Stuart Braithwaite and Barry Burns from Mogwai talk to John Thackray about the making of the band’s 10th (and chart-topping) album As The Love Continues, revealing what it’s like making an album during lockdown and having legendary producer Dave Fridmann monitoring your every move via Zoom…

Photo: © Antony Crook

Remarkably, it’s 25 years since Mogwai released their debut single Tuner/Lower. In the intervening years the band have released nine studio albums including Rock Action, Rave Tapes and Every Country’s Sun, with the more recent releases gradually climbing further and further up the UK album chart. They’ve created original soundtracks for films like Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, the documentary Atomic, as well as the Sky Original drama ZeroZeroZero. Earlier this year they returned with their hugely-anticipated tenth studio album, As the Love Continues, which maintained that upward chart projectile, claiming the band’s first number 1 in a quarter-century career.

As the Love Continues wasn’t the most straightforward album to produce. The original plan was to record it at Tarbox Road Studios in New York State with the legendary Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev producer Dave Fridmann. But, you’ve guessed it, due to the global pandemic, the band relocated to Vada studios in Worcestershire with Dave producing over Zoom, a far cry from recording at the Mogwai regular studio space, Castle Of Doom.

So what was it about Vada Studios that made it an ideal location to retreat to?

“The people that run it are really cool and it does have a really great live room,” Stuart Braithwaite, Mogwai guitarist and vocalist recalls. “I think the live rooms used to be an abbey, so it’s like this slightly medieval English countryside setting. It was really good to be somewhere else.”

“Everything took real big steps from the demo point to how it ended up,” he adds. “The isolation aspect really helped the songwriting and the planning of the record. Also, being able to get away to that studio felt like such a big deal as we’d been stuck in our houses for months.”

As well as the isolation, Vada Studio’s residential rooms and the studio’s extra space were equally important additional factors for the creativity to flow.

“It needs space and a big drum room,” Barry Burns [guitars, vocals and keys] explains. “We’ve got Castle Of Doom, but it’s just a little bit too small. Dave [Fridmann] likes us to play live together and we can do that at Vada. It is pretty huge compared to what we’re used to.

“You also get into this nice routine,” he continues, “and with Vada, I also much prefer a residential thing because when we do the soundtrack stuff [at Castle Of Doom], I tend to go home for dinner and then just don’t come back! It’s really fucking lazy.”

Z is for…

‘Zoom call’ must have been one of the most over-used and feared phrases of 2020, and while the ‘virtual pub’ and ‘Zoom quiz’ also became common place, the ‘Zoom recording session’ slipped under most radars, but became something of a norm for Mogwai.