This Is Hardcore

Scots noise extremists Mogwai must be the hardest working band in post-rock – our interview with the band’s de facto leader, Stuart Braithwaite, takes place at 9 in the morning.

“It’s not very rock ‘n’ roll being up at nine at the morning,” acknowledges Braithwaite down the line from Edinburgh, before adding with a chuckle, “unless you’re still up from the night before!”
Having previously given us such classics of space-age instrumental rock as Mogwai Young Team, Come On Die Young and Happy Songs For Happy People, the quintet have now returned with Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, a typically pulverising collection of blistering rock-outs, interspersed with the occasional moment of crystalline beauty, as well as the odd Krautrock flourish.
The record has so far attracted favourable reviews but I wonder if, seven albums into Mogwai’s career, Stuart is ever worried about the group repeating themselves?
“We try not to,” he replies. “It’s a bit of a balancing act – sometimes you come up with a song and you think, ‘Yeah, it’s good, but it’s not that different from what we’ve done before.’ But sometimes a tune’s so good that you just live with that aspect. That’s happened a few times. I mean, The Ramones never worried about that.”
They were probably too busy fighting each other – or, in Johnny’s case, supporting George Bush!
“It’s kind of funny, cos he had the same name as John from Mogwai,” explains Stuart. “John used to be really proud of that, and then it kind of came to his attention that the guy was actually a complete dickhead, and he doesn’t shout about it quite so much anymore! To be honest, I could live with the politics, but it was more that he was really horrible to Joey, who seemed like a really nice guy. You can’t agree with everyone on politics, but there just seemed to be a sort of general unpleasantness.”
As it happens, on the day of our interview, Darren Aronofsky’s Oscar-nominated new film Black Swan is being released in Ireland. Mogwai previously contributed to the soundtrack of Aronofsky’s third film, The Fountain.
“I saw an interview with Clint Mansell, who was doing the score, and he said he wanted it to sound like Mogwai,” recalls Stuart. “So I just got in contact and asked if he’d be up for us doing some work on the soundtrack. We didn’t actually meet Darren Aronofsky, although he checked us out doing some stuff via-webcam. That seems to be the way these things happen – occasionally we do these glamorous things, but then we’re too busy to actually get any of the glamour!”
Mogwai are renowned for their intense and incredibly loud gigs, and they are actually the band this writer has seen play live most – just ahead of Blur, whom Mogwai famously heaped derision upon, even going as far to have “Blur Are Shite” t-shirts printed up when both bands appeared at the Reading Festival in 1999.
Of course, it goes without saying that Mogwai were completely wrong in their assessment of Damon and co.
“They did get better,” concedes Stuart. “But when he was singing in that cockney accent, that was not good. There was something very corporate about Blur at that time. It wasn’t like they weren’t talented, but they prostituted that talent. So, we were in fact 100% right!”

Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will is released on Rock Action on February 14. Mogwai play the Olympia, Dublin on February 15. See hotpress.com for archive interviews.