Martin Metcalfe and the Fornicators

Beat Generator Live, Dundee, March 9

Stepping back often spurs a creative mind to go forward in a bold new direction.

Take Goodbye Mr MacKenzie’s exfrontman. Martin Metcalfe allowed soon-to-be MTV idol Shirley Manson to assume pole position when the band he started in 1984 became Angelfish in the ’90s, before reprising the format with Isa and the Filthy Tongues.

Since adopting a lower profile, Martin’s turned to painting and his burgeoning canvases have helped to give his music fresh focus. Besides resuming vocals for the now Isa-less Filthy Tongues, he also tours his potent songbook backed by ex-MacKenzies producer Terry Adams on guitar, Chris Tracey (bass) and Asim Rasool (cajon).

Hearing the likes of The Rattler, Goodwill City and New Town Killers given a new acoustic slant is like listening to Nirvana’s Unplugged album for the first time. “It’s a lot more loose than the Filthy Tongues,” says Martin.

“Having a programmed set is the way that most bands operate, whereas we can alter what we’re doing at any point. It’s not quite as serious, it’s just a bit more free.”

Now in his mid-50s, the Edinburghborn troubadour admits he never intended Fornicators to last beyond a few gigs. “It wasn’t meant to be anything significant, but it kind of built,” he says.

“It started because I was thinking of doing a solo album a while back but it never really transpired. It just became a fun thing where we could play any of my back catalogue and we weren’t tied down to trying to promote anything.”

Martin says he hopes to resume studio activities with Adams at some point, and he recently penned four songs for his teenage heroes the Skids’ Burning Cities album. “I worked pretty closely with Richard (Jobson),” he adds.

“A lot of the album’s vocals were actually recorded in my home. He was up in my back room, which I use as a vocal booth, with my dog on his lap. I grew up through punk then into postpunk and I used to sit in the pub and talk about how great the Skids, the Banshees and Joy Division were, so it was a wonderful experience.”

The big news for Filthy Tongues fans is that their second album is complete. “It’s our Trainspotting, but on a different scheme or street,” says Martin.

“Trainspotting could’ve been anywhere; it was a surprise that it was Edinburgh. People didn’t really connect that life to the city, they think of it as an affluent, stuck-up sort of place. We’re just trying to tell our story within this world and there’s a gothic visual background that goes with our kind of goth-blues. Musically it’s about five shades blacker than anything we did in Goodbye Mr MacKenzie. This is a complete immersion in a darkness – it’s a study of it.”

www.beatgenerator.co.uk

Martin Metcalfe.