ARAB Strap’s lyrics are so raw and honest that fans may feel they know frontman Aidan Moffat and instrumentalist Malcolm Middleton without ever having met them.
Speaking to them over Zoom, I’m struck by the feeling of familiarity from both of them. They’re funny but occasionally awkward, warm and opinionated, romantic but cynical.
They are the sort of people you’d meet in bars, late-night takeaways, clubs and gig venues across Scotland - the exact sort of people their music has done so well cataloguing over the last three decades.
As musicians who have made a career cataloguing Caledonian hedonism, they are regretful about Scotland’s declining nightlife scene – though both (neither go large much anymore) concede that Scots generally could stand to drink a little less.
“I can tell you one thing - the towns are certainly quieter,” says Moffat.
“That’s one of the concerns that I have, there’s less people going out. Glasgow city centre sometimes is completely dead on nights you’d expect it to be absolutely heaving.”
Mournfully, he goes on: “There’s a deep, historical, cultural connection with alcohol in Scotland, there always has been.
“I think that’s changing, I mean young people don’t seem to be drinking as much as we were.”
But with a laugh, he adds: “I’ve got a 16-year-old son, and as far as I know, he’s not drinking too much. Him and his friends don’t seem that interested and I think Scotland’s slowly changing in that respect.”
Moffat tells of how his dad in the 1970s could find himself eight pints in at the end of a shift delivering barrels of beer around the pubs in Falkirk.
“Unacceptable” now, and he has a theory that even gig-goers are “a bit more sober now as well”.
“It’s probably because it’s too expensive,” he says. That and the trains, which in Glasgow are “shite”.
“If you can’t afford a taxi home then you need to be home by 11 o’clock at night, that’s why the pubs are all shutting at 11 o’clock in the city centre.”
Middleton (above) takes a sunnier view of Scotland’s new, drier ways. “You reach points in your life where you look over things and realise things are bad for you. I think Scotland as a nation must be doing that.”
The duo’s assessment of the recent Creative Scotland funding fiasco is also characteristically gloomy.
“If they’re going to bring that fund back then someone else is going to suffer,” says Moffat.
Middleton adds: “Have they brought it back so they can appease everyone just now then in a year’s time slowly find another way to get rid of it again? I don’t know, I’m cynical.”
Reviews of their latest album, I'm Totally Fine With It Don't Give a Fuck Anymore, mention the word “vinegary” frequently. What do they make of that?
“Shocked,” says Middleton. “From my point of view, I think the title’s kind of positive and humorous.
“People don’t always get the fact that there’s humour in our songs because there’s no canned laughter.”
Moffat (below) adds: “There’s certainly an anger in it, but I think it’s a hopeful anger. But also I don’t feel the need to write about happy things and happiness.
“I very rarely feel compelled by joy to write, writing to me is usually a way of venting some sort of emotion or some sort of cathartic streak where I have to get something off my chest or some form of self-examination.”
There are, he says, “plenty of songs about happiness out there”.
“Zoe, Sunshine On A Rainy Day, for instance, brilliant song,” he says. “I can’t see me writing something like that.”
Clearly, the vinegar comment is playing on Middleton’s mind and he returns to the theme abruptly.
“I see vinegar as a good thing,” he says. “I mean, salt and vinegar on your chips, I don’t want chips without vinegar.”
Moffat dissents: “I don’t like it on my chips but I’m quite happy with it in songs.”
His bandmate is taken aback: “You don’t put vinegar on your chips?”
Moffat hates it, apparently. But Middleton will not relent. “How does the salt stick to the chips?”
The frontman explains, with the air of a man whose chip preferences have been challenged before: “Well if they’ve been cooked right, it won’t need vinegar to stick to the chips.”
Perhaps a bit of east coast shines through when he explains he prefers chippy sauce. We have strayed quite far from talking about the music.
With as much ease as they can debate the proper way to eat a fish supper, the pair turn their attentions to the nuances of the spiritual resonances of a good gig.
“People don’t go to gigs to be happy,” declares Moffat. This is perhaps a surprising pitch for a man being interviewed to promote a tour.
“They go to gigs to enjoy it,” he begins to clarify.
“Some of the best gigs I’ve ever seen were abrasive, obnoxious, terrifying. It’s about feeling an affinity with the people on the stage and being part of their world for 90 minutes or whatever it is.”
Moffat goes on: “I mean happiness is part of it, people enjoy gigs but there’s plenty of gigs I’ve went to where I’ve expected to cry, for instance. But even that is a form of joy, in a public setting. It’s about sharing emotions with people in a room.”
Just as he could be straying into hippy-dippy territory, he brings it crashing back to reality.
“I’ve seen some terrible gigs as well where I’ve had to leave after five minutes because I absolutely detested both the band and audience,” he says.
Suddenly, a memory comes to him. “Beyonce, I had an incredible time at a Beyonce gig in Hampden about 10 years ago.
“And it’s the thrill of being with so many people enjoying the same thing. It is beyond happiness.”
For Middleton, like chips, it depends on what you’re after. “You’re not going to come to an Arab Strap gig to feel happy,” he says. Actually, gigs are as a rule, not really for him.
“One thing I hate is being part of an audience”, he says.
To Moffat’s description of a room full of people “feeling this big thing, the kind of community, social connection”, he offers a blunt rejoinder: “I hate it.”
Why go to gigs then, Moffat asks before I can. “I don’t really go to gigs. If I go to gigs, it’s because I like the music not because I want to bond with 1000 people standing around a room.”
Arab Strap play Aberdeen on September 17, Edinburgh on September 18, Dumfries on September 19 and Galashiels on September 20. Their St Andrews and Glasgow dates are sold out. You can find out more details and buy tickets here.
