Scouting For Girls frontman Roy Stride admits their manager “thinks we missed a trick” with the name of their new album, Easy Cover, out today.
Easy Cover (a very Scouting-For-Girls-pun on Phil Collins’ Easy Lover) is a joyful, 11-track shoulder-padded party of an album, in which the London pop rockers cover their favourite ’80s hits, from Cyndi Lauper to The Waterboys.
Referencing the Lauper track, Roy says: “Our manager said it should’ve been called Scouting For Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”
Bit of a mouthful – don’t mix your metaphors and drive, isn’t that what they say?
And Easy Cover does exactly what it says on the… well, cover. Staying true to the London twang that made the She’s So Lovely stars so lovely themselves, the band romp from wanting to “rule the world” with Tears for Fears to the End Of The World As We Know It in a whimsical, fun, easy ride.
Plus their original additions, I Wish It Was 1989 and Xmas In The 80s, stay right on tune.
After the past year, the peppy nostalgia is welcome – even for those fan too young to have known these tracks the first time. Roy says: “It was kind of like a ray of sunshine in a rubbish year.
“Even if the joy of it was just me playing my favourite songs and then really annoying (bandmates) Greg (Churchouse) and Pete (Rowlands)!”
Bringing ‘ray of sunshine’ to Scotland’s sunniest city
“Ray of sunshine” is right. And though they don’t believe Dundee is the sunniest city in Scotland until Google settles the debate (it is), the boys are raring to get back to Fat Sam’s during their massive headline tour this October – pandemic permitting, of course.
“We don’t call it Fat Sam’s, we call it Fatty’s!” Roy exclaims. Clearly it’s not their first rodeo – though Roy is “mind-blown” when he hears that Dennis The Menace, whose fan club inspired the band’s own Wolfcub fanclub, is from Dundee.
“I remember playing Fat Sam’s really early on (in our career), like in 2007,” he says. “It was a crazy gig.
“I think The View had just played, and they were still clearing up the mess when we came on!”
It’s been more than thirteen years since then, and the band can’t wait to receive the warm welcome Scottish crowds do best.
“We love playing Scotland!” Roy enthuses.
Reminiscing about their first gigs north of the border, he says: “We were really nervous, we had never played outside London before.
“And I remember going to a guitar shop round the corner from the venue (King Tut’s) and the guy there said, ‘Don’t worry about it! You’re in Scotland – even if you’re s***, people are going to love you!’.
“He was right,” he laughs. “We were s***, but you did love us!”
Scouting For Girls’ new album Easy Cover is available now.
Scottish dates for Easy Cover Tour 2021:
October 5 – Edinburgh, Liquid Rooms
October 6 – The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen
October 7 – Fat Sam’s, Dundee