they thought, “Why the hell not?”
So it was that a band who all grew up with punk rock ideals about integrity and not selling out found themselves rolling around the back of a limousine, pissed, and dressed in three-piece suits. “It was very surreal,” admits Kneale.
McTrusty, laughing, says that, had it been possible for him to have been shown a photograph of the incident before he started the band, he’d have gulped at what it appeared he’d become.
“I’d have hated myself,” he says in mock horror. “I’d have thought we’d sold out entirely.”
“If I’d seen that picture, I would have immediately not wanted to have been in a band anymore,” adds Kneale with a smile.
ALL THE touring means they’ve finally pitched up here, in the middle of Manhattan and there’s work to be done. First they make their tour of the boardrooms. To an outsider, it might look forced – these handshakes with strangers – but the band are deeply professional about it, handling it with a panache that does them credit. After all, it’s these behind-the-scenes people who will be doing a lot of hard work for the band, and Twin Atlantic – always polite, always friendly and open – not only know this, but value their efforts.
Still, smiling at the industry is not exactly what anyone of them got into a band for in the first place.
Fortunately, there’s barely time to breath before they’re whisked from one appointment to another. Next they’re off to do an interview for a local legend, flamboyant Mexican TV presenter Eddie Muentes, who runs a TV station, Hit Records Nightlife Video, from what looks like a million dollar apartment high up near the 40th floor of a glorious New York skyscraper.
“Hey you guys!” he whoops, clicking the heels of his alligator-skin cowboy boots, swishing his ponytail, lowering his mirrored shades and doffing a fedora as he greets the band. “I always knew you were going to be stars!”
Smiling and jabbering, he ushers them in, past the Wurlitzer jukebox and into a room which unveils the entire New York skyline through a window behind him: the Empire State building in front, the tip of the Chrysler Building to the right, and a million miles below the lower half of Manhattan stretching into the distance. The band smile at the strangeness of it all.
Eddie plonks them on a sofa, turns on his cameras and launches into his patter without recourse to punctuation or breath. “Hi I’m Eddie Muentes and you’re watching Hit Records Nightlife Video and I’m here with Twin Atlantic and I tell you these guys are going to be stars these guys are going to be STARS they are on their way guys introduce yourself to the viewers,” he blurts at speed. They barely get their names out and he’s off again, “You guys are on your way. You are on your way. Tell me about the band.”
It’s bewildering but Eddie is a warm-hearted man who sweeps the band along in his bluster. They ride with it, laughing and smiling – just the latest thing in a peculiar day.
And then we’re off again, a sound check, a show, then later a photo-shoot against the glittering neon of Times Square, all done in a rush in case the lurking police demand to see a licence that no-one has got. It’s a breathless day.
TWO DAYS earlier, it was calmer. Twin Atlantic spent their first night in New York simply wandering the streets, gazing up and around at the wondrous buildings and atmosphere the city has to offer.
The following morning, as McKenna and McNae sleep, McTrusty and Kneale are exploring again. The first place they end up is the American Museum of Natural History on the Upper West Side. They peer at meteors, lumps of the moon and bits of space debris. Then they head upstairs and gaze at dinosaur bones and a massive Tyrannosaurus Rex.
It’s a strange place to interview a band, but in some ways apt – the top floor of a New York museum being as good an indicator as any that Twin Atlantic have come a long way from their birth in Glasgow.
“When we started, we played gigs to no-one,” says McTrusty, as tourists scrape chairs in the cafeteria around him. “We played awful shows and we did it because we had this determination to get to where we are now.”
They’d fake official-looking posters when they grew to eventually headline local venues like King Tut’s (“Like playing fucking Wembley to us,” says McTrusty) and hammer away at the internet to get their name out there.
“I’m not sure what people saw in us then,” says Kneale. “All the songs were so disjointed but I think we were exciting to watch because we were very passionate. We still have that. We were intense to watch. But each song was a melting pot that would go from Point A to Z, via every stop in between. It was a bit crazy but hopefully it was interesting enough to get people’s attention.”
Mostly, they just wanted to make a connection by pouring honesty into their music. That realness was something, however, that worked against them later. McTrusty tells the story of one industry person who told him not to sing in such a strong Scottish accent – no matter that it’s <<his>> strong Scottish accent – as it could be off-putting.
“If you can’t be yourself, what’s the point in putting your ideas out there?” he says, still baffled by the advice. “It’s an identity thing. What’s the point in making music without it?”
“Writing a song is one of the most personal things you can do,” adds Kneale. “It was peculiar to us that people wondered if we could dilute that by putting an accent over it. It’s very strange to us that you might write a personal song, then hide that.”
“A lot of British rock bands don’t have much identity and they’re stealing more and more from American bands,” adds McTrusty later.
It’s the singer who tends to write most of Twin Atlantic’s songs before bringing them to the band.
“Then Ross will make Sam’s ideas a little more musically accurate,” says Kneale. “He’ll convert Sam’s made-up chords into actual chords, for example.”
They admit they have never been able to jam – McTrusty’s concentration span doesn’t last long enough – and so he’ll bring in bare bones of songs, often completing lyrics in a splurge of auto-writing.
“I write very quickly and by just throwing things down,” he says. “When I write, it’s almost straight from my mind to the page. It’s only later that I read it back and work out if it’s any good. I’m just putting feelings into music…”
He pauses for a second, then shakes his head.
“That’s so emo, isn’t it? ‘Just putting feelings into music’? That’s so fucking emo. I’m sorry!” he says, laughing. “What I mean is that it’s all done on instinct, rather than being something clinical and thought through. I’m not trying to deliberately say something with our songs, I’m just expressing who we are.”
IT’S THAT expression that’s evident when they take to the Webster Hall stage. McTrusty is an engaging frontman, the centre point as he attacks his microphone before falling away, sometimes playing on his knees, sometimes lying flat out on his back. Both McNae and McKenna drive the band onwards, their musicality adding light and dark to Twin Atlantic’s sound as Kneale pummels with surprising force for someone so slight.
In the crowd is McTrusty’s father. He lives in Canada but drives for hours to see his son play whenever he can. The singer is delighted but admits that his dad once tried hard to steer him away from a career in music. Now, though, he is one of his biggest supporters.
Perhaps this is the final sign that things might soon be about to come good for Twin Atlantic. Because if even the people who worried most the band would not make it are now standing in the crowd singing along, the omens look very good indeed.
“I hope so,” says McTrusty, finally. “I don’t really know what next year will hold. All I want it to just keep on being Twin Atlantic. As long as we keep on being ourselves, everything will be alright.”
© Tom Bryant 2012
