TWIN ATLANTIC

Ahead of their sold out show at the O2 ABC in Glasgow, and their biggest hometown show to date, we catch up with Barry McKenna and Craig Kneale from Twin Atlantic...

VLS: Hello guys! How are you feeling today?

Craig: I'm good!

Barry: At the moment a tiny, tiny quantity of nerves...

C: I haven't felt the nerves yet, which is probably quite worrying. They're going to just hit me right before we go on stage.

VLS: Have you been doing anything in particular today, to try and take your mind of the fact there are over 1,000 people coming tonight?

C:  Aye, don't rub it in! I'm just going to try and drink water...

B: I think just the usual preparation. We've sound checked and checked all the gear so that's the technical side taken care of and as for this side...just don't eat too close to the show. We've all got a thing where if we eat too close to when we play we feel a bit sick so...other than that just try to get geed up really.

VLS: Have you got any particular rituals you do just before you go on stage?

 B: We do have a ritual where we all have to touch each other's heads with our heads.

C: We've added in recently a kind of river-dance as well. I don't know why we started it, but it just happened one night were we all had to put in our left foot and then our right foot and do this little jig. But the head thing...I remember once we didn't do the head thing and we all played really badly. I think that might have been why it was.

VLS: Has that ever gone horrible wrong and you've head-butted one of your band mates?

C: There have been quite a lot of the times when there's been slight head-butts, but it's all in the name of love.

VLS: Tomorrow you're playing at King Tut's, as part of DF Concert's 20^th birthday celebrations. Obviously that's going to be a lot more intimate show when compared to night, so which one are you looking forward to the most?

B: I'm looking forward to both for different reasons. I'm looking forward to tonight because tonight is a total landmark in our band and we've come so far and we're really all really proud of playing a venue with the stature of the ABC, and being able to sell it out. But I'm looking forward to tomorrow because I love King Tut's. And we all do. I'm not dissing any other venues in Glasgow because there have been some great venues that we played, like Bloc and Buff Club and The Barfly and whatnot, but Tut's was the first venue that when we played you go "we've made it", y'know? You get treated really well at Tut's and to this day it's still the venue we've played more than any other venue. It's like our old stomping ground and it'll just be amazing to go back and play it. We know the people who work there really well as well...

C: It'll just be like playing for friends really. I think it's just one of those places everyone plays and it's got such a good name for its self. I think everyone remembers playing there because they get treated so well and the people they have working, like the in-house sound guy and stuff, always know exactly what they're doing so they always have such a smooth gig. It's one of those rooms that just suits having gigs in it. Playing to a packed out Tut's just has a really special atmosphere.

VLS: You've just wrapped up a European tour with Enter Shikari. How did those shows go, because I know it was your first time playing in some of the cities you visited?

C: Most of them were places we'd never played before. It was amazing, pretty much all these fresh audiences that had never heard of us for the most part and majority of them went down so well. We can't wait to go back again and the Enter Shikari guys were so friendly.

B: We built up quite a kinship with those guys. I mean, we tend to get one really well with all the bands we play with but I think especially Enter Shikari, because we're all in the same age bracket there were more things in common and they treated us really well and all the crew were really nice as well. It was cool playing to their fans because they do play heavy rock but at the same time they play a lot of dancier stuff, we were playing to pretty much the type of audience we'd never played to before so it was kind of cool branching out to a complete different group of people. It was equally reassuring to know that they were into it...obviously not everyone, but the majority of people responded positively and it was nice to know that we didn't drop like a lead balloon.

C: I was the same, I think we all went into that tour a little sceptical about how we were going to go down but it was really cool to see all these total party maniacs really getting into it.

VLS: Do you ever encounter any kind of language barrier when you go abroad, even just with the lyrics to the songs or the banter on stage?

B: To be honest, because Sam has such a broad Scottish accent I guess he has trouble being understood in England, where they speak the same language never mind like Germany or wherever. So I mean there's always that slight barrier up but I guess people in European countries are so used to learning English words because English-speaking bands and Western bands are so big over there...I think we do OK. What do you think?

C: I thought Sam did OK, apart from when he started talking in a kind of generic Italian accent in Italy and he wasn't even saying real words. That definitely wasn't the right thing to do. But for the most part people can understand.

VLS: You've just announced that you'll be spending your summer touring North America with Fall of Troy and Envy on the Coast. Pretty exciting, eh?

C: It's going to be amazing; we're going to see a big chunk of this massive country in about two months. It's going to be pretty amazing.

VLS: Have you picked up any tips on how to survive the mammoth drives?

C: Barry has actual done a pretty epic three day drive in America the last time we were there, so he knows all about them. Having a good soundtrack is a really good thing because there's only so much chatting you can do. The last time Ryan Adams pretty much saved the day.

B: Ryan Adams saved all our souls. Not Bryan, Ryan Adams, he saved our souls on that last tour. The music just seemed to fit the surroundings, but apart from that one off time we've not really had to experience the long drives. I mean, we've done a few Glasgow to London which to us is long because it's about eight hours but apparently over there eight hours is a pretty short drive. It's going to be a rude awakening for us but we're looking forward to the challenge.

C: I think because some of the roads are so straight we might be able just to put a brick on the accelerator.

VLS: Have you written any new material since the release of 'Vivarium'?

B: Yes! Over Christmas we had a chunk of time off from touring, but it wasn't time off from the band because we took that time to go and go into our practice space down the road in Glasgow and just write our asses off basically. We've written a bunch of maybe twenty new songs. Some are reworked new songs and some are new ideas and we've got a batch of about about twenty demos so far that we've recorded ourselves. So we'll listen back to them and then we want to write another batch of songs and from that hopefully whittle it down into a really strong album.

VLS: So do you have any plans to start properly recording?

C: At first we were going to try and record them in May but I don't think that'll happen, so we're looking at about October time maybe? The thing is we're going to have to write on the road which we've never had to do before, so that'll be interesting. We have to learn to do that, because we've been so used to writing all together in a room so this time we'll have to work on something and play it together during sound check.

VLS: How are the new songs sounding? Are they a similar style to your older material?

C: They're more dynamic, in the terms that there's some really, really heavy ones and then there's also some definite ballads. So it's definitely more dynamic. We just wanted it to sound better really...

B: Basically we've done what all of our favourite bands do in that there's an element of progression. There are bands who have honestly released the same albums over and over and have had a good career and they're massive. But most bands our favourite bands, bands like Radiohead or whoever, they change with every record they make but it's still them. There's a progression but there's never too much of a departure from what they had done before. I think we're doing a similar thing in that there's definitely a departure but not a severe one. I guess that Sam having such a distinctive vocal that's kind of the melody that holds all of our songs together, I think whatever style we write will still sound like Twin Atlantic.

VLS: What sort of music have you both been listening to recently? Can you give us your Top 5?

B: This week I have been mostly listening to Coldplay's last record, 'Viva La Vida'. I think that's a brilliant record. I've also been listening to...this is kind of embarrassing but I'm going to admit this - I've been listening a lot of 'The Script' album.

C: I can vouch for that. He puts it on in the van all the time. 

B: It's such a brilliant pop record, the band are really talented and they write really good songs. Other than that I've been listening to a lot of a band called Isis, who are kind of a heavy, proggy mix. I still listen a lot of stuff from the band 'Wintersleep' and the fifth one would be...I've been listening to a lot of Enter Shikari. I was never the biggest fan of Enter Shikari. I didn't not like them, I just wasn't the biggest fan until I saw the band live and the music just makes so much more sense in a live setting. Their second record; I've been listening to that a lot since we toured with them.

C: Last night I had the first bath I've had in about ten years and I listen to...

B: Did you have soapy suds?!

C: My mum gave me one of those bath bomb things but it didn't work, it didn't dissolve. Anyway I listened to the first Badly Drawn Boy album which is really good. I've also been listening to 'Neon Bible' by The Arcade Fire, both Band of Horses albums, a lot of Enter Shikari as well, I think we all have really. A lot of a band called Spiritualized as well.

VLS: Last question: Seeing as we're just over a month into 2010, did you make any New Year's resolutions and if so what were they and have you stuck to them?

C: Yes. I've made one that I've definitely stuck to in that I stopped drinking at New Year because I was sick all over my friend's house. So I stopped drinking on New Year's Day and I haven't drank since - so I have stuck to mine!

B: At the turn of the year I realised that my brain had got really lazy so every day I've been trying to do something mentally stimulating, whether it's reading or doing a puzzle. That was mine, which I've definitely not stuck to!

VLS: Thanks guys! Is there anything else you'd like to add?

B: Don't do drugs!

C: ...and don't be sick in your friends house.

Things You Probably Didn't Know About Twin Atlantic

Barry once wore the same pair of trousers for 23 gigs in a row and his ring tone is 'Greatest Day' by Take That.

Craig promises that he did wash during those ten bath-free years. He'd also like to apologise to his friend Brendan for being sick in his girlfriend's parent's house.

-- Lucy