Spotlight On... The Great Pleasure

Glasgow outfit The Great Pleasure, aka Marc Molloy and Gillian Christie, have been building their live show and working towards releasing their debut album over the past few years. While their debut traverses all manner of genres, from big band, swing, jazz, folk and more, their live show now sees the pair upsized to a 12-piece, capturing every nuance of emotion and atmosphere they hope to convey with their music in a live setting.

Following The Great Pleasure is Dead, Long Live The Great Pleasure's release at the end of this week, the band are set to host an impressive all-dayer on 22 August at GUU in Glasgow where they'll be joined by Kai Reesu, DOSS, Tom McGuire and An Dannsa Dub. We catch up with the pair to talk inspirations, motorcycle crashes and befriending members of the Thai mafia as they gear up to release their debut.

Firstly, I’d love to know more about the two of you – how did you meet and who/what inspired you both growing up to get into music?
Marc Molloy: We met at a festival where we were both playing. We shared a manager at the time and turned up, ready for a big weekend of festival fun, hanging out with our respective gangs and ended up ditching everyone to spend the weekend chatting music quietly in corners.

As for influences, I was around a lot of music in my family but I was a quiet teenager who pretended to like happy hardcore and dance music more than I did, whilst secretly listening to Elliott Smith, Neutral Milk Hotel, lots of folkies and lots and lots of soundtracks. When I was young I really thought I'd end up doing music, but I just kept playing and I fell in love with writing and here we are!

Gillian Christie: As a vocalist, honestly, I just could not stop singing Disney songs as a kid – I wanted to be Ariel, I wanted to be Pocahontas... Then I heard Queen... My Mum would be blaring Freddie day and night and I'd be singing along, and that's still the same even today! So that's where I'm at with vocal influences. My performance style, however is quite a different thing: I like punk, I like power ballads, I love darkness and drama, I love to be honest on-stage. I throw my body around and sometimes, yeah, I'll have a wee cry on-stage. Nothing is off limits for me when I'm up there.

You say The Great Pleasure formed almost by accident – I’d love it if you could take us right back to the start of the band and talk us through those early days and how it actually all started?
Both: We were working on a few songs we'd written that were somewhere between singer-songwriter and indie revivalist stuff, in no sort of rush and with no plans. I think we'd recorded two [songs] and then our lives took a bit of a left turn. We went travelling and crashed a motorbike. We were pretty bashed up and it was all a bit touch-and-go at one point.

Molloy: We spent the following year recovering – surgery, wheelchairs, crutches etc. In the middle of recovery from one operation, full of the NHS' finest prescription painkillers, I came across a live Tom Waits video – Austin City Limits, 1978 – which changed everything. I couldn't get enough. The music was heavy and draggy, jazzy and edgy but theatrical without being gimmicky. I remember stumbling through to Gillian and telling her this is the kind of thing we should do! Codeine and Tom Waits – what a combo.

Christie: We'd already leaned into that feeling with a few songs we'd shelved so we dressed one up and put out a demo of Swamp Folk. A few months later we got an email from a guy running a 'swampy jazzy' stage at Electric Picnic saying he'd found Swamp Folk. [He said] if we could put a set together in three weeks he'd give us a Saturday night slot! And The Great Pleasure was born!

Your almost-eponymous debut album The Great Pleasure is Dead, Long Live The Great Pleasure is due at the end of the week. From Bangkok to The Netherlands, a lot of its songs were inspired by your travels, so I’d love to know more about some of the stories and places that have found their way onto the record?
Molloy: There's so many stories, haha. We wrote California whilst staying in Topanga Canyon, about a kilometre away from the Manson family base, but despite that it was a sleepy and beautiful time. I think you could stay forever in the sun there. There's a line Gillian wrote about it being a 'solid gold sleeping pill' which I just love.

Our single Half Life was mostly arranged in a mountain town in a remote area of northern Thailand where we made friends with some locals after playing in their bar. Locals who, we were informed later, were the Thai mafia... They would send us to their bars to play, then their friends' bars to play and to be honest we started feeling a bit too much like currency. We were warned not to get too friendly but we got on great with them. We did eventually see them being heavy with people a couple of times and it was enough for us to decide to politely exit.

Christie: A lot of S.A.A.A.D Forever was arranged in Friesland, in The Netherlands – we had a brief stint playing weekly in a coffeeshop in exchange for 100€ and all the coffee we could drink. The owner took a bit of a liking to us and invited us to play a private gathering on a boat which turned out to be filled with politicians and Hells Angels members – that one is a bit hazy but I remember them being charming and absolutely bemused at the sight of two fresh faced, smiley Glaswegians on a beat-up nylon string guitar.

There’s a real mix of genres to be found across the record, from vintage big band, jazz and swing vibes on tracks like Annnd… it’s Bitter to more stripped back, gentle cuts like Beach House, so I’d love to know who are some of the other artists you were looking to for inspiration when writing?
Molloy: For me, we were always trying to capture something that feels fresh to us. We're absolute music gluttons, always looking to find something in our writing that's new and excites, and a lot of that isn't necessarily specific to a genre. It's an atmosphere we're working [towards].

Christie: For artist inspo, we mentioned Tom Waits, T Bone Burnett, The Cure, Nina Simone, a lot of modern punk, a lot of old jazz but also folkies, composers... Did Marc say music gluttons already?

What was the process like for bringing what you’ve described as “a chaotic blend of swampy jazz, punk and rock” together into something that feels cohesive?
Molloy: I think a huge part was working with people that inspire us. Every person on the record was handpicked by Gillian and I because we were in awe of their talent and huge fans of what they do. There's something incredible about reaching out to someone you greatly admire and then watch up close as they bring that amazing thing to your song. It's hugely inspiring all over again, an inspiration feedback loop haha.

Christie: Whenever someone has a solo the rest of the band are hanging across the stage to hear what they are gonna do and are blown away from the best seats in the house. We're all just huge music fans after all, so we're hyped by these songs and are as excited as anyone to hear/play them live.

To celebrate the album’s release, you’re hosting an all-dayer at GUU on 22 August where you’ll be performing as a 12-piece, which seems like an awful lot of musicians to have onstage at one time. I’d love to know more about The Great Pleasure live show – what can people expect?
Molloy: There's a huge maximalist approach to the live show band – it's everything everywhere all at once. A massive wall of sound; Harry, Paul and Sandy's roaring horns; Tom, Olivia, Alex and Charlotte's monster backing vocals; Timmy's one-of-a-kind lead playing and the grooviest rhythm section in Chris and Norman. And shoutout to our producer Paul McInally.

Christie: 'Voodoo Arcade Fire', someone called us last month. Not quite sure what to think about that...

Molloy: We've been asked a lot about what our 'smaller band' is for touring and it's maybe an inevitability that we'll downsize, but there should be a way for a huge band with a big, exciting show to make a way in the industry.

Beyond the album and launch show, what does the rest of the year look like for The Great Pleasure? What's next?
Molloy: We've got a lot of exciting things in the pipeline! We're promoting the album by doing record stores in-stores over the next couple of months, so check out our socials for that. Happy to exclusively announce we'll be dropping a video for our single Angeline, created by Robbie Jones and Kaljeven Singh Lally, who worked on 28 Years Later and Outlander.

Christie: And we've got a bunch of shows we're about to announce, for here and beyond, and new music coming!

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The Great Pleasure is Dead, Long Live The Great Pleasure is out 14 Aug; The Great Pleasure play GUU, Glasgow, 22 Aug

Follow The Great Pleasure on Instagram @thegreatpleasure