United Fruit: The seeds of success

 

One of several new bands currently providing the antithesis to Glasgow’s wealth of jangly indie upstarts, United Fruit — named after the controversial American corporation of the same name — have been turning heads on the local circuit in recent months. Their palette might fall somewhere in the ballpark of Sonic Youth's experimental wiles and the visceral intensity of At the Drive-In, but they've a hungry, raw sound all of their own.

Iskandar Stewart (vox/guitar) and Stuart Galbraith (guitar) both played in bands prior to UF and, after little success, decided to take a break. The duo spent over a year "just getting into music again", as Stuart reminisces. "We thought it was a good way of writing. Me and Iskandar would just sit around and listen closely to a lot of sounds." Iskandar picks up the conversation. "We'd sit and listen to great bands like Sonic Youth or Shellac and go 'that sound is amazing! How do they do that?' Then we'd start trying our own interpretation of it all, incorporating other elements, to try and create something else." Judging by their recent live shows, we'd say mission accomplished.

The rest of the band met through seemingly chance encounters. Having already acquired drummer Marcin Dabrowski — after the Polish student moved to Glasgow from France to study politics — the band switched from a standard three-piece (guitar, bass, and drums) set-up to using two guitars. Shortly after, Bassist Marco Panagopoulos was drafted in, completing the line-up. "It turned out Iskandar worked with a friend of mine," says Marco. "He told me to check out their MySpace. Where it said ‘sounds like’, it just had ‘two guitars and drums’. I jokingly asked: ‘So, I don’t suppose you’d be needing a bass player then?’ It turned out that they did, so I joined the band."

In the intervening months the band clicked and spent the majority of their time perfecting their set before attempting to venture on stage. "We practised a lot before playing live," explains Iskandar. "Rather than getting gradually better as we played more gigs, we wanted a bit more impact from our first one." United Fruit have been plugging away at the underbelly of the Glasgow scene ever since, featuring repeatedly on bills across the city whilst finding solace in an ever-expanding group of bands treading similar waters. An enthused Iskandar tells of the band’s excitement to find like minds: "It just sort of sprung up on us that there was a healthy scene going. I think Glasgow’s always had a healthy scene, but in our sort of niche we’ve found something great."

Since becoming a four-piece the band have recorded and self-released a single (Shake) and more recently a four track EP entitled Mistress Reptile, Mistress. Although it is still very much the beginning of the band’s ascent, it would appear the DIY approach suits them well. However, according to the band's ever-talkative vocalist, a helping hand wouldn’t quite be batted away: "I’d love to get signed and not have to worry about anything. Ideally, we just want to keep releasing stuff until we find someone that would be willing to ‘invest’ in it in some way and appreciates what we’re doing."

In the meantime, the band look set to take their wares to farther points across the country for as long as is physically and financially possible, having only merely touched on this earlier last year. With a tight set, constant gigging and unwavering enthusiasm, it seems Glasgow might not be the only city to sample United Fruit in the not-so-distant future.