Anderson, McGinty, Webster, Ward and (an absent) Fisher were on Belladrum’s highland grounds a day early pending their performance on Saturday. Before they took to the stage and put on what became an outstanding performance, the band chatted to us about sweet corn, champagne, being somewhat nameless and their new album.
The band have had a successful year winning the Scottish Variety Award for Best New Scottish Band at the start of the year and performing at a number of festivals. It seems that it has been all work for the Dundonians, lucky for them then that they were able to catch Seasick Steve’s inspirational performance on Friday evening: “We saw Seasick Steve last night, we loved his instruments.
“Seasick Steve was great, I loved it when he described what his guitar was made from. He said it had a can of Green Giant sweet corn on it, a can of beer and Christmas decorations are on them all.
“Maybe we could start adding weird things to our instruments like him, why not?”
The band caused a great buzz around the T in the Park site this summer, packing out the Transmissions Tent: “T in the Park was really good fun. We were happy with the turn out, especially since we played so early on.
We caught Willy Mason at T in the Park, we had watched him at Belladrum last year.
“This is our favourite Scottish festival. The Lay out , grounds and surroundings are all amazing. It makes you wonder what they used to have here back in the day.
“We used to go to festivals as fans, but over the last few years we have just been playing them. It’s been amazing fun.
“We don’t have a name yet, we couldn’t even come up with a name for our band so the new album is nameless for now.”
“Our performance today is exciting. We are looking forward to it, it is a good slot too. Mid-afternoon is always good, so people are compos mentis and able to properly enjoy it. We are without Fisher the drummer today but we are lucky that our songs lends themselves to acoustic sets and we can add things here and there.
“The first session we recorded with Tenement TV is similar to what we will be doing today.”
The band have been busy recently, recording some new tracks around Scotland: “We recorded a couple of tracks at the Tea Pot Studios and a couple at Gorbals Sound with John Wood.
“He has recorded some of my favourite acts including Nick Drake and John Martin so it has been amazing working with him. Really inspiring.”
AMWWF are getting ready to release a four track EP at the end of October, and will be playing shows in Edinburgh and Glasgow to celebrate: “We will play a couple of gigs along with the EP launch, we are really looking forward to that.
“Our album will be released at the start of next year. There are a lot of tracks in place for the album, we just need some final tweaks on them and get them recorded.
We did our last album in reverse order, we recorded it all before we had even played any shows. Now we are doing it the other way around which is fun. We are playing shows and then recording it.
“We don’t have a name yet, we couldn’t even come up with a name for our band so the new album is nameless for now.”
The band were delighted to be chosen for the Scottish Variety Award’s Best New Scottish Act earlier on this year: “It’s nice to be counted in something like that.
Actually, we got a bottle of champagne for winning that from one of our girlfriend’s mum and we have it with us today.
“One of the perks being on early means we can crack it open. I don’t think it will be cold, but it will be fizzy and warm and nice.”
AMWWF are amongst great talent coming out of Dundee in recent years, and they are proud of their fellow Dundonians: “Boston Tea Party are amazing. We love their old school blues sound.
“Scotland has some amazing talent, Davey Horne is great.
“Fraser Ross isn’t Scottish, but he has moved over here from New Zealand and has become friends with us. He’s a right story-teller and his songs and chat is great. He’s the whole package”
And when it comes to the package, AMWWF have it all. The wit, the charisma and the hauntingly-good live performance to top it all.
