RATTLE and THRUM

Monica Queen, the lady with that heart-stopping voice in Scottish band Thrum informs me that she’s never up out of bed before ten in the morning. This morning, however, is an exception. Quite rightly so, too, in my opinion. It’s not every day that your group gets awarded HP Single of the Fortnight, which is, of course, what happened with Thrum’s second ‘seven inch’ release, the fuckomotive ‘Here I Am’.

“The Hot Press thing was a great surprise. We were absolutely delighted and we thought we must go over there. Hopefully we’ll get to do a few shows soon,” promises Monica in the midst of a conversation we’re having about the similarities between Glasgow and Dublin. Apparently both places are small enough to ensure that everyone knows everyone else’s business – which Monica admits can be a bit of a pain in the arse after a while. Nevertheless, I do my best to persuade Monica that Thrum would go down a bomb in the Fair City.

If Thrum were nicely shocked by the favour shown them in HP’s singles parade they were also far from unpleasantly stunned when their debut single ‘So Glad’ received the NME Single of the Week accolade in spite of the fact that Monica Queen has such a low opinion of the British musical weeklies.

“I think the Melody Maker and the NME have totally lost all sight of what it is they first started out doing which was promoting, let’s say, Indie Bands, though Indie doesn’t really exist anymore. Most of the bands they write about are major label based. Oasis, are signed to Sony, you know. And they only give bands six months to a year and then totally disregard them and throw them back onto the unemployment heap. They are comic papers. They don’t have much respect. They don’t have anything worthwhile to say.”

MALE WORLD

In America Thrum’s music has been described as “Hard Country.” Is it a label Monica would be happy being stuck with?

“Well, we’re not a country band and I would only agree with it to a certain extent. The problem is that people, even journalists, will turn up to see Thrum and because country has been mentioned towards the band they go away thinking we’re a country band, you know. If we were to say we were a four piece jazz band then that’s what they would come and review. But I suppose we’re country in as much as The Rolling Stones were influenced by country, or The Beatles or Bob Dylan or Big Brother and the Holding Company were influenced by country.

“The country music goes as far as the melancholia in our music. We are a heavy band. Though I have to admit I don’t know what a heavy subject is. Do you have to talk about racism to be considered a heavy band? Whereas as far as I’m concerned love is political. But bands like The Lemonheads, with their use of Sneaky Pete, have made country okay for the Indie kids. But we listen to Sonic Youth, bands like that as well. But ‘hard alternative country rock’ I would say is quite apt.”

As a female leader of an otherwise male band does Monica feel any empathy with Riot Grrrll?

“Only in so far as girls are now in bands again. I’m not into these riot girls singing and yet they’re showing their knickers. It’s like, excuse me why do you have to treat yourself like that, you know? You’re still living in the male world. It’s all false, completely false. but I like the fact that the girls are up performing. It’s long overdue. The music industry is very male dominated. The more girls that come into it the better but what they’re actually singing about doesn’t really wash with me.

“The thing is,” continues Monica, “the riot scene was started up by the music papers. The riot grrlls who came out of that were only accommodating the NME and The Melody Maker so that they would have something to write about at that given time. So by being sloganistic it was like: what’s going to get us into the music papers? Let’s write stuff all over our bodies. And the papers love it. I mean things like the riot scene have been going on in Scotland for years.”

SAD TALES

One of the things which the band are particularly chuffed by is the support they received from no less a personage than the mercurial Grant Lee Philips of the even more mercurial Grant Lee Buffalo. Grant Lee is a committed fan of Thrum as Monica explains.

He heard the first single and loved it and demanded that when he came over to Britain, we should be the tour support. He’s a very honest bloke as well. Full of integrity and he has something to say and it was a great boost when we found out he was a fan. We thought ‘Aw great, someone likes us! Somebody that we respect and think is great’.”

This mutual appreciation was compounded when the band went over to San Francisco to record their forthcoming album. For a part of their time over there they holed up with Grant Lee.

“We went to San Francisco to record the album purely because we were given the option of Glasgow or San Francisco so we said – why not go over there for a month. In typical rock group fashion we had too much fun. San Francisco just totally captivated us. It’s a fantastic place. It’s just buzzing twenty-four hours of the day. We got all the stuff recorded but we didn’t get it mixed so when we came back to Glasgow we got our fingers slapped by the record company! But we were in LA and met Arthur Lee and we stayed with Grant Lee Philips in a big house.”

Apparently, ‘You Wish’ is a track to watch out for on the album to come. Finally, though, as a singer of no little brilliance who can reach the parts other vocalist fail to reach who – if you’ll excuse the metaphor – makes Monica Queen get down on her knees and cry?

“Well I must admit, purely on the singing, the person, that makes me fall on my knees and makes me go ‘ah I’d love to sing like that’ is Neil Young. His voice just absolutely kills me. Particularly on Harvest Moon. You know all his sad tales, he’s lost his women, he has no friends and he can’t go out and he sings in that gentle type voice and people sort of look at me and go ‘what, you think Neil Young’s a good singer?’ because people regard him along with Bob Dylan and say he can’t sing for toffee but I totally disagree.

“Actually we want to be around for as long as these guys as well. We want to have about twenty albums and not just disappear after six months or a year.”