CATHOLIC ACTION are a Glasgow based 4 piece who are releasing their sophomore long player titled Celebrated By Strangers and is available to buy/stream/eat/make love to from 27th March. We caught up with the lead singer and guitarist Chris McCrory to chat about the album, their rise to fame and their views on touring outside of the UK now that BREXSHIT has happened, here’s how we got on….
First things first, is the Ryanclarkspotting Facebook page still a thing?
I’m really glad you brought this up, I wish it was still active… no reason for it not to be. People should make it happen. Grab a photo when he’s playing - it’s “low hanging fruit” but you may as well get the ball rolling again.
We last chatted to you back in Spring 2016, just before you played the BBC Introducing stage at the BBC One Big Weekend event at Powderham Castle where I noted you as ‘rising stars’, what has been the biggest thing to happen to you as a band in the past 4 years?
Well, we’re all stars now obviously…. The biggest things for us have been making our albums. There’s nothing quite like sitting down at your turntable and finally putting your album on after all those months and years of hard work.
We’ve been pretty lucky with touring too, we’ve seen so many places we never thought we would. We finally did the big US tour last summer and that was incredible - even just for the travel alone. It’s funny being in a band you know, you’re essentially skint, but you get to have a lot of crazy life experiences that I’m really grateful for.
I also wanted to thank you for putting my wife on your guest list for the One Big Weekend event, I managed to scrape a couple of press passes but they were unable to accommodate her so thanks for helping out!
You’re very welcome, it’s nice to be nice!
Your new album Celebrated by Strangers is released on 27th March, tell me how you settled on the name of the album?
The title comes from the track, “I’m no Artist” that our bass player Jamie wrote. I just felt that line summed up the experience of being in a band quite nicely. In this day and age, a lot of your fans are just numbers, or icons on a screen. You look at the stats and you have as many listeners in Los Angeles as you do in Glasgow and that’s pretty surreal. It’s hard to believe that people actually listen to your music sometimes. There's a strange disconnect I feel.
I was going to ask who produced the album but read that it was you, do you think this process was made easier by not using an unknown producer?
It is hard at times producing your own record, especially given that you’ve written it and are recording it too. But producing bands is my ‘day job’ - I make records with other bands to pay the rent (dm me!) - so we felt we had to make this album like this. You know what they say, if you want something done right….
This might sound like a silly question but when do you know when a track is ‘done’, are you tempted to keep on tweaking it and adding a little bit more to it?
It’s one of the great mysteries, you just kind of ‘feel it’. There is a danger of endlessly tweaking, especially if you’re self-producing and I’m definitely guilty of it on occasion. I tend to work a track up to a certain point, then give it some space and then come back a few days later with fresh ears, and if anything else needs done it’s usually immediately apparent.
Obviously all of the tracks on the new album are your ‘babies’ but if you had to single out 2 or 3 of them, which are your favourites?
I’m sure all four of us would give you a different list of three tracks, but I’m most proud of There Will Always Be A Light, One of Us and Sign Here. I think they sit at the extreme ends of what we do as a band, we never wanted to make a record of 11 identical songs - we wanted to make something that ebbs and flows and is best enjoyed cover to cover… I think these three songs encapsulate that approach pretty well.
And which ones are you looking forward to playing live the most?
One of Us and People Don’t Protest Enough have been going down a treat live so far. We might expand the line up a bit and do the rest of the album when it’s safe to tour again.
You can pre-order the album now, are you offering any incentives like signed CD’s / records to entice people with?
Yeah, lots of limited edition vinyl colours and CDs. There’s a ton of different bundles etc that you can grab here - https://townsendmusic.store/?page=products&filters[artist-id]=858520
Chris said recently in a feature in the NME that “THE GOVERNMENT GUIDELINES FOR TOURING POST-BREXIT READ LIKE THEY WERE SCRIBBLED ON THE BACK OF A CIGARETTE PACKET BY NIGEL FARAGE AT HIS LOCAL WETHERSPOONS,” – I couldn’t agree more, do you think that the Tory government have done enough to deter bands from venturing outside of good old ‘Great Britain’?
I think potentially, they’ve inadvertently hammered one of (if not thee) final nail in the coffin of truly independent UK music. It all depends on how they legislate going forward.
And they’ve also made it nearly impossible for bands to come and play in the UK, I think you need to have a certain amount of money as ‘savings’ and a list of visas as long as your arm to even step foot inside our great nation now, that’s going to seriously affect bands wanting to play here – your thoughts?
Same as before, I don’t think they realise the damage they are doing. Or they do and they’ve weighed it up against the 'greater good'. If the trend continues, we’ll end up a cultural backwater.
I live about half a mile from Buckfast Abbey in Devon where they started making Buckfast Tonic (aka Tramp Juice) which I believe is quite a delicacy in Scotland, what is it about the brew that so many of you Scots like
Sugar and alcohol. All buzz, no lag.
How is the music scene in Glasgow at the moment?
They’re all wearing facemasks and posting pictures from last year on their instagram accounts. I’m sure someone will make some music soon.
We’d like to thank Chris for sparing the time to chat to us and we wish them every success with the new album and hopefully getting out to play a few live shows once the Cornetto virus thingy dies down!
Catholic Action’s new album Celebrated by Strangers is out March 27 via Modern Sky.
Watch the video for lead single One Of Us below;
