Popup Set Compass for South by Southwest

Popup are casually strolling their way along the road to a steadily increasing success, built on the back of quality, succulent sounds filled with the charm of their honest lyrics. This infectious disposition will soon spread to Austin, Texas as this quartet of Glasgow's newest and brightest are soon to depart for a spot at SXSW, where, along with several hundred other musical acts, they will vie to score some transatlantic love.

The Skinny recently sat down with the band - as they recorded their debut LP - to chat about the upcoming industry showcase, songwriting, multi-national cuisine and, of course, getting ID'd.

First things first though, Popup are:
(D)amien Gilhooly – vocals, guitar
(A)drienne Giudici – drums, vox
(M)ichael Cross – bass
(N)icholas Giudici – guitar

Skinny: A lot o' people like to tie your music specifically to Glasgow, how do you feel about the role Glasgow plays in relation to your songs?

D: "I think for any band, wherever they play or wherever they're from, location is very important to them, whatever music they're making. You can hear it in the way we work and the way we play our tunes. We write songs together and we try and make the music a reflection of us, for each other. That's when a song sounds its best, and played its best, and it's got lots of character in it. Location is inevitably just a part of that. The songs that are narrative based aren't specific to Glasgow, it's not like I'm talking about walking up the Gallowgate or something."

A: "You talk about the Trongate in one bit."

D: "I suppose I mention the Tron. I don't know if I've ever been in the Tron actually, but that's all circumstantial; we can't write about anything that we don't understand if we can't convince each other that it's valid or honest. If we ever had the chance to touch off and live in California, we'd be happy to write songs there."

Skinny: What got you all started? Was it much of a conscious decision to keep the Scottish accent?

D: "This harks back to what I was saying there about Glasgow. Using what you've got available to yourself lets you make something honest. You can't make something that seems honest to yourself that you can go back to and reflect on, if you don't think it reflects what you have to say and how you would say it."

N: "It was a good way in for us, to get into a band by being as honest as we could, because we weren't able to play when we started. We'd never been in bands as such before. If you're crap on your instruments, that's a really easy way to start being in a band; because then you don't think about becoming anything but what you are at the time. You know Damien is a Scottish guy, so he sings in the accent, you start from there."

A: "I wouldn't say we were crap."

D: "For the record, Adi can definitely play her instruments. Adi's an excellent musician. The rest of us were pretty crap."

N: "When we first started jamming, we would talk about the ideals of just "do what you can do" and bring in what you can play."

D: "Music just belongs to anyone that is enthusiastic about it."

N: "Play your guitar like a drum. That's the starting point for everything."

D: "I think Krist Novoselic said that at Kurt Cobain's funeral. And that's how we started and we got going. There's bands from Scotland that don't sing in Scottish, but we're not fascists about it, there's no rules, and that's the point; you just need to do what you think is natural to you and what you think sounds good. You need to be honest with yourself about whether songs are good or not and whether it sound convincing or not. Also whether or not the words have any meaning for the people in the band, and if they don't then there's no point in getting up and playing it. That's kind of the premise we've started from."

Skinny: Do you know what gigs you're playing at SXSW yet?

D: "We don't know many of the actual venues yet, but one is a whisky bar, just off Fourth Street in Austin."

N: "We're playing in a half-pipe actually. And doing a barn dance as well. We've got loads of gigs - as many as 20 to 25 - lined up. Since we're there, we thought we'd play as many as we can."

Skinny: Have you been to Austin before? Did you ever have to endure the nightmare of getting carded?

D: "Actually I worked as a door guy in Austin. They had all these clampdowns from the city and I had to I.D. everybody that came in, like even guys with grey beards, 20 years older than me. They'd stand up and say, "yeah, well where's your I.D. sonny?" And they couldn't understand a word I was saying, so it was pretty ridiculous."

Skinny: You're playing New Orleans too aren't you? Excited about that?

D: "Oh yes, definitely. It's going be an amazing place to play. I think we have three gigs lined up for there. It'll just be a great place to see and an absolute riot. It's one of the ones I'm looking forward to the most."

Skinny: Are you meeting up with any of the other Glasgow bands when you're at SXSW? Which ones?

D: "Yes, definitely: The Needles, My Latest Novel, Emma Pollock..."

N: "All of them."

M: "Adi's going to meet Paolo I think."

D: "Adi's going to be knocking on Paolo's door."

N: "We're pretty much going to see all the Scottish bands, as much as we can, just to try and support each other."

D: "Industry showcases can be ridiculously boring. People come in for five minutes and watch with their hands in their pockets. It's important to get as many people there as you can. It's an experience. It's something that you shouldn't ever forget and something you shouldn't do half-arsed. You want to just make it like a fantastic gig at the 13th Note on a Tuesday night. That's what I always want from my gigs."

Skinny: Anybody else you're looking forward to seeing?

D: "I'd like to see Badly Drawn Boy."

N: "Our manager's been telling us there's an Iggy Pop interview, an "audience with Iggy Pop."

A: "Interpol are playing."

D: "I'm looking forward to seeing things I haven't seen before."

Skinny: Is there any touristy stuff you're particularly interested in getting into?

A: "I'm going to get a huge cowboy hat. A ten gallon one."

M: "What do the gallons mean?"

D: "They measure them in gallons, to measure how much oil you can fit in it."

N: "I'm excited about the food."

A: "Really? I'm just going to get a wee fruit stall."

D: "There's no fruit in the whole of Texas. They don't allow it. There's only barbecue and Tex-Mex."

A: "Really? Is there no good fish or fruit and veg?"

D: "See, in America right, there's everything that Europe has and more. It's an enormous continent that grows everything. It might not be an orange from the Catalan hills, but it'll be pretty good."

A: "I'm going to take a mini-stove with me."

D: "Right, that'll be fun to take on the plane. We've got three amps, two guitars, and a mini-stove."

Skinny: How did you feel about the response from the last single, Chinese Burn?

D: "The reviews have been pretty good. I was really happy with the last single. It's a great tune. It rocks more than anything else we've got. It's a bit of a fire-starter and it always sounds great live."

Skinny: Do you have any tentative title for the album that you're making here?

D: "No. We'll probably think of it at midnight the night before it's released."

Skinny: How is the album different to the singles you've recorded so far?

N: "It's going to be amazing, to be honest."

D: "It has gone really well, we've been in two days and we've gotten a lot done already. We've got four songs finished."

Skinny: Any release date planned?

D: "Probably mid to late summer. Once we get back from Texas, we'll get everything in a line and moving. It's good to get all these songs that we've been playing for long time into one consistent sound. It'll be nice to bury the hatchet and start from a blank canvas."

The talk fades out to Adrienne playing the Pink Panther on the keyboard, while the boys snap and make cat-calls.