Pure M Magazine ISSUE 5 | Page 14

“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). 14 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