bl!
bright light ! articles
title: [stuart + john @ colchester arts centre]
interview by: adam flood
www: ON ME NOT IN ME
date: 08 february 1998

the following interview was conducted with stuart and john at mogwai's gig at the arts centre in colchester. the interview originally appeared in essex university's student newspaper, "parklife".


stuart and john from mogwai, peel friendly scottish noiseniks, who are also very popular with the indie music press at the moment. they are also known as plasmatron and cpt. meat. we talk briefly about their experiences so far and what's coming next...

adam flood: you've previously said that you consider yourselves heavier than some of the bands that get in kerrang, do you think you should be featured in kerrang?

stuart: don't really care, but yeah, we should be in kerrang, we're pretty heavy. i don't really care, it's more dominic who gets upset about that because that's his favourite magazine. we should be in it. we'd rather be in kerrang than in q.

af: who do you think should or shouldn't be in kerrang?

s: i think black sabbath, motörhead, they should be in kerrang. i don't think the prodigy and symposium should be in kerrang, that's not heavy metal. or ash, that's not heavy metal.

john: three colours red.

s: that's heavy metal, it's not very good, but it's still heavy metal.

af: do you know what direction mogwai will be going in next.

s: i could just say no, but i'll try to be a bit more expansive, so i don't look like a prick in the fanzine. i've got a vague idea, basically i think our music's going to become...the stuff that's quite raw is going to become really raw and pretty aggressive sounding, the stuff that's kind of textured going to become lush and gradual rather than kind of ...not as many violent changes, a bit more flowing.

af: why are all your records so limited?

s: they're not really, our album isn't limited, neither is that ep. some of our early ones were but that's just because we're on an independent label and they can only afford to press off 500 or 1000 records. we didn't mean to.

af: do you intend in the future to have reissues, so people can get hold of them?

s: the thing with all the limited seven inches is that they're compiled on an album called ten-rapid and we sell that at the gigs and mail order and stuff. all the songs are available. the only songs that aren't available aren't really worth getting. there was a song on an nme cd we did, not worth getting. we did a live single, that's rubbish as well. stuff that's slipped out, that's pretty bad.

af: do you ever see yourselves playing gigs on the scale of radiohead, big arenas?

s: yeah, i don't know if we'll ever be as popular as that, but i think our music would probably suit a big place like that.

j: not too big, glasgow barrowlands, somewhere like that.

s: i think we'd be ok in an arena, i don't think we'd enjoy it as much. i think with a big sound system and stuff it would work.

af: what about a big stadium?

s: i don't know, i don't know if they're good. i'd just say no to stadiums.

j: probably do some festivals that are about stadium size... i don't know, don't really think about it too much. have to sell a million records first.

af: do you want to get a top 40 hit?

s: yeah

af: what about top of the pops?

s: yeah, be brilliant. i wouldn't go out of my way to get in the charts, i wouldn't release three cd singles of the same song or whatever. but if enough people bought our records to go top 40, it'd be brilliant to go on top of the pops.