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09 October 2010
When he was drumming for Teenage Fanclub Paul Quinn had no desire to write songs and sing, but since he left all that’s changed. He is now fronting his own band The Primary 5 whose debut album North Pole is a fine collection of summery melodic songs. They recently toured the UK supporting Arthur Lee and Love and made short work of winning over the audiences with their accomplished performances. In Manchester Barry Jones was waiting to chat to Paul, just before soundcheck. Interview date: 31st March 2005
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I’m sure this is a terrible cliché Paul, but it seems to me that all of the bands coming out of Glasgow have very summery sounds. Is there any explanation? I agree with the Liverpool and seaport point, but while there seems to be a sort of a movement these days towards a sort of psychedelic Liverpool, or psycho-skiffle, with Glasgow, I’m thinking in terms of Cosmic Rough Riders, Daniel Wylie, the sounds are really like summer sounds, and your album’s full of that, who would you describe as your main influences? Is it harmonies? Do you view your time with Teenage Fanclub any differently now that you’ve released your own album? Would you have liked to be a songwriter with them? They’ve got an album out in May sometime and they’ve got a tour, do you feel like “I should be with them” or are you happy that that’s in your past? On your website (www.bellbeatmusic.com) I picked it up that apparently you’re recording some new tracks with Norman Blake twiddling the knobs, tell us a bit about that. Are these towards your new album? I was going to ask you who your influences are in drumming. I believe that a drum sound on a recording is where it all starts really, because if you get a proper drum sound you’ve got a chance. If you get a crap drum sound the whole thing sounds crap? It’s even more the recording of it. The recorded drum sound? One of the tracks kept reminding me of the Dave Clark Five, I can’t imagine at all that he was one of your influences, but who would they be? The Band were a great band. The other thing is a piano sound rather than just a keyboard sound? One of the tracks Easy Chair has a sort of Tori Amos feel to it. Did you write that on piano? It made me feel how much I’d missed real piano sounds. With starting your own label, is it your intention to sign other acts, or is it simply to release your own material? Supporting Arthur Lee and Love, using Guigsy’s studio, you originally used some Teenage Fanclub equipment in recording, do you feel under pressure to succeed with all that? It’s quite high profile? It has a very commercial feel. You play guitar on stage, but you didn’t record using your guitar; is that likely to change for the next album? Who is in the touring band? What are your plans, I believe you’re off to Scandinavia? You’re headlining your own gigs as well, are you finding them different from the support? And you’re off to Scandinavia? How prolific a songwriter are you, I believe you only started with Norman Blake leaving his guitar behind one time, do you have books of notes now? Have you got plenty of material for the next album? And what have you been listening to? Well thanks very much Paul, thanks for your time.
I don’t know, maybe we’re just happy folks you know. I don’t know… I think the west coast of Scotland, Glasgow in particular, has always been susceptible to the… going way back, years and years and years, y’know when you had sailors coming in, much like Liverpool, and any port town that takes on board the musical influences that come in. There’s a lot of Americans based in Scotland… and I think that that whole American thing is ingrained really y’know…and I don’t know why. I don’t really know the explanation for why that sort of sound… why Glasgow bands…that’s the way that they come across, that’s the only explanation I can come up with.
Obviously I was in Teenage Fanclub, and I drew my influences exactly from the same places as the Fanclub drew theirs from. And it’s that sort of love of classic west coast pop, melodious.
I think it’s melodies. I think it’s all down to melodies, that genuine love of melody, and of course melody and pop music goes hand in hand. I think that’s got something to do with it. Certainly my influences, I’m heavily influenced by people like Gene Clark, Gram Parsons and stuff like that, and y’know some of the more obvious ones like The Byrds and The Beatles and Big Star and stuff like that, so that’s where I draw my influences.
To be honest, when I was with the Fanclub I actually had no inclination to write tunes. When I joined the Fanclub they’d already been going for about five years y’know so I was going in solely to play drums and that was cool by me. As I say I never had any inclination to write songs, I never even had an inclination to sing. Y’know, so many times they’d say, “Do you think you could do this?” I’d always back away from it. I didn’t really want to sing, and the way the Fanclub were, as three songwriters, I was like y’know “ These guys are doing ok, I don’t think they need somebody else coming in here.”
No, everything happens for a reason y’know, like as much as I absolutely adored my time in the Fanclub, and still get on very well with the guys, I’ve heard the new record and it’s an absolutely great record y’know, but at the same time I’ve got no regrets at moving on, and I suppose if I’d stayed with the Fanclub I wouldn’t be doing this. And I’m singing these songs really by default because my whole intention was, when we wrote the songs, was for somebody else to sing them y’know. It was Ryan, the guy that I work with who said, “Well why don’t you put the vocal down so that we’ve got the songs finished, we’ve got the backing tracks.” And it just went from there, so by default really, I’m singing y’know?
Yeah well it’s just really…. I don’t really like demoing tunes, so we had a few ideas and that, and we’d been offered some studio time. It was a new studio and we’d been offered the studio time to check the place out. It just so happened I was speaking to Norman a few days before we went in, and I mentioned it to Norman, and he was like “Oh!” And I said “If you want to come in you’re more than welcome.” and he was like, “Yeah great.” so it was a couple of songs demoed and that was it really, but I think Norman would like to get into production y’know.
Yeah, it’s just sort of ideas really towards the new thing, and as I say, I don’t really like demoing stuff; I’ve got a fairly sort of decent set up at home for writing, just through my computer, but to be totally honest I don’t know how to use it, and I’ve no real interest in using it, y’know because I like music to be real, and set a drum kit up, and put some mics in front of it.
Yeah it definitely does I think it’s… I think a good drummer can make a half decent band sound very good. And vice versa, a bad drummer can make a good band sound bad.
Yeah, I totally agree with you. When I was with… when I recorded with the Fanclub I used to take y’know three kits down to the studio, and I used to take an assortment of snares. Y’know I used to phone up Yamaha and they used to send over like twenty drums, and the same with Zills. I had loads of choice of cymbals, not sort of sounding like Def Leppard or something like that, but sort of like when guitar players go to the studio they take ten guitars or whatever, twenty guitars, and it’ll be the right guitar sound for a certain song, well it’s the same with drums y’know, they’re massively important, if you don’t get them down, it’s like building a house, it’s dodgy foundations.
Well I learnt to play drums to Clem Burke, believe it or not, the guy who played with Blondie, inasmuch as Clem Burke is an absolute Keith Moon freak. I’m not really a massive fan of Keith Moon, but just the feel of what Clem Burke done I thought was really great, but my major, my main influences is guys like Jim Keltner, and Levon Helm, y’know it’s guys like that that are really…
Well you hit the nail right on the head as well y’know, that was the whole … I’m obviously not in any way shape or form put us in a comparison or compare us to The Band, but when I was putting this band together, when I was looking for musicians that was what I was wanting. Like Ryan, y’know Ryan could play bass and he could play keyboards and he can sing, and Stuart who plays drums with us, he plays guitar and keyboards and sings so everybody in the band all play an assortment of instruments, and I was wanting that, y’know, just to have that kind of flexibility, because there are songs where I’ll go behind the kit and play, and sing the main vocal, and Stuart will go and play guitar.
Again, it’s that sort of mixture, y’know, there’s a sort of authentic piano sound and then you’ve got obviously a Hammondy type sounds and then y’know slightly more up to date, y’know more sort of programmed sounds, bass stuff like synth sounds. But no, piano, and again we’re lucky in the fact that the guy that we got to play keyboards with us, Derek, just so happens to be, that’s what he is, he’s a piano player, rather than just a keyboard player.
No, I didn’t write that on piano, I wrote that just on guitar, but actually that melody was… I actually picked that melody out on an African thumb piano, and we’d just been messing about with it, and then Ryan just... it was because of the place we were recording it. It was an old kind of community centre, with one of those old flat back pianos that was very obviously out of tune, and Ryan… I actually went to the toilet, and I was coming back in and Ryan was sitting at the piano playing that part on a piano, and I just thought, “That’s the sound there!” And I kinda like it because it sounds like something from Tombstone or something.
Yeah, I think piano is a fantastic instrument, and it adds a real texture, a real musical texture.
Yeah well the reason…the obvious reason I started, was just to release this record. It was just like a vehicle for that record y’know, and over the piece you’re doing everything, and it’s a lot of work, and sometimes you’re shifting hats; your record label hat for facts, figures, and then on the other hand you’re the awkward artist that wants tour support from the record label. And you want to do everything, and have the money to be able to do things, so it’s that kind of fine balancing act y’know? The great thing about it is… it’s been a learning… it’s been an education, y’know, because you’re trying to get distribution, and you’re out there sort of pushing it for yourself, which I suppose is great, but I think certainly for the next record I’d like someone to come in and sorta take that off my hands.
No, it doesn’t really…
Yeah, it is… y’know I’ve never… in everything I’ve done I’ve just kind of approached it and took it as it came. I never had any pre-conceived ideas about what I want to achieve, or what I want to do. Obviously it would be great to sell a lot of copies of this record, but no, I’ve never felt any, because guys like the guys in the Fanclub, I just regard them as my mates and like Guigs, Guigs approached us on hearing a few of the songs, and said, “You can mix the record at my place.” And it’s just been… in a way, I think pressure’s maybe the wrong word…. I feel really grateful y’know people that have … that I’ve kinda blagged my way along here and come out with this record. The record, y’know to record, never cost us one brown penny, not one to record y’know? And then we ended up mixing it as well, so I’ve been really fortunate that I... I’ve called in a few favours.
Well I think a lot of that is to do with Ryan. He’s only a young guy, well he was only twenty-two when he recorded that and he plays guitar, he plays bass, he plays keyboards on the record. He’s just a big quiet guy Ryan, who I just happened to meet by chance y’know.
You never know, but I think… I play guitar on stage, it’s just really to fill the sound out. I just sort a play rhythm, and Ryan’s the main guitar player y’know. And y’know I wouldn’t be like, “ Oh I play guitar, so I’m going to play this.” I think it’s probably Ryan will do the guitars for the record. He’ll do all the guitars. I would probably do the drums again, y’know, simply because I think the sorta feel that I’ve got lends itself. In as much as Stuart is… I think Stuart is an absolutely fabulous drummer y’know, I think, just conveying what I can hear to Stuart for Stuart then to play would put pressure on Stuart y’know? And again that’s not to say that Stuart won’t be involved in the record, because he plays guitar and he sings and he plays other instruments, so we’ll be in there, who knows Stuart could play some guitar on it, he could play some bass on it.
Ryan Currie, who plays guitar, and Derek O’Neill on keyboards, Stuart Kydd on drums and vocals, Richard Stefani on bass, no relation to Gwen, although he does wear a tutu from time to time (Both laughing)
I think there’s about another nine shows with Love, I think that the people who’ll come along to see Love are genuine music fans and probably a kind of maturer, not in the sense of sorta coffee table mature as in listening to Texas or something, do you know what I mean? Sort of genuine, genuine music lovers, so last night was really good, by the time we had finished we had… there were a lot of people… so that’s really good y’know.
Yeah, obviously there’s more people for a start, but the shows that we’re doing for ourselves as well, it’s like people who genuinely like the record, and that’s great. You cannae ask for any more than that, for people to buy the record and come along and see.
Yeah we’re off to Scandinavia, I think it’s the end of July we’re off to Scandinavia and the record’s coming out in Korea, believe it or not, on Beatball Records in fact. And that should be coming out in a couple of weeks, and then we also got a license in Japan as well so we’ll probably go. The Korean label and the Japanese label will probably tie up and think, “Yeah we’ll get them over for some shows in Korea and then we’ll do some shows in Japan!” So that should be great fun, we’re looking forward to that, and hopefully some festival spots will come through for us as well.
No, I don’t, I mean I write sort of constantly, in the sense that there’ll always be a melody kicking about somewhere, but as I say I don’t demo anything. And the way that I tend to think is that if it hangs around for a few days and keeps sort of surfacing… the melody will be there, and I’ll get the guitar and work the chords around that, and, from that, me and Ryan will get together, I’ll have the melody and the basic sort of chord structure and nine times out of ten that will come along with drum patterns and that, and so there’s certainly plenty of ideas there.
Yeah, yeah, I’d say that I’ve probably got ten things, songs completed, and then I’ve got sort of bits and bobs, and who knows, five of those songs might not end up anywhere so...
Again I’m just I’m wrapped up in Gene Clark at the moment, and I’m wrapped up in Roadmaster at the moment, I’ve been listening to a lot of that. Funnily enough I’ve been listening to a lot of the Jayhawks recently as well, and that was a band obviously that I’d known for a long time, but I’ve just kind of revisited them again, which I think is always kind of good. But as for new bands, to be honest nothing is really sailing my boat at the moment y’know. Just your normal sort of Beach Boys, and y’know, that’s where my heart lies. There’s a good band actually called the Water School band, they’re from Baltimore. It’s coming out on Neon Tetra y’know Danny Wylie’s label? They’re very good y’know. The Fanclub’s record’s very good as well. I think that’ll be really successful for them, I think it’ll be really good for them, fingers crossed
No bother mate, it’s been an absolute pleasure.