Mogwai is one of those rare bands that can keep its fans interested in the absence of vocals, a particular melody or song structure. Many have tried their hand at this abstract endeavour, but more often than not have come away perceived as self-absorbed, tiresome or unrelatable.
Mogwai, however, long grounded in its formative rock influences, has managed to maintain a unique and fresh balance between dreamy abstractions and hints of heavy metal, new wave and instrumental jamming. The band’s exceptional longevity and success since the mid-90s speaks to its hypnotic capacity to keep listeners interested.
Now on tour following the release of their acclaimed eighth studio-length album “Rave Tapes”, Mogwai will be performing in Hong Kong on Friday, Nov. 28 as part of this year’s Clockenflap Festival.
Coconuts HK talks to Stuart Braithwaite, the band’s de facto leader, about the groups’s evolution, what he thinks about genre categories and online music platforms, and what’s in store for Mogwai in the near future.
Mogwai (L-R): John Cummings, Barry Burns, Martin Bulloch, Dominic Aitchison, Stuart Braithwaite
Hi Stuart, thanks for talking to Coconuts HK. How’s the tour going?
The tour’s been great; we’ve been having a really good year and definitely enjoying all the concerts we’ve been playing.
We’ve heard that you got the name Mogwai from the Gremlin movies, but what about the word drew you to it specifically? Did you know that it’s a Cantonese word?
I can’t remember to be honest; it was almost 20 years ago. But I think I just liked those little monsters. I actually didn’t know at the time of choosing the word meant “evil monsters” in Cantonese. The band name wasn’t something that we spent a long time thinking about.
Your formative years were much more about the sounds produced by the guitar, whereas now the band has moved more into electronic instrumentation. Was that transition an accidental process?
I think it was quite tactical actually… We were always into music like Kraftwerk and Aphex Twin. We all wanted to try something like that but because none of us actually knew how to really play a keyboard or anything it didn’t happen until Barry [Burns, the multi-instrumentalist for Mogwai] joined us.
And what is it about lyrics that Mogwai tends to steer away from?
We’re just not that comfortable doing them I suppose. We’re not the kind of people who will write down lyrics on a notepad or anything like that. We just write them if we need them at the very last second when we think a song could benefit from having them.
It seems a majority of post-rock bands don’t like to be identified as such, and you’ve also said you detested the label. Do you dislike the genre as a whole or just don’t identify with it for the band?
I don’t really like genre labels to be honest. I mean, some of the bands people describe as post-rock are some of my favourite bands, I’m not going to deny that. Tortoise and God Speed You! Black Emperor are really amazing bands, but I tend to think that when a genre becomes definitively defined, it sort of becomes liable to dilution.
If we consider punk, for instance, The Ramones and The Sex Pistols, [which] are absolutely incredible. But then you get Blink-182, which some people also say are punk. No offense to Blink-182, but by no means is that band the same caliber as The Pistols or The Ramones. I think it’s better to try to make new things in music rather than dwell on old kinds of it… When bands begin to identify themselves with a certain genre, things tend to get very boring, very quickly.
But don’t think you the vocabulary of genres is necessary in order for people to talk about music in a meaningful way?
I understand why people do it, but I don’t think you need it really. I think for both music writers and for musicians, disregarding genre labels will force them to be less lazy about how they construct things. I think it would allow musicians to make music that they are just happy with rather than taking somebody else’s blueprint as their starting point.
You’ve done some scoring for a documentary, a TV show, and a movie. Do you still get offers like this and would you like to do more in the future?
Yeah, actually that’s probably what we’re mostly going to be doing after this tour is over for the next year or so.
Can you tell us which projects you’ll be scoring for?
Some of them haven’t been announced yet, but we’re definitely doing the music for the second season of the French TV show, The Returned. We’ll also be doing music for our friend Anthony Crook’s first film, which is called The Hudson River Project. It’s about a guy who builds a boat out of debris found in Manhattan and sails it all the way down the Hudson River.
There is much discussion these days about online music platforms and whether musicians should embrace them or not. Do you lament this fundamental change in the industry or see it as a brave new world for music?
I have to admit, I’m not a big fan of streaming. I would rather have people buy records. As generations move more towards streaming, I worry that there won’t be enough money generated for musicians to live on, unless they’re pop stars. I know our music is on Spotify and such so I might sound a bit hypocritical, but I guess it would be even more damaging for us to not even be there at all. It does concern me about the future for musicians nonetheless.
Mogwai will be playing at 9pm on Friday, Nov. 28 on the HarbourFlap stage. Click here for Clockenflap tickets.
Here’s a little taster of what to expect:
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