“Teenage Fanclub has always been about songs”
There is no big news in the recent speech of Teenage Fanclub. Was anyone expecting them? “Do Not Dare To Dream” (Merge / Everlasting!, 2026) is the Scots’ twelfth album, third since Gerard Love left and both Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley assumed exclusive compositional duties for the quintet.
(See the dates of their live performances at the end of this interview).
We chatted with Norman Blake (Belshill, Scotland, 1965), an always charming guy. So much so that one feels bad about insinuating – just insinuating – that the band’s musical conservatism has made them lose their spark over time.
What is special about this album for you?
We felt it was different, partly because of the place where we recorded it, on the island of Great Bernera, northwest of Scotland, in a studio that is located in a bay where you don’t have anyone for many kilometers. Well, there was a boat. Little more. We like to change locations when recording each album, hoping that something different will inspire us. Although the process remains the same: Raymond (McGinley) and I write the songs and between the five of us we shape them in the studio.
Did it generate a special peace of mind or a greater connection with nature?
A little bit, although whenever we make a record there is some risk, because we never go into the studio with songs already finished: we always propose it, but we never follow through. We don’t do any pre-production, we let everything emerge in the moment, in the studio. We build the songs on verses and choruses that are more or less defined, but that do not take shape until we enter the studio, at which time everyone contributes something instrumentally. When Gerard (Love) was with us and we were a trio of writers, we functioned differently: each of the three was like the musical director of his own song, giving instructions on how the bass or drums should sound. But we don’t work like that anymore. We let everyone play their parts as they see fit, and then we make the arrangements. It works for us, as a group of people.
“We could make depressing songs, given the state of the world, but we have always been optimistic”
Taking into account that Euros (Childs) and Francis (McDonald) are also good song writers, and the second, in fact, has already written on some occasions for Teenage Fanclub, haven’t you thought about opening your hand so that they can also contribute from the composition?
It could happen, but so far we’ve handled it well. Euros (Childs) and I have written songs together, on Jonny. And Francis (McDonald) wrote “Planets” with me. It is also true that they also work on their own projects and have that quota covered. Teenage Fanclub has always been about songs. If we wanted to do something different, we would do it with other people and on other projects. But we are not closed to the fact that in the future the two of them can also write.
Is it easy to maintain the illusion after so many years and so many albums? It’s almost forty years of career.
It’s a long time, yes. But we’re not constantly writing songs, like a lot of other people do. And this (points to his mobile phone) is fantastic, because many times it helps you record an idea that you have had stored for a long time. I accumulate many fragments, small ideas, and after months I review them to see which one might work. Whenever you face a new collection of songs you ask yourself “how do I do this? How do I finish it? How do I write lyrics? How do I make the melody?”, and it’s as if you went back to square one. Maybe while that happens, you’ll stay cool. That generates excitement. Like entering the studio with a very simple idea and seeing how it takes wings and grows, especially when it is enriched by the collaboration of other people. With vocal harmonies, for example, Euros (Childs) gives us a lot. It encourages us to try new things, also from keyboards. When the test copy of the album arrives, the test pressing to put it on the turntable and check how it sounds is always exciting.
The most surprising song here is “Tomorrow People”, written by Raymond, which is structured in three very distinct parts, as if it were a suite.
There are times when we write a list of possible titles, drawn from a theme. We write them on a blackboard. This time they were titles from British television shows from the 1970s. “Tomorrow People” was a science fiction space for children. The song is not about the program, but the title did catalyze its lyrics. We wanted to go a little further with it and someone suggested doing it like this, unlike others that, in just one day, we have them already done. Raymond may have had no idea how it was going to end when we started working on it early in the morning. There are times when you try things
Is it true that the title, “Do Not Dare To Dream”, makes fun of those messages of self-improvement so recurring on social networks?
Something like that. Life is not that simple. It is not enough to dream about something to achieve it. Eighty percent of the song is autobiographical. I talk about myself and my divorce, and what my life is like after a decade living with my wife in Canada and trying to adjust to life in Scotland again. The trials and tribulations of that process. There are ups and downs in life, but the truth is that many times things are not easy. You can’t just expect problems to be resolved. So don’t you dare to dream, because that might make things not go the way you want (laughs).
Despite these personal circumstances of yours and the state the world is in, your melodies continue to sound hopeful, to a certain extent optimistic, as if things have not changed too much.
It is sometimes difficult to watch the news on TV, but we are a group of optimistic people, that cannot be denied. We are not cynics. We could be, and think that everything is horrible, but that’s not who we are as a collective. There has always been a reasonable level of optimism at Teenage Fanclub. I’ve also written more about personal topics lately, about how I place myself in the world and how I navigate my personal circumstances… and we’ve never written in an overtly political way as a band, and partly because I’m sure we have different opinions. We are all on a similar page, but there are nuances that we would not share. And it wouldn’t be fair for one of us to become spokesperson. That’s why we’ve never written like that. But it’s true that, given the state the world is in, I could write very depressing songs.
Where in Canada did you live and how different is life there compared to Scotland?
In Kitchener, an hour’s drive from Toronto, in western Ontario, near Lake America (laughs)… I don’t know if you’ve seen that Donald Trump wants to name Lake Ontario that, and that Google and Apple have supported it. Ontario is an indigenous word: it has been called that for a long time. It’s something very crazy. The summers there are wonderful, you have incredible landscapes and you are a ten hour drive from New York, more or less the same as Chicago, but the winters are incredibly harsh when you are not used to it. You have one and a half meters of snow at your doorstep. Our property was on the corner and we were responsible for shoveling snow, and that can happen many times over the course of a month. And from the end of November to the end of April you have winter. It takes getting used to. Here in Scotland it rains more, but it is milder. We don’t have snow. That being said, Canada is a nice place to live.
The first time I saw you live was when you supported Nirvana in the Valencia bullring, in July 1992. It’s obviously been a long time, but aren’t you tempted to make a little noise again like you did back then?
I have the poster for that concert, the huge one that hung from the wall of the Bullring. I talked to someone and they passed it on to me. I have it saved, because it is too big to frame. I think one of the reasons why we continue to tour so much in Spain is thanks to those concerts. Many people knew us then. It was a wonderful experience doing the European leg of the “Nevermind” tour (1992). It seems incredible that almost 35 years have passed. Regarding what you ask me, I have to say that I still buy distortion pedals for guitars (laughs), and although we have lowered the tone over the years, I think that live we sound a little louder, with the amplifiers, than on records. There is a certain balance. And I think that the sound of the amplifiers, although it is not very good for the ears, recreates that a little.
