DELUXE ARE HEAVEN SAINT; Exclusive Music guru McGee tips Scots band to be next big thing razz rocks.

Byline: By Rick Fulton

ALAN McGee, the man who signed Oasis, Primal Scream, Teenage Fanclub, The Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, reckons he has discovered Scotland's next big thing.

Fresh from bigging up Glasvegas until they were huge, the Creation Records legend will show the taste makers down south just how good Scots band St Deluxe are after booking them for two dates at his Death Disco club in London in April and May.

He's already compared the band to Nirvana, and guitarist Martin Kirwan, who along with singer and guitarist Jamie Cameron, bass player Brian McEwan and drummer Stuart Kidd, make up the band who release their debut album this week, shrugs when he hears what the music legend has said about them.

"Well that's fairly big boots to fill," he said. "It's a great quote and it's really good he thought that highly of us.

"To say we are the next big thing to come out of Glasgow since Glasvegas is a great thing to say, as the artists he signed to Creation Records were a massive influence on us."

The connection with Glasvegas doesn't stop there. Martin even shared a flat with Glasvegas drummer Caroline.

While St Deluxe's sonic grunge distortion-heavy sound put them at odds with the art rock sound of bands such as Franz Ferdinand or The Libertines, McGee is right. While playing shoegazing fuzzedup guitar they, like Nirvana, have a melodic ear for a pop hook.

St Deluxe's guitar noise has also been likened to Pavement, Sebedoh, Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine as the Scots band create pop tunes wrapped, sometimes, in barbed wire.

The melodic ear comes from the band being part of BMX Bandits - the band Kurt Cobain once said he'd be in if he wasn't in Nirvana - and being pals of Teenage Fanclub's Francis Macdonald.

And while their friends and fellow Scots band Attic Lights are hoping their theme tune to Minder will break them into the big time, Jamie, who shares guitarist duties with Martin, isn't into that kind of fast tracking.

He said: "Doing Minder isn't really our thing. It's a different climate for music, bands don't need major label backing. It's great if you can get it, but you don't need it like you used to. You can do it yourself.

"We aren't making records because we want to be famous, we are trying to make records that we are proud of.

"Other bands may be chasing this big thing, but we'd rather do it for ourselves first and hope that something comes from that."

Jamie added: "People doing it to make money out of music are never going to succeed. What's the point in emulating the sound of other bands just to get a record deal?

"It's pointless. You have to do what you want to do and not what other people want you to do."

While the group's eponymous album is out this week in the UK, it was released last year in Germany and was made album of the year.

It seems the UK, and even Scotland are playing catch-up.

The band are already booked for a tour of Germany in September as well as a tour of Japan in October.

The four members of St Deluxe have been together for four years.

It started with Martin and Jamie being in a band called Speeder, who were signed to the same label as Garbage and Ash.

They quit Speeder and began playing for BMX Bandits where they met Stuart and Brian, who were already in the band.

Jamie, Brian and Stuart were also in Teenage Fanclub drummer Francis Macdonald's other band Nice Man & The Bad Boys.

Jamie said: "It was fun being in these bands but we wanted to do something different.

"This is us. We still play with others, but St Deluxe is our main focus and we are in control.

"We try and experiment with guitars and synthesisers as much as we possibly can."

Though their first album is still fresh on the shelves, the band are already recording for their second album. Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite has produced After The Fire.

And indie music legend Calvin Johnson, founder of K Records and band member of Beat Happening and The Go!

Team, even came in on a day off to work with the band.

One of indie's founding fathers was touring in August and before the American's show, popped into the band's Glasgow studios.

Jamie said: "We'd been emailing him and he invited us to play at K Record's stage at the South by South West festival.

"Then he was doing a tour which stopped off in Glasgow and as he had a day off, he came in and produced another new song, Please Be Gentle. He was then in the studio the morning of his gig finishing it off."

St Deluxe's debut album, St Deluxe, is out now.

'We try and experiment with guitars and synthesisers as much as we possibly can'