During an interview with Glasgow’s Mogwai, one word keeps emerging: “weird.” It all started in 2021 when their album As The Love Continues unexpectedly hit number one.
Frontman Stuart Braithwaite describes it as “psychedelically weird,” especially since the achievement took place during the pandemic, meaning they couldn’t even gather at a pub to discuss it.
“So we couldn’t even go to the pub to talk about how weird it was,” he laughs.
The success led the band to the Mercury Prize gala, a “weird ceremony” according to Braithwaite.
However, it didn’t impact their new album, The Bad Fire. In fact, they forgot to mention their chart-topping achievement to their new producer, John Congleton (known for his work with St. Vincent, The Killers, and Blondie).
He found out only when a French journalist brought it up during an interview.
His reaction: “Wait, your last album went to number one?” to which they replied, “Yeah.” The journalist responded, “Wow, that’s weird.” And, indeed, it was.
Mogwai has never seemed like a band destined for mainstream success.
Formed by lifelong friends aiming to create “serious guitar music,” they specialize in long, haunting instrumentals that evoke creeping anxiety and intense pay-offs.
It took 25 years to reach number one, aided by chart rules that give more weight to physical record sales than streaming numbers.
With a dedicated fanbase that loves vinyl, the band’s success resulted in them outselling even the likes of Dua Lipa and Harry Styles for a week.
Braithwaite still calls it a “huge surprise.” “We want our music to do well, but we’re not uber-ambitious. We’re not like Queen, plotting world domination.”
Even if they had wanted to capitalize on their success, fate had other plans.
While recording the follow-up to As The Love Continues, keyboardist Barry Burns received devastating news: his daughter was critically ill with aplastic anaemia, a rare and severe bone marrow condition. Burns recalls, “She had blood coming out of her gums and bruises all over. It was extremely stressful.”
This rare condition, affecting only 30 to 40 children per year in the UK, hit close to home for Burns, who had known someone who had died from it as a child.
Thankfully, after a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy, his daughter made a full recovery.
Tragedy didn’t stop there.
Their live agent, Mick Griffiths, passed away from cancer, and bassist Dominic Aitchison lost his father.
Even Braithwaite’s pet dog, Prince, had to undergo leg amputation shortly before the recording began.
The Bad Fire—which translates to “hell” in Glaswegian—is a reflection of the band’s tumultuous experiences, though it’s not an album focused on grief.
“If anything weighty happens in my life, the last thing I want to do is write a song about it,” Braithwaite states, a philosophy that persists.
Their largely instrumental tracks continue with playful, nonsensical titles (e.g., Pale Vegan Hip Pain and Fanzine Made Of Flesh), avoiding the imposition of meaning.
The band intentionally leaves their music open to interpretation, and when lyrics do appear, they are often cryptic.
The Bad Fire continues this trend with tracks like “18 Volcanoes,” where Braithwaite sings quietly, “Hope has come another day/Hold me close in every way.”
Though some critics have described the album as cathartic, Braithwaite doesn’t see it as maudlin. “It’s vaguely upbeat, by our standards,” he adds.
Released last Friday, The Bad Fire is on track for a top-five position in the UK albums chart, aided by physical sales, which Braithwaite views as a welcome counterbalance to the “murky” world of streaming.
On streaming services like Spotify, Braithwaite is critical, particularly of how popular platforms favor back catalogs and artists with established followings.
“It makes a lot of money, but it makes a lot of money for old music and artists with popular back catalogues,” he says.
He also points out the prevalence of “fake bands making generic music” on streaming platforms, especially in genres like lo-fi and chill-out.
While streaming has its drawbacks, Mogwai’s music thrives in the digital world—particularly on YouTube, where their 2005 track “Take Me Somewhere Nice” has amassed 85 million streams.
Braithwaite is fascinated by the idea of art outliving its creators.
Inspired by poet William Blake, he finds it incredible that works which were once ridiculed in their time can leave a lasting legacy. “I like the idea of, when we’re long gone, having made some kind of mark,” he reflects.
The 30th anniversary of Mogwai’s formation has brought them full circle from their early days as rebellious upstarts to revered figures in British rock.
When asked how it feels to reach this stage, Braithwaite laughs, “Well, I thought we’d have flying cars by this point, so any joy at the fact I was still eking out a living as a musician would probably be tempered by the lack of jet packs.” In other words, it still feels “weird.”
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