One of Britain’s most influential and well-loved rock bands, Teenage Fanclub continue to defy rock & roll conventions through making increasingly lovely records on their own terms. Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley join Keith on The Art of Longevity, Season 4!
Finally, at the 4th attempt (previous hurdles courtesy the pesky pandemic), Scottish indie-rock legends Teenage Fanclub have hit the road again, touring the album Endless Arcade (now over one year old). The band’s many expectant fans will be thrilled of course, but there is something even more significant about the return to live performance of one of Britain’s most influential and well-loved rock bands. Maybe we are finally out of the woods, discerning listeners.
When Teenage Fanclub formed in 1989, times were unusual in music, and not in a good way. It was pre-grunge, pre-Britpop and the charts were still in the grip of mass-produced pop (much of it naff) as many 80s bands were struggling to remain relevant (Depeche Mode being the exception). Yet something was afoot across the musical axis of the Eastern Seaboard, Washington Seattle, and Glasgow. Maybe it was something to do with areas of high precipitation joining forces to rain on Stock, Aitken & Waterman’s parade. The peak of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Yo La Tengo, Jesus & Mary Chain, The Vaselines…and very much arriving at that time, The Fannies:
“When we first arrived there wasn’t really a scene, no context to speak of, we were working in a vacuum”.
They were at the very beginning of the resurgence of guitar music - the age of Creation Records and Oasis, Sub Pop and Nirvana - a decade of legend making stories in which you’ll find Teenage Fanclub playing a series of rather important cameos.
The band consider themselves lucky on several counts. For one, they have never had a hit, no big signature song. And therefore, no albatross. From their earliest days, once they’d made an album, A Catholic Education, they felt as if they’d already made it - having created an album on their own terms - no label and no strings attached.
How indie can you get?
Except of course, the band had a good run with major labels, first with Geffen in the USA and then later with Columbia Records, after Sony Music had acquired most of Creation. Given their huge influence and reverence among their rock & roll peers, it’s easy to ponder could/should/would Teenage Fanclub have been so much bigger, commercially speaking.
“We did okay, just not compared to the likes of Nirvana”.
But Teenage Fanclub never succumbed to music industry cliches. No massive rise to superstardom? No problem:“We weren’t disappointed because we weren’t planning to be the biggest band in the world. We’re better off being thought of as underachievers”.
And so no big dramas, no drug-fuelled implosions - not even much in the way of musical differences (though founding member and principal songwriter Gerrad Love departed pre the making of new album Endless Arcade). Other than that, the band is tantrum-free and as friendly as they were from the very beginning.
Indeed, the essence of Teenage Fanclub can’t be easily captured by lazy narratives about commercial or creative peaks, as such. Although they’ve made a trio of fine rock & roll albums in Bandwagonesque, Grand Prix and Songs From Northern Britain, the band has found equilibrium since 2005’s Man Made - making consistently excellent albums every five years since, self-funded and always critically lauded:
“We're not trying to pretend to be the band we were in 1989, but we have the same intentions, we still feel as excited about it as we ever did”. It’s only a band. It’s just what we do”.
Now that’s a way to achieve longevity.