Five Hungry Joes – A pictorial archive of the Trashcan Sinatras. Legendary Scottish Band

Here’s a small article taken from The Big Takeover magazine with John Douglas explaining the recording of fifth album, ‘In The Music’.

Written by Matthew Berlyant… SCOTLAND’S TRASH CAN SINATRAS WON’T EVER BE ACCUSED of flooding the market: it took them five years to release the excellent In The Music, their first new studio album since 2004’s Weightlifting (my favourite album that year). While that may seem like a lot, this is actually a considerably shorter period than the eight years between 1996’s A Happy Pocket and Weightlifting! And it’s only their fifth in two decades.

Sitting with guitarist JOHN DOUGLAS before their two sets at the Tin Angel in Philadelphia to discuss the album and the band’s recent history, Douglas notes that, “We were on the road for a year-and-a-half; then we went back to Glasgow and lived life. A couple of guys [singer FRANK READER and guitarist PAUL LIVINGSTON] are living in Los Angeles now, and they’re married and happy there, while myself and [drummer/brother] STEPHEN are still in Glasgow.”

Douglas insists that after songs piled up and they decided to record a new album, they “didn’t really want to go through any of the techniques of recording that we’ve used before.” He says that the songwriting on In The Music was a bit more “groovy-savvy” and that the material written for it wouldn’t have been appropriate if given the arrangements of their earlier records. As well, the band didn’t have a label, but were helped out by producer ANDY CHASE (who mixed Weightlifting) of IVY and BROOKVILLE. The band recorded the bulk of In The Music in Chase’s studio in New York while the producer found an apartment for them on the Upper West Side. The band also pulled a major coup in getting ’70s star CARLY SIMON to provide backing vocals on “Should I Pray.”

Introduced through Chase in Nantucket, Simon got to know the members casually and came down to the studio one day. After the band sent her demos of “Should I Pray” and the title track, Douglas revealed that “she was very complimentary towards ‘Should I Pray.’ She said it was the best song she’d heard in 10 years!” Meanwhile, the band released “Oranges and Apples,” a song inspired by the late PINK FLOYD founder/visonary SYD BARRETT and recorded at the same sessions, as a stand-alone digital single in late 2008, to time it with a festival that benefitted the Barrett trust.

Although still unavailable in the U.S., the band decided to sell a deluxe edition of the new album as a pre-order through their website. They also recorded all the shows on their recent U.S. tour and sold them on USB sticks available 15-20 minutes after the shows ended. Douglas explains, “Things like that come about because you’re in a situation where you have to think on your feet and trying to keep your quality control.” As of this writing, the band were talking to several U.S. labels hoping to release In The Music here. Let’s hope negotiations prove successful [Amen! – ed.], with another tour resulting.

For who knows when they’ll make another LP?

2009 The Big Takeover Issue 65