When Stuart Braithwaite, of cult indie band Mogwai, was asked recently to sign a letter in support of Belfast-Derry rap trio Kneecap, he said yes on the spot. As with many other musicians, he was alarmed by the official backlash against Kneecap in Britain, where a member of the group has been charged with a terror offence after displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah at a gig in London.
“I agree with Kneecap’s stance on Palestine 100%, Even if I didn’t, I would find it really, really terrible that someone would try and censor a musician from performance because of what they are saying,” says Braithwaite, speaking from his home in Scotland ahead of an Irish tour that includes a date at Galway International Arts Festival.
Arresting performers because of what they say on stage is a slippery slope, he feels. Which is why Mogwai put their name to the open letter defending Kneecap alongside signatories such as Paul Weller, Pulp, Massive Attack and Fontaines DC.
“What would we have been looking at – banning Bob Dylan for singing against racism? You’re going into some ugly parts of history when you allow that to happen. It got exposed that 30 people from the music industry had written to Glastonbury to try and get [Kneecap] removed. That wasn’t in public. That was a private thing – a whistleblower has got hold of it.”
As a member of Mogwai, Braithwaite has his own history of defying authority – albeit in circumstances very different to Kneecap. In the 1990s the group – whose largely instrumental compositions blend heavy metal and cinematic mood music – were outliers in a UK scene dominated by Britpop. Not just outliers but mutineers: in 1999 they did the unthinkable by taking a potshot against top mockney merchants Blur by selling t-shirts that read “Blur Are S***” when both acts were billed for the T In The Park festival in Scotland.
“I definitely feel Scotland was culturally marginalised . “There is something quite sinister [about Britpop] – everyone’s starting to blow their own trumpet and waving Union Jacks.I’m not saying all those bands were terrible. As a cultural movement, it didn’t resonate.” Today, it is perfectly possible to ignore artists you don’t like. That was not the case 30 years ago. Oasis , Blur, Supergrass, Pulp – they were everywhere, ubiquitous and inescapable, with their cheeky chappy capering and outsize media profile.
“People forget nowadays that culture was very monolithic back then. Two things couldn’t exist. For something to be in, everything else had to be out. Thankfully, that’s not the way anymore. Back in the 90s… You weren’t listening to music on your phone. So you were hearing what everyone else heard, if you were outside your own house. It was pretty grim.”
If anything it was worse in Ireland where a generation of musicians – many Cork bands among them – had their momentum killed by Britpop. For Irish rock, Britpop was a neutron bomb that obliterated everything in its path. Braithwaite nods – adding that Mogwai have long felt an affinity with Irish artists. In his 2022 autography, Spaceships Over Glasgow: Mogwai, Mayhem and Misspent Youth, he names Dublin ‘shoegaze’ group My Bloody Valentine as an inspiration. But that is just the start of his connection to Irish music, he elaborates today.
“One of the first bands we ever played with was a band called Wormhole [later, The Wormholes]. They were a big inspiration. Whipping Boy were a band we liked when we first started. I like Fontaines. I think they’re really good.”
It’s been a topsy-turvy few years for Mogwai. Formed in 1995 and named after the cute puppet from Gremlins, they were long regarded as a the quintessential cult affair. Their debut 1997 debut album, was a big critical hit but ever since they have happily existed in the margins – acclaimed and with a significant following but a long way shy of being considered household names. Things changed during the pandemic, when their tenth long player, went to number one in the UK – a turn up heralded as a victory for underdogs everywhere.
“It was a great, weird thing to happen,” says Braithwaite. “And I think we felt a lot of that love. We felt a lot of the support. I know people probably say this kind of shit all the time, and they don’t mean it, but it genuinely wasn’t something that any of us had ever even thought about. It was a genuine surprise. Obviously when you put a record you want it to do well. To actually sell more than anything else is pretty incredible.”
In Galway, Mogwai will play material from their new album, A major hit in itself with a top five placing in the UK, it proceeds with stately grace from thunderous to thoughtful, terrifying to heartbreaking. There’s a lot of brimstone under the skin of the LP – aptly named for a Scottish word for hell.
The emotions that seethe through the songs were deeply felt: was recorded while multi-instrumentalist Barry Burns’ daughter recovered from a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy. Around the same time, bassist Dominic Aitchison’s father passed away. Such challenges have left their mark– opening number for instance, incorporates lyrics by Burns’ daughter. Nonetheless, Mogwai didn’t go into the studio with the explicit ambition of catalysing recent traumas on record.
“We’re not the kind of band that writes songs about anything. The only song we’ve done that’s very specifically about something was on our last album, [a tribute to musician friends who had died over the years]. Most of our songs kind of exist in a bit of a bubble,” said Braithwaite.
More than anything they were eager to put recent difficulties behind them – to celebrate the positives in life rather than focus on negatives. “There’s probably an element of escapism, too. It was a rough time, and especially Barry being stuck in a hospital, worried about his kid. ‘Hey, Barry, now you’re out do you want to sing about it?’ – he probably wouldn’t have fancied that. In a way, the whole album is about recent upheavals, even though it’s not very specific. The energy was very much that something had been overcome. When we got in the studio, it felt like a bit of a release. Almost a triumph that we’ve got through the other side of some difficult stuff.”
- Mogwai play the Heineken Big Top on Thursday, July 24, as part of Galway International Arts Festival. They also play Limerick (Big Top, July 25), Dublin (Vicar Street, July 26), and Belfast (Mandela Hall, July 27
There are literally dozens of gigs taking place across the festival. Here’s a selection of five:
The cheery all-sibling four-piece celebrate the 20th anniversary of their Mercury nominated debut album with what is sure to be a fun-filled concert.
It will be murder under the canvas as Ellis-Bextor continues to surf her post-Saltburn wave of popularity with a show at Galway’s Big Top, with support from Natasha Bedingfield.
Born in Cork, raised largely in Spain and based in London, it is no surprise pop artist Jessica Smyth blends influences from all over, her music combining melodic songwriting with barnstorming beats.
Steve Wall and co have already sold out their return to the city where it all began for them back in the mid-1980s.
The acclaimed classical violinist is joined by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra for a performance of Max Richter’s Vivaldi Recomposed – The Four Seasons, a reimagining of Vivaldi’s classic, at the Big Top.
