PAWS

"PAWS bound on stage armed with three litres of Strongbow: a suitably teenage method of getting blitzed for a band who channel adolescent angst into brilliantly snotty three minute power pop bursts. Tonight, the songs from debut EP My Parents Said We Can’t See Each Other Anymore (the title says it all) are violent displays of energy, full of pop culture references and displaying a supreme melodic nous. Salem fizzes with the most incessantly catchy riff from the start, descending into pummelling noise before leading out on that bratty melody, allowing it to worm completely inside my head. It’s still there, I’m afraid.

Miss American Bookworm is a stab of adrenaline, singer/guitarist Phillip making his way into the front row to start a half-hearted mosh pit. Ariel’s drumming was frantic, as was Violent Vicky Violet: a wonderfully deafening wall of noise.

PAWS and their songs’ subject matter don’t require intellectualisation: these are incessant, fuzz laden teenage anthems for our generation. Take Summer Wipeout, for instance. “This song’s called Summer Wipeout. It’s about summer and wiped out.” Might I add that it’s also amazing?

It’s no wonder these kids from Glasgow are fitting in so well with every great new American band and getting every support slot at Stereo and the Captain’s Rest. I think perhaps they are three guys from Southern California who just happen to have been born in Scotland. Punk music is easy to make, but rarely is it done in such style. On this evidence, PAWS look more than ready to break out and terrorise the world at large: they deserve to be free."

- Marc Watson - Glasgow Podcart



"Contemporary grunge is a risky line to tread. It needs a lot of firepower to be appealing, and if this isn’t achieved through pace then the artist needs a hell of a lot of vitality to ensure the music has that vigour and energy.

PAWS (http://www.myspace.com/pawspawspawspaws) (pictured) are a band who know exactly what they’re doing. Not only do they have the firepower and vigour which is needed for giving their style of noise rock its uniqueness, but to add to that they’re as tight as such a heavily instrumental-focused band can be. There was something about their tightness and precision which gave their set a new dynamic, and awesome, edge. Their recordings are still very DIY-based but live they’re an absolute treat"

- Audio Scribbler







- Glasgow Podcart

Next up, Paws – a trio of prominent Glasgow punk-rock kids, who have supported just about every US indie act to come barging through the city (Wavves, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, No Age, to namedrop a few) – deliver the mixture of vigour and raucous noise that has so far served them well. Fresh off the back of launching their mermaid-themed self-released EP, My Parents Said We Can’t See Each Other Anymore … earlier in the month, their set is both confidently executed and immediately commands attention. Bookended by searing feedback, their collection of high-energy, brazen guitar-pop jolts a bit of life into the basement’s murky depths and has little trouble hammering a few smiles onto the crowd.

- The List

Over the past 12 months, Glasgow trio PAWS have gone from ambitious bedroom jams to supporting damn near every cult US indie export to grace our fair shores (Dum Dum Girls, Wavves, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti etc). Combining Dinosaur Jr-esque melodic noisemongery with colourful imagery, restless energy and an ear for a good hook, PAWS are fast carving their own name into the local live scene, and having the most fun in the process. Intrigued? Here’s vocalist Phil Taylor to tell you more.

For anyone as yet unaware of PAWS, can you tell us a bit about the band?
PAWS are Phillip, Josh and Matt. We live in Glasgow. Two of us went to school together in the Highlands. We write and record our own music and we all share great enthusiasm for punk rock and cute animals.

What inspires you/gets you going?
A lot of things I guess, but the biggie has been just going to shows, collecting records and stuff like that. The idea that you can just make music with some friends because it’s fun and then record your little inventions to share them with everyone. Making loud noises just feels really, really natural.

What would you like people to take away from your music?
Anything they want. It’s totally up to them. We just have fun making it and if anyone likes it, or even doesn’t like it for that matter, that’s totally cool. We are flattered if anyone takes anything from it. Good or bad. Send us your love/hate mail.

PAWS’ self-released EP My Parents Said We Can’t See Each Other Anymore is out now.

PAWS play King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow on Sat 23 Apr with St. Deluxe and Bronto Skylift, and at the Pensioners album launch, Sneaky Pete’s Edinburgh, Wed 27 Apr.

- The List

I know that I am sucker for indie-folk bands, but I do still love my rock, in fact the scuzzier the better. One such band that have been exciting me a lot over the past six months are Glasgow three-piece PAWS. It was the fuzzed up pop joy of “Violent Vicky Violet” that first brought the band to my attention. Released as free download on Wise Blood Industries, the song set the bar of expectation pretty damn high. Thankfully they've lived up their high standards and have gone on to record sessions for both 6Music and Radio One. With a new EP due out next month it felt the the right time to rope them in for some Scots Way-Hay action, so without further ado, ladies and gents I give you the awesome PAWS...

Would you care to introduce yourself?

Bonjour! We are PAWS.
PAWS consists of a small red panda cub; a polar bear cub and a grizzly bear cub.

A.K.A

Phillip Taylor (Guitar + Vox), Matthew Scott (Bass + Vox) and Joshua Swinney (Drums)


How would you describe the music you make?

I guess it's kind of a blend between the audio dynamics of that of a kitten and a grizzly bear...or something like that haha.
Simple alternative pop songs in kittenBEARkitten structure.


How did you come together as a band?

Well myself (Phillip) and Josh met in high school in the Highlands in a place called Tain which is just north of Inverness. We never really spoke at school. But he did used to draw these things on his hand and show them to me in between classes if we passed in the hall. The one I remember was a crude drawing of a boy that was blatantly me that said "I'm socially inept" next to it haha. Then he disappeared to France when school got out. When he got back he turned on my doorstep and we hung out and sort of began to bond over music. Especially punk rock.

So we jammed in my tiny bedroom for a while in my Mum's house and then he moved to Glasgow. I was kind of back and forth visiting and I made a friend called Nick who I instantly felt I needed to make music with. He joined the mix with myself and Josh and we planned to go on a trip up north to somewhere secluded without distraction to write and record for a few days and see what we could do with it. We found this ridiculous log cabin near where Josh's parents live that has this skate ramp next to it. It was perfect. So at Christmas time like 3 years ago Nick and Josh drove up with this guy Matt that Nick knew who was game for playing bass. I had never met him and neither had Josh until they got in the car together. When we met, everything just made sense really. We shared an enthusiam for Sonic Youth and Sebadoh. After a while that band slowly burned out and Nick went on to focus on other things. Then there were three. Then there was PAWS. ha-ha

How did you start out making music?
In terms of all of us starting out making music together. In Bedrooms and log cabins I guess... ha-ha

What process goes into the way you write songs?

Well usually I'll bring a vague song structure to the practice space and then we'll just rip it apart and try and glue it back together with everybodys ideas thrown in. Matt does this thing that myself and Josh just refer to now as "The Thing". He'll just totally make a song come to life when he adds his bassline. It's always such a simple part that he'll add, but it always changes the directions and tone of the song. It's hillarious.

Who are your big musical influences?

It's hard to list people that have influenced you without people immediately trying to look for those influences in your music.

It's mostly the ethic of the artists we like that fuels us the most. To just like, make music and have a good time doing it.

But obviously there are going to be some things that seep through to music.

We like a varied pallet but some folk we like are: Sebadoh, Breeders, Big Black, Jim O Rourke, Built To Spill, Raincoats, Lilys, The Sonics,

Captain Beefheart, Pavement, Teenage Fanclub, Wilco, Shellac, Polvo,Harvey Danger, Television, Sonic Youth, The Fastbacks, Melvins, Coffin Break, Gray Matter, Vaselines...all that sort of shit ha-ha.


What kind of influence do you feel that where you come from has had on the music you create?

I think it just makes us super confident to just do it. Scotland is pretty boring. If we wern't doing this I can't really think what else we'd do? So I think it's been a big influence to have fun, hang out with friends and play music. Especially if you are from the north. There really is not that much to do if you're an angry teenager. Skate, listen to music, play music.....


Correct me if I’m wrong (I normally am), but your new EP is being mastered by Bob Weston of Shellac-fame, how did that all come about?

Correctamundo! It certainly is. I dunno really ha-ha. We just emailed him and he said yes. He has a mastering suite over in Chicago so

we are just gonna fire our mixes over to him and let him do his thing. That should be fun.


You give the impression that you’d be willing to play gigs anywhere folk would let you, what’s the more obscure place you’ve played? And is there anywhere that you wouldn’t be willing to try?

Totally! We love a challenge! We will litterally play anywhere if it is possible. Last week we played in our friend Seans Bathroom during the day and then our friends bedroom at night. That was a super fun day. See our myspace for a list of spaces that we would be more than happy to inhabit with our noise...

PAWS or Paws?

PAWS


What are your plans for the rest of the year and beyond? Do you have any new releases planned for any time soon?

Well we have just been focusing on getting this frickin' E.P out and trying to spread the PAWS gospel. We will be doing a couple of splits with some bands we are rather fond of as well. A couple more cassette tapes etc. For summer we are just going to try and absolute hammer it with everything we've got. It would be great to do some festivals and a bit of a bigger tour. We plan to start working on recording our debut L.P aswell by that point. We get fairly itchy with writing and recording as we feel we are constantly writing. Every rehearsal there's at least 2 new songs. Matt is our captain engineer. He has all the things we need to record ourselves and he's a dab hand behind pro tools. That's what we've done thus far and that's what we intended to keep doing.

So I guess we'll just be trying to keep up the rate of creativity that we've had the past year. I feel fairly confident that that's going to happen regardless to any concious thought or plan anyway! - Peenko Blog

It can be hard on a band, if not fatal, when one of their integral members leaves. Head back to last year and that was the exact problem faced by the Glasgow-based “chaotic folk” band A Copenhagen Hope. Down a guitarist/songwriter, it might have been easier for the full band to go their own separate ways. Not so, however, for Phillip (guitar/vocals), Matt (bass) and Joshua (drums). Dusting themselves off and with a new direction in mind, the remaining members re-christened their band PAWS and emerged with a more collaborative process in mind for the group. “It became apparent over the time we played in ACH that we wanted to write more together. PAWS is a product of that” states Matt.


They certainly seem like a band breathing fresh air into their lungs, keen to start over. “I get really fidgety without playing” explains Phil. “I need to be creating music all the time”. His track record certainly proves that. Originally from Tain (where he first met Joshua), he has been in bands since the tender age of 15 - starting off with Lad Lazarus, then the Inverness act Theatre Fall before moving to Glasgow for A Copenhagen Hope. Matt and Phillip were also a part of Frances And Her Trampoline, another group that only recently parted ways. “We can pretty much announce its death. It’s come to pass now”. Full steam ahead with PAWS then. Matt feels “they’ve learnt lessons” from before. Phillip agrees, “We want to take more time to build with this”. It’s not particularly easy to nail down exactly what genre of music PAWS fit into, not even for the band themselves.


Phillip describes their sound as having “surfy tones” while Matt says they have “a real pop element”. Joshua, meanwhile, is happy just to call it “rock and roll”. Their songs on MySpace definitely encompass all of the above. ‘Toronto’ blasts off instantly into catchy pop-punk territory, coming over all scratchy, stop-start guitar hooks and exhibiting Joshua’s newfound freedom (after being “obviously restricted” with ACH’s folk sound) to smash away on the drums. Overall, it might owe as much to the exuberance of The Ramones as to the lo-fi indie of their 90s influence Sebadoh. ‘IV19 1HF’ speeds along on Matt’s relentlessly pounding bassline, which is complimented well by Phillip’s slower vocals and thrashing chords.


Future plans are already taking shape for PAWS with a release and a number of shows in the pipeline. They plan to release ‘Violent Vicky Violet’ as their debut single in June through Wise Blood Industries, a label started by Adam Stafford from the band Y’All Is Fantasy Island. Add to that support slots with Sub Pop’s Dum Dum Girls at Stereo on May 17th, The Smith Westerns at the Captain’s Rest on June 3rd and club night appearances in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and the future’s looking bright for the young cubs in PAWS.
- ScotCampus

Paws are a lo-fi, alt. pop band based in Glasgow whose stock has risen fast this year. They have recently supported the likes of No Age, Wavves, Happy Birthday, Male Bonding and Dum Dum Girls and have plans to release an EP in January. I interviewed them earlier in the year and they seem to be extremely focused on what they want to do and how they want to do it, having learned lessons from previous bands. They have a strong DIY ethic, youth on their side and judging by the strength of their single releases 'Violent Vicky Violet' and 'Winners Don't Bleed', the next year should be a big one for PAWS. - Noisography Reviews

Still annoyingly young, the three members of PAWS have done a lot in a fairly short time together, from knocking out home-spun recordings that spawned subsequent single 'Violent Vicky Violet' to supporting practically every American alt/punk hero that rolls into Glasgow these days (including No Age, Dum Dum Girls and Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti).



Not bad then, but they've barely even started.

PAWS' formation seemed to come fairly painlessly, pulling together members from various other acts around the Highlands and Glasgow, including Theatre Fall, Lad Lazarus and Whisky Tango Foxtrot.

"We met at a log cabin in the woods somewhere between Inverness and Tain in the height of the freezing winter of 2008, got some fuel for the generator, logs for the stove and set about trying to kick out some jams." says the group's guitarist/vocalist, Phil Taylor. "We named ourselves 'A Copenhagen Hope', played a couple of shows in Glasgow, lost a member, burned our acoustic guitars and now we are PAWS."

"The first batch of songs came about over a pretty long period," Phil continues. "We played one gig pretty early on with the band and then took a step back to focus on writing and trying to work out exactly what it was we were doing.

"Adam Stafford (of Y'all Is Fantasy Island) then asked us to release a single on Wiseblood Industries, giving us something to work towards. 'Violent Vicky Violet' and everything else we've recorded thus far has been done in flats and parents' houses. We have pretty much done everything ourselves thus far in regards to recording and we intend to carry on that DIY ethic."



PAWS make no bones about their influences either, as the flashes of Dinosaur Jr t-shirts and their song 'Kim Deal' (written in honour of the legendary Pixies bass player and founder of The Breeders) will reliably inform you. They are far from mimics though, taking an obvious love for noisy-as-hell guitar bands of the 80s/90s - alongside countless individual touches and inspirations - and squeezing out their own rambunctious, melodic rock songs.

It's all a bit futile to try and sift through it and examine though, because - to borrow shamelessly from that Jack Daniel's advert - what the record doesn't give you, the live show will.

It's always fun to see folks enjoy themselves on stage, and even better when, in PAWS' case (along with so many others in Glasgow these days) the band have actually got the skills to back it up.

But, fresh from dates with Bronto Skylift and with many more shows (and plans for a five-track EP) in the works, there will be more than enough chances to see for yourself in the immediate future - and we at Radar recommend that you do just that.
- The Scotsman