Vital Idles on debut album Left Hand

Following a couple of demo cassettes and a 7", Vital Idles finally release their debut album Left Hand on 1 June. The group formed in Glasgow a few years back, growing from just a few friends hanging out making music to a fully fledged project. It was definitely a “social thing first,” explains multi-instrumentalist and former Golden Grrrls member, Ruari MacLean, “every band I've played in has had some non-musician element... it's a way to hang out with people you like, that isn't just going down the pub, and you make something.” And while working on new material last summer the band “wrote a dozen songs in the first month or so [and] we weren't planning to do an album, just an EP, but we had so many songs so...”

The band have already been noted for their DIY aesthetic and minimalist arrangements, while Jessica Higgins' oblique and kitchen-sink-philosophy lyrics have drawn comparisons to Life Without Buildings and The Smiths. “I think we all agree that we try to use as little as possible, to not be too busy,” MacLean says of the band's creative process. “We [MacLean, Nick Lynch, Matthew Walkerdine] work out some music and Jess [Higgins] is always writing, then we whittle it down from a load of words. It's usually pretty fast, just a couple of practices.”

While it all came together quickly the record never feels rushed, just lean, ground down to its bare essentials. “In other bands I've played in it might be what I'm listening to at home, liking a certain part then trying to do my own version of it... but now that we're practising together in a room it's a bit more instinctual.” This organic style also informs the group's no-frills live shows: “Some people expect more of a rock vibe (in reference to their recent No Age support slot), more guitar effects or more volume... but the way we write it is the way we play it.”

Lynch, Higgins and Walkerdine are all part of Good Press, a multi-purpose art space/publisher that works with a range of artists on various zines, exhibitions and projects in Glasgow. This engagement with different mediums helped the group's decision to make cassettes early on. “It was like, we have all these songs, gotta put them somewhere!” Lynch says with regards to the band's early material, while MacLean adds, “tapes have been fetishised now to an extent, and they're really cheap to make. We could make CD-Rs but... I don't have a CD player and the packaging doesn't lend itself as well to our artwork.”

Needing a name before they could release a demo cassette the group found inspiration in a few fairly disparate places. “My sister was in a charity shop near Perth and saw a Billy Idol remix album called Vital Idol," MacLean tells us, "and there's The Teen Idles, Ian MacKaye's pre-Minor Threat band and also The Idle Idols, an old glam band I saw on a YouTube documentary about New Zealand punk... so it was an amalgamation of those things.”

Despite being connected to the artistic community through Vital Idles and other projects (“the city is small enough that everyone basically knows everyone,” Lynch says), there isn't a belief that the city is inherently special in its musical makeup. “Right now there are some great bands in Glasgow, and some... not so great bands,” Lynch argues, “probably the same as 20 or 30 years ago.” But the difference seems to be in the way that local venues and musicians have built a solid infrastructure of support.

“There are venues that make it easier to play shows in an economical way like The Old Hairdresser's, Mono, CCA [and] there's been some young musician's projects that have been good [for getting started in music].” MacLean goes on: “there's a lot of faffing around and being quite bad for a long time [when you start out].” But the city has a strong community that provides opportunities to learn and improve: “I moved to Glasgow about three years after Franz Ferdinand and I'd read about them mentioning Stereo... then my third show in a band was at Stereo and it seemed like such a big deal, and that band was not good," MacLean laughs, "but it was a good experience to play there.”

---

Left Hand is released on 1 Jun via Upset the Rhythm
Vital Idles play Mono, Glasgow, 1 Jun