Sons and Daughters: “It’s the happy clappy bands that are the most fucked up"

Glam Sons and Daughters frontwoman Adele Bethel is pondering what kind of fans her band’s new record is likely to attract. She leans forward, fake purple eye-lashes fluttering, and smiles the hungry kind of smile that doesn’t leave much flesh on the bones. “Psychopaths,” she decides, giggling throatily.

Sons and Daughters, the dark, country and western inspired Glasgow four piece, have been out of the limelight for a while. Their last record This Gift was released back in early 2008. Produced by former Suede man Bernard Butler, that LP’s shiny, 60s girl group groove never settled with a fan base wooed on the band’s earlier break out style: all powerful rhythms, sharp guitars and bitter songs about betrayal and murder.

The good news, then, is the band’s decision to go back to basics with third album proper Mirror Mirror, in the process signing up Glasgow clubbing veteran JD Twitch, of Optimo fame, to man the mixing desk.

Two and a half years of “tortuous“ song writing – a large amount of which the band spent holed up in Govan town hall – has led to a sparse, at times gothic new album, which takes the band’s bursts of early energy, morose musings, and murder ballad girl/boy vocals in a new, more electronically influenced direction.

Says drummer David Gow: “We wanted to strip it back again a little bit and get rid of the pop sensibility.”

The Skinny catches up with the band before their appearance at the Stag and Dagger festival in the Glasgow Art School; it will be the first time they will play their new material in front of their home town fans, and as one paying punter puts it “they’re easily the best known name on the bill.” Even Adele’s parents will be waiting in the crowd to see how their wee lassie will do. All four of the band members admit to the “usual butterflies.”

The group have dressed appropriately for the big occasion – guitarist Scott Paterson with what looks like a murdered fox pinned to his leather jacket, Adele in the aforementioned bright purple creation. It’s not, to be honest, a look that screams existential anguish or murderous intent (unless you’re a fox…), but that contradiction tells you a lot about where the band are currently at. Their lyrics may lean to the dark side, but Sons and Daughters are all glitter and glam away from their art.

“A lot of bands that are really dark are actually, in real life, quite happy and well adjusted people,” says Scott. “It’s the happy clappy bands that are the most fucked up. We’re all pretty happy people. [Our songwriting] is cathartic. It’s those that try to cover it up that have the problems.”

You can’t help feeling short changed. After all, Adele has just finished telling me about the “serial killers” and “conspiracy theories” that populate Mirror Mirror’s dark corners, and “the months spent alone watching documentaries about the dark, the disturbed and the downright dangerous.”

Bassist (and conscientious mother) Ailidh Lennon is having none of it: “It’s not really like going to write songs in this spooky room and taking it really seriously,” she says in her softer lilt. “It’s just songs that are in our heads.”

But what songs. One contains the pleasant image of a young actress left with “a switchblade smile across her face.” Think of the children. “What Ailidh’s trying to say is that her child’s not fucked up because of this band. He’s not seeing a psychiatrist,” interrupts Adele, smiling devilishly.

As effusive as any young band who’ve just cut their very first record, Sons and Daughters become a little less comfortable when the chat turns to their last project with one-time Suede guitarist Bernard Butler at the helm. Although all four members seek out a positive spin, there is a tacit acknowledgement that This Gift wasn’t everything they might have hoped it would be, despite a largely favourable critical reception.

Says Ailidh: “We’d never worked with an old school producer before and if you’re going to do it then you may as well embrace it and get the most out of the experience.” She pauses. “I can’t imagine we’ll do that again.”

Adds Scott: “It was a learning experience. Bernard had his own ideas of what he wanted and he really stuck rigidly to that. It didn’t mean folding in influences and stuff like that. He had on his mind what he thought our influences were. I don’t think there was a lot of listening to music and sharing of ideas going on.”

This Gift’s somewhat commercial inclination seemed tailor-made to lure in new fans. It didn’t, at least not in the numbers it would take to propel the group into the big league, perhaps where some at label Domino Records wanted the band to be. The group say they’ve no idea how many copies it eventually sold. “I’ve not even seen a statement for it,” protests Scott. But did the relative failure ever provoke thoughts of calling it a day? “No – ‘cause we’re not doing it for anyone else. Again that’s a pure cliché but it’s true,” Scott defends himself.

The band are far more comfortable on the topic of JD Twitch. An old friend from way back, the DJ and now producer’s vast musical knowledge helped shape the new album as it was created.

Says Scott: “Optimo has been a massive influence on musicians in Glasgow and for ourselves; we discovered a lot of music that’s influenced our band through that club night” Dave adopts a wistful stare: “A few years ago I used to go every week. I didn’t miss it for two years.”

Sons and Daughters finally take to the stage to a packed Glasgow Art School, still rocking the glamour look from earlier. After a flurry of purple cloth, and cabaret hats, Adele tells the crowd that one new song is about uncaught serial killer Bible John, who is said to have strangled at least three women in the 1960s. “Bible John,” echoes a voice in the crowd, “goan Bible John – he’s ma Da.”

Psychopaths? Adele Bethel had it right on the money.