This week's BotW is the Glasgow based Futuro. Three of the nicest men I have ever met. I know that’s not very rock & roll but what’s wrong with being nice? They are funny, intelligent and talented. They drove forty miles to see me so I wouldn’t get lost in Glasgow and even bought me a cup of coffee at our interview.
This three-piece rock band consists of: Frontman and music/lyric writing master Jon McKellan; his brother, Graeme McKellan, a Physics Teacher on bass and backing vocals; and life long friend Omar Kahn, a sound engineer and University Lecturer (professor) on drums. These guys are not your typical rock band – i.e. shagging and drinking their way around Britain and calling it a “tour.” I think it is safe to say the most rock & roll thing about these boys is Graeme looks suspiciously like Sting.
Jon, a sometime graphic designer, handles all design and PR with the help of his partner Lee. Omar, the sound engineer, ensures their production is of the highest quality. While Graeme makes sure everything obeys the laws of physics(?). Together they are a self sufficient rock band.
They're also nice to their fans. Giving their music away on their website and asking for only a donation. And it’s working! Of course the biggest reason it’s working is these guys are more than just nice, they’re very talented. Jon’s uncomplicated arrangements sum up all that is good about the Glasgow music scene.
Their music could easily be described as Franz Ferdinand (minus the pretentiousness) meets We Are Scientists and then have a threesome with Audioslave. They combine traditional pop-rock guitar riffs with short, spiky production, creating a very cutting edge sound. This alone wouldn’t be enough if they didn’t also have Jon’s unexpectedly deep, creamy, rich voice and short punchy songwriting which compliments their production style.
Graeme and Omar seem to have a symbiotic relationship when playing together, the effect being they sound like they are playing as one person. This creates a sound that is accomplished and effortless, very swish. And it's even more impressive when you find out Futuro have only been together (as Futuro) for six months!
I recently met Jon, Graeme, and Omar (the eye candy) at The World Café in Edinburgh’s City centre, where we had a nice long chat over a coffee.
So how long has Futuro been together?
Jon: Umm… well this band has been six months, but we’ve all been together in a band for five years.
What band were you in before?
Jon: Driver Down? (looks at me expectantly – I’ve never heard of them) They were kind of Trip-hop meets rock type thing.
Why did you leave Driver Down?
Jon: Well we done our last tour, about last summer wasn’t it? (looks at Graeme and Omar for confirmation)
Omar: Yeah last summer.
Jon: It was not bad but that was the biggest tour we’d done. We were on the road for like two weeks straight. And there was some good gigs and some big gigs but people still didn’t take to it. The album has been out for like a year and half and the record label still has like 500 copies left out of a thousand.
We decided to make one final push, and the label was all go and then the label pulled out. Like all of the sudden overnight just said “actually we aren’t going to do this anymore.” And we did one more gig in Glasgow and sold six tickets.
SIX?!
Jon: Yeah, six. Pathetic. And we realized that it’s over.
That is pathetic actually. (all laugh)
Jon: Yeah. And even friends who would always come to our gigs were getting bored with our music. We were going to re-brand. Change the name and the music but the new music just didn’t work. It just wouldn’t make sense for us to suddenly come out with a new album sort of thing. So in the end we decided to call it a day.
Omar: We took a few months off. Then a few months ago we loaded up all these old tracks. It was hilarious, how at the time you couldn’t see how bad it was.
What are you influences?
Graeme: We all grew up liking the same sort of music. Neil Young, Pearl Jam, that kind of Seattle thing, a grunge thing.
Jon: Rage Against The Machine
Graeme: Kind of heavy, Kind of lopsided, sort of Led Zeppelin, sort classics, sort of stuff like that. But that was kind of early on and then we sort of went off in our own directions.
Graeme: Acoustic Stuff. I like acoustic stuff.
Omar: I abhor acoustic stuff. Well I heard, like, one or two in my life that I thought “actually that’s not bad.” The New Thom Yorke stuff, I saw him do live and I like that kind of thing.
Jon: Unless you have really good songs it doesn’t really work.
Omar: Recently we’ve been inspired by Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand… that kind of thing. That old school sort of style.
Graeme: I don’t think our music is as arty as that. I think our music is more straight rock. Like the old kind of classic rock riffs that are there, hooks that are there. But we are using the modern production styles.
Jon: We’re not as sort of… we’re not quite as jangly or almost superficial.
Omar: Yeah. If you compared it to a Future Heads or a lot of the UK based stuff, acts, they’re a bit more… their stuff is a bit more arty. Our stuff is a bit more upbeat, a bit rockier in sound which is a bit more American in sound. But then you get the Scottish sort of twang, accent coming into the tracks. We end up sounding more like things like We Are Scientists. Like the American sort of stuff rather than the UK based stuff.
Graeme: I’ve been listening to the Police.
Is that because you look like Sting? (all laugh)
Graeme: Yeah…yeah. The Police and The Who.
How often do you practice?
Jon: Twice a week really. We are also having two or three gigs a week right now. We never play the one city more than once every five or six weeks. There are a lot of bands that will play Glasgow five times a month. That’s just crazy. Any potential crowd you're going to get is just going to be diluted over the five nights. Might as well just do one and get them all into one room.
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