An Interview with Aidan Moffat & Malcolm Middleton of Arab Strap
It’s been thirty years since Arab Strap launched their acerbic musical challenge to the ills of the world. To commemorate this anniversary they’ve been doing what they love, creating music, with a forthcoming album, Half-Told Tales and a European tour this autumn.
David Schuster talked with vocalist and drummer Aidan Moffat, and multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Middleton, about the passage of time, the politics of listening to music and a certain particularly male problem…
First of all, congratulations on being the first band ever to incorporate a reference to ‘pruritus scroti’ into your lyrics.
Aidan Moffat: Haha! Thank you.
I think that’s one for those of us of a certain age.
AM: Well, I mean, it happens to young men, too. But yeah, it’s funny the things you learn as you get older.
Malcolm Middleton: I don’t even know what it is yet. Should I Google it?
AM: It’s just crotch itches. Sportsmen get it as well. You know, footballers get it.
The new Arab Strap album, Half-Told Tales
In my review of your new album, I called Half-Told Tales an album of protest songs. Is that a fair comment?
AM: Not entirely. Lyrically, it’s mostly about time. Time’s a big factor. That’s why it’s called Half-ToldTales. It’s from the song ‘Fragments’, and it’s about lives that have ended too early. But yeah, there’s a lot of protest in it, certainly. There’s a lot to protest about these days, you know. So it’s hard to not have these things creep into the songs.
There’s a sense of immediacy and urgency to the album, a need to say something right now. Is that something you felt during recording?
AM: Possibly, although the other side of that, is that I always worry that the lyrics are outdated by the time the record comes out. You do these things so far in advance, you know. So I try and be careful not to write anything too specific, because everything moves so fast these days as well. It’s hard to know where you’ll be six months after you write a song. I think we finished this album, was it April we finished it, I think? It takes months for these things to come out and for people to hear them. So, you have to be a bit careful. It’s hard to capture an actual moment in a record these days.
MM: I think we’ve been lucky this year. I thought it’s been quite a slow year. Not much has changed since April. It’s still the same.
AM: I’m not sure about that, but certainly nothing that I’ve been writing about has changed too much.
What process did you go through to develop tracks, do you draft ideas collaboratively or individually?
MM: It’s kind of like individual collaboration, isn’t it? We do our own bits, on our own, then send them back and forth to each other. We never do music in the same room, really. But that’s the way we’ve worked for years.
Geographically, are you close to each other?
AM: No, no, not at all. Opposite ends of the country. I think we’ve kind of unified songwriting a wee bit, though. We send each other things, and I think the exciting part is it’s good to let these things percolate on our own. And then, when we’re ready for them to get sent, then we send them over. We like to surprise each other, I think. There’s always a bit of trepidation not knowing whether the other is going to like the idea you’ve just put in the Dropbox.
Yeah, I guess that’s not always the case?
AM: No, I mean, obviously we don’t agree with everything, but no band does. I’m glad there’s only two of us. I’m reading a book just now about Talking Heads, and they all hated each other. Democracy was a nightmare for them, so I’m glad there’s only two of us to argue about stuff. I mean, it’s a funny one, because we don’t like the same things. And then when we’re making songs, we don’t always like the same elements. But you’ve got to respect that maybe you’re not always right. Or, if you’re always right, you don’t let on.
Malcolm Middleton & Aidan Moffat or Arab Strap, 2026
image: Luke Bovill
So have you ended up with different favourite tracks on the album?
MM: It depends what you mean. If you’re talking about the production of a track and the finish, if it sounds like closest to the idea we had, it’s probably something like ‘You You You’ or ‘Glamour Magic’. But my favourite song on the album is ‘Ampersand’.
AM: I don’t have a favourite. I don’t even think of them in terms like that. I can’t think like that about our own songs. So what I normally do is just wait until we’ve toured and then I can tell you which ones I enjoy playing live. So far, I don’t know, we’ve only had two rehearsals, but I’m looking forward to it. I think the ones we’ve been rehearsing are coming together well. ‘You You You’ should be fun and ‘Fighting For You’, I think, will be good live. ,All the ones we’ve been doing sound great. They take on a different life with the band. So I suppose what I’m saying is, ask me in six months when we’ve been touring and I’ll tell you what my favourite one is.
I suspect that the emotions described in ‘Under Offer’ will resonate with a lot of people. Is it a personal story for either of you?
AM: Yes, for me, the lyrics are all true. I’ve just realised that, when I wrote the song, I wrote it to my brother, and I haven’t let him hear it! So, I should probably tell him about it. But yeah, it’s about one of our family homes. We went online to see what it looked like inside because we saw it was for sale. And it was, you know, it’s when you go looking for something from your past and realise it’s completely gone? It was horrible. And it’s that realisation. I think it’s a very clear metaphor for never being able to go back to what once was, you know.
MM: Millport! It’s like Limmy’s Millport sketch, isn’t it? I want to go here. He’s not talking about the place, he’s talking about a particular point in his life he wants to go back to.
AM: Yeah, I forgot about that one! That’s good.
Filming the videos for both ‘You You You’ and ‘Glamour Magik’ looked like fun. Did you enjoy it as much as you appeared to?
MM: No, that’s the magic of the medium. Ha ha ha! No, it was good. ‘You You You’ was with young Luke Bovill, and that was good fun because we were kind of grumpy getting made to do a video. We wanted to do it, but then, personally, I was like dreading it. But then he was so relaxed with us. He had a list of things he wanted us to film. So it was very short bursts over one day and the outcome was good. And with ‘Glamour Magik’, we’d known Dave Arthur, the director, from before and kind of trusted him to direct us: Just stand here, stand over there, do this, do that.
AM: So, yeah, I mean, it’s always good fun seeing part of the film industry, so to speak, and how that all works. But it’s lots of hanging about as well, doing nothing for lots of the time.
Whose idea was the mini horror movie idea?
AM: That was Dave, who made the video. He also did the video for ‘Strawberry Moon’ for our last album, which was the werewolf one, so it seems to be a common theme. That was my favourite experience of making a video, ‘Strawberry Moon’. So we thought we’d go back to Dave, because we loved the results, and ask him to do ‘Glamour Magik’. He instantly came up with another horror themed video, which makes sense considering the content in the song. So it worked very well. I really enjoyed it. I love making videos with Dave because I’ve known him for a long time.
MM: I think we respond better to people we know too. So if I were making a video with a director that I’d never met, I think I would be less likely to do things and enjoy myself for him. It’s just a shame that MTV doesn’t exist any more.
It’s pretty much a year since you were on tour. Is playing live something you both enjoy?
AM: Yeah, I love it. I mean, the travelling can be hard work, you know. I had a friend of mine, a DJ who died last year, actually. He always said, the way he looked at it, he loved his work and he gets paid to travel, not actually do the work. Which I thought was a nice way to try and frame it. Playing the gigs and being on stage is great. I love playing live. But, especially as you get older, the travelling can be hard work, you know. But no, it’s great. The actual act of performing I really, really love.
MM: I think that’s almost like a Dolly Parton quote. “You pay me to travel, not to do the show.” Is that a Dolly Parton? Maybe not Dolly Parton, maybe some other, like maybe a famous soul singer or something. (Dolly Parton is famous for her ‘Dollyisms’, but that quote has been attributed to a number of people over the years).
Still from ‘Glamour Magick’ video, dir: David Arthur
Will it just be the two of you performing this tour or have you got a touring band with you?
MM: This time we’ve got a band with us, a five piece. And yeah, doing the songs loud, doing them justice, having fun.
The VAT reduction for small venues is obviously a step in the right direction. Is there anything else that could or should be done for grass roots music?
AM: I’m sure there is, but it’s also part of a wider problem where people don’t have much money to spend as well. The rate at which venues are closing is worrying. Pubs too. So certainly, as you say, it’s a step in the right direction and obviously there’s a lot more to be done.
MM: Is that true for all venues? I mean, people pack out these massive arenas for like £300 tickets. So they’re spending money on concerts.
AM: Yeah, but smaller venues are troubling. So as you say, one of the best ways to do that is to have a tax on the larger gigs, which some people have agreed to, but Live Nation, (the world’s largest promoter and owners of Ticketmaster), haven’t. So, you know, when the biggest promoter isn’t going to do it, it’s kind of ineffective. There’s ideas to put a pound on a big gig like that, then that’s reinvested in the local arts scene and local music scenes, which I think is a really good way to go. And that should be something we do. That is the irony, as Malcolm says, big gigs are selling out. You know, I live near Hamden Park in Glasgow and Calvin Harris just did two big sold out shows to 50,000 folk a night. These things are selling out. Meanwhile, smaller venues are struggling to stay alive. So there definitely needs to be some sort of balance in there.
MM: Yeah, there should be like some kind of fairness czar or common sense czar brought in to kind of fix all these problems.
AM: Well, if you lose all these venues, you’re going to end up with nothing but big manufactured pop acts that play these massive places. Bands need places to play and places to grow. And if they’re all running out, it’s not investing in the future.
You have a small pop at Spotify, and other streaming services, in the lyrics to ‘You You You’ as well.
AM: That’s a whole different conundrum. It’s not just Spotify, it’s everything: Whatever you do, whoever you use, whatever online shop you use, any sort of thing you use is entangled in some ethical dilemma these days. You know, we’re all part of it. Amazon’s just as bad. You can’t do anything; the simple act of listening to your favourite song on your favourite platform can result in you being part of a system that ends up funding weapons. It’s ridiculous. Everything’s connected. God, it’s depressing! It’s too early in the morning for that.
As part of the tour, you’re coming to the Howard Assembly Rooms in Leeds. I’m not sure you’ve ever played there before?
AM: I don’t think so. No, it’s always the Brudenell we do, but the Brudenell was booked, because it’s so popular. So it’s getting harder and harder to get a gig there. But, I’m looking forward to doing something new as well. I had a look at it online, it looks like a pretty great room.
MM: I like the cockpit. Is The Cockpit still there? (Sadly, it’s not. After playing host to artists such as Amy Winehouse, Kaiser Chiefs and the White Stripes, The Cockpit closed in 2014 due to the severity of required maintenance.)
I think you’ll like the Howard Assembly Rooms, but possibly for different reasons. It’s all pine wood panelled and it’s got a very genteel sort of afternoon tea feel to the place.
MM: Sounds perfect for us.
AM: Yeah, definitely. We’re very much a cream before jam on your scone sort of group.
Half-Told Tales is released on 4th September, via Rock Action Records
Arab Strap have also announced a new UK & European tour for the autumn
Top image: Luke Bovill
David Schuster describes himself as an “adventurer, collector, musician and writer. Not necessarily in that order.” Growing up west of the Pennine hills of the UK and living his adult life east of them, he’s inclined to think that the Wars of the Roses were a mistake. David loves discovering new bands and musicians and is happiest listening to live music. He has travelled extensively in the UK and is fascinated by the variety, history and landscapes of the thousands of islands that comprise the British Isles. David is always reassured when online shops confirm that he’s not a robot.
