Mogwai: No need for words

In a career that has spanned 20 years, Mogwai have continued to evolve their distinctive sound, writes Ed Power

MOGWAI have never been for the faint of heart. Dense, tumultuous instrumental rock is the stock-in-trade of these Glasgow veterans. They don’t release hit singles (or singles at all, for that matter). Their concerts can be jolting for the unwary, riff piled upon ear-splitting riff. ‘Crowd pleasing’ isn’t in their vocabulary.

Still, they must be doing something right. The group are currently celebrating their 20th anniversary. They have outlasted most of their peers and, with an Irish tour this week, are arguably more popular than ever. This is mildly baffling to low-key frontman Stuart Braithwaite. He never suspected his awkward little outfit would reach their third decade.

“We didn’t expect it would last very long,” he says. “We were young and when you’re young you don’t think past the next two weeks. But it was never a lark. We took it seriously from the start.”

On stage they don’t say much. As a performer Braithwaite communicates through the medium of scowling. Face to face, however, Mogwai are unexpectedly voluble, in that deadpan Scottish way. Braithwaite, especially, is chatty and sometimes jovial (almost). He is a lively voice on Twitter, which he took to in order to support Scottish independence during the spring referendum.

“One or two people had a moan about it,” he says. “Of course, with an issue as big as that, people are going to express an opinion. Plenty of my friends disagreed with me. You have to be grown up and respectful — and then give them the fingers behind their back.”

He is laughing as he says this — evidence of a humour not always discernible in the group’s music. The same dark wit famously/notoriously surfaced in the late 1990s when Mogwai printed up a batch of promotional t-shirts bearing the slogan “Blur: Are Shite”.

“We decided to proclaim our dislike of one of the weakest bands on the planet by putting out these shirts,” Braithwaite said at the time. “We sold out in one day and Super Furry Animals and Pavement have put in an order for more. The thing about the shirt is it’s like a dictionary definition. Blur: Are Shite. It’s factual and if there’s any legal problems about it I’ll go to court as someone who has studied music so I can prove they are shite.”

Among general audiences, Mogwai are perhaps best known for their soundtrack work. They composed the music for Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, a haunting valentine to soccer star Zinedine Zidane in which the camera tracked the French international through an entire 90 minute game. They also wrote the score for Les Revenants, a cult French drama about existentially troubled zombies in the Alps (season two is in production; Mogwai will again provide the music).

“We get asked to do a lot of stuff and have to turn much of it down. It isn’t even so much a case of saying ‘no’. It’s a matter of time. These things take a bit of effort to do properly— and we’re generally busy. It can be difficult to fit them in.”

Of all their achievements, Mogwai’s greatest feat may be that they have never — or at least very rarely — repeated themselves. The creative possibilities of three guitars and a rhythm section may not seem particularly vast, especially with a singer removed from the equation. Across eight albums, countless EPs, scores and remix projects, however, Mogwai have constantly evolved while sounding like nobody but themselves.

“We are always conscious of wanting to do different things,” says Braithwaite. “It can be challenging, we occasionally end up re-writing one of our own songs. Of course, that is what happens to most musicians who’ve been making music a while.”

The industry has changed beyond recognition in the past two decades. Initially, Mogwai were able to eke a living from record sales. Those days are long over and they are required to tour much of the year. In their late 30s and early 40s, with families, mortgages and the rest, some of the charm has gone out of the road. But what choice is there?

“It always was a pain when you had to spend six weeks in America,”says Braithwaite. “It does get harder because of personal circumstances. You learn how to manage it. And you perfect the art of saying ‘no’. There are things maybe you would have said ‘yes’ to. Now you say ‘no’.”

“We are reliant on playing live now more so than in the past,” he continues. “That’s okay as we are quite established. It’s the new people that have it harder.

They stumbled upon their distinctive “post-rock” sound by accident. Early on, Mogwai’s repertoire divided down the middle between instrumentals and tunes with lyrics. The vocal-free material appeared to go down better. By taking the route less travelled the band sensed they had an opportunity to do something interesting.

“In the first six months, we had songs we sang and we had instrumentals. The instrumentals were the ones that seemed to... well it wasn’t really a question of audience reaction. It was what we felt worked best.”

Being ancient enough to recall Mogwai’s formative days, I ask Braithwaite about the fleeting spell in the late 90s when the group were a cause celebre in London media circles. “It was handy at the time,” he says. “There was a short period when the people running the NME were pretty into underground music. We benefited from that — it was a good period for us.”

He is looking forward to returning to Ireland. Some of the group’s most memorable shows have been here. Those who attended a 2001 concert at the Red Box, Dublin, for instance, still speak of it with a mixture of awe and terror.“We also played Dingle for a small festival [Other Voices]. I have family in the Outer Hebrides; it reminded me of there. It was amazing. We always enjoy Ireland.”

Mogwai play Cork Opera House tomorrow; Olympia, Dublin,Thursday