"WE'VE ALWAYS HAD THIS strange misconception that we were a pop band," says Adele Bethel, frontwoman of Glasgow's indie rock'n'rollers Sons & Daughters (and recent nominee in PETA's World's Sexiest Vegetarian poll), explaining their transformation.
The Scottish noir punk of their 2005 full-length debut, The Repulsion Box, was as brutal as a slap in the face, winning support from Franz Ferdinand, Nick Cave and their hero, Morrissey, with whom they toured in 2006. But it was exhausting to per
form.
"The Repulsion Box tour destroyed us mentally and physically," says Bethel. It left them hungry for a change, keen to draw out their melodic, poppier tendencies. "Then we started writing in the same rehearsal room in Glasgow, which was our first mistake." They found they were repeating themselves. Unwilling to take the time-honoured route of producing a second album that sounded a bit like the first only not as good, they tried a change of scenery.
The four-piece – Bethel, guitarist/vocalist Scott Paterson, bassist Ailidh Lennon and drummer Dave Gow – decamped to a house on the wild west coast, where they hung out, listening to Blondie, The Smiths and 1960s girl groups and harnessed their inner pop dervish.
"The Cure are the perfect template," says Bethel. "To make a record like Faith, then Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me a few years later, but still sound like the same band …"
But it was not an easy birth. The band were sorely tested by producer Bernard Butler, the notoriously fastidious former Suede guitarist, who wrenched them out of their comfort zone and helped them realise their pop potential with his "no pain, no gain" working policy.
"He gave us a lot of confidence as a band," says Bethel. "He said to us on the first day, 'why does this band have no confidence? Where's the ego? Who's the asshole in the band? Just admit it now.' "
Did anyone put their hand up? Or point at anyone else? "No! We're a pretty close-knit band and I think he saw that as a weakness. He's very charming about it, but he tried to pit us against each other quite a lot, which made for an incredibly intense and very difficult working environment. The days when the guitars were being recorded were always the worst days. I'd come back from lunch and never know whether Scott had walked out or punched Bernard.
"But he couldn't have cared less, as long as he got a good record out of it, which is why I have a lot of respect for him. I don't want to paint him in a bad light – he just cared so much about it, he was almost as passionate about it as us, and that's what created the fireworks."
One noticeable change on this album, instigated by Butler, is to Bethel's vocal range. To date, she has been known for her strongly accented strident singing – a legacy from her days doing backing vocals for Arab Strap. Butler encouraged her to explore a higher register, packing her off to renowned vocal coach Tona de Brett, who has taught the likes of John Lydon, Joe Strummer and Ozzy Osbourne how to get the most from their instrument. The result is that This Gift has Bethel reaching skywards, delivering some thrilling banshee vocals which add urgency and dynamism to an already exciting album.
Sons & Daughters are known for their dark lyrics. Rama Lama, the centrepiece of The Repulsion Box, was an everyday tale of a woman being murdered in her bath. Bethel has to think for a moment before confirming that the murder count on This Gift is zero. Instead, the lyrics tackle a number of lesser knotty topics, inspired by books, films and real-life melodrama.
During the making of the album, Bethel immersed herself in a host of classic British films from the 1960s. Dressed up for an instore performance at Fopp in trenchcoat and white go-go boots, she could have stepped straight out of a scene from Darling, the Julie Christie feature about an ambitious society girl which inspired the title of the band's current single. Goodbye Service was inspired by the ending of another Christie film, Billy Liar, while The Nest imagines what might have happened to the eponymous protagonist of Ken Loach's groundbreaking TV drama Cathy Come Home after she had lost her kids.
Bethel also found herself imagining what might have happened to a friend of hers from New York, whose last communication was a letter 18 months ago, in which he told her that, after a succession of personal tragedies, he planned to hire a boat and sail around the world. "I don't know where he is – hopefully somewhere exotic and amazing," says Bethel, who wrote the album tracks Fangs and Iodine about his audacious escape from society.
Closer to home, the frantic House in My Head and the super-catchy Rebel With the Ghost are both about depression – a recurring theme for Bethel, who channels her sombre thoughts into energised pop songs that are a blast to put across.
A compelling performer, even in the slightly awkward environment of the instore gig, she had little stage experience before forming Sons & Daughters – well, except for delivering one line in a school Sleeping Beauty , a pun about a "gilt complex" which she never forgot, and used as the title of the band's comeback single last autumn.
"I always wanted to get acting lessons, though," she says. "My mum and dad almost sent me to stage school when I was five but they thought it was a bit cruel." Now, more than 20 years later, Bethel is getting her opportunity to unleash the pop diva within.
• This Gift is released by Domino on Monday. Sons & Daughters play the ABC, Glasgow, on 15 February, and the Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, on 16 February.
The full article contains 980 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
