As a guitarist, Primal Scream’s Andrew Innes does not simply cherish his mistakes – he consciously and deliberately subverts the norm in the search for new sparks of inspiration.
After three decades on the Keith Richards diet, Andrew and enigmatic frontman Bobby Gillespie are now sober and efficient office workers in the tower of song.
The band will be packing their swimming trunks and an eclectic catalogue of bangers as they hit Oz this summer.
“You don’t want AC/DC to start coming all acoustic at ya.”
Primal Scream have produced a steady and seemingly unimpeded flow of music since the mid-1980s, yet one fear continues to haunt Andrew after all these years.
“The most daunting thing is when you’ve done the LP and you’ve done the tour, and suddenly you’ve got a blank piece of paper again, a blank tape again and you’ve got to do this whole thing all over again.
“And when it does come, you start thinking we’ve done this before [or] this just sounds like that. It’s got to be something that makes you think this is a new twist on it.”
The new flavours often burst forth after Andrew invests in a new piece of equipment. “[EDM producer] Adrian Sherwood says to always buy a new piece of equipment.
"It doesn’t matter if it costs you 20 pounds or 200 pounds, just buy a new piece of equipment every so often because you always get a new idea and it’s normally right away.
“So if you go and buy a new peddle or maybe buy a new box that’s just been invented, you plug it in and right away you get a new idea.
“What I always used to do is if you’ve got a peddle that’s meant for a guitar, stick the drums through it or stick the vocals through it; use it for what it’s not intended for as well.”
Not all bands share this compulsive drive to re-invent or re-imagine their sound, particularly when they have discovered a winning formula, as Primal Scream did in 1991 with their rave-induced breakthrough 'Screamadelica'.
Andrew does not disparage bands that grasp tightly to their signature schtick. “Nobody wants The Ramones to not sound like The Ramones. If they’ve found something that’s perfect, that’s their essence, you don’t want them to change.
“You don’t want AC/DC to start coming all acoustic at ya.”
Persistent reinvention, though, has given the band a lifespan drastically beyond that of contemporaries like The Stone Roses.
With age, though, comes new challenges. Livers begin to tire and the old methods of creating don’t quite work how they once did.
Andrew and Bobby have adopted a strict regimen aimed at keeping the albums coming. “As you get older, you need to be healthy just to get any ideas at all.
“It turns into a day job so it becomes a Monday to Friday thing, although we probably don’t have to work as many hours as most people have to work. We go on for six hours and try to write a song.
“It seems to work for us better than the alternative approach, which is turning up at ten o’clock at night, getting into a state and trying to jam all night. That’s good for about a year and a half.”
Having entered the industry at 15, Andrew pinches himself that he is still here. “If you told me in 1986 that I’d be going on a tour in 2018, my younger self would have laughed at you.
“You had two dreams when you were a kid: play football for Scotland or be in a rock & roll band, so I’m kinda lucky. I could still probably get a game for Scotland.”
Primal Scream Tour Dates
Thu 15 Feb - Metropolis (Fremantle)Fri 16 Feb - HQ Complex (Adelaide)
Sun 18 Feb - Forum Melbourne
Tue 20 Feb - Enmore Theatre (Sydney)
Wed 21 Feb - The Tivoli Theatre (Brisbane)
