Ross McNae - Twin Atlantic (11/12/2014)
Ross McNae, bassist for Twin Atlantic, is a bloody lovely bloke. He recently took time out of getting some sleep – and with a spectacular Glaswegian accent - to chat The 59th Sound about his band’s impending tour with Soundwave festival this coming Australian summer.
“I tell you right now, it’s one thirty AM, we just left Berlin, we’re in the tour bus on to Warsaw Poland, and I still couldn’t be any happier to be speaking to you, man. We’ve been coming here for a few years now, and tonight’s show was really good, man. It was like… yeah, it was great. It’s just exciting getting to travel round and play all this music. Shows are selling out, and the band seems to be reaching more people. I feel like I should touch wood, or something (laughs)”.
Australia is neither close, nor inexpensive. Ross elaborates, as so many bands can, on the sometimes lofty task of touring to our distant shores.
“We’ve been meaning to get there for a while, but as you say, it’s not necessarily the easiest thing to get over (there). Now we’ve had an offer to play a festival, it’s like, right there! It’s a reality. We’ve had quite a few people over the last few years asking us to come. It’s just exciting like I said, to come play our music.”
Ross’ place in the band isn’t dictated entirely by the bass guitar. He’s a well-rounded musician that also kills it on the keys. A detriment, perhaps, to only having two hands on stage.
“What we always do, especially on this new record, is just put everything we want on the songs and then once we’re finished and we hear the whole thing, then we worry about how we’re going to play it. A couple of times on this new record I’ve felt like ‘This is definitely the time to play the piano’, so live there’s a song I’m playing the organ on, and a song I’m playing piano on. Apart from that I’m sticking to playing bass, and now and again somebody will show me to play a few bits and bobs, and the songs I play piano on we’ve one of our friends playing bass, which is lucky as well.”
“It’s just something different to do live, man! It just makes things exciting, doesn’t it? I started playing piano like, it was the first thing I played when I was young. Then from that I went to playing the guitar and piano, but the band basically needed a bass player if I’m being honest with you! Me and (front man) Sam started the band quite a while ago - maybe 2007 – he was just wanting to play the guitar, and I’d been playing for a while. He was just basically ‘I’ve got these songs I want to play’, and I was up for playing the bass. I’m always up fro just trying to learn a new instrument, playing any kind of musical instrument. That’s kind of how that came about.”
“I’ve not really looked back from it! It’s kind of, there’s a certain weightiness to the bass I never really realized until I started playing in this band. It’s kind of a power you don’t get from any other instrument I’ve ever played before. It’s an interesting, different kind of place to come from for music. Any music, any instrument, I’m up for trying anything.”
Irish producing behemoth Jacknife Lee helped produce half of TA’s latest album, Great Divide. It’s a lofty album credit certainly not lost on Ross and his band mates.
“Half the record was done by (Jacknife), and the other was done by a man named Gil Norton. We’d been mucking around, actually we’d done our last record with Gil Norton and he’d done The Colour And The Shape by The Foo Fighters, and …Patience and Grace by The Foo Fighters. He’s done Pixies records, albums we’d loved growing up, so it was a no brainer to work with him. We wanted to work with him again, it seemed like the obvious ting, but we didn’t want to bog down and do the same thing as our last record. We wanted to make it something special.”
“Basically our label asked who’d we like to work with, and we thought somebody we really look up to as a band, and like a lot of the records he’s made, and it was Jacknife. (Our label) was just like ‘Okay, we’ll talk to him’. So they talked to him, and yeah, he was really in to it! It was really like surreal, like, another really painless thing. We’re kind of spoilt as, man. At the moment it seems to be we think of something in our heads, and then it happens. It’s like, we’re mad! I don’t know what’s going on (chuckles).”
Twin Atlantic are one of the few bands who have managed to get on the bill of Reading and Leeds three times. No small feat for such a conversely young band when compared to various musical titans that share such an acclaim.
“Man, festivals are, like, so exciting. It’s such a different thing to playing your own show, but it’ where you can really see – especially because we’ve had a new record come out – it’s just exciting to see new faces and new people, and see the numbers grow. It’s just more of a party atmosphere. Our band’s built on being a live band, and putting on as good a show as we can for people. It’s kind of what we love about music!”
“It’s going to be amazing to come to Soundwave, man. We’ve wanted to come for such a long time, and yeah, just all of a sudden it’s happening!”
Catch Twin Atlantic coming across the Pacific to play Soundwave 2015
Todd Gingell
SOUNDWAVE 2015
SATURDAY 21 & SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY - ADELAIDE
SATURDAY 21 & SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY - MELBOURNE
SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY & SUNDAY 1 MARCH - SYDNEY
SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY & SUNDAY 1 MARCH – BRISBANE
“I tell you right now, it’s one thirty AM, we just left Berlin, we’re in the tour bus on to Warsaw Poland, and I still couldn’t be any happier to be speaking to you, man. We’ve been coming here for a few years now, and tonight’s show was really good, man. It was like… yeah, it was great. It’s just exciting getting to travel round and play all this music. Shows are selling out, and the band seems to be reaching more people. I feel like I should touch wood, or something (laughs)”.
Australia is neither close, nor inexpensive. Ross elaborates, as so many bands can, on the sometimes lofty task of touring to our distant shores.
“We’ve been meaning to get there for a while, but as you say, it’s not necessarily the easiest thing to get over (there). Now we’ve had an offer to play a festival, it’s like, right there! It’s a reality. We’ve had quite a few people over the last few years asking us to come. It’s just exciting like I said, to come play our music.”
Ross’ place in the band isn’t dictated entirely by the bass guitar. He’s a well-rounded musician that also kills it on the keys. A detriment, perhaps, to only having two hands on stage.
“What we always do, especially on this new record, is just put everything we want on the songs and then once we’re finished and we hear the whole thing, then we worry about how we’re going to play it. A couple of times on this new record I’ve felt like ‘This is definitely the time to play the piano’, so live there’s a song I’m playing the organ on, and a song I’m playing piano on. Apart from that I’m sticking to playing bass, and now and again somebody will show me to play a few bits and bobs, and the songs I play piano on we’ve one of our friends playing bass, which is lucky as well.”
“It’s just something different to do live, man! It just makes things exciting, doesn’t it? I started playing piano like, it was the first thing I played when I was young. Then from that I went to playing the guitar and piano, but the band basically needed a bass player if I’m being honest with you! Me and (front man) Sam started the band quite a while ago - maybe 2007 – he was just wanting to play the guitar, and I’d been playing for a while. He was just basically ‘I’ve got these songs I want to play’, and I was up for playing the bass. I’m always up fro just trying to learn a new instrument, playing any kind of musical instrument. That’s kind of how that came about.”
“I’ve not really looked back from it! It’s kind of, there’s a certain weightiness to the bass I never really realized until I started playing in this band. It’s kind of a power you don’t get from any other instrument I’ve ever played before. It’s an interesting, different kind of place to come from for music. Any music, any instrument, I’m up for trying anything.”
Irish producing behemoth Jacknife Lee helped produce half of TA’s latest album, Great Divide. It’s a lofty album credit certainly not lost on Ross and his band mates.
“Half the record was done by (Jacknife), and the other was done by a man named Gil Norton. We’d been mucking around, actually we’d done our last record with Gil Norton and he’d done The Colour And The Shape by The Foo Fighters, and …Patience and Grace by The Foo Fighters. He’s done Pixies records, albums we’d loved growing up, so it was a no brainer to work with him. We wanted to work with him again, it seemed like the obvious ting, but we didn’t want to bog down and do the same thing as our last record. We wanted to make it something special.”
“Basically our label asked who’d we like to work with, and we thought somebody we really look up to as a band, and like a lot of the records he’s made, and it was Jacknife. (Our label) was just like ‘Okay, we’ll talk to him’. So they talked to him, and yeah, he was really in to it! It was really like surreal, like, another really painless thing. We’re kind of spoilt as, man. At the moment it seems to be we think of something in our heads, and then it happens. It’s like, we’re mad! I don’t know what’s going on (chuckles).”
Twin Atlantic are one of the few bands who have managed to get on the bill of Reading and Leeds three times. No small feat for such a conversely young band when compared to various musical titans that share such an acclaim.
“Man, festivals are, like, so exciting. It’s such a different thing to playing your own show, but it’ where you can really see – especially because we’ve had a new record come out – it’s just exciting to see new faces and new people, and see the numbers grow. It’s just more of a party atmosphere. Our band’s built on being a live band, and putting on as good a show as we can for people. It’s kind of what we love about music!”
“It’s going to be amazing to come to Soundwave, man. We’ve wanted to come for such a long time, and yeah, just all of a sudden it’s happening!”
Catch Twin Atlantic coming across the Pacific to play Soundwave 2015
Todd Gingell
SOUNDWAVE 2015
SATURDAY 21 & SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY - ADELAIDE
SATURDAY 21 & SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY - MELBOURNE
SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY & SUNDAY 1 MARCH - SYDNEY
SATURDAY 28 FEBRUARY & SUNDAY 1 MARCH – BRISBANE