Words and photos by Anna Battista
A few lucky Trashcans fans already heard some of the songs included in “Weightlifting” during a 2001 gig that took place in Glasgow. More gigs followed last year and in 2004, first in March when the band appeared at the South By Southwest music industry festival in Austin, Texas, and later in June when they were invited by Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch to support their open air gig at Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens. A few months after, and precisely on 5th of November, the Trashcan Sinatras came back to Glasgow, to play a gig at a local venue, the Cottier Theatre. In that occasion (but also during the American tour), Glasgow based singer and songwriter Roddy Hart gave a hand to the Trashcans playing the keyboards and the guitar, “A while back we decided we wanted to evolve a little bit and as first thing we thought about having a keyboard player,” Reader says, “then we thought we wanted another guitarist, because I sometimes play acoustic guitar, though I’m not very good at it, but when I play live I can’t rely on it because I get carried away. So we got Roddy to join us and so far it has been good.” I ask Reader if he enjoyed the show at the Cottier Theatre, “At the beginning I thought it wasn’t going down too well,” he replies, “I was a bit nervous just because we were playing in Glasgow. It is hard to treat it like any other show because it’s your hometown and all your family and friends are there.” I wonder if he heard a guy shouting “Taxi for Reader!” during the gig, “That was actually one of our biggest fans,” Reader explains me, “he came backstage after the gig to apologise. He is from Birmingham and he has a tuk tuk, a Chinese rickshaw kind of thing, and wants to advertise us on this tuk tuk all over in Birmingham. Anyway, he’s just one of these guys who gets drunk and shouts things at the band on stage. That’s the way it tends to be in Glasgow, it happens especially for Glasgow bands. I’ve seen this happening also at a Blue Nile gig. There is a certain school of thought that says you should shout abuses at the band when you like them. It’s a very strange thing that happens in Glasgow: if you like the band you shout abuses at them as an affectionate thing, it’s a sign you are having a good time.”
There are plans for the band to go back to America during the first week of December for a radio stations tour, in the meantime Reader says he’s quite happy about how things are going with the band, “The main problem we had before was that we weren’t communicating much with each other. Now we are a lot closer than we used to be. John has also become part of my family and therefore John’s brother, Stephen, has become part of my family too. So we have to accept we will be together in some way probably forever. We have actually learnt to accept each other and I think now we are a bit nicer to each other as well. In our band there are four songwriters, so everybody’s opinion has got to be accommodated, has got to be respected and dealt with. Everything has got to work in a chemical way, but with us it’s not easy all the time as we are not in agreement all the time.” So were there any quarrels during the recording of Weightlifting? “Of course,“ he nods, smiling, “there were plenty arguments!” At present Reader is planning to write new songs in the next few weeks, “I’m thinking about what kind of record we are going to make next, I’m not sure what it will sound like, but I’m really fed up with Aztec Camera comparisons and I’d like to get away from that. Our first album was a bit reminiscent of ‘High Land, High Rain’ and I know I might sound a bit like Roddy Frame, because I have a youngish voice, but I can’t see more comparisons beyond these. I loved ‘High Land, High Rain’, but I do not like any of the other Aztec Camera records at all, because I think they are quite polished and they’re nothing like what we do at all. The rest of the band gets quite annoyed about being compared with Aztec Camera, also because Paul doesn’t like them at all. I think it’s a bit lazy, but that’s the way many journalists tend to work. They might have ten reviews to write and want to have it done really quickly, so they go ‘oh yes, Trashcan Sinatras, they sound like Aztec Camera’ and that’s another review done.”
Apart from the December American radio stations tour, the future seems to be quite uncertain for the Trashcans, Reader says there are no huge plans for them at all, but there is one thing he wishes it will happen, “It would be good for us if the record would sell enough to allow us to play, travel, meet people and do the things that make life a little interesting,” he states. Now that many weights have been lifted from the Trashcan Sinatras’ career, now that they are older and a little bit wiser and have found new inspirations, freedom and independence, Frank Reader’s wishes will be more likely to become true.