It’s great to get back to some semblance of normality after the Christmas break. I feel like I’m enthusiastic about the podcast again.Which is in no small part down to this excellent interview with Fraser from The Murderburgers. If you like punk rock and you live in Scotland then there’s about a 90% you know who these guys are. They play everywhere and are on the road all the damn time. They really embody the DIY punk spirit that the whole ethos of “punk” was built on. The fact that they do it with catchy pop punk really is just a huge bonus.I’d been trying to arrange this interview for a while, as Fraser would no doubt tell you, but it took a while for the stars to align, as it were.It was definitely worth waiting for, I think.Highlights include:
- Restlessness and not staying in one place too long leading to wanting to be on the road a lot
- The difficulty of finding a balance between touring and doing normal stuff, then eventually giving up on finding the balance
- Getting more enjoyment out of life by doing band and label stuff
- Having bad luck in the band
- Including bad luck on their recent UK and European tour
- Van issues and a dodgy car dealer
- Andy from Palm Reader saves the day!
- Sharing musical gear
- First musical moments
- Getting involved with DIY punk and staying involved
- Using booking agents and booking your own tours
- The weirdness of “competition” between
- The change in music over the years
- Evil pay to play
- Pop punk and the difference between Screeching Weasel, Teenage Bottlerocket and more sorta Four Year Strong kind of stuff
- Why the band is still a "we" and not a solo project despite having so many lineup changes and Fraser being the songwriter
- Wrestlers in Space!
- And lots more
Last week’s interviewee Billy Liar and this week’s interviewee Fraser are really good friends, so it was kind of serendipitous that I was able to interview them both back to back. They’re both cut from the same cloth too, in terms of their approach to music, their dedication and their ethos.Perhaps the next time I talk to them I should interview them together…I hope you enjoy the episode as much as I enjoyed the chat.
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