Under the Influence: St. Deluxe

Touted by Alan McGee as "a Scottish Nirvana for the 21st century" whilst also enjoying praise from Mogwai man Stuart Braithwaite, Glasgow's St. Deluxe have been making waves in their native city of late. Martin Kirwan tips his bonnet to five of the bands

Feature by Martin Kirwan | 27 Mar 2009

1. Sonic Youth. They're still vital today, making challenging, inspiring, discordant beautiful noise - and the band's been going for 20 plus years. They never become complacent, instead trying new approaches and working with innumerable musicians and characters (like Jim O'Rourke / Mark Ibold). Most importantly, they make music to please themselves.

2. Black Flag. So much good came from Black Flag and their label SST (Sonic Youth/Dinosaur Jr/Husker Du) – whose DIY ethics are exemplary. When we started our own label, Grundioso Records, we had these trailblazers for inspiration. The sound of Black Flag though, the guitars and the ferocity of songs like Jealous Again, really got me. How much energy can you cram into one and half minutes?!

3. The Jesus and Mary Chain. Will and Jim Reid both come from East Kilbride, Jamie's (Cameron - guitarist) and my hometown. They recorded in Jamie's house when Duncan Cameron (Jamie's dad) had a studio in the spare room. They're in our bones. Not to mention the fact that we've wound up working with Joe Foster (Poppydisc Records) who produced some of the Mary Chain's early Creation output.

4. Beat Happening. Calvin Johnson is punk rock. He has that single mindedness that comes with total belief in what he does. He produced a new song for us which will probably end up on our next album. He was great in the studio with loads of ideas and seemed to arrive at the session with a game plan in mind. He really pushed us and got something a bit different from us. He fucked shit up!

5. Teenage Fanclub. The Fannies - it feels like we've grown up with them. They've recorded at Riverside a lot over the years and it's always great when they're around. A song like The Concept is a perfect example of the skewed pop song - noisy and melodic.