PREVIEW

For a band who seem like they just sprang forth as a leather and lycra-wearing, Kohl-retouched embodiment of the NY punk scene circa ‘77 (with added electronics), Fangs have done a bit of evolving. Anyone who’s been around the Scottish scene for a while will remember that Marko Nein and The Queen – the aliases aren’t negotiable – used to be in the poppier Motormark, straight outta Fife by way of Berlin. Drummer Findlay Falls, meanwhile, was in the much-loved/puzzled-over Lapsus Linguae, while keyboard player Lloyd Alex once belonged to Baby Bones.

‘Fangs is something entirely different from Motormark,’ says Nein. ‘We pretty much imposed redundancy on our old band when the idea for Fangs came about. Queenie and I had to kind of creatively reapply for our positions then, because things we wanted to do with Motormark just couldn’t be done as a duo, so this was the end of one band and the beginning of another.’

Nein speaks fondly of Blondie and The Cramps as being big influences on Fangs, whose style is by turns dancefloor-ready, filled with punk energy and infused with a certain irony. ‘These days it’s modern producers we admire more, though,’ he says, ‘people like Boys Noize, Fake Blood, Richard X … Essentially what we want to do is take that Cramps sound and make it modern, and make it pop as well’.

Having come into being at the start of 2008 and played out in disciplined style since then (but not, as Motormark made a habit of, playing a different European capital every other weekend), Fangs are now set to release their debut single ‘Sicko’ on King Tut’s Recordings, before turning thoughts towards the first album.

‘As always,’ laughs Nein, ‘our ambitions are pretty big. We’re those kinds of individuals, there’s a lot of ego in the band and we’d all like to think we’ll be booking Wembley next year. No, but every day’s a step forward, people are into what we do, and we get to be ourselves. How I dress onstage is how I dress in real life; I used to pack broccoli wearing clothes like this, you know?’

King Tut’s, Glasgow, Sun 5 Apr; Buchanan Street HMV, Glasgow, Mon 6 Apr