Taking notes from the rawness and haunting melody of grunge era noisemakers such as Sonic Youth, Pixies, and Shellac to name a few, Glasgow four-piece, United Fruit, are currently doing the rounds on the city’s underground scene and making a lasting impression as well as one hell of a noise. Having already self-released two singles and a four track E.P. (entitled, Mistress Reptile, Mistress), barely a year in, the bands’ momentum seems only to be picking up. With a few words on the inner workings of the band here’s Bass player, Marco Panagopolous.

How would you describe your sound?
Visceral, explosive, happy/sad sing along mayhem.

Are you all into heavier, more experimental music?
We are all pretty much influenced by the same type of music, and yes it tends to sway towards the heavier sound. I think it boils down to what makes you feel good, and loud, heavy music makes us feel happy. But Stuart (Galbraith, Guitar) likes Girls Aloud, so I guess we all have our guilty pleasures.

When did you play your first show together?
We played a house party in Glasgow about a year and a half ago. We only had 3 songs and a crazy jam we knew we could milk for about 15 minutes. In the end I think we played 10 minutes before the police arrived. We played another 30 seconds in front and then they shut us down!

There appears to be a vibrant ‘scene’ emerging in Glasgow these days, would you agree? What other bands are you liking right now?
We completely agree! We know Glasgow has been the home for many great bands and its music scene is respected, so it feels great that there are bands in Glasgow doing their own thing regardless of current trends. We love listening to bands like Hey Vampires, Bronto Skylift, Hyena, No Kilter, Arca Felix, Grozny, Citizens, Take a Worm For a Walk Week, Ex Wives, Hey Enemy and Holy Mountain. Yes its all good!

Being into the bands/music that you are, are there any producers you admire or would love to work with?
We admire some of the work done by Ross Robinson, Mike McCarthy, Steve Albini and Rick Rubin, but really, an unknown producer/ sound engineer might be able to give you the sound you want. We like Ross McGowan of chime studios. He’s the daddy!

What would like to achieve with United Fruit In the coming years?
To play in wonderful venues, in strange locations, making enough money to live well without losing sight of why we played music in the first place.

http://www.myspace.com/unitedfruitband

United Fruit play Bloc, Glasgow Thu 26 Mar 200 with Greater The Shadow, Citizens and Holy Mountain; Tue 14 Apr 2009 Cassette, Glasgow with Fighterplanes, Bronto Skylift and Okker and Sat 25 Apr 2009 at Cassette, Glasgow with Bridge and Tunnel, Mesa Verde and OK Pilot