News LightGuides

DIY’s good friends Alcopop! (with whom we shared a stage at The Great Escape) recently added a new band to their roster. LightGuides are their first ever Scottish signing, joining a label who have already given us releases from Freeze The Atlantic, Jumping Ships, Johnny Foreigner, Stagecoach, My First Tooth and tons more.

Having already self-released a mini album (called ‘Past And Present’, and actually consisting of two earlier EPs), their first Alcopop! release, ‘Old Bucket Seats’, has just become available via download only – and is free on their website until June 1st. A new mini album will follow in August.

Their hook-laden indirect punk pop gives nods to a ton of Scottish and American influences, from Biffy and Idlewild to Blink 182 and The Format, with a quirky nature that also lends the likes of Tubelord and Dananananaykroyd as likely peers.

On a rare sunny Scottish day, DIY met up with LightGuides for ice cream and a chat in Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens.

So, can you tell us a bit about the band and how you started?
Mark: How far back do you want me to go?

Just tell us what you think people need to know.
Dave: My favourite colour is purple.
Mark: It is. But you’ve been favouring white a lot recently, too.
Dave: That’s because white looks classy.
Mark: Well, we’ve been a band for ages. Me and Martin were learning guitar at school at the same time, and started writing songs back then. And we’ve just been doing it ever since. We went through a couple of band member changes, band name changes…
Dave: This is really boring!
Mark: I know!
Dave: Basically, Martin and Mark played guitar at school together, then went through ch-ch-ch-changes, and then I was too good to not…
Mark: When we were We Hung Your Leader, we were gigging a lot and everything was great, but we all finished uni and wanted to take it more seriously. So we changed our name to LightGuides and started recording new material and more or less got our act together. That’s when we started doing better gigs and people started to enjoy us a lot more.

How would you describe your sound?
Martin: Kind of quirky Scot pop. As much as I would love it to be really mega alternative, it’s definitely…
Dave: Quite upbeat… poppy… punky…
Mark: The new stuff’s definitely a lot more kind of pop punk orientated. Hopefully people like it.

Who are your biggest influences?
Dave: We grew up on a lot of American pop punk stuff, but we all love the Glasgow folky stuff too. Name some bands, Mark.
Mark: We grew up listening to Jimmy Eat World, The Starting Line, New Found Glory, Blink [182]. Those were the bands we started learning to play guitar to.
We’ve got a lot of friends who are in great bands, and that’s influential too.

How did signing to Alcopop come about?
Dave: We threatened them! No, they got in touch via email when we were recording the album in January, and asked us to send some stuff, because they’d heard maybe MySpace or something, and wanted to hear more. So we sent them some stuff. It worked perfectly because we were recording the album, and were going to start actively looking at trying to get it distributed by a label. It was kind of perfect that they got in touch.
They’re great guys and they’re running a great label. They did sign us before they saw us live, though.

Yeah, I heard you were worried about playing in front of Jack (Alcopop!) for the first time in London?
Dave: Pretty much. I mean, what if we’d went and he’d been like, guys, it’s not really going to work… But we played OK.

Does it feel different playing in England?
Dave: I don’t know. We’ve got a lot of friends in London. We haven’t really gigged anywhere else in the UK to play to no one we know.
Mark: We are looking forward to playing down South more, and the good thing about Alcopop is they’ll be able to help us with that. We’ve been around Scotland a good number of times now, and it’s nice going to new places and playing to new people.
Martin: Even in London we’ve already seen people coming to watch us and then next time bringing their friends. So although it’s not massive, every time we’re down it’s definitely improving.
Mark: Well that’s it. Was it not Kings of Leon that said when they were doing touring support.
Dave: Are you comparing us to Kings of Leon?
Mark: No no no no, it’s what they said! If you can come away having won over 10% of the crowd, you’ve done your job well. Fair enough though, they were playing with U2.

Are you hoping to play many festivals this year?
Dave: I’d love to play Rock Ness. After going last year, I just really liked it. We’re playing Alcopopalooza in Brixton in July. It should be a good couple of months though, anyway. Next year we’ll be doing this in Hawaii in our hot tub.
Mark: Why would you want to go to Hawaii when the weather here is like this?
Dave: You can’t surf here.

How was it working with Chris Gordon?
Martin: Chris is a good dude. He’s done our EP before, so he understands the sound we’re looking for and how we like to work, which is generally really far behind schedule. He’s really patient. This time it was different because we had more studio time to play about with and sort things more.
Dave: We feel really comfortable with Chris, and he makes a great cup of coffee. And I think it was his mother in law made some Rocky Road we had. It was actually amazing.
Mark: I’m really pleased with how the album’s come out. I’m dying to let people hear it. It’s different from the old stuff. We don’t go off on tangents as much. We actually have a song that the chorus is in it three times. We’ve never done that before.
Dave: It’s going to be called King Of The Ocean Floor. Because it’s about Titanic. Jack dies. I don’t want to spoil the ending for you, but the ship sinks.
Mark: It’s not going to be called that. It might be called Cocktails On Coattails.

What are your aspirations as a band?
Dave: Long term we’d love to have a career. But right now I just really want to play to new people and different cities. I just want to be gigging, I suppose.

Are there any particular things you’ve seen other bands to, particular landmark moments, that you’ve thought you’d love to reach too?
Dave: MTV Cribs. Pete Wentz has a snow machine in his back garden…This is painting me in a bad light, I think, that it’s all material things!
I think every time I see a band that’s touring and playing to big crowds, I just think I would love to have that.
Also endorsements. I’d like free drum sticks. And cymbals.

LightGuides’ new single ‘Old Bucket Seats’ is out now, and available from lightguidesmusic.co.uk.