New Blood: Damn Shames

Music journalism can be a strange, haphazard, frustrating affair, governed by tight deadlines and hectic schedules - what scientists might term 'chaos theory'. So when The Skinny, a Scottish magazine, wants to speak to Damn Shames, an Edinburgh band, and is furnished with a London phone number, it's no real surprise. The surreal logic of the interview is heightened by the prospect of three sound-a-like band members sitting in a room at XL Recordings, all chatting away without announcing their names. On this occasion, Damn Shames will have to speak as one.

All aged 19, Matthew Deary (vocals/guitar), Simon Richardson (vocals/guitar) and Jacob Burns (bass) met at high school in Edinburgh. Although on the verge of leaving their teenage years behind, the band still ooze that unmistakable energy of youth. Their gigs are boisterous, their music kinetically charged, and they talk with a scant disregard for what has gone before. In reviews to date, their music is most often compared to the inescapable Klaxons or post-punk bands like fellow Edinburghers, Fire Engines.

In conversation, Damn Shames snigger at each other, mumble a lot, and adopt an attitude of self-conscious self-confidence. When asked what makes them different, for example, an unidentified voice proffers: "A willingness to embrace technology and techniques that other indie guitar bands perhaps wouldn't." Which is swiftly qualified by: "Bit of a lofty statement that."

Despite their inexperience, their creative output so far – the two 7" singles Dancing in the Aisles and Fear of Assault – has been enough to earn them a record deal with Abeano, a subsidiary of XL (the home of such differing acts as Dizzee Rascal and The White Stripes). Like so many of their contemporaries, Damn Shames owe their break partly to a certain Rupert Murdoch-owned website. "Someone called Richard found us on MySpace and then he got a job working at XL and played our demos in the office," a Damn Shame says. "Then the A&R guy came up to see us play in Edinburgh. After that it took quite a while for a deal to come through. Our first single with them [Fear of Assault] was released in December."

The MySpace tracks display simmering potential. Dancing in the Aisles is a ramshackle yet blistering number with angular (post-punk?) guitars and a programmed beat, while Fear of Assault expands their sound with a session drummer and glitchy studio electronics. It's all rattled off at breakneck speed, and possesses the kind of inimitable buzz that advertisers and TV producers throw money at. Would they accept such an offer if it came their way?

- "It depends what it's for. Probably not if it was Persil or tampons or something!"
- "I have no principle against getting money from it; there's big bucks to be made."
- "I wouldn't mind having one of our songs on Top Gear when they're driving a really fast car!"
- "Guys, as long as it wasn't Jeremy Clarkson. Maybe Richard Hammond or James May, haha!
- "Yeah, we're not right-wing blokes!"

An album from this anti-Clarksonian trio is in the pipeline, but it's too early to set a date on its arrival. "We're just writing it at the moment," they say. "We're working on a lot of new stuff and we hope to just see what happens. We don't really know how long that sort of stuff takes because it's new to us."

That captures quite neatly where Damn Shames are at the present time: poised between youth and adulthood, a record deal and a first album. Not exactly a rock and a hard place though, that's for sure.