Mogwai take aim

Speaking to Hot Press ahead of their highly-anticipated appearance at Electric Picnic next weekend, Stuart Braithwaite of Scottish rock titans Mogwai weighed in on the recent ugly battle of words between legendary musician and producer Steve Albini and hip hop upstarts Odd Future.

Following a shared bus ride between Albini and Odd Future, the Shellac man took to his forum to unleash a volley of insults at the latter's alleged boorish behaviour, creating a media storm in the process. A bemused Braithwaite tweeted in the aftermath, expressing his firm belief that the whole thing was blown way out of proportion.

“It’s really indicative of the sort of tittle-tattle non-news that’s around now,” he says. “There’s a real vapidness in music journalism with people reporting stuff that isn’t news. It’s just a comment on a messageboard. Steve was talking about a band that he has no interest in whatsoever, and all he’s saying is that they were acting like idiots on a bus.

"I mean, if a bunch of 19-year-old rappers aren’t annoying Steve Albini on a bus, then there’s something wrong with the world. Everything annoys Steve Albini! I’m sure they were acting like total dickheads, but we were acting like total dickheads when we were 19. We were acting like total dickheads when we were 25 to be honest!”

Talking to Hot Press, Braithwaite also discusses plans to recreate 2006's excellent arthouse film Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait - for which Mogwai supplied the soundtrack - in a live setting.

"I think it will happen," he says. "We saw it in a football stadium in Switzerland and they draped a cinema screen across the goalposts. It was kind of magical and I think it could work well as a show."

Speaking of the beautiful game you won't want to miss what Braithwaite has to say about controversial, Nietzche-quoting Joey Barton. Read the full interview in the brand new issue of HP (Arcade Fire cover), which also includes over 20 pages of Electric Picnic preview action, on shelves now.