BEING able to share in a band’s inexorable rise to national, and even international, success is part of what makes keeping your ear to the floor in your local music scene so intensely rewarding. On TRNSMT 2019’s second day, Saturday July 13th, this feeling was shared by the people who have been following The Dunts since their formative days, when punk music in Glasgow wasn’t nearly as pervasive as it is now just three years on.

The feeling of having people with them from day one on a gig as pivotal as this one is something the band are incredibly grateful for. We caught up with the boys and discussed their immediate feelings after their show, their special relationship with their hometown fans, the symbiotic environment of Glasgow’s music scene, and what comes next for them.

Div: “It feels like any word we use to describe it doesn’t come close to explaining how monumental that felt.”

Colin: “Seeing all our pals there, people we don’t know, everyone just singing the words… I was so nervous about it for so long but as soon I went up there… Usual man, it went away, it was so good. We’ve been very lucky that we’ve had a lot of pals that have came to see us from the very beginning.”

Rab: “I’ve got so many messages from my pals and people on Twitter saying they’re proud of us. Being from Glasgow you’ve got a certain synergy with the people around you that are watching[…]they feel part of it. They absolutely made that.”

Being one of the country’s hardest working bands has seen a consistent improvement in their performances and releases, which is being increasingly reflected in the size of their audiences. The boys are confident they will deliver on ever growing demands but they aren’t losing the nerves that keep them grounded and ambitious.

Kyle: “Right before going on I was like I don’t know what to expect from this and then going on and seeing the scale and the amount of people there, it’s shocking in a good way.

Colin: We thrive on it as well. We always get so built up in nervousness when there’s a next step, when there’s something that we feel is bigger than anything we’ve ever done before but as soon as you get out there it just drains away and you’re just left with the buzz.

Div: “We were confident, not just in ourselves but in each other. You need to have a certain level of trust in everybody else in the band so that if you do something wrong you know they’ll carry you through it.”

Rab: “We always step up to the plate. And we all know we’re going to step up to the plate.”

The Dunts are well aware that for a band like them to grow they have to build from a solid foundation where there’s a culture of support and friendship. Recently the topic of BBC Scotland’s Tune series, we discussed the importance of Glasgow’s punk scene to them.

Colin: “When we first started we knew there was this thing going on in Glasgow and we wanted to break into it but we ended up just meeting all these people like Rascalton, Pleasure Heads, Voodoos. [Div: “Baby Strange”] [Rab: “Gallus”] and it formed an amazing thing. It feels amazing to be part of it and seeing all those people from those bands in the crowd coming to see us, it means a lot. It feels like it’s coming onto something, it always felt like there was something building even from the very beginning.”

Rab: “It’s definitely flourishing. Especially for myself, to see what we seen when we went onstage – it’s definitely not going to go away. It’s just going to keep growing. I’m proud of them and I’m proud of us. I’m just lost for words.”

The Dunts’ drive for success appears insatiable at times, and who could blame them? Their TRNSMT show felt like a watershed moment. The King Tut’s stage at this year’s event was bigger than last year’s and it needed every inch to contain what The Dunts brought. Previous local acts like Gerry Cinnamon and The Snuts have gone on to play the main stage in following years and The Dunts want to follow suit.

Rab: “I would like to see main stage next year at TRNSMT. I think this opens us up to better attendances outwith Glasgow shows and Scotland especially. It’s given us a platform to build on what we’ve already done and put us in front of a much bigger audience. Hopefully it puts us in good stead with festival organisers who might see pictures or videos and see there’s something going on there. It’s put us in a good position.”

With their stock never higher, immediately after TRNSMT The Dunts announced a Scottish tour with dates in Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen, with the final date set to take place at Glasgow’s The Garage and be their biggest headline show to date. Tickets are available now.