Introducing - Fatale

What is it about you Uddy (Uddingston) boys and The Velvet Underground?

Back in mid-April, my friend Derek sent me a cryptic WhatsApp message, and then followed it up with soundcloud links to a young teenage band called Fatale . Del had produced and engineered demos for two songs; Moves You and a cover of The Velvets Femme Fatale.

Fatale soundcloud

Del was excited enough to also post in the Teenage Fanclub Fanclub Facebook group with the statement  - If you like Catholic Education era Teenage Fanclub then you'll love Fatale.

Fatale, as you might have guessed from Derek's comparisons, love electric guitars that crash, collide, chime, blur, reverberate and fuzz together in the glorious way that I have loved for over 3 decades.

Hailing from my home town of Uddingston (on the outskirts of Glasgow), I was determined to find out more about this young band that seem to be bursting with talent, taste, looks, great hair (I found out upon meeting them), energy and enthusiasm.

Moves You is the first song that they have released. The overdriven guitars are fired up beautifully, there is a sublime dreamy breakdown, before they burst back into life. Vocally, this is pure So Far Gone/God Knows It's True era Fanclub, raw and soulful harmonies, young romantic lyrics sung from the heart.

Would you find a price for all the stars that shine on you?

Meanwhile, their cover of Femme Fatale is gorgeously raw and warm, sounding like a lost Fanclub cover they recorded for Bandwagonesque era b-sides.

I caught up with guitarist Christopher Jollie to find out more in the interview below. It was also great to bump into the whole band after the BMX Bandits show on Friday night. During the gig they stood to the side, shaking their heads in time and singing-along, Chris wearing a Eugenius t-shirt. They looked like a real gang, tight friends, a band. 

I can't wait to see them live. Read on for info about how they formed, influences, writing and news about their next gig.

1. How did the band form? Where are you all from? How did you get to know each other?

Our singer Ben and lead guitarist Euan are cousins and both of them had came out of playing with other bands. Myself and our bassist Oscar had been school friends with Ben and had played in a drumless, gigless band just before Fatale. A total shambles. Euan and our drummer James had also been school pals but had never played in a band together. 

From James perspective Euan was playing songs with his wee cousin (he thought he was nine) and wanted him to drum with them. When we show up at his garage for a jam, to his surprise there’s three eighteen year old's with guitars. The band just took off from there.

2. How did you start creating music together? Does anyone take the lead on writing? Or do you jam ideas?

We started off with acoustic demos recorded by Ben and Euan, and built up from there. It’s a collaborative process we go for, with everyone coming in with their own songs, and fleshing them out in practice. I’d always hated showing folk my own songs, but I had Moves You as a demo on my phone from months before and tried to show it to the guys. I had to do that another twice before we sort of took it seriously as a song, and now we’re in the process of getting it recorded and produced. We do have very diverse influences, which allows us to do different things with each song.

3. What kind of music are you listening to at present? Have any bands influenced you?

I was just at the Barras seeing Dinosaur Jr. and wow. They’ve always been a band that I’m just in awe of. I’ve been listening to a lot of soul music and bands like Big Star, the Kinks. Apart from that I’ve been getting dead into Eugenius, who had sort of passed me by when I was discovering the Fanclub. Scottish music has shaped our sound unlike anything else. There’s just something inside a lot of Scottish bands that just can’t be replicated. We are very keen to keep that sort of thing going.

4. How did you get on playing McChuills at the start of May?

McChuills was our first gig together, and it was a sellout. We were opening for a very good Irish band, The Labourers, and playing alongside our good pals, Bogle, as part of the Vicar Street Social night. We were originally scheduled to play a Sunday Soundclash on the 4th of May but due to the football it was cancelled. 

That had left us without a gig until July, but thankfully our mate Ben Brown managed to pull some strings and get us a spot on VSS thanks to a demo recorded by Derek McKee. We played 7 songs, including covers of the Scream’s Velocity Girl and the Velvet’s Femme Fatale. Our closer, Moves You ended up getting played twice since we didn’t have another song and the crowd were wanting more. I had already plugged out my guitar when Ben tells me we’re replaying it. You can’t plan for the energy in the room, and everything came so naturally.

5. What do you have coming up in terms of gigs, recording and releasing?

Our next gig is a part of King Tut’s Summer Nights Festival. We’re opening for a band we know called The Violet’s on Sunday 20th July, so it should be another great night. TICKETS

We’re also looking at our options for getting Moves You recorded and released in the next month or two, to keep the excitement going. Del done a great job of our demo so we’ll be looking towards him for potentially recording some covers to put out over the summer. We’re also in the early stages of setting up a once or twice a month event, looking at platforming the sound of young Glasgow. It’s exciting times for us, but it’s just the start of something that we truly believe in.