SONS & DAUGHTERS
The SiS Interview by Miriam Lamey

Earlier this year, Sons and Daughters released the feisty new album This Gift and followed up with a US tour. Prior to their gig in Boston, at the Middle East, drummer David Gow and guitarist Scott Paterson sat down to candidly chat with Stranded in Stereo about their new release, a fresh sound and the Glasgow music scene.

Good things happen in threes, so the old proverb goes. And this seems to ring true for Sons and Daughters’ third release, This Gift: possibly their most professional, well-rounded piece yet. Perhaps the band unconsciously followed the aged saying, or maybe the group simply tried new songwriting techniques. Either way, band members David Gow (drums) and Scott Paterson (guitar) are equally excited about this album. What’s the mystery behind the lads’ enthusiasm? It’s Sons and Daughters sonically changed direction.

“We really kind of wanted death and gloom when we first came back off the last bunch of touring,” Gow explains. “We toyed with the idea of doing this super kind of doom rock EP and then pretty quickly we kind of got bored with that idea because the songs we were coming up with were bright and chirpy. I think we did want to… make a brighter, poppier record because the last one was kind of intense.” He concludes, “[With This Gift] we wanted to get a little bit more melodic and just progress the songwriting.”

Although This Gift may be “poppier” than Sons and Daughters’ previous releases, Love the Cup and The Repulsion Box, Paterson feels that the end result was still a bit of a surprise. “I don’t think you really know what kind of mood [an album’s] going to have until you’ve been in the studio with the producer.” He jokes, “it’s kind of like having a baby or something because you’ve got all the little genes, which are like all the songs, but you don’t know what the fuck it’s going to look like, until it’s born, you know? And you’re like, “ah, it’s got blue eyes!” or whatever. It’s kind of like that.”

However, the band didn’t enter the studio and simply write all songs on the spot. In fact, Sons and Daughters had more than ample time to work with the music and their producer, Bernard Butler. This was a luxury for the band, as Gow remembers, “basically we had ten days to write [The Repulsion Box], and ten days to record it and then ten days to mix it. And we did pretty good for the time we had…that was an interesting experiment itself.” He finishes, “this time around, we knew that we were going to take a lot time off, spend a lot of time writing and… just really get focused on reevaluating what we were.”

Similarly, Paterson also enjoyed a more relaxed environment in which to write, record and experiment with the newer material. “I kind of like living with the songs a bit more before recording them,” he explains. He believes this really allowed the band to express their creativity and push their music in a variety of directions. Paterson continues, “A lot of these [new] songs had about four or five different versions [for example] with “The Nest,” I think we had about four different ways we played that. There was a real fast way, then a real Motown [version] that’s on the record, and then kind of a crunk version. There’s [still] a funky rock vibe – it’s weird. We had enough time to try these different things and find which one was right for the record.”

Each member of Sons and Daughters brings a personal touch to the songwriting process and this helped the band experiment and generate different moods and sounds. All band members managed to pool their individual tastes and interests to produce the tracks on This Gift.. Gow observes, “when you get four people together who are all away listening to different stuff – there’s kind of a cross-polination in the middle of all our music tastes.” Paterson further explains, “if Ailidh’s been listening to Besty Collins there’ll be some kind of funk and some kind of laid-back basslines, or if I’ve been watching maybe a David Lynch movie, there’s all these twangy surfy guitars and if Adele’s been reading Sylvia Plath it will be more morose.” Bringing a range of influences to the music helps, rather than hinders Sons and Daughters’ creativity and gives them their own voice, something that’s essential for a band trying to become prominent in the competitive Glasgow music scene.

According to Gow, “there are no two bands alike from Scotland” and “that’s the thing that makes the Scottish music community different from everything else in the UK and maybe the world.” Current bands to watch seem to be The Twilight Sad, Frightened Rabbit and Glasvegas among others, and Paterson comments that “everyone’s unique…there are only so many places you can go in Glasgow for music.”

He jokingly concludes, “if you go to the bar, it’s just too embarrassing to meet someone if you’re ripping them off, so you’ve got to find your own sound.” And with This Gift, Sons and Daughters feel confident about their own sound and persona; the spark that makes them stand out from their contemporaries. Ultimately Gow feels that This Gift presents a “good kind of intelligent pop music.” He smiles and muses, “there’s a whole world of storytelling in it.”