Velveteen Riot

Do you know that Scottish quality standard? Well, Glasglow has always offered us precious things, I do not need to dwell on that much, but, nevertheless, from Aztec Camera to Primal Scream, from Pastels to Mogwai, and the list is absolutely endless.

And that's where the newcomer Velveteen Riot comes from, a quartet that has in its sound mix the quality indie verve, whether strolling through the class of 86, garage, pop punk, shoegaze, or just reviving the golden age of guitar bands.

This is "The World Drops Dead", their last job. A little time to hear loud and clear, whether you're skateboarding, or hanging around the city, you do not have a bad time with the guys.

The Velveteen Riot is Scottish quality as one of those good Scotches, but around here you can and should enjoy without moderation.



Q. When did Velveteen Riot start? Tell us about the history...
Morven and I (Beth) met when I was playing an acoustic gig in Mono in Glasgow, from then we decided to start a band and put up advertisements for bassists and drummers. Soon after this we found Max (bass) and John (drums). After our first time playing together we wrote around 3 full songs!

Q: Who are your influences?
We take influences from lots of different genres. We all share a real love for guitar music, in general. In particular, our sound is inspired by indie rock, garage, punk, grunge and shoegaze sounds...so it's a real mix!

Q. Make a list of 5 albuns of all time…
1. Meat Is Murder-The Smiths
2. Five Leaves Left-Nick Drake
3. Is This It-The Strokes
4. In The Aeroplane Over the Sea-Neutral Milk Hotel
5. Loveless-My Bloody Valentine

Q. How do you feel playing live?
Playing live is a strange but enjoyable experience. The lead up to gigs is always stressful but it always seems to fall into place once we start playing. We try to relax once we've made it to the stage and just enjoy ourselves



Q. How do you describe Velveteen Riot sounds?
I think we sound like a bit of everything. We like the concept of noise being contrasted with melodic and soft vocals. We also love writing good pop songs with real pop hooks and catchy riffs. I think that's what has captured people's attention to the songs

Q: Tell us about the process of recording the songs ?
We all share songwriting duties. A lot of the time John writes melodies and we all get together and it fits when we play. Other times Morven and I come up with sections of songs and we both share lyric writing. Max comes up with most of his bass lines too so it's a real collective effort between us all. John does all the recording and mixing to a high standard which is brilliant and makes recording an enjoyable process

When we record it's usually during the rehearsal, we do all the instruments there and then Beth does vocals at John's home studio, he then mixes and masters everything there.

Q: Which band would you love to made a cover version of?
We'd love to cover Abba at some point, we all love them and think it would be really fun. We'll definitely do it one day!

Q: What are your plans for the future?
We've been writing and recording lots of new songs so we'd love to record an album at some point soon, keep gigging and hopefully tour! - The blog that Celebrates itself

It’s no great secret that Scotland’s music scene is a thing to be proud of. So we here at TSA have teamed up with Scotland’s very own New Hellfire Club to bring you a monthly pick of who we think are doing epically well right now. Keep your eyes out for these up and coming bands. This is TSA and New Hellfire Club’s ‘Pick of the Month’.

Hi there guys and gals, it’s fantastic to finally get Velveteen Riot on the POTM, we have actually had you on our NHC radar as a big interview choice for some time now, so let’s get to it! Start us off then by telling us a bit about yourself and the history of the band.

We’re all from Glasgow, Morven and I (Beth) met in Mono when I was playing an acoustic gig for a Girls Rock Glasgow fundraiser. After speaking we soon put out ads for bassists and drummers. We then found Max (bass) and John (drums) a few weeks later.

We usually leave the ‘what’s in a name’ stuff until later in the interview, but this time I’m intrigued enough to ask pretty much right away, where did you get the name Velveteen Riot From?

We thought it would be cool play on the title of the classic children’s book The Velveteen Rabbit. However, we dropped the “The” after the poster for our first gig left it out by mistake because we thought it actually sounded better. So many bands have “the” in their name as well, we wanted something a bit different. We’re also big Velvet Underground fans, so we wanted something that nodded slightly towards them.

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As far as sounds go, your’s is pretty distinctive. Tell us a bit about that. Is the uniqueness something you just happened on after playing together for a while (and then rightly stuck with!), or is it something you actively sought out as you wrote the songs down?

We all have very individual, distinctive tastes musically, so our sound is really just a blend of that. Everyone in the band contributes to the overall sound, John writes a lot of the music for our songs, Morven and I share lyric writing duty and Max writes all the bass parts. It all just sort of happened as we played together.

Tell us about bands you love yourselves, I’m looking at more local level bands who you love playing gigs with, rather than huge stadium fillers! Is there any that the readers should also be on the lookout for, apart from yourselves of course!

Our good friends, the awesome riot grrrl duo Bratakus are definitely ones to watch! They’re so cool and always put on a good show. We also love Killer Bangs, Breakfast Muff and Joyce Delaney but the Glasgow music scene is so full and there’s loads of bands/artists I could mention but I’d be here all day!

Now we can go onto the stadium fillers! What band or musicians inspired you guys to get into music? Was it an actual well known act, or was it someone, or something, a little more intimate?

So many! Like I said before, collectively our music taste is so widespread and varied so this would also take all day. But some of our favourites are The Smiths, Sonic Youth, Joy Division, The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, The Strokes, The Killers, Television, Nirvana, Bikini Kill etc etc etc



Everyone knows our views on dodgy promoters and P2P shenanigans, have you guys ever encountered any of that in Glasgow when out gigging?

We are 100% against pay to play, and we have been approached by dodgy looking promoters before but we’ve always stayed well away! We have put on our own gigs in the past to avoid it.

The floor is now yours! What exciting things should we be looking out for with you guys, any new releases or big gigs on the way?

Well we have a new EP recorded, and we’re very excited! It’ll be released very soon! Our next gigs are an acoustic set in Glasgow’s Britannia Panopticon on the 8th October, and a fundraiser for there in the Classic Grand on the 19th November! - Student Advertiser