trashcan sinatras lift off

scottish band to release new album in august

rolling stone

by bill crandall
june 8, 2004

Brit-pop pioneers the Trashcan Sinatras will release Weightlifting, their first album in eight years August 31st on spinART Records. The Scottish band, whose breezy guitars and emotive vocals anticipated those of early Radiohead, Travis and Coldplay, had been stagnant in recent years due to bankruptcy.

"We didn't actually break up," says guitarist Paul Livingston. "We just stopped answering the phone and leaving the house. Everybody's been in a bit of a bad mood."

The mood changed when, clear of financial woes, singer Frank Reader re-struck up the band a couple years ago. "When we came out of bankruptcy, a bit of the pressure or the feeling that we hated the Trashcans had been lifted," he says. "All the while we had been building little pieces of songs, and we felt it was our duty to them to finish them off -- even if it turned out to be the last hurrah. There was something liberating about that."

That feeling is central to the album, as the title track is not about pumping iron but about letting go and looking forward. "And you will find a great weight lifting," Reader sings to open the soothing chorus. "Easing your mind . . . just leave it behind."

Others among what Livingston calls "the best bunch of songs we've ever had" are "Trouble Sleeping," a bleak true story about a girl's murder in the band's hometown of Irvine; "Got Carried Away," featuring vocals from Teenage Fanclub co-frontman and fellow Scot Norman Blake; and the bouncy "All the Dark Horses," which echoes the band's past singles.

"It's our same direction," says guitarist John Douglas, "but older and wiser, and a bit less nervous."

The Trashcan Sinatras were a few years ahead of their time when they scored minor alternative hits with Cake in 1990 and I've Seen Everything in 1993. Their gentle melodies and literate lyrics were not in step with the noisy angst of the early Nineties, and their 1996 album Happy Pocket was never released in the U.S.

"I think I've Seen Everything sounds like a lot of good records from a few years later, like [Radiohead's] The Bends," says Reader, before demurring, "I'm not saying they heard us or anything . . . Even now when we play those songs I remember touring around America playing quiet acoustic sets to drunken hordes."

The Trashcan Sinatras plan to tour the U.S. during September and October, but they'll spare you any talk of how hard they're going to rock you. "It took us a long time to learn to be gentle," Douglas says. "We want to be gentle in all aspects of life, not just on the stage."

Originally appeared in Rolling Stone.