BIS
I do this for a living. I write about things. And yet, even so, I struggle to express with words quite what Bis mean to me. Still, I’ve had a go at the end of this interview (and if you’re in the market for an introduction to my favourite band who aren’t the Ramones and you fancy spending your hard earned bucks on this, I had a go in the sleeve notes there too.) What a band. What great people. The soundtrack to my life.
In perhaps the most in-depth interview that ‘Indie Heaven’ has ever published, here’s Sci-Fi Steven (guitar and vocals), John Disco (guitar, vocals and keyboards) and Manda Rin (vocals and keyboards) to walk us through the good times, the terrible times… and the good times again.
Well, this feels overdue! So, it’s the early 90’s. You’re at school together. Tell me how you all come to meet? I mean, I get that John and Steven are brothers, but otherwise…
Sci-Fi Steven: “Me and John recorded our first demo tape in March 1991 aged 14 and 11 and would try to sell them at school, sometimes playing in the Assembly hall supporting whichever cover band that was good at playing Faith No More songs that week. We'd play half an hour of entirely original synth-pop material and Manda was the only person who seemed to be actually into it. When me and Manda became a couple and spent hours absorbing records, it was inevitable we would all end up making songs together.”
John Disco: "Manda was the number one - and only - fan of Black Iron Skyline, which became Bis. I remember her and her pal Liana coming five minutes up the road to sit on the wall at the end of our driveway and watch us playing a gig out of our garage. How we never connected before high school, living in fairly close proximity and going to the same primary, is beyond me. I guess at that age, kids even a year older or younger than you can seem somehow not your level, which is nonsense obviously.”
The concept of Teen-C. Teenagers rising up. I loved that whole polemic. It reminded me of reading the sleeves of Nation Of Ulysses records, or Huggy Bear or someone. Something to think about while you listening to the music. How was that cooked up?
Steven: “Huggy Bear were a hugely important band to us and are probably one of the main reasons we ended up hanging out together. The split album with Bikini Kill and the ‘Her Jazz’ single came out at a crucial time, post-Grunge, post-Madchester, and offered an underground we didn't know existed until then. Niki [Elliott] from Huggy Bear wearing a Nation of Ulysses t-shirt means we hunt down those records. That was when a lot of pieces began to fall into place.
Manda Rin: “It was certainly influenced by that era for sure. The love of old typewriter type, cutting things out and using photocopiers to show opinions, rants and photos. It was art, politics and music - perfect!”
Steven: “At the same time though, we were also still massively into Blur, Suede - who were the first band all three of us went to see altogether - and older stuff like XTC and Adam & The Ants. You can totally hear this weird mix of sonic influences on the first EP although the liner notes do sketch out the Teen-C manifesto - shamelessly indebted to the Nation of Ulysses admittedly, but it did truly reflect the outsiderdom we existed in. Still at school, obsessed by the weird stuff that the weird people seem to love. By the ‘Disco Nation 45’ record, we looked and sounded confident in that polemic. Something like ‘Conspiracy A-Go-Go’ sounds like the right cocktail of all those bands mentioned. Apart from Suede.”
Fanzines are super important to the Bis story. I came to them because of Bis, which I guess led to me doing what I’ve done for a living all my life. How did you come to them?
Steven: “Personally, my first exposure to fanzines were Ayr United ones in the late 80's and early 90's. They were shambolic but offered less sanitised opinions than any official programme would. I think I had a couple of goes at churning out something similar - evidence of which I sincerely hope has been destroyed. I remember a fanzine called Sun Zoom Spark that the guys that became Dawn of the Replicants ran, that was definitely inspirational and probably gave us our first demo reviews in 1994 or thereabouts.”
Fuck. They managed to get that into shops. I bought that on the way to school.
Steven: “The main credit goes to Urusei Yatsura's Kitten Frenzy fanzine. They used Manga artwork and built up a mythology around their own band while reviewing other locals. Fergus [Lawrie] of Urusei took us to a community printing centre in Drumchapel that we could use for free. Some of the original Paper Bullets fanzines [that being Steven’s zine] are actually hand-printed and not just photocopied. There’s absolutely no way I could control one of those things now. Me and Manda took our fanzines to shops in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Rough Trade in London and bought loads of other fanzines. Soon a network of likeminds emerged - the first Bis EP came out on Spanish label Acuarela because the guy who ran the label was on holiday in Edinburgh and bought a fanzine. Dee Barnfield from All About D and Sid [Steven Siddle] from Abuse fanzine put on our very first London gig in 1995. We ended up playing bigger gigs in London full of the kids who either wrote or bought these fanzines before the NME or Melody Maker had really sniffed around us.”
I’m sure I was guilty of this myself in my own zine - which I hope every single copy of has been burnt, then burnt again just to be sure. But how many times do you think you were asked what your favourite Sanrio character was?
Steven: “Poor Manda seemed to get these ones, although I suppose we asked for it by naming one of our songs ‘Keroleen’. I really don't think we ever cynically tried to make ourselves Japan-centric, but I can totally accept our cartoony style was always likely to have a chance there.”
John: “Fans quickly gathered there was no point in asking me this. I got a lot of Bruce Lee memorabilia in Japan though…”
Manda: “Thankfully I can’t remember ever being asked this…”
As I’ve told you many times before, Bis doing ‘Kandy Pop’ on Top Of The Pops is seismic for me. There’s a before and there’s an after. But I don’t really know how it happened. I’m going to presume you didn’t have a TV plugger. How did you get in front of 16-year-old me?
Manda: “All credit goes to the excellent Ric Blaxill [then TOTP Executive Producer]. If he hadn’t been a fan and asked us to appear - resulting in ‘Kandy Pop’ charting at number 25 two weeks later - goodness knows what would have happened to us. What a man. I recently sent him Slight Disconnects and he really liked it.”
John: “It was all pretty surreal, sitting in our wretched Tonka Truck of a van somewhere on the M6 - probably, midway though the tour with Super Fury Animals and getting told we would have to miss the gig in Hull to go to Elstree to play Top Of The Pops. Hard to fathom things escalating so quickly, with just our managers [John Williamson and Richie Dempsey] and [then label] Chemikal Underground holding the fort. All credit to them. The publishing deal we’d just signed with Polygram probably helped bring us to the attention of Rik.”
Steven: “We certainly didn't have a TV plugger, but it was the first time we had a PR company onboard. Poor souls weren't really prepared for that period between January and April 1996, but then nobody was prepared for the out of the blue call to do TOTP. On reflection, we were quite a last-minute call up so I wonder if someone pulled out and they had a quick scan of Radio 1's playlist and picked something up and coming at random... just being cynical. Genuinely, we took a call in the minibus while on tour with the Super Furries on the Monday telling us we were going to be recording TOTP on the Wednesday and would have to pull out of a gig at Buckley Tivoli. Madness. But at the time we just took it in our stride really - I for one was so blindly confident it would be the first of many appearances, it didn't come as any great shock to me.”
I don’t have my copy to hand, but one of your addresses is printed on the sleeve of the subsequent single, ‘This Is Fake D.I.Y.’, right? Things got so crazy so quickly. You’re way out of your lo-fi indie pop space at this point. Did that lead to any… problems?
Amanda: “I think it was John and Steven’s address. I did see a photo online once of a fan standing outside of my parents house…”
Steven: “Only a few times! We had a few Japanese visitors that our mum was very hospitable to. Amazingly, all the hate mail seemed to be directed to the NME Letters Page and not our front door…”
John: “We had a fan called Naoko who was from Japan. She turned up at our mum’s one time, who promptly sent her in the direction of either my or Steven’s flat. I clearly remember the moment when, midway through a drunken afternoon FIFA session on the PlayStation in my somewhat uncouth flat… there she was at the door! Not sure what she was expecting, but glamour she did not find. I probably didn’t even make her a cup of tea. Needless to say she didn’t visit again.”
Speaking of previously unexplored territories, Bis making the NME cover in the June of 1996 was very exciting. What do you remember about that interview and shoot… and when do you think it goes wrong with your relationship with that publication?
Steven: “Oddly, the NME cover was probably more exciting to me than Top Of The Pops. It was a really odd time, the single wasn't getting radio play and was then delayed another week after the NME cover due to a pressing fault, so our momentum was all over the place. I don't really remember the interview or shoot - other than truly wishing I'd washed my fucking hair before it. but again, I probably thought it would be the first cover of many so didn't take it overly seriously.”
I don’t really want to ask you about ‘The Sinking Of The Bis Lark’ hit piece, but…
Steven: “It's fairly well documented that later that year Steven Wells was sent on a mission to knock us down several pegs and he bullied his way to killing our credibility with the paper a full six-months before we'd even released an actual album. You can't and shouldn't expect an easy ride from the press, but we were brutally knocked down before we had even been properly built-up. Aged 20, 19 and 17, and now suspicious and cynical because of it, we learned to trust no-one. Unfortunately you have to trust some people if you don't want to marginalise your band, like we did.”
We’ll get back to the music press in a bit, but how do you feel about the debut album all these years on? The New Transistor Heroes comes out on April 7th, 1997. It’s day of release marks one of two times I ever bunked off school!
Steven: “There are things I would do differently, but only for commercial reasons, like putting some of the actual hits on there, shaving off half a dozen other tunes so that it wasn't hilariously quiet on the vinyl, maybe getting it mixed by an outside pair of ears… We stayed in Glasgow to do it which was probably the right thing to do, but essentially it meant we missed out on going to LA and doing it with the Dust Brothers, or in the Beasties studio with Mario Caldato.”
John: “It’s a fun listen. It’s confident, brazen and a bit silly in places. Knowing what we do now about making records, we’d probably have made a much more dynamic album and gone deeper with the various styles and influences on there, but a big part of its charm its lack of ‘production’.”
Steven: “We thought of it as 4 EP’s stuck together, but a lot of the songs were actually written in the studio which we hadn't done before. A few of them miss that ‘live’ feel and it's littered with mistakes. It’s just a bit undercooked in general. Still, we were on fire songwriting-wise and the songs definitely still stand up.”
Perhaps more importantly, if you buy a guitar for over £40, are you really mad?
Steven: “Ha! Sadly, over time I've got slightly more slick at the old banjo, but at the time we had a weird mix of John's Coxon-like skills and my basic punk barre chords. I've always been more of a creator than a musician really but I'm at least competent on the thing these days.”
John: “If Tam says so, it must be so.”
Going back to the music press, I can think of few acts who were treated as appallingly as Bis were in the ‘90’s. The way Manda – a teenage girl – was talked about in the supposedly alt. press… well, you were there.
Manda: “I can’t say it didn’t affect me, despite me attempting to look strong and unaffected by it at the time. To get such volumes of personal abuse is very upsetting, especially for a teenager who didn’t have a lot of confidence as it was. When I started Bis I wouldn’t say that I was overweight, but the excitement of being away from my parent’s home and eating anything I wanted all the time did influence that. It’s awful that you can get the same amount of abuse in the press for being overweight as you can for being an absolute prick. Did it affect me? Yes, really badly - but I’m OK now.”
Something I didn’t know until a lot later was that you had an MS diagnosis during this time…
Manda: “I started getting symptoms like numb hands and so I went to the hospital. It was kinda shrugged off as I wasn’t haven’t many other ones but on the Foo Fighters tour I developed atrocious fatigue and was sleeping every minute I could in the van. I also got another MS symptom of Optic Neuritis which made my eyesight really dodgy for a while and has never fully went away. I didn’t get diagnosed with Relapsing Remitting MS until 2005 and was later given DMDs to inject weekly, but they only slow the rate of relapses by 30%. Not the best but better than nothing. I’ve had some awful relapses where I can’t stand up or walk, and my whole body has been numb from the neck down several times. It’s a horrible illness. You don’t know when a relapse may occur so I just try to push myself while I still can as it will only get worse. I was recently told my illness has developed into Secondary Progressive MS which means things like my numbness and other relapses may never get better when they occur in the future. Scary stuff, but hey.”
Tell me about signing to Grand Royal Records. That really was the absolute fucking shit, wasn’t it? Oh yeah, I’m not sure I’ve ever told you this, but I went to see the Beastie Boys in Manchester on the Hello Nasty tour. Literally bumped into MCA the moment I walked out of the bus station. He saw the Bis logo I’d drawn on my satchel and wanted to talk to me about my favourite Bis songs. What was your experience of him?
Steven: “Again, it was another unreal scenario that somehow seemed perfectly natural at the time to me, being utterly full of myself as I was! That's amazing that he did that. He was a truly inspiring character who always had time for us. It was heartbreaking when Grand Royal dropped us and I couldn't listen to the Beasties for years afterwards. Thankfully, I have gotten over it and rediscovered those magical records since.”
John: “Grand Royal were the last label we met on our courting trip to the States. We got taken out by Mike D and MCA for cheap Mexican grub then went to hang out at Mike’s house. I had a brief jam with MCA - me on guitar, him on drums - in the living room. We went for a swim in the pool, where parts of the ‘Sabotage’ video were filmed. We got a tour of the Grand Royal recording studio. We played basketball with our heroes. We could have not signed that contract and still have felt that in many ways we had completed our mission. MCA was an absolute gentleman. A genuine, caring and remarkable dude. He’ll forever be missed.”
Can you tell me a bit about the Bis G-Shock watch was released in Japan? Aka the must have accessory for any 90’s fanzine kid, though finding one - pre-internet - was an adventure! I’ve had two. Lost one, the other one is kept for special occasions!
Manda: “That was just another crazy idea proposed via our Japanese label. I thought it was a fantastic offer to get! We were individually given one of each colour. I kept most of mine as they were really cool but in recent years I have sold a couple as the demand for them was so huge. It felt nice to help out and give them to a welcoming home!”
Steven: “Christ, I have none now. I genuinely traded one for FIFA: Road to World Cup 98 on the PS1 at the time. My main memory is of selecting which extremely basic beep version of ‘Kandy Pop’ would be the alarm sound. Oh yeah, and ‘Young Alien Types’ first actual release was as a beep alarm on the watch too - we hadn't even recorded it at that point.”
John: “I have none either. I have no idea where they all went! The whole thing was a hoot. Our Japanese experience was otherworldly anyway, but sitting in a meeting with the Casio team and getting a first listen at the watch beep approximations of the tunes was mental. I do wish I’d kept one or two.”
So obviously Social Dancing, from 1999, is the greatest album ever made. Did the success of ‘Eurodisco’ feel like a second bite? Or did it not achieve as much as you’d like it to? And what happened to the guy on the Bis messageboard - which I frequented at lunchtime in my school library! - who’d bought thousands of copies to tile his bathroom with?
Steven: “Well thank you. Making it was the polar opposite of The New Transistor Heroes. It cost a fortune! We had a producer - Andy Gill of Gang of Four - and a mixer - Bob Kraushaar of Pet Shop Boys mixing fame - and even had videos made by people who had done big things. I guess, and apologies again for my revisionism, we thought ‘Eurodisco’ would be a massive massive hit but it wasn't really. It did put us in a better position, but the rest of the album wasn't really the record that ‘Eurodisco’ suggested it would be so it didn't review that well. For me, ‘Theme From Tokyo’ should've been a single but we just couldn't get the arrangement and production right so we fucked it. I hated ‘Action and Drama’ for a long time, but think I just blamed it for not being a hit after ‘Eurodisc’o. For me, it's almost a dead good record. I don't think either ‘Shopaholic’ or ‘Sale Or Return’ are particularly our best work, and had we done ‘Kiss and Tell’ earlier it would've been on there and might've been a better follow up single to ‘Eurodisco’. Still, it's stood the test of time surprisingly well and I think ‘Eurodisco’ itself is still my second favourite Bis song ever.”
Oooh. What’s number one?
Steven: “It changes, but ‘Eurodisco’ is always number 2. Today it’s ‘The Sound of Sleet’.”
John: “‘Eurodisco’s success was a glorious ‘get it up ye’ moment in the UK where we’d been all but written off. In fact, it was arguably a far sweeter moment than anything preceding it. We never experienced much in the way of failure pre-The New Transistor Heroes, but from an industry perspective we were pretty much done for by 1998. A totally different story from a fan perspective though, and we had amazing bases of support all around the world - a pretty big win when, in a pre-social media age, the music press were still perceived as the makers and breakers.”
What about the guy who tiled his bathroom?
Manda: “Aw, that’s the lovely Kevin Kuras who also has tattoos of our faces and images on his arms. He bought so many copies of the ‘Eurodisco’ 7” to wallpaper a room in his house that Wiiija got pulled-up about it thinking we were rigging the chart position! He’s been an excellent fan for us, even travelling to places like Australia. He moved abroad - South Africa I think - but recently returned and I saw him at our latest Lexington gig which was nice to see.”
Jumping ahead, your last album, 2001’s Return To Central, is for me, Bis deciding they do not give a fuck. It’s an incredible album. Where are your heads at when you make that record?
Steven: “Trying to piece it together, we came off the Social Dancing tours and went straight back into the studio to record. In my head, I thought we should quickly do another album to keep the progress in America going, but I'm not sure how that developed into a mini-album instead [2001’s Music For A Stranger World]. The mini-album itself is a bizarre concept that rarely works so perhaps a couple of non-album singles would've worked better than Music For A Stranger World did. It came out by such a time that we'd already done 50% of the work on Return To Central as well. We were extremely productive then and there are countless tapes of unfinished or unused songs from 2000/2001. The touring had died down and we had bought into the studio so it really was our day-job at that time.”
This is a tangent. But a good tangent!
Steven: “Basically, we were still on Wiiija all the way through the recording but the labels founder, Gary Walker, left right at the end. We actually mastered the album in October 2000, and the new broom clearly didn't like or understand what we were doing. I went into a meeting at Beggars Banquet talking about all the remixers we had in mind - anyone to do with Gigolo Records/Ghostly/Ersatz Audio basically - as well as press campaign ideas and was met with a sea of blank faces. The game was up. To his eternal credit, Martin Mills let us keep our album. It had cost him 50k or thereabouts and he could've released it without support, but he dropped us and set us free with our record in hand. It took absolutely ages to get released and essentially all of our momentum was gone. It would be interesting to see how it might have been taken with proper label support.”
John: “It being our last chance to do something truly ambitious and memorable was probably the thinking, although it’s hard to remember. I think we felt really free at that point, even though the labels involved were losing patience. Maybe we figured it was ‘over’ in that respect anyway, so why not let them pay for an album they might ultimately reject? It seemed like such a collaborative and healthy experience, but on reflection we were maybe a bit too reliant on the services of Rab Ha’s, the pub next door to the studio. I’ll always remember Gary from Wiiija saying “I don’t get it” when we played him ‘We’re Complicated’. I can kind of understand this. He later admitted that he ‘got it’, however by this point, we may have cemented his decision to move on from Wiiija! Sorry and/or you’re welcome Gary!”
Steven: “For me, Return To Central is by far the most complete album we made and sometimes it breaks my heart that it was ignored.”
We’re at the sad bit. Walk me through the decision to split in 2003. Who instigates that?
Steven: “Sad times, but it was probably the right decision for our mental wellbeing.”
John: “It’s hard to remember exactly, but deep down we knew we were just putting Bis to bed to give ourselves some headspace for other things. Steven and I owned the studio, Seven-A in Glasgow, which was both a - failing - commercial studio and a base for Bis related music activities. There was no breaking the creative connection between the three of us, and no reason to in any case. Bis as a concept just felt worn out, exhausted, downtrodden and in need of a long rest. Ridiculously, I remember feeling that, at age 24, I was now a bit past it! That just shows you that we had too narrow a view of the world of music at the time. Idiots!”
Steven: “After Return To Central, we kept recording and the songs were heading back into more dancefloor territory. Suddenly we had publishers sniffing around again and most excitingly, Ministry of Sound were interested in ‘Cubis (I Love You)’ which we had introduced into our now mostly electronic live shows. The deal fell through because of the Bis ‘brand’ and all the baggage that entailed. We weren't ready to ditch the band we'd built over the previous 8-years quite yet but quickly realised that perhaps it was time. Nobody was interested again shortly after. Return To Central had done nothing and we were starting to play to much smaller crowds so we made the decision to stop. Not a split really, just stopping doing the band.”
You go and do Data Panik then, which really were Bis-adjace. It felt at the time like you were trying to escape the preconception of what Bis were. Am I off base there?
Steven: “Well, the rebranding notion was eventually accepted. We had done a BBC cartoon soundtrack and really expected more work in that field but it didn't really go that way. Personally, I had fallen out of love with music - well, guitar music mostly - but after a couple of years out, bands like The Futureheads and Maximo Park turned my head again. There were definite glimpses of some of the same influences that had inspired us in the first place. We reconfigured ‘Cubis’ as a guitar tune and it gained enough attention for us to cautiously head back out as a live band entity. Sadly, it was difficult to get past the industry filters as we were quite clearly Bis under a new name. The songs are really good but essentially not a million miles away from where Bis might have gone anyway.”
It didn’t last long, really.
Steven: “We had built up a wee bit of a following again, but I promised we would give it a year and if we weren't signed we would chuck it, so we disbanded again in August 2006 - actually cancelling future gigs which is something we'd never ever normally do. Not entirely sure of the rationale on reflection but maybe we realised that rebranding was pointless and we should simply embrace Bis again. Going back to doing it was like taking off the disguise. The 10-year anniversary shows were the biggest we'd done and it felt like a validation, but enough was stirred and we started saying yes instead of no over the next few years.”
John: “Data Panik was tremendously good fun, albeit a slightly misguided concept. The tunes were great. ‘Cubis (I Love You)’ felt like the new ‘Eurodisco’. We felt creatively strong and sure footed for a good while as Bis mk2, the as yet unnamed Data Panik. Unfortunately the gigs ruined it for us. Our identity was exposed and the momentum disappeared. Should we have held on to this new material and come back as Bis a couple of years later? Perhaps, aye. Should I have splintered off and formed the ambient disco band of my dreams, John Disco & Zest? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...”
I remember talking to John outside The Buffalo Bar (RIP) one night. You’ve reformed a few times prior, but not really for a run at it. He says to me that you’re going to reform with more permanence, because there’s ‘unfinished business’. What indent do you feel like you’ve made on said ‘business’ having now been back for a while?
Steven: “Well, still very very little impact but we're in a comfortable place again musically and personally. It's actually fun to make records. There's no real commercial pressure. I mean, it's great when you make something back but it's hardly a profitable business these days. We should really have had a new record out this year and obviously COVID has got in the way of that, but we’ve got actual irons in actual fires and much more is to come. I really fancy being one of those comeback bands who actually release more music in its second run - records that bring in new fans and re-invigorate old fans alike. We always resisted the temptation as it was rare that a band coming back released anything new that was good, but frankly, the stigma has been removed now and it's perfectly commonplace. Mixed results admittedly, but at least now it doesn't feel desperate to keep going...”
Manda: “I love that ‘unfinished business’ description!”
There were so many projects, solo albums, collabs and remixes in-between Bis mk1 and mk2. Is there anything that with hindsight you’ve thought, ‘I wish I’d saved that for Bis…’
John: “Over to Steven… Mind you, a few Debukas tunes could have worked pretty well!”
Steven: “Batteries-wise, ‘The Fall-In-Love Club’ and ‘Mutual Enemies’ would've perhaps gained a wider audience as Bis tunes. I love ‘DNA’ from Manda's solo record, so much so that we put it on our Anthology album a few years ago. We did a remix for Elbow way back in 2001 that went unreleased that I'm pulling apart again, taking out all the Elbow bits and keeping our bits, for a possible new tune.”
Right. Let’s go off piste. John, famously, you tore your scrotum when you crashed your go-kart before a Bis appearance at Benicàssim Festival in Spain. What does tearing your scrotum feel like? I’ve been to that go-kart track. I’ve always vowed that if I ever go back, I’ll get a blue plaque with your name made on.
John: “Tearing your scrotum, James, has no feeling whatsoever when you’re somersaulting out of the go-kart you’ve just crashed into tyres and bending it’s steering column 90 degrees forwards. On the dazed walk - yes, walk - back from the crash site, I noticed a bit of a sting happening downstairs. It was only after returning to the site and watching Les Rhythm Digitales side of stage for a bit that I realised that said scrotum was a tad upset. Let’s leave it there. I arrived back at the festival the next day to a standing ovation. At least that’s how I remember it...
Steven: “I'm sure bands the next year held a go-kart tournament to win the John Disco Memorial Cup.”
There’s a ‘nice’ segue there, John, into talking about your kids. “The purveyors of the finest in Teen-C power” have kids, which makes me feel about a million years old. Also, it gives me an opportunity to embed a tune from The Powerpuff Girls. Do your kids like Bis?
Manda: “Neither of my kids have seen Bis live, but they have seen videos, magazines and many photos. My son is now 7 so I would love him to see us play. I don’t know if he’d even like it but he is a fan of ‘Kandy Pop’.”
Steven: “Mine prefer Batteries I think, although they ask for Slight Disconnects in the car quite often. Only if Charli XCX is unavailable, though.”
John: “My eldest, Dylan, out of nowhere started singing ‘Sound of a Heartbreak’ to me after it came out. “Daddy, you’re a YouTuber!” he said. My heart melted.”
This is one for the Clark boys. Favourite ever Ayr United player, match and season. And why!
Steven: “That’s a tough one! The 87/88 season when we won the 2nd Division was so exciting for a wee guy to experience but my favourite ever game is a 4-3 win at Motherwell in the Scottish Cup in 2000. An amazing rollercoaster ride of a game with some of the best goal celebrations I’ve ever been involved in. Our 5-0 win away to Dundee United a couple of years ago is up there too. Actual tears of joy that night. My favourite player is probably Glynn Hurst from the late 90's/early 2000's - electric pace and immortalised on a Belle and Sebastian album sleeve!”
John: “My fondest memories are as a kid watching John Sludden and Henry Templeton around about 86-87 time. Like Steven says, beating Hibs in the League Cup semi-final at Hampden in 2002 was an absolutely joyous moment though.”
Want to plug some stuff?
Steven: “I fully intend to make another Batteries record at some point, but the priority just now is the next Bis one. I also run two pubs in Glasgow - The Bell Jar and The Sparkle Horse - that were doing absolutely fine until the last year so please seek us out if ever allowed back into Glasgow...”
John: “I’m back to making videos of studio synthy jams. Subscribe today! Also, buy my Debukas music! And while you’re at it, buy the music on 2Sox Records - the label run by the other Clark brother, Aldo!
Manda: “If anyone needs button badges for schools, bands, parties, politics or anything else, please go to Wee Badgers. We’re the best and the quickest in the UK!”
Hey! I used Wee Badgers for my wedding! You don’t have to tell me! So listen. Bis changed my life. They turned me onto a new cosmos of music – underground indie rock, dance, post-punk, eighties pop - fanzines, politics, DIY, a different way of thinking. They are as important to who I am – for better or for worse – as anything, ever. I know I’m not the only one who feels like that. When you’re told that, how the fuck does that make you feel?
Manda: “It genuinely gives me goosebumps. When fans write and tell stories of things that happened to them at school and how our music helped them through tough periods it’s beautiful and I don’t know what to say. It’s quite hard to take it in, similar to what you’ve just told us above. It’s rewarding to hear.”
Steven: “It's an amazing feeling when you're reminded of how much you meant to people's lives, especially those that felt we gave a voice to their alienation. If we shone a light into anyone's dark corners and set them free then I am eternally happy. Musically speaking, I love that we were a gateway band for a generation that was in danger of becoming placid bystanders. We were a punk band, a dance band, an 80's revival band, a techno band, a post-rock hip-hop band, whatever - and we still are all of these things.”
John: “This was the whole point of it all. Once we got over the whole notion of ‘being pop stars’ we realised that we were nothing if not for the people who supported us, and who we supported through our tunes, lyrics and message. We learned as much, if not more, from them as they did from us. We always said we’d only be doing this if it’s fun and gives joy to people. We’ve stuck to those values, I think. We are massively grateful to those who have supported us for years - and those just discovering us.”