SET to get underway this Friday in the familiar locale of Glasgow’s Broadcast, the TTV discover tour – last remaining tickets on-sale here– was constructed with the simple ethos of exposing Scotland’s most vibrant new talent to the UK at large. Not content to languish on the sidelines, each artist on the bill comes complete with a distinct and invigorating musical footprint that separates them from the run-of-the-mill and harbours the potential to blossom into a fruitful and evergreen career.
Situated at the intersection between the immediacy of indie rock and the transcendental gravitas of electronica, this governing credo is one that Dundee’s Beta Waves live up to in spades. After warping our perceptions with their opening volley ‘I Think I’m Melting’, the duo have continually attested to their vitality and find strength in the rampant eclecticism of their music. Unfettered by any desultory lines about where one genre’s territory ends and another subculture’s horizons begin, they’re a band that would shake the cobwebs off the most dyed-in-the-wool detractor of Scotland’s music scene and it makes them a prime candidate to take prime position in our Discover Tour. Ahead of the dizzying cyclone of live shows and travel that lies ahead of them in the next two weeks, we caught up with the band to see what they’re most looking forward to and if they’re prepared for all that lies ahead.
Out of every great act that’ll be performing on the TTV Discover Tour, you are the one constant across all shows. Are you excited to embark upon this jaunt around the UK and what do you hope to gain from it?
YES! As excited as James Corden in Nando’s. We couldn’t have asked for a better set up, TTV have been incredibly supportive of what we do, ever since day one when no one else knew who we were. We just want people to enjoy the show, please come to the shows and like us.
Comprised of dates in Scotland & England, the shows will not only give you a chance to play to pre-existing fans but bring your music to a new set of potential converts. Do any shows stand out as particularly exciting or perhaps even daunting on this tour?
We played a few festivals and club nights last year but this is our first proper tour and the first shows outside Scotland are a little daunting for sure. You look at things like streaming numbers and see numbers from all over the UK but its different pitching up in peoples towns and looking them in the eye! These will help take the band onto the next step in our journey though and It’s all about building yourself from the ground, up. Song by song, show by show.
You’re set to be joined by a litany of the country’s finest burgeoning talent that spans a number of genres and niches. Is there anyone you’re particularly excited to play alongside and do you think that Scottish acts embarking on a tour as a united front is a good precedent to set?
The standard of musicianship in Scotland has always been high but now more than ever there are so many good up-and-coming bands it’s hard to keep tabs on them all, close your eyes for a minute and another one pops up. I think it’s a great idea to showcase all these bands together. Everyone’s part of the same musical family and we should be encouraging each other to do well. This is the perfect stage to do that.
A lot of the bands we are playing alongside for this tour we haven’t properly met before so it’ll be good meet them and make some new pals as well as catching up with old ones.
What can the uninitiated expect from your set?
Our set has always been a bit of a mystery, even to us a lot of the time… you can expect us to trawl back through our extensive back catalogue and dig out some of the hits you may or may not be familiar with, NOW that’s what I call BETA WAVES 2018. We would hand out lyrics sheets prior to our shows but to be honest, if you’ve ever heard our songs we pretty much repeat the same thing over and over again in the chorus anyway. I’ve let the cat out the bag. You’d pick it up quite quickly.
After a resounding breakout year, What’s on the Beta Waves manifesto in 2019?
We came out of nowhere and spent much of 2018 playing as much as possible all over Scotland and learning our craft and making sure we can recreate the sound we make in the studio on stage. We were both in more traditional band setups before. This synth pop business presents a whole new challenge. We found ourselves tweaking our live set many, many times. In fact I don’t think we had the same setup twice in 2018. I mean, yes it was still the two of us but I was referring to the technical side of things and how everything was linked together.
Much of 2018 was experimentation, finding our sound and ultimately writing all of our songs as we went along. We have slowed down a bit at the beginning of 2019 to take stock and recorded some tracks at Parr street studios in Liverpool so it has been good to slow down a bit. Looking ahead, we can expand on that progress and push ourselves further into the UK music scene as a whole starting with the TTV discover tour. No more messin’ about.
For any further indication of what to expect, check out the band’s TTV session below and get the details on all TTV Discover shows below:
