Glasvegas - Backstage with Scotland's most talked-about new band

IT'S A SLIGHTLY MUGGY FRIDAY night on Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street. Up and down the stretch between the ABC and Charing Cross, young drinkers are cutting loose for the weekend, and in a few hours, the paving stones will have their traditional 4am patina of chips and kebab sauce. Inside the ABC's smaller gig space, things are already getting hectic, and it's barely gone nine o'clock. Glasvegas have been on stage for a little more than half an hour. They have, so far, buffeted the crowd with a wall of sound that would make dear old Phil Spector smile, if he didn't have a murder charge looming over him. They have channelled The Ramones, Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and every girl group one-hit-wonder you'd care to mention. They have sung songs about infidelity, domestic calamities, about football violence and the heroic qualities of social workers (of which more later). And they're now playing the song which will – unless some seriously stiff competition emerges between this gig and the moment Glasvegas take the stage at T in the Park – become the festival singalong of the summer. Go Square Go – even the title sounds like it's looking for a fight – was the band's debut single back in 2006: a glorious racket which for the sold-out ABC crowd breaks down to a terrace chant of "Here we! Here we! Here we f***ing go!"

In this three-and-a-bit minutes of sonic teeth-gnashing are all the things that make Glasvegas what they are: a huge amount of noise, thanks to songwriter/guitarist James Allan and his cousin Rab, also on guitar, surfing waves of feedback on melodies spun from sugar; a stripped down rhythm section which barks out beats and basslines with heart and heft, thanks to bassist Paul Donoghue and drummer Caroline McKay (who like the Velvet Underground's Mo Tucker, plays standing up); a decidedly Glaswegian sensibility and accent, which combines defiant optimism with cutting humour; and finally, just a glorious, niggling, earworm of a tune.

The band has signed a huge deal with Columbia records, and can count as fans everyone from early champion Alan McGee to Lisa Marie Presley and Rick Rubin, producer to Beastie Boys and the late Johnny Cash. Presley and Rubin even phoned James Allan to enthuse about his songs.

Backstage an hour or so before the show is the usual pre-gig mix of relaxation and panic, as their tour manager frets about budgets and payments, their manager fields call after call, and the band settle into sofas the size of football pitches as the chaos swirls around them. For all the whirlwind of the past two years, they're remarkably unfazed: four old friends who are sure of what they want, and are confident enough not to hide behind arrogant bluster. The almost feverish hype, thanks to McGee last summer, led to an avalanche of publicity, most recently from the NME, who last week put Glasvegas on the cover with the tagline "The best new band in Britain". A couple of one-off singles with tiny indie labels led to the kind of deal with Columbia records that most bands could only dream of, the fruits of which are the band's debut album, due later this year, recorded in New York with Franz Ferdinand and Muse producer Rich Costey.

At the moment, says James Allan, "you don't really get the chance to labour over things as much as people might think, whether it's being on Jools (Holland's Later] or another TV show or playing gigs. Everything we're doing at the moment we just do. You either f*** it up and fall in, or you swim."

And are they swimming? "Yeah, I'm swimming," says Allan. "I'm keeping afloat."

"Like a corpse," shoots back bassist Paul Donoghue, with a sharp laugh.

"We always kind of felt like we were a band even before we were playing music," continues Allan, "'cause the ethos and lifestyle of being in a band, for me it's about being together, being united, being friends. But the point we actually became a band was when we were rehearsing, and we could play a song properly. We started with a drum machine, and once we were able to play a song from start to finish without that – which wasn't very long ago – we thought, well, that felt really good."

Before long, this had crystallised into something "a little special".

Though the four are all firm friends, Glasvegas also appears to be a benevolent dictatorship, with James Allan writing the songs – and doing the majority of the talking – and Rab, Donaghue and McKay taking them and helping James weave his words and melodies into songs that are both lovely and malevolent all at once. "We've got a good idea of what we're about," says James, whose lack of bravado runs counter to, well, almost everyone else thrust into the kind of position he's currently in. "Some people are, I guess, a little bit more lost than us, and as time has gone on, our confidence has built, so we don't need to come out and say all these mad statements to people about how mindblowingly amazing we are. Because we know what we are." In short, he concludes, "I write the songs and the band believe in the songs and I believe in them and we all believe in each other.

"It's as simple as he writes great songs and when we get on stage and play them, it works," chimes in Rab. "See?" says James. "That's what I was trying to say: I write great songs." (He means it. But he wouldn't come out and say it unless he could joke about it too.) Part of what makes these songs great is that they're sung in James's defiantly Glaswegian accent. "It's just such a beautiful accent," he says, "and I think it would be totally detrimental to me and to the band if I never sang in an accent as cool as the Glaswegian one." That said, if you want to sing like Hank Williams even though you're from Bathgate, he's not going to stop you. "Anyone who sings in their own accent has to do it for the right reasons, because if you force it, you end up sounding like Russ Abbott or something out of Braveheart."

More important than that, though, is his attention to every-day detail. Daddy's Gone begins with the wry line "Oh oh, how you're my hero/Oh oh, how you're never here, though" and develops into a heartwrenching tale of the effects of divorce on a dreaming kid. Flowers and Football Tops – four words which conjure up a vivid, poignant mental image and the backstory that goes with it – deals with urban violence, specifically the murder of Kriss Donald. Press James about where these stories come from more generally, though, and he's both circumspect and modest. "I don't know, they just pour out from some tiny corner of my brain. I think through doing interviews you're forced to think about why you've done certain things, and through time I've come to the conclusion that this is just stuff that's weighed upon my mind.

"It's a natural reaction for people to put themselves in the position of others, whether it's winning the lottery or something tragic, and wondering how you'd deal with that. With (Flowers and Football Tops] I saw a parent of a kid who was murdered and it was heartbreaking; I just wondered how it would be for my own mum if anything happened to me, how it would be for a lot of parents. It was just me reading the paper, putting myself in that position. You've probably done it yourself."

Ah, but most people don't go and write songs about it, though.

"That's the part I really don't understand," James replies.

The great thing about his songs, says Geraldine – the band's tour manager and T-shirt seller, not to mention subject of their current single, named in her honour – "is that they're not just boy-meets-girl songs, they deal with much more difficult stuff than that".

Geraldine, before being corralled into helping out her mates on tour, was a social worker, and the song is a deft, heartfelt ode to the powers of empathy and understanding. "You know," she says, as she packs up what few unsold T-shirts remain after the band have finished their set at the ABC, "the first time I heard that song was a gig in Stirling, and it was the day after my dog died, and I bawled my eyes out. In fact, it's only really now that I can listen to that song and not cry. Which is just as well, 'cause it's kinda hard to sell T-shirts if you're crying." Doubtless, over the next year, there will be lots of T-shirts to be sold.

At this point in the race, most bands in Glasvegas' position are either supremely convinced that they will be anointed saviours of rock before they hit their next birthday, or are so terrified they'll fall at the next hurdle they build themselves up with a kind of nervous, posturing bluster. Glasvegas fit neither template: confident enough to be quiet about it, loud enough to sandblast your ears, and possessed with an arsenal of songs which are as thoughtful and tear-stained as they are glorious and uplifting. The industry, in all its Machiavellian squalor, holds neither fear, nor wonder. If there's pressure, James Allan isn't feeling it. "Ah, I was happy on the dole, writing songs, expressing myself, recording music. Totally happy. And that may be again, one day. If so, so be it."

Glasvegas play the Futures Tent at T in the Park on 12 July and the Hydro Connect festival at the end of August.

More new Scottish bands to watch out for on the festival circuit …

THE TWILIGHT SAD

T in the Park, Belladrum

Top dogs among the current crop of Scottish contenders (apart from Glasvegas that is), the Twilight Sad come across like a fantasy supergroup consisting of members of Joy Division, My Bloody Valentine and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. This is not the first time this newspaper has raved about them, and probably won't be the last.

FANGS

T in the Park, Wickerman

Electropunk trio from Glasgow who dress in figure-hugging thrift shop glamour and write lyrics like "Drinking vodka makes you sick, Alka Seltzer does the trick". If you like Peaches and the Ting Tings, this will be right up your street.

SERGEANT

T in the Park, Tartan Heart Belladrum Festival

Jangly, tuneful guitar pop from Glenrothes, in the vein of the La's and Supergrass, and also much admired by Alan McGee.

PARKA

T in the Park, Wickerman, Live at Loch Lomond festival, Wizard festival (Aberdeenshire)

Growly, howly guitar pop from Glasgow with woh oh oh choruses and lyrics about dancing – perfect for fans of the Fratellis.

WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS

Hydro Connect Festival

Ever thought that Orange Juice would have sounded much better if they'd displayed the doomy intensity of Interpol or Editors? You'll love this Glasgow band. They have superb songs too, especially the one about a treasure hunt.

ZOEY VAN GOEY

T in the Park, Wickerman, Live at Loch Lomond, Hydro Connect

Clever, beguiling folk-tinged guitar pop from Glasgow, whose debut single was produced by Belle and Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch, and whose songs are both funny and poignant.