Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite on His Memoir, Post-Rock Resurgence, U.K. Politics and the Romance of Music

Albums that went No. 1 on Billboard United States charts in 1995 came from a few different industries. Take West Coast hip-hop, with Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and Tha Dogg Pound earning top honors. Or look at the movie business, which scored soundtrack hits with Pocahontas and the Michelle Pfeiffer–starring Dangerous Minds (thanks in perpetuity to rapper Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise”). But the Smashing Pumpkins and Alanis Morrissette, with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and Jagged Little Pill, respectively, cloudily represent a unique space in rock ’n’ roll that was evolving from what rock used to be in the ’70s and ’80s (like what hip-hop was doing with R&B and soul). And that arena never much cared for chart numbers in the first place.

I was born in 1995. The same year was “the year everything shifted for me” writes Stuart Braithwaite, as that’s when he founded the band Mogwai in Glasgow, Scotland. The lead guitarist and singer (though lyrics are few and far between) creates music that’s been described as post-rock, a dubious term aggregating everything from grunge to shoegaze, psychedelia, ambient, minimalist, space rock and even “post-punk.” But put more simply, Mogwai carefully composes instrumentals of bass, guitar and drums aided by synthesizers, distortion and experimentation (like a sequencing program running through a Nintendo Game Boy), with some songs turning into beyond-radio-length ballads. What had been a gaggle of friends scrounging money for 18 percent wine, who found themselves burgeoning in an audio scene dedicated to obliterating Britpop (think Oasis and Blur, with whom Mogwai once publicly beefed) with emotional, intentional rock ’n’ roll, now have 10 albums under their belt and almost three decades of life in production and touring. They’re helping Hollywood too—check out the scores to Black Bird, ZeroZeroZero, Kin, Before the Flood and more.

What fascinates me is that it’s 2022 and I’m in Barcelona, Spain, at Primavera Music Festival, which boasts just under half a million audience members and an attractive lineup of bands apparently immortal from the post-rock scene, including Mogwai, Pavement, Interpol, Slowdive and the Jesus and Mary Chain (plus popular acts like Dua Lipa, Lorde, Tyler, the Creator, Tame Impala and Gorillaz, fronted by Blur’s Damon Albarn). The post-rock groups seem to be having a Renaissance, from Slowdive’s 2017 self-titled fourth album (released after a 22-year hiatus) being their first to break into the U.S. charts to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Pavement and Interpol either releasing new work or reissuing old music this year. Mogwai’s most recent album, 2021’s As the Love Continues, was their first to hit No. 1 on the United Kingdom charts.

Braithwaite also began writing a memoir last year, Spaceships Over Glasgow: Mogwai, Mayhem and Misspent Youth, which was published this September. He has rarely held his tongue, from the Blur feud to ripping on Eric Clapton’s racism to calling a U.K. culture secretary “a fucking moron and/or a bare-faced liar” for claiming Brexit wouldn’t hurt U.K. artists. (But what do you expect from someone raised in Scotland under the pressed thumb of Margaret Thatcher?) Except here he’s more mild-tempered, explanatory and nostalgic, regaling in a turbulent and transmogrified history of growing up in the house of Scotland’s last telescope maker; sneaking into concerts dressed, by his sister and her friends, as a girl; eating baby food, shaving his head and huffing and puffing an assortment of drugs amid the sonic stress; spotting (purportedly) an actual UFO; and becoming an international musician, with fans and artists alike finding influence in his and his mates’ music. Now in his 40s and married to musician Elisabeth Elektra, Braithwaite writes of an action-filled adventure through the music business in earnest and with a clarity afforded by time.

Currently, Mogwai is finishing a score for a documentary and Braithwaite is set to release a yet-unannounced album he made last year with friends. He spoke with me about the origins of his book, Mogwai’s rise and resurgence, performing after COVID, current political and economic issues in the U.K. and why music, at the heart of his story, is romantic.

Some serendipity… I just watched Tár, which stars Cate Blanchett as an embattled composer recording Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony. I learned of Mahler from your book, in which you write of a studio engineer who said Mogwai’s music reminded him of the 19th-century Austro-Bohemian composer. What does Mogwai’s music share with Mahler’s?

I think our music and the music of Mahler both have an awful lot of crescendo and dynamics, quite bombastic music. I think they share a few properties.

There are themes of intentionality and permanence in both.

I think a lot of that came from music that we grew up listening to. There was an awful lot of unserious music, whereas the music we had grown up with, stuff like My Bloody Valentine, Joy Division and a ton of other bands, wasn’t so concerned with fashion and was probably a bit more serious. We didn’t want to do something that was fashion-led or hip one year and not hip the next year; we wanted to do something a bit more permanent and was as good as those bands that we were inspired by, but definitely with the intention of doing something that good and definitely with the intention of doing something that would last awhile.

I loved reading about the band taking shape and playing venues like the 13th Note in Glasgow. Would you elaborate on the value of playing those small shows and how they differ from playing bigger ones and festivals?

It’s very different but also very formative. I think music is a lot about community and it’s worth playing those kinds of venues and meeting the people that you meet. I think that starting out in the more community-based places is really important—so much [of it is] about community and friendship and other bands. You’re in these kinds of places that don’t have dressing rooms and you’re just amongst the people that are there to see your band and the other bands, ’cause quite often there won’t be a headliner or opener, there will just be two, three or four bands. It’s an amazing time.

I think we carried a lot of that with us even though playing the bigger shows is a bit different. You’ve got people to help out and you get your own dressing room [laughs]. One of the things that I really didn’t like about touring just after the pandemic was you couldn’t really socialize because everyone was so worried about catching COVID and having to cancel shows. That was a weird time. With our band, socializing has always been a big part of it. We’ve been lucky to get to go all over the world and play, and [we’re] really happy to be back playing at all.

What were your first returns to live music?

We played a couple gigs in France. We played this really big festival, not as big as Bonnaroo or Glastonbury but thousands of people, in Wales, called Green Man Festival. That was really emotional. Just that day I saw probably more people that I knew than [in] the previous year and a half, two years. It was such a lovely experience being back out playing music. It was such a big reminder of how to play the part and connect with fans.

Mogwai was on the Primavera lineup with other bands from your scene and book, like Pavement, Slowdive, Interpol and the Jesus and Mary Chain. Was it validating seeing all of you there 20 years after your beginnings? Do you care?

I definitely care. I’m really grateful to play those kinds of places, and seeing bands that inspired us like Slowdive and Pavement, who have become friends as well, that was really, really good. It was such a good festival and such a nice time.

Why did you decide to write a memoir now?

There’s a few factors. I’ve been reading a lot of other people’s memoirs and really enjoying them, and I came to the realization that it wasn’t how well they were written that I enjoyed, it was how interesting the stories were or how interested I was in the subject. I think once I realized I didn’t have to write some kind of James Joyce masterpiece, it made me comfortable to do it.

[An] issue was time, ’cause I’m usually really busy. I play a lot of concerts and make quite a lot of music. Because of the pandemic there was no live music for quite a long time, but to be honest, that meant I actually had the time to do it. That was quite a long time ago, but that put the seed in my head that it was a possibility and something that could happen.

When did you start writing Spaceships Over Glasgow?

I did it through the whole of last year. The day I started writing it, because I remember very clearly, was the day of the insurrection, January 6. I was very distracted [laughs].

That was a strange day over here in the U.S.

I bet it was! I’m not an American, but I remember just watching and going, “What the bloody hell is going on?!” I didn’t get much done on that first day.

Did January 6 inspire you to write or was that just coincidence?

[Laughs] No! That was a coincidence. I think if I was inspired by January 6 it would be a far more serious book about democracy rather than about me sneaking into concerts dressed as a girl.

Scottish independence. There’s a proposed vote for next year.

The English Supreme Court [heard arguments for and against the Scottish parliament holding a 2023 independence referendum without consent from the U.K. government]. That’s a huge thing right now, whether there will or won’t be [a referendum]. There should be, because the party that promised it won the election, but things can be trickier than they seem. So we’ll see, but I hope so. Too many of the reasons to not vote for it have been debunked. I do think it would be really good for Scotland to become independent.

Liz Truss, the newly elected U.K. prime minister and Conservative Party leader, proposed tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens, then backed down when markets went haywire and the pound depreciated. Now she’s stepping down. Have you been following that story?

Yeah, [the Conservative Party] are absolute morons and they’re destroying the country [laughs]. To be honest, because Scotland hasn’t voted for the Conservative Party since long before I was even born, it would seem that we are part of a country that is run by people that hardly anyone votes for here. They’re not making any friends, you know? She’s dumb even for them [laughs].

In the book, you write about how horribly Margaret Thatcher treated Scotland.

Well, she decimated the industry here, so all of the industry got sold off or moved to parts of the country where people did vote for her. There was massive de-industrialization but pretty much no safety net, so lots of communities were really left to rot. Scotland is also a very wealthy country; we’ve got an awful lot of oil, and basically she [used] the revenue from the oil to give tax cuts to rich people who don’t live in Scotland. If you look at Norway, which is quite a similar country to Scotland, there’s so much money it’s unbelievable because [of] oil. Margaret Thatcher just used it to give tax breaks to rich people. It’s a massive trickle-down economic system. Scotland definitely didn’t benefit from that in any way.

Does that political history inspire a sense of Scottish pride in you and the people you represent with your music?

I think so, yeah. I’m definitely proud to be from Scotland. Scotland is not without its problems, but yeah, I think it’s a mostly pretty decent and cool place [laughs].

Your father was the last telescope maker in Scotland. On the first song of Mogwai’s first album, a Norwegian reads aloud an English translation of a concert review, saying of Mogwai, “If the stars had a sound, it would sound like this.” Is there a connection?

It’s something I definitely grew up with. I like that connection. I’m not a scientific person, but I get a lot of astronomical wonder from growing up around telescopes and my dad telling me about the stars and astronomy.

You write about drug use in Spaceships Over Glasgow, including acid, correction fluid, ecstasy, “trucker’s speed” and more. With acid, you mention a sense of connection with people and Earth, which is something I’ve experienced as good. But you also write about the downsides of drug use and how life can flip upside down.

I’m really grateful for all of the experiences I had when I was young. It’s almost a cliché, but it is truly quite mind-expanding, you know? As long as people are careful and don’t ever jump out of their window or something, then it’s a good thing to do. But a lot of the other stuff is not so good and I probably wouldn’t bother with a lot of the other stuff if I did it all over again [laughs].

You don’t really take drugs anymore. Do you feel healthy?

I still have a few glasses of wine, but nothing like what’s in the book. I guess I have done quite a lot.

Of Mogwai’s 10 albums, the most recent was the first to go No. 1 on the U.K. charts. Maybe you aren’t interested in chart numbers and are just focused on making good music, but was that meaningful to you?

Yeah! We started recording it 25 years after we released our first single. You’re right, we’re not obsessed with success, but I do think that was so unexpected that it was a bit of a moment. That was great, but if it never happens again I’m not going to be super sad. It was just a lovely thing to happen at the time.

What do you think Mogwai has contributed to popular music?

It’s hard for me to say really, but I like to think we’re part of a tradition of psychedelic rock bands, and hopefully we’ve inspired a few in the same way quite a few inspired us. It’s really nice that when we play, it’s not just people our age; there’s older people, there’s younger people. I would like to make the world sound a little bit better.

You write of music being romantic. What do you mean?

I just think that music is very unquantifiable. There’s a magic in music, it’s hard to know why music affects people the way it does. I romanticize music all the time. It could be a record, concert or even an instrument—I attach a lot to these things, and I’m sure I’m not the only person who does that. It holds a special place in so many of our lives. I think it’s incredibly romantic.

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