Spotlight On... racecar

Edinburgh-based outfit racecar are childhood friends Izzy Flower, Robin Brill and Calum Mason. Formed in 2021, they released their debut album orange car the following year, with plans already underway for album number two, due early next year. Today, just in time for Halloween, the trio have released their latest single Wolf, a song with a main protagonist who thinks they’re a werewolf. "We hope you like it and are terrified,” they say.

It’s the fifth single in a strong line of uplifting alt-pop to come from the trio this year, and one with some unusual and unexpected late 90s/early 00s inspirational touchstones. With the album now firmly in their sights, and a launch show for the single a heartbeat away, we catch up with Robin Brill to find out more.

First things first, thanks for playing our stage at Kelburn earlier this year – we loved having you play on the Friday night! We trust you had a fun time!? We were surprised to see more than three of you onstage – is that how a standard racecar live show looks and can you tell us more about the live show?
Thanks for having us! I think the excellent and very patient stage crew were also surprised (thanks Cammy and team!). Kelburn is our favourite Scottish festival (though it’s a secret) and this year was no different; I believe Chris on guitar is still up the glen somewhere. As to the live show, we began as a studio band and have always wanted to capture the sound and feel of these tracks, many of which are quite richly put together.

In the past, we have found it a bit dry playing live with backing tracks so, having completed the new album in late 2023, this year we’ve been focusing on the live set. Between the electronic elements, more guitar-heavy stuff and Izzy’s beautiful harmonies, we reckoned a nine-piece band was the lowest number of performers that we could have to cover all of the denser arrangements, so shout outs to everyone involved. They are all incredible musicians in their own right and particularly beautiful people for taking on this project and applying their talents to this material. Check out their projects!

Chris Aien is a stunning guitarist and plays with Nama Kuma (a steamy affair between lo-fi beats and jazzy pop).

Gracie Brill, master of all she attempts, has been playing live samples and providing ever-dulcet harmonies and, post-rap superstardom as a member of The Honey Farm, has been very occasionally releasing material under the Cray Twinz moniker.

Nadia Carveth is an incredible session vocalist and sings for The Soul Establishment (the greatest wedding band in the universe) and has recently been singing with the House Gospel Choir.

Ewen Maclennan (drummer with the best face) has taken the mix of electronic and acoustic elements in his stride and is completing second release for solo project Aww (hypnotic folk-rock).

Daniel McGurty has been doing everything else synth-wise, including live sequencing and stunt keys and produces beautiful rich ambient music under his own name.

And Gabriel Kemp has taken on the mammoth task of bringing these elements together and making us sound good onstage so hats of to him and any other sound techs who have put up with us, though he is the coolest.

You’re celebrating your new single Wolf with a show at Voodoo Rooms on Halloween – what can be expected on the night?
A sultry set from masters of seduction Dr. Salad, a bucket of bangers from Crush Mouse and ourselves, playing a spookier selection of tracks from our back catalogue as well as some unreleased tunes. Utterly terrifying and overly elaborate costumes, prizes for best dressed, free foam gliders for the first 40 through the door and the biggest show the world has ever seen.

And can you tell us more about the song itself? Musically, it draws inspiration from some quite unexpected dance classics – how do you turn inspirations like Blue, 9PM (Til I Come) and 2 Times into a fully-formed racecar song?
The new album has a coming-of-age story running through it and this is something woven into the sound palette as well as the themes covered. We love the bangers of yesteryear and tracks like these evoke feelings of nostalgia in us so it felt appropriate to let some of those influences guide us when making choices and arranging. Throughout the album there are elements of pop-punk, rave and all sorts of turn-of-the-millennium sounds that influenced us while growing up – though those song choices maybe date us a bit! 

Writing for racecar is varied but generally involves taking the seed of a song and trying to make the right choices to allow those ideas to best flourish. In this case, the melody is built from simple hooks and uses M1 keys and some other classic sounds in the arrangement, the drum programming towards the start is very classic dancey and then after that we put it through the wringer and added electroclashey, rockier elements, but the seed was always a 90s dance track.

The song is out on Halloween with a person who believes they are a werewolf at the heart of the lyrics – can you tell us more about what the song's about?
I generally like picking my own interpretations of songs as a listener but – if you are curious – I have always pictured a sort of film-noir femme-fatale at the heart of this song crossed with Nicolas Cage in Vampire’s Kiss – someone who has deluded themselves into believing they are a monster.

The song is about the conceit that your emotional baggage defines you and makes you special. That’s not to say that it isn’t valid but particularly it’s about the temptation to use that trauma to distance yourself from loved ones – "you couldn’t possibly love me, because I am a werewolf!" sort of thing. The desire to push people away (because you are a werewolf!) competes with a desperation to be loved and inevitably makes for a bad time.

I wrote it while entering a new relationship after a long period of grief and there’s a bit of my worst self in there and a bit of some other people and whatever else was going through my mental soup at the time. It’s always funny looking back on songs I’ve written and seeing how directly they relate to what I was experiencing at the time when they feel so mysterious at inception.

The single will feature on your new album, due in the new year – at this point in time, are you able to tell us anything more about the record?
It’s called pink car and it’s our second batch of tracks. The album has the previously mentioned loose narrative running through it in sound and substance and was written as a bit of an ode to pop. As such, the songs are more concise and have clearer hooks than our debut. It’s fun and sad and sexy and will blow your socks off so you should wear shoes while listening. We are expecting to release it in late February/early March so we will beat sandal season.

Finally, do you have any further plans you can let us in on for the rest of this year/next beyond the single and album?
We will be finishing on a quiet note as it’s been balls to our respective walls for the last few years with either writing or releasing and we will start putting together the live show for our album launch before festival season kicks off. Our intention is then to play as much as possible in as many places as possible while album three begins peeking its head out, so hopefully we’ll see you there.

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Wolf is out now; pink car is due early 2025; racecar play Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh, 31 Oct – advance tickets available here

Get Wolf in all the usual places here