Pleasure Palaces: Remember Remember

To begin with, can you describe the space you play music in and tell us how long you've been using it?
We rehearse in the former playroom of a disused primary school which is now used as a community centre / artist studio and venue. Kids' paintings and murals from around 1995 still adorn the walls, as do rules of good behaviour and coat hooks labelled with the names of the members of the last class to go there when it was still a school. We have been rehearsing there for just under a year.

How do you feel the environment affects the outcome of the music you make?
Inevitably it puts you back in the mindset of when you were in school.  For me it brings back memories going to the music rooms at lunchtime to "jam", before double German then Physics in the afternoon. I'd forgotten that feeling, and it's nice to have it back. With their being seven in our band it only enhances that feeling of it being a class group or something, only we've been given free reign to play around for a few hours. I'm not sure if I could say or at least measure out a direct correlation between the space and the music that we make in it, I think we're all just grateful to have somewhere of our own to go to. Some members of the band are afraid to go in there at night, I suppose it's the whole creepy school corridors in the darkness, ghost and zombies type vibe. I for one enjoy locking up in the dark with my big bundle of keys, it makes feel like the janny.

What is the surrounding outdoor environment like? Does the space feel very separate from that?
Out of our window we have a small park, a subway station and a strip of motorway. With Remember Remember, I think I'm too busy making sure all of my pedals are plugged in and all my leads are working to really take much notice of what's going on outside. Happy Particles (with whom we share members) rehearse there too, though, and in my more relaxed role as bass player I can gaze out the window more.  It would be easy to wax metaphorical about playing guitar in a room with your friends while literally hundreds of anonymous cars roll along the motorway, their headlights just piercing the descending dusk but I've been pretentious enough already, ha.

What is the building's history – what did it use to be?
Like I said before, it was a primary school. It was being threatened with closure until a group of local residents held a sit-in protest to keep the building open. Their occupation of the school was successful and now it houses everything from Taiko drum lessons to Zumba classes to us.

Have any other bands used the space before, to your knowledge? If so, who? Any records been made there?
Ourselves, Happy Particles, Divorce and Sons & Daughters share one room while Tattie Toes and others use another. It's not rigged up as a functioning recording studio although some have brought their own recording equipment in to record parts. I couldn't actually tell you if any record had been recorded completely in the school though.

How did you find the space?
Steven from Happy Particles found it after he was asked by the landlord of the room if we were looking for a rehearsal space.

Where else have you rehearsed/made music?
Due to the nature of the music we make and the recording processes I prefer, Remember Remember have always had to record in a dedicated recording studio. We've made records in The Green Door and Chem 19, at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of analogue/digital and space, but both extremely creative places to work. As for rehearsing, I've spent over a decade in and out of all the usual commercial rehearsal rooms in Glasgow. Having our own place is a real liberation in terms of not having to spend one out of your allotted three hours setting up and breaking down equipment or getting chased out the room by an Oasis tribute band or whoever has booked it next.