St Deluxe

What’s up?  In America, everyone has gone crazed for the twee sound of the 80s: Crystal Stilts, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Nodzzz and Vivian Girls.  Or they hangin’ with the essential noise popness of Wavves, Nobunny, Times New Viking, Abe Vigoda and Psychedelic Horseshit.  But in the UK?  In the post-Glasvegas world of Scotland, bands have forgotten about being the new skinny jeans band too like and are delving deeper than ‘77 for influence and they are coming up with a far more expansive and soulful sound that recalls the glory days of Scottish pop, when Kurt Cobain was down with the Glasgow scene.  Pitchfork recently made a claim too the sound of early Creation Records, Whamm and Postcard, as a sound America had claimed as their own, but - hold on - bitches were wrong about Glasvegas, and bitches won’t get it wrong about St Deluxe, one of the few bands leading the nu-nu-nu-garage bands (fuck it, can we just say great music - media tags kill, people!) leading the UK into the ‘09 (along with Mazes, Teeth and Pens).
St Deluxe have something more enticing than drugs in their pockets, they have something the other bands forget too bring to the post punk pop party - Joe Foster: the one time Creation Records, Television Personalities maverick, and you know, the guy who produced Jesus and Mary Chain’s debut single on production.  Joe was lured from self imposed exile in Brazil too produce St Deluxe; his touches are evident from the first spin of New Wave Stars, it is dipped in the Creation Records legacy of chemical pop imbalance.  Or can I just say that New Wave Stars just-fucking-rocks-it?  And we are not the only ones: Teenage Fanclub, Alan McGee, and even Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3, are all fans of St Deluxe (the unholy trio of people who built the scene).  ‘New Wave Stars’ is the Glasgow version of Wavves ‘Beach Demon’; both are under the influence of Beach Boys and Sonic Youth, but this is no retroactive continuity bullshit because St Deluxe, like Wavves are utterly essential in the ‘09.
- http://www.toocooltodie.com/index.php?/tctd/mp3blog/st_deluxe/

Glasgow four-piece St Deluxe channel the fuzzed-up ghosts of Sebadoh, My Bloody Valentine and early Teenage Fanclub, with their eponymous debut album a sweet blend of plaintive melodies and old-school overdriven antics. Guitarist Martin Kirwan talks about the band Alan McGee calls ‘a Scottish Nirvana for the twenty-first century’.
How was the album to make?
‘Jamie’s dad runs Riverside Studios in Glasgow, so we did it there. We could take our time over it, layer stuff up and experiment a wee bit more, which was great.’
You also worked with esteemed indie producers Joe Foster and Calvin Johnson, how did that come about?
‘With Joe, we were out watching a band and he was there so we just asked if he fancied it. He liked our stuff so much so he decided to put it out on his label. We chanced our arm with Calvin Johnson as well. He was playing in Glasgow so we emailed him. Turns out he had a day off so we got him into the studio. He was amazing, he really added an extra edge to stuff.’

- The Listthe List - Glasgow and Edinburgh Music and Arts Magazine

Classic Scottish guitar rock with a yelping glam twist, St Deluxe's melodious noise is out of the same top drawer as Joe McAlinden's Superstar and the mighty Teenage Fanclub.

In fact they emerged from BMX Bandits and Speeder, with 'Sick Sick Sick' one of those stop-start tunes that stick stubbornly in the head; 'Chemical Reaction', a classic electric chugger; and 'Slip Away', a big hug of guitar chords that sweeps you off your feet.

Occasionally the band persist with a groove which outstays its welcome, but the hidden surf coda of 'Stop Begin' is a perfect bijou bonus.
- the Scotsman - National Newspaper

Scottish rock ensemble ST Deluxe deliver gloriously melodic fuzzed-out noise pop on the band's 2008 self-titled debut album. Centered on the singer/songwriter talents of guitarists Jamie Cameron and Martin Kirwan, ST Deluxe also feature drummer Stuart Kidd and bassist Brian McEwan -- all the bandmembers have also performed with legendary Glasgow indie pop band the BMX Bandits. This is music for unapologetic fans of such bands as Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Teenage Fanclub, and others on labels like SST in the '80s and Creation in the '90s that produced swirling harmonies of noise, bringing to mind a perfect mix of the Velvet Underground and the Beach Boys. In that sense, ST Deluxe deliver serious goods with tracks like the cinematic opening cut, "Slip Away," which builds upon its Sonic Youth "Dirty Boots" influence with swooning guitar lines and an absolutely epic midsection, and the driving "New Wave Stars," with its slabs of chugging guitar lines and surrealist Salvador Dali-meets-punk anthem imagery in a veritable shoegaze call to arms. And it's not just the uptempo rockers that stick in your ear -- the melancholy and laid-back ballad "Sick Sick Sick" and the equally introspective "Chemical Reactions" are moving stabs at adolescent love songs that make room for Big Star-inflected lyrics, Teenage Fanclub-like backing harmonies, and yet more gigantic Fender guitar heroics. But rather than just resurrecting the sounds of '90s guitar pop, ST Deluxe make vibrant, viscerally engaged music delivered with a deft pop urgency, and in that sense, this is truly modern rock.
- www.allmusic.com - Matt Collar - American Music website

ALAN McGee, the man who signed Oasis, Primal Scream, Teenage Fanclub, The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, reckons he has discovered Scotland's next big thing.

Fresh from bigging up Glasvegas until they were huge, the Creation Records legend will show the taste makers down south just how good Scots band St Deluxe are after booking them for two dates at his Death Disco club in London in April and May.

He's already compared the band to Nirvana, and guitarist Martin Kirwan, who along with singer and guitarist Jamie Cameron, bass player Brian McEwan and drummer Stuart Kidd, make up the band who release their debut album this week, shrugs when he hears what the music legend has said about them.

"Well that's fairly big boots to fill," he said. "It's a great quote and it's really good he thought that highly of us.

"To say we are the next big thing to come out of Glasgow since Glasvegas is a great thing to say, as the artists he signed to Creation Records were a massive influence on us."

The connection with Glasvegas doesn't stop there. Martin even shared a flat with Glasvegas drummer Caroline.

While St Deluxe's sonic grunge distortion-heavy sound put them at odds with the art rock sound of bands such as Franz Ferdinand or The Libertines, McGee is right. While playing shoegazing fuzzedup guitar they, like Nirvana, have a melodic ear for a pop hook.

St Deluxe's guitar noise has also been likened to Pavement, Sebedoh, Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine as the Scots band create pop tunes wrapped, sometimes, in barbed wire.

The melodic ear comes from the band being part of BMX Bandits - the band Kurt Cobain once said he'd be in if he wasn't in Nirvana - and being pals of Teenage Fanclub's Francis Macdonald.

And while their friends and fellow Scots band Attic Lights are hoping their theme tune to Minder will break them into the big time, Jamie, who shares guitarist duties with Martin, isn't into that kind of fast tracking.

He said: "Doing Minder isn't really our thing. It's a different climate for music, bands don't need major label backing. It's great if you can get it, but you don't need it like you used to. You can do it yourself.

"We aren't making records because we want to be famous, we are trying to make records that we are proud of.

"Other bands may be chasing this big thing, but we'd rather do it for ourselves first and hope that something comes from that."

Jamie added: "People doing it to make money out of music are never going to succeed. What's the point in emulating the sound of other bands just to get a record deal?

"It's pointless. You have to do what you want to do and not what other people want you to do."

While the group's eponymous album is out this week in the UK, it was released last year in Germany and was made album of the year.

It seems the UK, and even Scotland are playing catch-up.

The band are already booked for a tour of Germany in September as well as a tour of Japan in October.

The four members of St Deluxe have been together for four years.

It started with Martin and Jamie being in a band called Speeder, who were signed to the same label as Garbage and Ash.

They quit Speeder and began playing for BMX Bandits where they met Stuart and Brian, who were already in the band.

Jamie, Brian and Stuart were also in Teenage Fanclub drummer Francis Macdonald's other band Nice Man & The Bad Boys.

Jamie said: "It was fun being in these bands but we wanted to do something different.

"This is us. We still play with others, but St Deluxe is our main focus and we are in control.

"We try and experiment with guitars and synthesisers as much as we possibly can."

Though their first album is still fresh on the shelves, the band are already recording for their second album. Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite has produced After The Fire.

And indie music legend Calvin Johnson, founder of K Records and band member of Beat Happening and The Go!

Team, even came in on a day off to work with the band.

One of indie's founding fathers was touring in August and before the American's show, popped into the band's Glasgow studios.

Jamie said: "We'd been emailing him and he invited us to play at K Record's stage at the South by South West festival.

"Then he was doing a tour which stopped off in Glasgow and as he had a day off, he came in and produced another new song, Please Be Gentle. He was then in the studio the morning of his gig finishing it off."

St Deluxe's debut album, St Deluxe, is out now. - Daily Record - Scotland's Best Selling National Newspaper

IF YOU ARE GOING TO START A band, it probably helps if you've already seen a bit of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle first hand. Jamie Cameron, singer and guitarist with Glasgow-based nu-grunge four-piece St Deluxe, has had a lifetime of witnessing bands behind the scenes thanks to his family business.
As well as fronting one of the best new bands in Scotland, Cameron works at Glasgow's Riverside Studios alongside his dad, uncle, brother and cousin. For 20 years Riverside has been at the heart of the Scottish indie scene, Cameron's dad Duncan producing and engineering recording sessions for the cream of the country's talent.

"My dad's worked with everyone from Teenage Fanclub and BMX Bandits to Arab Strap and Travis," says Cameron. "I guess that's really influenced me a lot. Seeing people like that coming through the studio made a big impression on me.

"People have illusions about people in bands, that they're famous and rich, but it's never, ever the case," he laughs. "I knew how it really was from an early age. If you're playing in a band you're not really ever going to make a lot of money; if it happens it's cool, but it's not likely.

"We used to have the studio in the house until I was about seven or eight. There were loads of guys who are now famous hanging around, back when they were all starting out. I'd come home from school and Bobby Gillespie would be setting up drums in the hall and bashing away. I was like, 'Move, I need to get in to do my homework'."

St Deluxe tap into the noisier end of the Scottish indie spectrum, bringing to mind the more raucous side of Primal Scream and the Jesus and Mary Chain, as well the fuzzed-up energy of US grunge and indie, bands such as Dinosaur Jr and Sonic Youth. No less a music spotter than Alan McGee has called them "a Scottish Nirvana for the 21st century".

Cameron isn't letting that kind of flattery go to his head. He and fellow guitarist Martin Kirwan have heard it all before with their first band, Speeder, signed to indie label Infectious a few years ago alongside the likes of Garbage and Ash.

"It just didn't work out for one reason or another," says Cameron. "We were really young and it was great experience for a first stab at a band, but in the end there were personality clashes. Me and Martin just decided to do the music we wanted to do instead, and that's how St Deluxe started."

The band's debut album suggests this was the right decision. Brimming with youthful exuberance, killer harmonies and messy guitar solos, it's eerily reminiscent of early Teenage Fanclub. It's a sound, though, that is wildly out of step with current trends for jangly guitar fops and 1980s-flecked synth-pop. "If you start trying to make records to fit in with whatever else is happening, like a Libertines-style band or a Franz Ferdinand clone, you're not doing what you want to do," explains Cameron. "Lots of bands are chasing fame, trying to buy into something that happened three or four months ago, instead of doing what they want. If the fame doesn't happen, at least you've made music you're proud of."

The band are already well into making album number two. "The first album was us finding where we all sat in the band, getting a sound together," says Cameron. "Now we're trying to take it a bit further, seeing what we can come up with through experimentation." With that in mind they've been working with a raft of guest producers, from American underground legend Calvin Johnson to Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite.

In the meantime, the band are honing their live craft. From time to time the four members act as a band for hire, backing the likes of Duglas Stewart as the BMX Bandits, and Francis MacDonald, original drummer with Teenage Fanclub and now a solo artist. While both those projects are restrained affairs, the live St Deluxe is the exact opposite.

"When St Deluxe play live we're definitely influenced by bands like My Bloody Valentine," Cameron says. "We always want to play as loud as possible; that in itself is a really good effect, I think. It's all about trying to have fun, trying to make it exciting for us and the audience. Mind you, lots of venues have noise limiters these days, which is a pain." - the Scotsman - National Newspaper

ST DELUXE - St Deluxe ****

Ex-Speeders Jamie Cameron and Martin Kirwan and BMX Bandits' Stuart Kidd and Brian McEwan create classic guitar rock with a twist. There is a glam rock feel and the confidence on tracks such as Slip Away and New Wave Stars call to mind Primal Scream. AC - Sunday Mail - Scotlands No 1 Scottish National Sunday Newspaper

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PM’s Question Time

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St Deluxe

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This month, PM corners Martin Kirwan, lead guitarist with Glaswegian melodic noise rockers, St Deluxe. We talk about playing loud and proud, getting on with your sound man and why getting paid in kind isn’t always a bad thing

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Over the course of the last year or so, St Deluxe have really started to make waves and are being tipped by those-in-the-know to be one of Scotland’s next big musical exports. Since 2004, this volume-heavy fuzzed-up four piece - who are also currently members of BMX Bandits - have gigged in Germany and across the UK, self-released a smattering of singles on their own Grundioso indie imprint and had a split-single released in Germany. Most recently, the guys unleashed their self-titled debut LP on ex-Creation co-founder Joe Foster’s label, PoppyDisc. Foster’s ex-Creation partner in crime, Alan McGee has gone as far as describing St Deluxe as a “Scottish Nirvana for the 21st century”. 2009 really could be a breakthrough year for the guys with international deals currently being put in place to release their album across the globe while tours of the UK, Germany, Japan and the USA are also being lined up.

Performing Musician: Were there any bands you’d seen live who influenced how you wanted St Deluxe to come across?

Martin Kirwan: I think our biggest influences are the American bands like Pavement and Dinosaur Jr although we weren’t actually supposed to be going to see them because we were too young! It’s that whole effortless thing… it’s not big and showy… they’re not pulling crazy poses… it’s not an act… it’s just ‘We need to make this music!’ and I think that’s what we do. It’s not a particular career option, it’s not for money or anything like that – it’s just that we love it and we want to do it!

PM: What was your first gig like?

MK: Our first ever gig was at the Barfly in London and it was part of ‘The Chateau’ showcase, which is where Franz Ferdinand first started playing. There were three bands from Glasgow and we were stuck in the middle of the bill so it was probably the best spot to be honest because it was probably the most busy. We’d all played bigger gigs in London before but it was great to finally arrive and be doing our own thing and it went down really well. I was also D-Jing after it so there was a sense of a big event - it was a big Glasgow onslaught arriving in Camden… it was great!

PM: What has been your best gig?

MK: There’s a couple. Being a massive Spacemen 3 and Spectrum fan, it would probably have to be playing last year with Spectrum (a gig that St Deluxe promoted themselves). It was really packed out and we almost sold out quite a big venue in Glasgow so having such a big success and playing with one of your musical heroes was amazing! For the actual gig part of it, I think it’d probably be a gig we played in Hamburg just because it was such an amazing crowd reaction. We were blown away with the fact that we’d traveled such a great distance and there was people actually singing the chorus of the second song and that was just off the back of MySpace because I don’t know how else they could’ve actually heard the song! There was quite a bit of press because it was part of the single coming out over there. We had quite a bit of profile and it was quite a busy day as well because we did an in-store in this really cool record shop called Michelle Records and that was packed out as well on a Saturday afternoon. It was a great response and just amazing that that happens so far away from home… probably the best crowd reaction and feeling from a gig that we’ve done!

PM: What’s your worst gig been and why?

MK: We were doing some gigs down in London and Brighton and we had them booked quite far in advance and we were like, ‘Let’s try and get something on the way back home!’ We ended up playing this wee tiny place in Manchester and we’d been speaking to some people a couple of weeks before who’d played there and they were like, ‘Oh man, the promoter’s a bit strange and he’s really bad at what he does and they’re always really quiet gigs!’ So we went expecting the worst but just thinking ‘Oh, it’s just a wee pick up gig to get some petrol money on the way home!’ So we arrived and, as we were advised before, there was not really anybody there at the gig - only three or four people and the support band had turned up. Then, at the end of the night, we were like, ‘Right, okay, have you got our money?’ and he turns around and he says he’s not actually got the money for us and he actually just gave us a bag of grass! So, fuck… we just thought ‘There’s not much we can do!’ so we just took the grass and went! So it’s probably one of the worst gigs we’ve played but I think it probably turned out okay in the end!

PM: You’ve got a reputation for being really loud live… was that a conscious decision?

MK: Yeah, we just like bands like Dinosaur Jr and My Bloody Valentine, who were always massively loud. We’ve basically matched up the guitar amps. We have two Marshall Anniversary vintage heads… nice, valve, three channel things… and you’ve got your crunch and your loud and your louder basically! So, yeah, we do play loud and I think sometimes it has a kind of a physical effect on people and emotionally as well… but we just like to make a bit of noise as well to be honest!

PM: Do the volume levels ever bring you into conflict with FOH engineers?

MK: Not really. We’ve all got a recording background as well and sometimes Jamie’s Dad (Duncan Cameron, who runs the famous Riverside Studios in Busby, Glasgow where St Deluxe record and rehearse) comes and does sound for us… but we can usually strike up a good rapport with sound guys by talking about the studio and stuff… they might say, ‘Christ, man, that was quite loud!’ but not in a bad way, it’s like, ‘Man, that was good fun!’ I think live we come across as quite energetic as well and that all adds to us just being able to have a good time and people being decent with you. I think pretty much the most important thing if you’re doing gigs in different places is to treat the sound guy really nice because he’s the guy who’s gonna make you sound good or bad!

PM: What advice do you have for bands who are just starting to play gigs?

MK: Probably one of the biggest bits of advice is to buy your own van - it has opened up a lot of doors for us because it just makes much more things possible. Also, having a bit of merch to sell I think is so important because it just makes things possible from a money situation. We do T-shirts and the singles and stuff like that. It may cost a wee bit of money to do it at first but it’s all worth it in the end. Another thing that I think we’ve totally benefited from is setting up our sound so that we know how to set up our sound onstage and we can just play from the backline. It’s so much easier - you can just go and set up and play a gig no matter the size of the stage… a small place, a big venue, it doesn’t really matter- it’s pretty easy these days for us!

PM: How do you approach organizing tours abroad, in Germany for instance?

MK: In Germany, we’ve got a booking agent who’s booking shows for us in September. I just looked up on MySpace and looked for some German bands to see if I could find a booking agent. We just got a wee pack together - a wee PDF - that we sent off and said, ‘Do you want to do some shows?’ and surprisingly everyone that we sent them off to all got back and said ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. Sometimes in Britain you send stuff off and you just don’t hear anything back, which can be quite frustrating. It’s refreshing I think in most other territories because they treat you like you’re actually doing a job for them whereas sometimes in Britain it’s like you’re the one getting the favour by getting to play! That’s why we’ve found it best to self-promote and book our own shows at home, especially in Glasgow and Edinburgh. We do all the press for them ourselves which is good because you build up your own press contacts.

PM: How important is the internet for promoting the band?

MK: It’s hugely valuable these days, it’s amazing and it always surprises me how much can be done just off a lap top. There’s MySpace and just recently we’ve been getting into the Facebook thing. That’s really good for setting up these event pages and fan pages… you can see how many people are thinking about coming or are maybe coming or are definitely coming. The other thing that we use quite a lot is forums. There’s quite a lot of people in Glasgow that use the Teenage Fanclub forum. We’ve built up quite a following off some of these like the Jockrock forum as well… loads of bands go into the Jockrock forum and just post all their gigs they’ve got coming up and releases. That’s where most of the gig-going crowd find out about gigs (in Scotland).

PM: What do you do about accommodation while you’re on the road?

MK: We try our best to make sure the promoter helps us out but we’re not averse to sleeping on somebody’s floor and sometimes I would rather that, you know? In fact, there’s a couple who run a really good indie club called Silver Rocket (in Highbury, London) named after the Sonic Youth song and they’ve been really great with us. They’ve put us on a few times and, each time we go down, it’s always really busy and you’re playing to the right crowd because we’re of that ilk anyway… and they’re really nice - they’ll put us up a couple of nights on the trot because we’ve got a day off in between. That’s another great thing about doing music - meeting all these nice people who are just into music and want to help make things happen - you end up making good friends! It was the same in Germany… we stayed with the guy who put out the record – in Hamburg after the gig – and they were just really nice, making us home-made soup… and that’s a really welcome thing when you’ve been sat in the van for seven hours!

Check out all the latest news and gig listings for St Deluxe at www.stdeluxe.co.uk and www.myspace.com/stdeluxe. The debut album is out now on the PoppyDisc label. - Performing Musician - UK and European Distrobution

Fuzzed-out Glaswegians St Deluxe sound like they’ve set out to please themselves firstly on their debut, and if other folks dig it too: bonus. They’ve already picked up a few influential fans along the way in ex-Spacemen 3 dude Peter Kember, Teenage Fanclub and Alan McGee, who called them ‘a Scottish Nirvana for the 21st century’, in his trademark understated way.

And you’ll like them too, at least if you enjoy your riffs big, twisted and oozing with frankly silly amounts of fuzz Dinosaur Jr style, your vocals slack ala Stephen Malkmus and your soundscapes warm, noisy and glowing, like My Bloody Valentine with controls set for the heart of the sun. - The List

A CONTENDER for Scotland's hottest new act are this Glasgow band.
While the album isn't out until February 9, we've been given a sneak preview. A cross between Dinosaur Jr and Teenage Fanclub, it's filled with neurotic guitars and delicate harmonies.
Led by BMX Bandits regulars Jamie Cameron and Martin Kirwan, Alan McGee has called them a "Scottish Nirvana for the 21st century" and I get what he means.
Strip away the grunge and Nirvana were a melodic pop group. The great thing about St Deluxe is there's no need for stripper. New single New Wave Stars is a blistering attack of buzzsaw guitars, rib-rattling bass and distorted vocals.
It's like Teenage Fanclub with their fingers in a plug socket.
Mid-tempo Stupid Ideas has the gnarly guitars of grunge while Can't Change has rootsy beats and lyric: "I can't change/what I don't know". The Saints are coming. St Deluxe is out on February 9.
- The Daily Record - Scottish National Newspaper