Exclusive:Interview: Peter Capaldi on seeing Simple Minds at the Mars Bar and the sound of Glasgow in the early 1980s
Peter Capaldi tells us how his new album is inspired by Glasgow in the early 80s and shares memories of growing up in the city.
As a man who is familiar with alternative timelines from his previous work in Doctor Who, I asked Peter Capaldi if there could have been a version of his life where he was an art student in the early eighties, sitting drinking a Brandy Alexander in Nico’s, and he could have been approached to sign a record deal. It’s well documented that Peter was in a band while he was at the Glasgow Art School - he talked about it while on Craig Ferguson’s talk show, who had been the drummer in the group. I was keen to find out if that was a real attempt at pop stardom or just some fun, youthful posturing.
Glasgow was alive with musical talent at the start of the 1980s. A new generation was finding its voice. Bar staff from the Rock Garden, waitresses from Spaghetti Factory and Ubiquitous Chip were ending up on Top of the Pops. Could Peter Capaldi have been in the right place at the right time and seen his career take off in a rock band direction?
“Well, obviously we weren't in the right place at the right time”, he cackles at the thought. “It wasn't for want of trying, but that never really worked out for us. But we would've loved something like that to happen. And yes, of course, that was very much what the vibe was on the scene, it really was.
“People would be knocking about Great Western Road dressed as baby goths and then the next week they'd be signed and then the next month they'd be on Top of the Pops or whatever. So it seemed quite possible for all these things to happen, but sadly it didn't happen to us.”
Early work in theatre in Glasgow and some writing led to more acting. Then, in 1983, Bill Forsyth cast Peter in his film Local Hero and that accelerated things along a different path: “It was such a great accident. A great piece of fate plucking me out of hanging about the Amphora or the Mars Bar or the College of Building and Technology Bar. Going into this other world that I was also very, very interested in.
“I thought, well, I've got to go with this. So I stopped pursuing actually being a signed up pop person. There were a few kind of residual things that happened. I was always sort of half in bands and half out, there are lots of recordings of bits and pieces. Things that we did and various studios that never went anywhere.
“But I think my heart had gone out of it really, and I just wanted to get on with acting, which was kind happening for me. But that was quite terrifying as well. I didn't really know how to do that. Here we are.”
Here we are indeed. At the age of 66, Peter Capaldi releases his second album this month. His place in the pop culture lexicon as one of Scotland’s great acting talents is secure thanks to roles in Local Hero, The Thick of It, The Crow Road, Doctor Who, Benediction and the Paddington movies. He won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film in 1995 for his short comedy Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life. In recent years, he’s been in a great run of form with television shows The Devil’s Hour and Criminal Record. Black Mirror is next.
He has been returning to his music roots for the last five years. We’re delving back into Glasgow in the 1980s because Peter sees his two albums as emerging from his time in art school, a continuation of the writing he began then. “Really what I was doing was picking up where I left off 40 years ago when I was an art student in a band and when Simple Minds and all that were knocking about and Strawberry Switchblade and Altered Images.
“Glasgow was a bit of a happening place. Glasgow was always quite cinematic and quite dramatic, it suited that role. So I'm unashamedly nostalgic for that period. And I think a lot of the songs and the sounds of the synths would fit into that period quite well.”
It was a time when young people were in a post punk era where it seemed like you could pick up a guitar and make things happen. “It was just a case of that's what you did. You could be in a band if you had a guitar and get a drummer and you could just have a go. I saw Simple Minds in the Mars Bar. I was like, “what?” I was like, “how could people from Glasgow do that?” Well, they can. And they were amazing. And it was that squashed wee sweaty bar and Jim was there with his pudding haircut, his Shakespearean haircut, and it was just great.
“I thought, well, I want to be part of all this, it looks fun, but of course it's not. You have to work hard. They worked incredibly hard and you have got to get lucky as well. We did our best, but it never really happened for us. But I always had an interest in music, but we got kind of tired and punch-drunk really from constantly trying and not getting anywhere.”
We talk a bit about growing up in Glasgow: “I grew up on Keppochhill Road in Springburn and then my family moved to Bishopbriggs and I went with them. I found being brought up in Springburn was brilliant. I absolutely loved it. I mean, all my aunties and uncles lived in the same block or behind us. Both my grannies - my dad's mother lived down the stairs and mother's mother lived across the road. I think I caught the tail end of that kind of tenement culture. But it was great.”
I ask if he had ever talked to Armando Iannucci, writer of The Thick of It, about the fact that, although they didn’t know each other from Glasgow, they both had a family connection to Springburn and then ended up making a series together years later that became so important for both of them.
Peter tells me that when he mentioned he was working with a writer called Armando Iannucci, his mum said: “I know Armando, he built that cupboard in our scullery in Keppochhill Road. And she meant Armando's dad, I think they ended up doing pizzas, but he used to do a bit of carpentry on the side.
“Armando told me a story, which I knew from family legend and lore. My family were all ice cream men. The day off was a Wednesday and they'd go to Cawder Golf Club, which was very glamorous, but sometimes they'd go to Loch Lomond. Somebody had a boat, I don’t know who it was. All my uncles were all on the boat with Armando's dad and the boat sank. It was also family legend in Armando's family. So he filled me in on details of that. It's amazing.”
On growing up in Springburn, Peter says: “It was like a place where I imagined the Marx Brothers might be brought up, something like that. My father and his brothers, they all played musical instruments, it was like we lived our own party band. We'd all get together.
“But then obviously, the tenements began to get demolished and people began to move out. They moved to Bishopbriggs, going into new wee Wimpey homes, which was quite boring for a teen compared to Springburn.”
Going to the art school brought some excitement and opportunity for reinvention: “I had actually tried to go to drama school before that, but I'd been rejected. I think I just wanted to be on the telly, I wasn't really sure what discipline I wanted to pursue.
“The art school was a place where you were allowed to be very creative and it had a vibe about it that was just quite cool. And we looked down on drama students, for instance, we thought they were the most boring ever, and architectural students. We thought we were very, very cool. And we probably were quite cool actually.
“The funny thing was, I think I started in 1976, so that was just before the Sex Pistols. So we all went to art school and we were basically dressed like Neil Young in his Heart of Gold era with long hair and army issue coats. Then in the summer, the Sex Pistols came along and we all came back to the art school with peroxide hair and plastic trousers.”
“The art school was where we used to rehearse, a lot of bands rehearsed there. And the student union began, after a certain amount of pressure from people like myself and others, to get cooler bands to come along. At the time the College of Technology and Printing actually had better bands as a venue. It was a great time, people have sent me a couple of books on that era with snapshots of the Bungalow bar. It’s great.”
He asks about Glasgow music now. I tell him you still get student bands playing gigs and there is still a music venue under what was the Rock Garden, now Max’s Bar: “I quite like those kind of scale of gigs” he says.
Peter took some songs for a road test last year in front of a live audience, his first gig as a frontman in decades: “We did a gig at Stereo, I just wanted to see if that was possible. I got this fabulous band together who were all brilliant. Charlotte Printer and Craig McMahon who worked with Joesef, Andrew Cowan who does Altered Images. Chris Dickie who does Glasvegas. I'd always loved the drumming in Glasvegas, he came along and it was just great.
“Any time I came up to Glasgow we would rehearse and it was great hearing what they did to the songs, they would give them a kind of attack. I had to see whether or not it was possible for me to have the guts to go out in front of the band and do that. And we did it and it was great fun. So we'll do it again.
“I’m filming, so it’s hard to do, and I’m not building an empire or anything. Some nice support slots would be good. We are going to play at Belladrum festival in the summer, I’d like to do some warm up gigs first.
“I think I just get thrilled that there's any of these songs that exist and then I'm always very knocked out by what other people bring to them, the musicians I have worked with on the album. I think it's just very important to just do it. I take it seriously but I’m not looking for another career, I’m trying to improve my songwriting skills, and it’s fun.
“It started out, for the first album, because I was filming in Atlanta for three months. I could have done my part in about a month, but the way it worked out, I had all this time. I had read that you’ve got to write 100 songs before you get one good song. I don’t know if I’m there yet. But that’s how I would spend my days, and I’ve kept going.”
Sweet Illusions, an album by Peter Capaldi, produced by Dr Robert of The Blow Monkeys, is released by Last Night From Glasgow record label on 28 March. Watch a longer version of this exclusive interview on GlasgowWorld’s new YouTube channel.