An Interview With The Spook School

Manchester was particularly busy on Saturday with a Man City football match, Northern Vegan Festival and A Carefully Planned (music) Festival all going on within a few miles of each other, which offered a pretty diverse spectrum of people. Somewhere among the masses were Edinburgh queer pop collective The Spook School, who I was heartbroken to learn I couldn't stay to watch that night having fallen completely in love with them over the last few months. However they were happy to meet us outside the venue to talk about their new record, strange reviews and transphobia.

Terrapin: Hi, nice to meet you! Who are you looking forward to seeing tonight other than Personal Best?


Nye: There's Haiku Salut, and The Tuts are on after us. Emma Kupa was on earlier 

Adam: She was playing when we parked the car

What's the music scene in Scotland like at the moment A few people have said it's really exciting

Nye: I feel that we're not very good at being aware of the Scottish music scene

Niall: I think it's maybe a difference between Glasgow and Edinburgh

Nye: Yeah I think there's a lot of bands in Glasgow, and I suppose if you're from Edinburgh it's like being on the outside and peering in

Niall: It's like 'oh, it looks like there's cool things over there'

Nye: Edinburgh is a lot of kinda like folky bands but not that much of the kinda louder thing

Linking back to the Vegan Festival today, are all of you guys vegan?

Niall: I'm a vegetarian but I try my best

Nye: Niall sometimes gets angry at us if we say he's not vegan

Niall: That's usually if someone's offering us food, like I'm vegetarian but it I'll have the vegan option

Is it hard to eat then when you're on the road? This is the first night of the tour, right?

Niall: Kind of but there's a massive gap before the next show

Nye: Yeah, it's a 'I can't quite quit my job yet' tour

Adam: We'll load into the venue is and then we'll just Happy Cow where the nearest place is

Nye: I suppose it's quite nice, you get to go on little adventures

Adam: Yeah we've tasted a lot of the best vegan places in the country

Nye: When we recorded our album there was a place called The Grove Cafe and they do burgers and pizzas and like curries, we went there like three or four times in one week which was quite ridiculous, really

How does the record differ from the debut?

Nye: It's a lot more obvious and I think it's louder

Niall: There's a lot more feedback

Nye: Yeah, I think it's more overtly about gender and politics and things like that, whereas the last one was a bit vague

Niall: It's like 'yeah we're just going to hit you over the head with it now'

I saw the Rolling Stone interview you did with Laura Jane Grace which was really cool

Nye: Yeah that was weird. It was nice but it was really strange. It was a very very nice but surreal experience 

She said that she still feels that there's a significant amount of ignorance towards being transgender, do you feel that way?

Nye: Yeah I do think there's a lot of ignorance, with trans men I think there's ignorance but not as much hate, it seems like people are really terrible to trans women whereas they just don't realise trans men exist. I've never experienced anyone being mean or anything

Do you think it's more of an ignorance issue rather than a vicious thing then?

Nye: Yeah I think so, in my experiences people can be at the same time really ignorant on a grander scale but really nice on a personal level. I remember at work there was someone that was really really nice to me, this was before I started testosterone and she always got the pronouns right and everything and then I was in a conversation with her and I think on a series of Celebrity Big Brother there had been someone who had been a boxing coach and she's just come out as trans? I can't remember who it was, but the person was talking about her and being like 'Oh did you see that man in a dress on that thing the other night?'. It was really strange how she could talk about her like that but be really respectful to me. I suppose it's hard to do that when the person's sat, like, right in front of you

I know you were talking about doing some shows with Against Me! which would be incredible, who would be your ideal tour mates?

Nye: David Bowie? (laughs) I feel like a lot of my favourite bands are bands that we do play with, like bands I listen to the most aren't really big bands. So it's like Grubs and Two White Cranes, basically all the bands with Roxy (Brennan)in

Joanna Gruesome, Trust Fund... Do you think that's happening more now though? I read a Martha interview recently and they said their favourite bands were like The Spook School and Trust Fund, do you think there is more of a DIY community now?

Niall: Aww

Nye: Yeah I think it's really nice, I think also when you know a bit about people it helps you to kind of connect with their music? I still can't think of anyone I'd like to tour with

Adam: One Direction, Jedward? We could do a triple bill with them

What's the strangest thing anybody has ever said about The Spook School?

Niall: That I'm their dad, probably

Nye: Yeah we got a review once that said Niall was like a working man's comic and that me, Anna and Adam were like androgynous replicates 

Finally, what three records should everybody hear at least once?

Nye: Oh my god, don't let me answer

Adam: Three records from anytime?

Yeah

Adam: That's even harder

Nye: I'm just trying to decide which is my favourite David Bowie album but I just can't

How about recent albums you've liked, that Perfume Genius cover you did was really cool

Nye: Yeah that was good fun

Adam: We also did a sped up version

Nye: Yeah, that wasn't shared publicly... Radisson Blue by Two White Cranes I really really like

Niall: New Trust Fund, amazing. 'Footballl'

Nye: I've been listening to a lot of Icona Pop, I don't know if that album was this year or not but I really like it



Thanks to The Spook School for speaking to us, their new record is incredible and out now, you can buy it here

Interview by Marty Hill
Photo via The Spook School's Facebook