“Our greatest and most
resonant influence is
Leonard Nimmoy's 1974
magnum opus Outer
Space/Inner Mind LP.
That, and anything by
Sparks.”
Entertainment Editor Stacy Walsh
East Coast Defector are a fuzz-pop band outfit
based in Scotland between Glasgow,
Edinburgh And Fife. The band plan to release
their first proper single "The Loneliness Of
The Lightspeed Astronaut" in the next few
months and an album after that.
East Coast Defector have gigged with Duglas
T Stewart, Cuddly Shark & Chris Devotion
and The Expectations amongst others and they
have also featured at this year's Doune The
Rabbit Hole Festival. ECD also had one of
their demos played on the BBC 6 Introducing
Mixtape.
East Coast Defector are: Alan Clarke
(Vocals), Kevin McCollum (Guitar) Andrew
Clarke (Bass) and Albie Clark (Drums).
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Tell me how it all started for East Coast
Defector?
(Andrew) Try as he might, Alan realised he
couldn’t play all the instruments at the same
time, so he enlisted the help of friends and
family to build a full ECD line-up. The rest is
history…
(Albie) The first step was admission to Le
Sorbonne, Paris, France. Under the tutelage of
Jean-Michel Jarre I learnt paradiddles,
shopping-in-Lidl's, running-like-Eric-Liddles
(never on a Sunday, often on a Fife beach) and
how to skedaddle on a hefty bar bill. Four
years of blistered fingers, sheet music thrown
to the wind, 1000s of unfiltered Gitanes and
an unfortunate fancy dress incident involving
Toulouse Lautrec and Angus Young, my
elation at graduating with distinction was
swiftly tempered by my immediate expulsion
from France and a humbled ferry journey to
Stranraer via Zeebrugge. Sobering times.
Teenage stints in bands called amongst others
Suave Minge, Lothar, Drink Water, POON and
The Cresta Run followed before I answered an
Exchange & Mart advert placed by A. Clarke
(1, Singer/Songwriter) desperate to flog a 1981
Sunburst Datsun Cherry (with radio/cassette,
taxed for 4 months). Feeling flush, I purchased
the vehicle for £30. In the passenger footwell,
under a pile of Wagon Wheel wrappers, was a
C45 cassette filled with earnest pop songs and
a pink Post-It note with “DRUMMER
WANTED. MUST PLAY LOUD” on it. I
signed up immediately.
(Alan) I first started playing in bands at school
in Fife. The very first band I was in was called
Hossacks’s Cossack’s no less & we played
“Another Brick In The Wall” by Pink Floyd at
a school concert with an extremely extended
outro (approx... 20 minutes till double French).
It was sort of downhill from there. I then
played in a band called The Reaction which
didn’t play anything by Pink Floyd and later
The Blue Anoraks (an Edinburgh based Jimi
Hendrix cover band). After a stint as bassist
in Glasgow’s Strange That Way, I started
working on some of my own demo track.
Initially, under the moniker The Animal
Magic, then East Coast Defector (having
moved from Fife to Edinburgh then onto
Glasgow). Kevin climbed aboard the train over
a shared appreciation of The Beach Boys,
BMX Bandits and Jad Fair & Andrew (my
cousin) joined to play bass and model his
collection of excellent T-shirts. Whilst looking
for a drummer, I received a parcel from
France! Jean-Michel Jarre sent me a SECRET
message in the 30th anniversary live recording
of his classic work, Oxygène… If you play the
last track on the album backwards you can
clearly make out the words “Do not sign up le
drummer avec le petit bicycle hat as you will
get some nice band artwork/mugs but tinnitus
also. He is LOUD”. As I bought the CD rather
than vinyl, I never got this backwards message
unfortunately and the rest is minor Fife rock n
roll history.
Describe your sound
(Andrew) Pseudo electro garage pop rock (or
something like that…)
(Albie) Simplistically-speaking, East Coast
Defector is the sound of five hands clapping.
They may not clap each other, or even in time,
but they clap nonetheless. This is broadly our
experience at most gigs we have played.
(Alan) It’s elevator music for bungalow
dwellers. In the style of Heavy Methil.
So your tracks “The Loneliness of the
Lightspeed Astronaut” and “Hold On” are
available for fans to download on your
Badcamp page – can you tell me a bit about
the tracks?
(Andrew) Lightspeed is the brainchild of Alan
Clarke a prog-odyssey (or “progyssey”) telling
the story of a lone astronaut on an interstellar
mission. “Hold On” was a completely new one