PAWS - An Interview and Review

Q: How long have you been playing together as a band and how did you all meet one another?

A: We have been playing together as PAWS for one year exactly as of January 2011! Myself (Phillip) and Josh met in the Highlands when Josh moved to my high school in Tain (North of Inverness) from Edinburgh. We gradually became friends and it became apparent that we both shared a great enthusiasm for punk rock. Matt was brought into our lives from Glasgow by a great friend of ours called Nick. We had all planned to start a band together, so we all met up at this Log Cabin up north in the freezing winter like 3 years ago to jam and write. We became a band called A Copenhagen Hope but it didn't really work out. But the whole thing was great and this wouldn't be what it is if it hadn't happened. We had never even met Matt before! It was like, the best Christmas present ever.

Q: Your live sound definitely seems to reflect Sonic Youth’s sound, are they an influence of yours? 
(If so) Which other bands do you find influence your sound? 
(If not) What bands do influence your sound? 

A: Well we all listen to a pretty vast selection of music between the three of us. But to be honest, we don't conciously try to sound like anything. We just play. Sure, we do like bands like Sonic. Aswell as other things like The Breeders, Sebadoh, Jim O Rourke, Big Black and Captain Beefheart. But I think they've influenced us in the sense that you can just be in a band and have fun, for no other reason than just that. The idea of actually just doing it for the sake of making your own music is the most inspirational thing from these bands I think.

Q: You’ve had the opportunity to play alongside some pretty big names, like No Age, Wavves and Dum Dum Girls. Those must have been exciting experiences? Has there been any bands who you’ve played alongside that you had been fans of before sharing a bill with them? 

A: I think pretty much all of them haha.
It's been pretty rad to play with these guys over the past six months or so because it's just been so much fun to like, get into a show for free that we definitely would have gone to anyway and then actually play at the show haha. So yeah it's been really exciting, but also pretty confusing haha. All the bands have been super awesome people too, which just makes it even better.

Q: Which of the Glasgow venues that you’ve had the opportunity to play have you enjoyed playing most? Are there any local venues that you would like to play that you haven’t?

A: Stereo has been really fun to play in. We've played there quite a few times and everyone is really nice there. Same goes for The Captains Rest, it's always loads of fun doings shows there. The Arches show with Wavves was great. Pretty much everywhere! We wanna play more house shows! Book us and we will play anywhere, really, see our myspace for more details on the list of exotic venues we wish to play haha

Q: What are Paws plans for the near future? You released a cassette tape not so long ago, is there likely to be more tapes?

A: PAWS are putting out an E.P at the the end of February. This is exciting as I feel it's just taken forever for the release to come around. Mr Bob Weston of Shellac is mastering the record too so that's been really exciting for us. But yeah, there will also be more tape releases in the post soon. They should be split releases with a couple of bands we really like so just keep your eyes peeled!

I guess the goal is to just keep doing what we've been doing so far and see where it takes us. Festivals would be nice aswell as maybe a bigger tour venture. Who knows....

Thank you!

WUV

PAWS 
xx

Paws Review

On Tuesday evening, Paws took to the stage of 13th Note in Merchant City supporting (fellow local band) Super Adventure Club. They open the set with a fairly long and catchy instrumental number ending with the front-man and guitarist exiting the room with his guitar, making their performance style stand out from the very start. After their second song, it is mentioned briefly that their EP is soon to be released and with a quick guitar change, the next song kicks off: energetic with a fun bass-line and a memorable chorus.

About half way into the set, the guitarist describes an incident where his guitar strap broke in the middle of a recent Radio One performance. A slightly different sound is adopted at a point later in the set as the bassist puts down his instrument for a slower number where he and the guitarist sing in unison: a very steep contrast to the song they then close their set with which was very chaotic with a noisy intro accompanied by scream-y vocals. Perhaps half-way through the song the guitarist kicks his second guitar away into the corner of the crowd and as he does so, breaks into wild jerking motions and exits the stage into the crowd where he then places the instrument he had been playing around the neck of an audience member: a memorable end to the set, leaving a lasting impression on the audience I’m sure.