Heaven or Las Vegas - The French Quarter Interview

Heralding from Tillicoultry here in Scotland, 'The French quarter' are releasing their latest E.P 'We're not French' next month. The band are also due to play at Stirling's Reloaded festival in August. Hammond caught up with band member Frank Murray to find out a little more ...

HOLV: Hi guys how are things?

FM: Hi Chris, things are ok, we played the 13th Note in Glasgow last night to virtually no people which is always nice.

HOLV: Tell our readers a bit about how the group came into being?

FM: The group began in November 2004 with Dan (Piano) and me - Frank (Guitar), writing instrumental songs in my bedroom, we used to record onto a Tascam 4 track.
Ryan (Bass) and Stuart (Drums) joined soon after, neither of them had played a note before joining the band.

FM: After about 6 months writing these instrumentals we decided we needed a vocalist, with no replies to the adverts posted I decided to teach myself how to sing.
Graham joined on Glockenspiel in November 2007.
We rehearse 5 nights a week in my garage which we converted into our own soundproof rehearsal space.

HOLV: You've got a new EP out at the moment can you tell our readers a little about it?

FM: We're self releasing our E.P on 15/9/08, it's called : "We're Not French".
The record was written in our rehearsal space between winter 06 and winter 07.
Andy Miller (Mogwai, My Latest Novel) produced the E.P at Chem19 in March 2008.
We want this release to act as a promotional tool to get higher profile gigs, hopefully gain some label interest and just to generally let people know we exist.

HOLV: Glasgow is seen as one of the best places for music in the world. When playing live is it really better than the likes of Edinburgh and Aberdeen? Coming from Tillicoultry do you have any preferences?

FM: It's hard to comment on playing Glasgow, we haven't done many high profile gigs there yet. Our best crowd reaction has always been in Aberdeen, we played there a couple of times with Crash My Model Car and more recently with De Rosa. People up there seem to like us so we're really keen to go back soon. We're playing different levels of gigs at the moment, we don't really have our own fanbase yet.

HOLV: If you could play live with any of your influences who would you choose to gig with?

FM: Joy Division / Mogwai / American Analog Set / The National / The Album Leaf, to play with any of these bands would be very cool!

HOLV: If you have one quarter French what nationalities would you like the other three quarters to be and why?

1. Scottish : Scotland has the best music scene in the world, alot of our favorite bands are from here, we're all proud to be Scottish.
2. American : Nice weather, nice girls, open roads, New York, lots of different cultures, The Simpsons, Wilco...
3. Japanese : Japanese, because Japan is the healthiest and most polite country in the world.

HOLV: You've got £10 to burn in your hometown where is the best place to get a pint?

FM: The Eagle do a nice pint of Guiness extra cold.

HOLV: Cheers and all the best