A Penny (or 3) For Your Thoughts?
Secretary Luke Reynolds sits down for a chat with local wizards, A Mean Green 3p Slot Machine, oof, quite a mouthful.
On the 27th of May 2024 I met up with some of the members of A (Mean Green) 3p Slot Machine [3p] to talk about them, their music and the state of the Edinburgh scene. They are a perfect candidate for an interview with a local artist, not only are they technically and musically brilliant, they also represent an emerging psych scene in a post-punk and alt-rock dominated Edinburgh. With a myriad of recent shows, notably Stag and Dagger day festival, plenty of slots at Sneaky Pete’s and an upcoming King Tut’s debut, 3p are becoming a force in the local scene.
When talking to me about the local Psych scene, frontman and guitarist Gordon McGruer said “its an exciting time … as we’ve played more gigs we’ve found more bands like us”. Their first gig was in Bannerman’s, supporting a metal band, and much of their early shows were alongside garage rockers and now, they are finally finding their niche. Key to this has been Curiosity Shop, a group which shares members with 3p, who are aiming to build up more of a scene in Edinburgh and match 3p’s recent “folk leanings”. The Psych scene is already present according to Drummer Duncan Biggar, who refused their role as a unique element in the scene, saying “its not like these bands aren’t around … I really think they just appear to you once you start getting into it, [I’d recommend] bands like Dinosaur 94 and Bütter”. The real issue with the presence of Psych in Edinburgh comes down to labelling. Indeed, Gordon told me that “Psych is a term that can be slapped on anything and so two “psych” bands can sound nothing alike”. This labelling issue may be hurting Psych in the UK where events such as Edinburgh Psychfest have a line up which highlights metal groups like Pigs X7 and the punky post-brexit rock scene (O. or HotWax) due to how wide Psych is. Although, this is no bad thing and, as 3p said, psych influence is so broad it can contain metal and punk groups as well as folkier groups like themselves. Nevertheless, it does make it overall harder to create a defined psych scene due to how blurred the lines are in the genre.
After some time discussing our favourites from the psych scene broadly, like Australia’s King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard and unique bands like Surprise Chef, we moved on to Edinburgh more generally. Principally, we talked about why it stays in the shadow of Glasgow and more broadly why London dominates the UK music sphere. Bassist Linus Sheaff proposing that “there’s a shortage of venues, a real shortage of venues, how many gigs have we done at Sneakys now?” - four in the last few months is the answer - “If we wanna go bigger there’s nowhere between here and something way too big for us”. Indeed, Duncan confirmed that “it’s the (lack of) mid-sized venues, there’s so few compared to Glasgow - they all just get shut down in Edinburgh, even just now the Jazz Bar’s gone”. Luckily, the Edinburgh scene has been afforded some good news as the Jazz Bar is returning in a slightly new form and under new leadership but maintaining the same concept. The same cannot be said for Summerhall, which is a real cornerstone of live music in Edinburgh. Sadly, speculations into its future as an arts venue have begun and rumours of property development and more inaccessible and unaffordable flats are growing. Losing Summerhall would be a real shame for the scene, especially as their Old Lab venue is the perfect size for growing local bands like 3p.
It's not all doom and gloom for new bands in Edinburgh though! 3p, mirroring Young Fathers, could not overstate the importance of Sneaky Pete’s. Furthermore, they had nothing but praise for Bannerman’s which they strongly recommended as a venue to apply to for gigs early on in a bands development. If there was one thing in Edinburgh which the band had praise for though, it would be Sneaky Pete’s sound tech, Gordon. According to 3p’s frontman, his namesake “seems like a man from the future. He looks like me, he’s got the same missing tooth as me, he dresses like me, but he’s just a bit older. He’s come back from the future to hype me up in a Back to the Future Marty McFly type of thing; he’s come to cement our career.”
Throughout our interview it became apparent that, for a local band, A (Mean Green) 3p Slot Machine is unique in the experience and musicianship present and, as such, investigating their older projects was important to see how they got here. Gordon discussed his old outfit Red Heron, who played gigs in Camden’s Dublin Castle and released an impressive self-titled album in November 2022. According to McGruer: “Red Heron was a band that I started when I was 10 or 11 which went from Red Hot Chilli Peppers covers, to Radiohead covers to finally writing our own material. It’s nice to look back on that, it’s some of the first songs I wrote, but I look at it as more immature and a bit more obvious when it comes to what I was listening to and generally into at that time – it was more energetic and rockier too”. Duncan is part of Curiosity Shop, alongside 3p bandmate Yann McAuley. Like Gordon had discussed with Red Heron, energy was the principle difference between 3p and Curiosity Shop, “Curiosity Shop never gets to a point in the set where you’re just letting loose and flailing your limbs like you can do with 3p. Maybe one of the reasons Psych gets put on bands is because it is what you call a rock band that takes influences from everywhere. A lot of bands that take influence from jazz or African music or other music from around the world they just call it Psych. So 3p is different because they really take influence from everywhere”. Contrastingly, Curiosity Shop remains within folk as a genre, whereas A (Mean Green) 3p Slot Machine really goes everywhere and anywhere genre wise.
The band has undergone quite a lot of creative changes recently, and it was hard not to wonder how this affected their creative process. Their process seems to be as follows. Typically, Gordon will write a guitar part and vocals, and occasionally a bassline, and then they work out the song together as a band. A major change has been the departure of drummer James Kealy, a member of Glasgow’s Alt-Rock band One Nine Eight, and Duncan Biggar coming in to replace him on the tubs. For bassist Linus this has been a major and positive shift, as it moved them out of rock, “I’m really not rocky, I’m not from a rock background at all. Growing up I played Jazz and Funk so as a rhythm section I find it easy to relate to Duncan (due to his myriad of influences outside of rock). It’s really nice. It feels great!”. This new feel has also affected how Gordon writes his guitar parts, “For me it’s interesting because I have to hold back, even on acoustic, it’s really fun and more rhythmic”. Duncan’s fresh take and unique elements of influence was clear when he told me about his favourite drum part he had written.
“The drum part on Orange - the verse groove - is really nice. I wrote it and I just really really hoped Gordon said yes to it. I play a lot of samba music and there’s this rhythm in the northeast of Brazil called Maracatu and I sort of adapted a Maracatu ensemble sound, using the floor tom as the big drums and the snare as the caixa to make this little groove for the verse. I think it’s my magnum opus. I didn’t hear it was Maracatu when I was playing it, and I was thinking ‘this is fucking sick I’ve just invented something amazing’ and then I was like ‘oh wait these guys have been playing this in Brazil for 200 years’ .” - Duncan
It seemed the band had changed their music quite significantly, and this was obvious particularly from how Amit Brandhuber, who has changed instrument from an electric guitar to a lap steel, discussed how he saw the band. This was principally a textural change, in part caused by Gordon's move from electric to acoustic guitar but also a general move from rockier to folkier tunes. Balance is vital to the five piece, and so because Gordon often provides busy finger picking lines that take up a lot of space, Amit has created a role for himself which he coined as textural guitar, which first saw him play slide guitar and now a lap steel. Amit also praised fellow band mate Yann McAuley for his textural importance as the
multi-instrumentalist creating soundscapes which are what truly elevates the band in his eyes. When discussing his point of view as a musician he said:
“I’m not all that interested when someone plays technically, for me it’s all about the sound ( of the whole ensemble), and how its produced. It’s the textural choices that really matter. Music is almost just sort of copying with variation and creating new ideas – even when separately those ideas have been done before. A sound is great for that, you can play something in the context of a new sound. It just sounds so different and it makes people feel differently. For me that is my main interest.” – Amit
This love of texture and sound has made the band really excited to record, because it grants them “another level of textural control” (Gordon). They plan on professionally recording the tracks from their demo tape and adding a few new ones too. The original tape is nothing to scoff at though, and is what Duncan light-heartedly refers to as “fancy demos”. Considering the four tracks - which make up half an hour's total play time - were recorded over just two days, and the core of the songs done in just a few hours, they hold up amazingly well. More impressively, Gordon mixed the whole thing in one night, “at the time I was in student accommodation, and I was really surprised my neighbour didn’t complain about the noise. But Snapchat had deleted itself from my phone. He didn’t knock at the time, but it turns out he had an exam the next day and he was so pissed off at me because I was just blasting these tunes while I mixed them”. This new project should be out in the next few months and for the band it is a nice opportunity to archive the work that represents their older and rockier sound, immortalising this part of their writing whilst allowing them to work on their newer softer work. This recorded work may be mastered to tape, something Gordon did with Red Heron, but will definitely have a more lofi, tape-esque texture. Generally, the band adores the work from the golden age of recording in the 60s and 70s, because – according to Linus – “those older recordings sound like a band instead of a series of individual tracks”.
For a band that is clearly thoughtful, when it comes to the scene they are in and the sound they embody, they manage to skirt around the pretentiousness this level of consideration can come with. This is, in part, thanks to their fantastic aesthetic direction, which is predominantly done by Gordon himself. As these posters show they are stunning pieces of art, but also lean into the absurd. Furthermore, their recent press shots show them in front of a public loo and their lyrics speak of the importance of Lidl and the joys of a nice Chickpea dish – in a coriander glaze. This is more than just an attempt to avoid accusations of pretentiousness though. It is an active decision to help avoid one of arts greatest enemies: perfectionism. This humour reminds them that really the whole point of it is to have fun, and by staying lighthearted the band agree it produces their best work.
Finally, they were asked a question which many unsuspecting artists will have to face, and a tough one to answer. Is A (Mean Green) 3p Slot Machine important to music? This was instantly met by a loud “Nahhhhh” by Duncan. After a bit more laughing the band concluded this:
“Depends what you define importance as, if I go and see a band and I am inspired by it then the scale doesn’t matter. Promoting inspiration that’s what’s important. It’s about making people have fun, making people dance!” – Duncan
Personally, I think 3p Slot Machine does more than just inspire people to have fun. As a creative myself they make me think and consider where I’m going creatively due to their obvious awareness of their sound and aesthetics. Their awareness and how this creates purpose is something I find deeply enviable, but hopefully it will bring them much deserved success and growth in the scene.
