James McColl, front man and chief songwriter for The Supernaturals, has very kindly answered some of our questions. Find out how The Beatles corrupted his classical roots, what his favourite songs are, how he wants to play with Gareth Gates of POP Idol fame and of course some musings on the new album, What We Did Last Summer.

Q. What first made you interested in learning to play music? What instrument did you first learn to play?

I suppose listening to my brothers copy of the red and blue Beatles albums. Although I am left handed my dad bought me a right handed Ibanez guitar when I was 16. My dad is very generous like that and I taught myself using the Beatles complete songbook. Derek and Gavin both bought Tokai guitars and we used to play every Friday and Saturday night in my friend Dwees' house. Dwees learned the bass. Basically we did that for years and we practiced and played in the sort of bands that do a gig at a friends birthday party every 6 months without a drummer. Gavin eventually learned the drums as he was the worst guitarist. The first instrument I learned to play was the flute. I was right into classical music before I got into the Beatles.

Q. Who are your main musical heroes?

I have so many musical heroes and a huge record collection. Ray Davies and the Beatles/Beach Boys are probably where I always go back to. Teenage Fanclub because they showed that you could come from the West of Scotland and not try and play ersatz soul music like Love and Money and Deacon Blue. In the 80s the Replacements were one of my faves and Paul Westerberg is a genius who I really like. Recently a guy called Josh Rouse and an album by a band called Orgone box. The list is endless. I sort of have a new hero every 2 weeks.

Q. Which Supernaturals song are you proudest of?

A song called Childhood Sweetheart is a really good B-side and would be in my top 5. My favourite single is Built to Get Up. Stuff like Idiot and Robot song were really good in retrospect but at the time we made them we were unsatisfied. Wishing You Were My Girlfriend and a lot of the new album I find easy to listen to. Not commercial as in Smile but the most musically satisfying. My fave cover is You're my Best Friend.

Q. What is the song you most enjoy playing?

I used to really enjoy the madness of things like Everest and Day Before Yesterday. What We did last Summer and Summertime are kind of epic and enjoyable.

Q. With Davie and Paul joining the band and the various changes over the years, does the band feel like Spinal Tap?

Yes the band does feel like Spinal Tap. We pretty much split up after Ken left. After everything the five of us had been through we all felt like quitting. At a rehearsal in late '99 I suggested we split up. I knew that to make another album was a 2or 3 year undertaking, especially by ourselves and that it was lot to expect from everyone. I would have been happy to do my own thing at the time. Instead the other 4 guys unanimously decided to keep going and that was that. That's what really pissed me off about Ken leaving a year later half way through the project.

Q. What is your favourite memory of being in the band?

Probably playing in Oban or somewhere in front of 20 people in 1993. Those days were crazy. I would recommend that to any young band looking to get better. Also last Summer up in Shetland and Orkney were fantastic.

Q. How would you like The Supernaturals to be remembered in pop history?

I doubt we will be more than a footnote in Scottish music history.

Q. What would your ultimate super group be, including you?

Do I really have to play? (Ed - YES!) Iggy Pop as frontman, Keith Richards and Andy Partridge on Guitars, Macca on Bass, The drummer from the Kinks (Ed - Mick Avory) and Gareth from pop idol on tambourine.

Q. You have released albums on your own label, on a major label and now have a distribution deal with an independent label, which type of record deal do you like most?

I suppose I liked the albums on our own label the best. EMI was fun at times and so is Koch/Universal. I don't really care who the record deal is with. I am more interested in the records themselves.

Q. Did you enjoy writing and recording What We Did Last Summer, or would you have preferred to produce it quicker? Which album do you have the fondest memories of from the recording sessions?

I enjoyed it very much. But it was always stressful in that we weren't sure it would even be released. I love writing and recording songs. In a studio there is always a certain tension that I thrive on. After we were dropped by EMI we were treated like pariahs by record labels and it took us 6 months to do something on our own terms. It then took a year to write and record the album (and get the windfall from Smile and IWBTGU) and we put in another year of touring (65 gigs to zero interest) and releasing singles in the hope that someone would pick up on it . We weren't to know that the BBC and National media would totally ignore us! The album would have been out last June but hindsight is a fine thing.

Q. What We Did Last Summer marks a radical departure for The Supernaturals, do you think this is the album you always wanted to produce?

Each thing we have done is what we wanted to do at the time. When we made 'IDMA' we wanted to make something that reflected all our sixties influences and sounded like us live. When we made 'ATAD' we wanted to make an up tempo powerpop record like Fountains of Wayne and we largely succeeded. It got us dropped from EMI but it was our reaction to stuff like Radiohead and The Verve. In hindsight we were totally out of sync with public taste. I listened to that album for the first time in a year the other day and I was well impressed.

With WWDLS we had a real urge to change our sound. We also wanted to make a record which had a more emotional impact than ATAD. I had been listening to Air, Mellow, Tahiti 80 and countless other French things and that had an effect on our record. We wanted to make something that mixed our sixties influences with technology and it mostly works. Our opinion was that we were damned if we did and damned if we didn't. The reviews of the new album are exactly to be as expected. We couldn't give a shit if people are upset that we don't sound like we used to.

Thanks for answering our questions!

Interview and questions by Kirsty Bowker and Andy Thomson, property of Easy Life, © Andrew Thomson 2002. Thanks to James McColl.