Scottish pop-rockers Teenage Fanclub are planning
to add a fifth member to their lineup for their next album with the inclusion of
fellow Glaswegian Finlay Macdonald on keyboards.
"He's a friend of ours from
Glasgow and he's been playing with us for maybe six
months now," said Fanclub bassist Gerald Love at a sound-check prior to the
band's Dec. 13 show at the Roxy in Brisbane, Australia.
The addition of Macdonald, who is currently on-tour with the band, would be only
the second lineup change in the group's eight-year history. The first came after
the 1993 departure of original drummer Brendan O'Hare, who was replaced by
Paul Quinn.
Finlay Macdonald played
in an earlier group affiliated with the Fanclub, the BMX Bandits. Prior to working with Teenage
Fanclub, however, Finlay Macdonald's main project was his own band, Speedboat,
whose debut single was produced by Fanclub vocalist/guitarist Norman Blake and
released on Francis Macdonald's (no relation) tiny, Scottish label, Shoeshine Records.
The keyboardist gives Teenage Fanclub a much richer and fuller live sound,
allowing them to better reproduce the more textured material from their
latest album, Songs From Northern Britain, Love said. "I think [he'll
become a regular part of the band]," he added. "I'm sure he'll play on the next
record and on the next tour."
Having only toured in support of their alterna-country, heavily Byrds-styled
Songs From Northern Britain over the past six months, the Fanclub are
apparently already planning their next musical step.
The upcoming album is only in the preparation stage, however, Love said, adding
that the band would head into the studio next year, with plans to use a less
cohesive style of recording. "We've all got ideas and I think we'll start
recording within 1998. I think with the next one we want to try a new approach
where instead of going into the studio for one whole block we'll book maybe
three or four sessions in different places and just try and record four songs at
a time."
This would diversify the sound of the album as a whole, he added.
"Sometimes the songs or the styles within a record could be diverse but the actual sounds are recorded in the same time frame and using the same equipment, so sometimes it can homogenize a record," Love added. -- Nick Corr [Tues., Dec. 16, 1997, 3:00 p.m. PST]
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